So Much Life Left Over

I love Louis de Bernieres and was looking forwards to this. It’s not a disappointment as such, it’s just very forgettable. I enjoyed it while reading though with the constant head-hopping I kept forgetting who everyone was and wasn’t sure until about half way through whose story it was. The characters crystalized for me at about half-way at which point I couldn’t wait to pick it up again but it was bitty, with a lot of dead ends up to that point. Characters rose briefly and then sunk without a trace, never to be heard of again, and while I like this true to life effect it was distancing here.
The writing is delicate and the dialogue well-handled and it was a delight to read, but a bit like a lovely ice-cream it melted away and I can’t really recall anyone or anything about it. His others are far more striking.

The writing is of a quality and style that draws you in. The book is an easy read and I found it encouraged me to read it quickly. However, I found the characters rather stereotyped and a bit clicheed. This didn't necessarily detract from the reading experience but it did mean that what could have been a better book, was not. I was also a bit concerned by the way that issues from our current time seemed to be forced into a historical fiction.

A wonderful read taking the reader on a journey from Ceylon to inter-war Britain and taking in Germany on the way. It describes the trials and tribulations of characters introduced in an earlier novel (though it stands alone as a novel too, I haven’t read the earlier book) and how they deal with life after the First World War, it ends at the start of the Second World War. A great cast of characters and I definitely want to know what happens to them in the next instalment. At turns humorous, touching and sad with some difficult parts to read describing war experiences, So Much Life never fails to be interesting and engaging. A very good read; recommended.

This book - the middle of a planned trilogy, but a page-turner that stands alone - focuses on how the inter-woven lives of two well-to-do English families are affected by the events and the social and political changes of the inter-war years. Particularly, with so much life unexpectedly left over after WW1, how the ex-fighting men cope (or not) with the return to peacetime life.

The story opens with ex-fighter ace Daniel Pitt and his wife Rosie’s attempt to make a new life in Ceylon in the early 1920s and takes us through some very tumultuous times (no spoilers, but it is an emotional roller-coaster and the reader will be gripped) up to the mid 1940s, when Daniel has a difficult decision to make about his future. I am hooked and really want to read the next instalment!

So much more than a family saga, all human life and frailty is here, overlaid on intriguing family dynamics and febrile historical times: this is a book to recommend and makes an ideal Christmas gift!

We were lucky to receive free copies of this one! What a treat! I am a huge fun of Louis de B, and I was not disappointed. His effortless writing style helped me glide through this book with ease. A sweeping and heartbreaking novel about Rosie and Daniel as they navigate troubled times between the wars and start a new life in Ceylon with their little daughter at the start of the 1920s. However it’s hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfillment that threatens their marriage.

This novel is the second in a trilogy, the first being The Dust that Falls From Dreams but in my opinion you don’t need to have read the first. It’s an unusual read, written with vitality and I guess that many readers, once they have launched themselves into it, with read straight through forgetting whatever it is they should be doing!

A great Christmas read! I can’t wait for the third novel so I can find out what happens to Daniel next.