Welsh not

The story begins with Bess at school and shows how Welsh speakers were treated at this time. The story highlights the way life was back then. But this book didn't engage me enough to keep reading. I stopped a quarter of the way through. The time and place interested me and I liked Bess but then the narrative stopped following her and changed to her brother.

I could never get immersed into the story, it felt like the scenes were happening too quickly and then one sentence would jump to the next scene before you have chance to get into it. Then the time would jump years ahead. I got excited when Tenby was mentioned but that holiday was skipped over.
I prefer stories told in the characters' viewpoint rather than a narrative voice so I struggled with this. And the dialogue felt stilted sometimes, they'd be an entire scene consisting of dialogue only. I really wanted to like this but I couldn't.

Sometimes it felt like the author was just ticking scenes off (my opinion only) especially because it was based on the writers' family so has she just pieced scenes together and not got into much detail? Interesting story and characters, just not very engaging for me.

I found this novel to be well written and quite interesting. The Welsh Not is based on the author’s ancestors, and you can tell that an enormous amount of research went into the actual construction of the narrative. I found Beth, her brother Richard, and the rest of their family to be moving in that they show the realities of a Welsh family from the late 1800’s without over embellishing what is already a full life for the sake of “drama”. Great read and I can’t wait for the next one!

S.E. Morgan did a wonderful job,taking you back in the 1800's,about the Welsh people,their language and what was the way of life back in the day! Follow this historical story about this wonderful world and the people and the love of not of two people,will their love be enough and encouraging to face the others in the world who want to destroy their way of life! I learned so very much about Wales and what life was like back then and why it was this way!! Received from Net Gallery..this is a very much of a read so you can place yourself in their world and be thankful for what they had to fight for and fur where we are now!! Another S E Morgan's best written stories!!!

This book was a great read. It was well written and had an interesting story. I enjoyed it, and think others will too.

I ADORED this book.

I have Welsh heritage myself, and the way this author has brought her family history to life is both inspiring and engaging.
The characters were fully rounded, wholly believable and I found myself growing ever more attached to them as I read through the book.
There were so many clever ways that history and fiction were weaved together, bringing real places and events into their story making it totally believable.

I was left wanting more and more!

A realistic story of life in 1860 Wales. Punishing children for speaking the welsh language in school A really good read.

I really liked this book. as It brought back lots of memories of learning Welsh history in school. Phrases such as "now in a minute" are ones I still use today. It was thoroughly researched was totally engrossed. However, I thought the ending was far too abrupt. I would recommend this book and will look out for future books by this author.
Thank you Netgalley and Books go Social for giving me the opportunity to give my unbiased opinion.

This book had a great storyline and you also got to learn a few Welsh words at the same time. It centres around a young welsh family and the turmoils that life throws at them. As a family they are close but when their mum is admitted to an asylum after loosing yet another baby things get harder. Life is easy for those with money but they don't so life is very hard. If you want to better yourself it isn;t easy and some of the family are resentful for the way thier life is going and want more.
I really enjoyed this book and would love to learn what happens to this family later on. Here's hoping for another book to continue their story.

This is a really interesting story about life in 19th century Wales, a location/era that I don't see very often. The story was well-written and was pleasant to read. I definitely appreciated the fact that these stories were about the author's ancestors, so were very heavily based on "real life". She did change a couple of things to fit the narrative, so it qualifies as historical fiction, but it definitely has a very realistic feel to it. When the book ended, I wanted more - I really would have liked to see what happened next to all of the characters (Note: there are spoilers if you read the author's website as far as "what happened next")

I gave this book 3.5 stars because it was an enjoyable read, but I wouldn't classify it as an easy read due to all of the Welsh terms that make it a little hard to read if you're not familiar with the language (I am not - and thus stumbled mentally on how to pronounce those words even in my own head). I also felt like the author could have done a little bit more to bring out the emotion in some of the events in the story - they were very factually told, but some of the things that I thought should have been tear-jerkers just didn't evoke much of an emotional response in the reader.

I would recommend this to anybody who is interested in reading about family histories, historical racism or UK/British c0mmonwealth history.

Thanks to #NetGalley, SE Morgan, and the publisher for providing this book at no cost to me in exchange for my unbiased review.

#AWelshNot

This book has all the elements present for an outstanding historical fiction, but it still needs a lot of work in order to make that happen.

There is no plot and that was probably one of the most frustrating parts about reading this. I felt like I was just kind of floating from one scenario of life into the next, without any real reason. It reads more like a fictional memoir, and if that is the point of it, I would definitely suggest labeling the book as such.

The text still needs to go through editing and proofreading before it's even remotely ready for publishing and this made it hard to follow along with what was happening much of the time. There was no punctuation to show when a conversation was starting, nor did it help in differentiating between multiple dialogues. There is also the point of switching points of view between characters, not necessarily at a chapter end/beginning and, until I figured out who I was reading as, was extremely frustrating. I didn't feel like the book had a main character (again, a plotting issue) so it was unnecessarily futile to try and empathize with one in particular.

Lastly, I would also suggest more fleshing out of characters and scenarios. I felt like none of the characters had much in the way of personality. Scenes came and went, often without me understanding the true significance of what was happening, which greatly affected my emotional response to that scene.

Overall, I really do believe this book has a ton of potential. I love reading historical fiction that deals with the same kinds of subject matter presented in this book. It just needs a little more love. I would be much more enthusiastic about reading/rereading this if it decided on a direction and took the reader in that direction effectively.

This is a beautifully written piece of historical fiction. It twists your heart from the very beginning. It lagged a bit in the middle but ended well. I’d read more by this author.

This book was about the Morgan family, mostly Richard and Bess. I was so emotionally involved with both. When the story ended (I felt it ended too quickly), I was very disappointed. I wish the story had gone further with maybe better endings for both Richard and Bess. The writer wrote most of the story but actual events, but not all. I think the bending should have went a little further. It was bad enough what happened to Abel, but Bess did not take Mr. Davies either. Then there was poor Richard, he loved but it was never returned. I like happier endings.

I was mesmerized by well written, paced , plotted, interesting historical this story .

I can only imagine the amount of research the author had to do to make this story feel so real and intimate and historical accurate.

I loved it. Now I wish I could experience it on audiobook.

I just reviewed A Welsh Not by S E Morgan. #AWelshNot #NetGalley

A Welsh Not by S.E. Morgan is an entertaining book taking place in Wales in 1863, right when England was doing its best to outlaw the speaking of Welsh and generally keep the Welsh people down as unintelligent and beneath them. It is a slice of life novel following one family through the ends of their childhoods and their entry into adulthood. It portrays the hardships of life for a poor Welsh family and how they managed to cope. The Welsh not is a switch used to slap the hands of any child in school caught speaking Welsh. It is used at the discretion of the teacher and not always used well.

It was a moving story, historically pretty accurate, and kind of heartbreaking. Things happen in life: people die, jobs/careers don't work out as one might hope, romances fail. But, life goes on. This was a moving story of one such family. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't all bad and it allows us to live for a little while in someone else's shoes, which is always a good thing. It is definitely worth the read, sad though it may be.

I was invited to read a free e-ARC of A Welsh Not by Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #netgalley #awelshnot