Home Stretch

All the way through I could hear Graham Norton's voice reading the book to me! Not a bad thing and I did enjoy it.
Connor lives in a small town in Ireland, the day before his friends wedding there is a fatal car crash,three friends die and Connor gets the blame.He feels he has to flee his home town. and finds a job in Liverpool.
After being seen with another man in a club by a work mate there is a fight and Connor is thrown out of his digs.He moves to London and stops all contact with his family back home.
Connor meets a man and they move to New York to settle down.
After a while they split up and one drunken night in a bar he unexpectedly meets someone from his home town..
The rest of the story has a few twists and surprise a happy ending.
A few parts of the story might shock my mum and some of the more conservative members of the book groups but overall another great book from Mr Norton.

This story starts with a tragedy then goes on to explore the rebuilding of lives over a 30 year period with a warmth and humanity and an eye for small personal details. Set in a small town in the south of Ireland secrets are slowly uncovered as we find out what really happened to cause such a tragedy which changed so many lives.

Two of my personal alarm bells for books are:
1 author has won XYZ Prize and
2 author is a celebrity.
Well, Graham Norton has surprised me yet again. I really liked “Keeper” and I really liked this one.

A car crash in a small Irish village on the eve of a wedding. Three dead, three survivors.

How does a catastrophic event like that impact on the survivors, their families, their village? Can you ever recover from this?
We follow Connor Hayes, one of the survivors, through his life.

Norton is a great teller of yarns, not his flippant TV persona at all. Although the tone remains casual, almost detached throughout, the reader is invariably drawn in, compelled to root for the characters and eager to find out about the conclusion. Highly recommended.

I have now read all the books Graham Norton has written and I can honestly say I love his writers voice. He develops characters so well- it’s like you’ve grown up with them. The storyline in this book follows a twisted path, the issues it deals with are current and relevant. It’s so good that people are able to read books about the struggles people have faced for equality - let’s hope the world continues to see love as a blessing for everyone to experience. Great book- really pulls you in. Can’t wait for Graham’s next one.

Thank goodness for this book. I have had a run of books that have just not done it for me, I even questioned whether I had fallen out of love with reading, or worse, had I read all of the good books. Anyway - all is returned to normality, I could not put this down.

Norton's writing style is enjoyable, warm and a pleasure to read. The characters are interesting and believable and I wanted the best for them, even for the baddies. A perfect book for the summer.

Wow. What a book. Home Stretch is something very special. The beautifully told tale of one catastrophic event and the reverberations that last a lifetime for the protagonists. With no exception, there isn’t a character that you can be indifferent to. Delicately observed but moving at pace, I raced through the book and had to slow down to savour it towards the end.

Perhaps I could best describe Home Stretch as being a middle ground between two fabulous authors; David Nicholls and John Boyne. As good as Graham Norton’s precious novels are (and they are excellent), this feels like another level.

With thanks to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC in consideration of an honest review.

This is a brilliant book I absolutely loved it. The characters are real and stayed with me long after I had finished reading. I felt their anger, the unfairness of their lives, and I cried more than once. The descriptions of Ireland in the 80s and New York 20 years later are spot on. I can’t wait for Graham Norton’s next book.

Reading another Graham Norton book is like coming home. It offers a warmth and hug while you read about Irish life – this time from 1987 onwards – and you often think of the people in your surroundings who remind you of his characters. We start on the day before a wedding – and a car accident. Six friends head to the beach… but only three survive. For one in particular who is left behind, life will never be the same and he, Connor, cannot stay in his community. He leaves for Liverpool, then London, then New York and while each has its own benefits, nothing is truly home. But as secrets from that dark day emerge, and his friends and loved ones begin to question decisions made since then, it’s clear that everyone involved on that day will need to confront their past. Although you can anticipate where some of the story will go, some revelations will leave you staggered. Expect ugly crying too, as certain sections are especially moving. Graham has done it again: another winner. Beautiful.

I absolutely loved this book, read it in one day, just couldn't put it down. It was sad, realistic and uplifting in equal parts, I was pulled into this story from the very first page and felt I was on the journey with all the characters from beginning to end.
NetGalley very kindly sent me a copy for an impartial and honest review.
#HomeStretch #NetGalley

I was so excited to get the opportunity to review the newest book by Graham Norton, as I have enjoyed his previous publications. Home Stretch focuses on a tragic car crashes that kills three young people and its' tragic consequences for the survivors. I love Graham Norton's style of writing, he captures the spirit and charm of the Irish people brilliantly. I felt the storyline moved at a great pace and kept my attention for the entirety of the book. I liked the central characters and felt great pity for them at time. This is another triumph from Graham Norton, who I'm sure has a long future of publishing ahead of him.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC

In a suburb of Cork there has been a terrible accident and three young people have died. The driver of the vehicle,Connor, has been given a suspended sentence but just can't face the people he knows and loves and so takes himself to England as part of a building crew. There he comes out, moves to London and starts to find a life for himself having only ever sent the one postcard home. The effect on the community reaches long but life goes on and things get back to a normal of sorts. By twenty five years on Connoris now living in New York with his partner Tim. A story of love and hope and how people and times change.I quickly got into this as I did with Graham's other novels as there is an ease of writing and although quite a few characters they come across incredibly well. You could well imagine being in an irish bar with many of them.; It made me slightly wistful, a sense of what could have been or should have been perhaps, in a very different way. A story of love between family members and wrong being put right of a sort. Dans wedding speech had me pretty much in tears, and then reading after the final sentence “ Hodder and Stoughton…was founded by two young men who saw that the rise in literacy would break cultural barriers” OMG. One stunning read and one I will remember. A treasure of a book.
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Home Stretch is the third novel from Graham Norton. I have read his previous two fiction novels and I think this is the best one yet.
It’s 1987 in small town in Cork in Ireland. Six friends going on a trip to the beach. When on the way home there is a fatal car crash and 3 of them return home. The repercussions of that fatal day effect the friends and their families in the small community for the rest of their lives. Connor has been blamed for that fatal day is shunned by the local community, so he leaves the small town and goes to Liverpool to start a new life. He decides that his family is best off without him, so he decides not to contact them again. Until years later when he is sitting in a bar in America, he meets Finbarr, who turns out to be his nephew he has never met.
Graham Norton is a great storyteller as like his previous novels I really enjoyed it. This stories like his others are always heartfelt and warming and found realistic set in Ireland. But this time we learn how prejudice people can be especially in 80’s Ireland where they think that if you are gay you will burn in hell. Being gay is not natural. They did not understand that love can come in many sources. The story is also about reflection and life doesn’t have one straight path in life. This an uptown able story that everyone will love. Five stars from me.

When Graham Norton published his first novel I was a dismissive - assumed "another celebrity writer" - totally wrongly, and without even reading it! I read his second, A Keeper and adored - and immediately backtracked on all my assumptions. Home Stretch, his third novel, has utterly captivated me from the very first page and I feel truly bereft to now have finished this book.
Telling the story of a few families in a small Irish town, who have to deal with the aftermath of a tragedy involving 6 young people - that claims 3 lives, and alters the lives of the other 3 forever. From Ireland, to Liverpool, to London and New York, Norton deftly weaves together the stories that tie these families together... and break them apart.
This isn't a great plot twister of a book - this is gentler and more meandering. At times I found myself blinking back tears, and at others wanting to cheer and clap! I loved every page of this book - and I am now going to undo my mistake of not reading his first novel - because this is an author I want to read everything he has written.