4.5 stars

Above all else, the word that When I First Held You most brings to mind is honesty. The stories these characters have to tell resonate with heartbreaking truth that is impossible to deny.

Judith is a little stuck in her ways, grieving her partner and her past trauma. Being forced, mostly against her will, to confront a lot of her history is abrasive and challenging. It happens quickly, with no warning, and she has to try to reconcile her memories and her present life (and possibly her future) with the new information she is given.

James seems on the attack for a lot of When I First Held You. He’s always pushing forward, trying to take the next step, often forgetting that the past needs to be dealt with first. It’s hard to marry Judith’s memory of James with his choices and who he is now. Dougal is obviously the best, though.

Ruby is my favourite character. She’s flawed and complicated, but she shows real growth throughout, despite a late first appearance. Her fearlessness to search for answers and to address difficult topics with Judith, James, and Nick, but most importantly, herself - is wonderful and admirable.

There’s so much to love about how this story is told. Past and present flow together beautifully; despite a lack of labels besides POV titles, I never felt lost as to the time period. The change between perspectives or years felt natural, and information was given as needed and not withheld for more shock value. In addition, the ghosts of characters not present were felt and appreciated, rounding out this cast nicely.

The politics, poverty, and abuse are described from multiple perspectives to provide context without overwhelming what is, at its core, a beautiful and emotional story that I could not recommend more highly.

When I First Held You is the story of Jimmy, Judith, and Ruby. Ultimately it is a story about how life isn't fair and yet we survive, make choices and live on. I enjoyed spending time with these characters (especially Ruby) and am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Anstey Harris has once again written a wonderful, emotionally powerful, heartfelt and beautiful book. I adored both her previous ones and this one was just as good if not better. Centred on the story of a woman who gave birth in an unmarried mothers home in the 1960s, the plot weaves back and forth between then and the present day. The characters are all gorgeous and I love the way she writes. Anstey Harris really understands what makes us human. This was one of the loveliest books I've read in a long time. Highly recommended.
With grateful thanks to NetGalley, Lake Union and Anstey Harris for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was pulled into the novel right away! It was set around an interesting time period I haven’t read about before (1960s climate activists in UK). I enjoyed the switching POVs, mostly set in the present but also giving us glimpses of the past.

When I First Held You has heartbreaking themes and difficult topics on forced adoption, grief, healing, and hidden pasts. The novel touches on the harm that adoption can cause and the trauma that adoptees experience from their adopted families when adoption is used to “replace the kids the parents couldn’t have.”

Although these are emotional and at times difficult to read, the writing was so beautifully done. I loved each of the characters, crying and holding out hope through the unraveling of their stories.

What made the book even more eye opening and heartbreaking was knowing that Harris based this book on her own story and family history. I think she did a wonderful job of giving a voice to the many women and children involved in the cruelty of unmarried mother’s homes during the 1960’s (as well as hopefully healing her own wounds through her work).

I highly recommend this if you aren’t one to shy away from difficult topics and enjoy beautiful, lyrical writing! This is definitely a fave for the month and helped me get out of my reading slump.

TW/CW: cancer (brief mentions), death, grief, death of parent, pregnancy, police brutality, imprisonment, animal death (brief)

I was provided a free advanced copy of this from @netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
Judith and Jimmy met in Glasgow as anti-nuclear protestors in the 1960s. They quickly fall in love and begin to plan a future together, and Judith gets pregnant But when their squat is raided they along with their fellow protestors are sent to jail! Judith is released quickly, but with no way to get in contact with Jimmy she is forced into an unmarried mother's home where she has to put her daughter up for adoption! Over 50 years later, Jimmy walks through the door of her fix-it shop and the past refuses to stay in the past! Both of them realize they had lived a whole life with secrets and misunderstandings!
This was a slow read. We find out bits and pieces of their history and story as secrets and truths are revealed to the characters. It was definitely an interesting story and based on parts of the author's own story. But it was hard for me to connect to. Maybe the older age of the characters and their concerns and experiences were hard for me to relate. It was still an interesting read and I really enjoyed the ending, but I felt it took a while to get there!
This is scheduled to be published tomorrow, so add it to your TBR and check it out!
#WhenIFirstHeldYou #NetGalley

I loved this book!

The writing is beautiful, the story is emotional and the characterisation is exquisite.

I will definitely read another book written by this author again.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

The Last Time I Held You by Anstey Harris is the first novel I have read by this author. This is a wonderfully thought filled story with a dual time line. It is also a split narrative between characters in 1960’s Scotland and present day.

Judith and Jimmy were anti-nuclear protesters in the 1960s. Jimmy was arrested and jailed and Judith was pregnant. Not knowing that Jimmy was in jail and with no support from her parents, Judith was forced to enter an unwed mother’s home. She was alone. After giving birth they took her child away and she never saw her child or Jimmy again.

It is present day and through circumstances that could not have been predicted Jimmy returns. As with things today someone puts their DNA into a tube and mails it off to a genealogy company.

I am not giving any spoilers here. You need to read the book. I thought it was beautifully written. It is a story about love, misconception, forgiveness, re-connection and moving forward. I did find the beginning a little slow but once I got into it, it moved along nicely.

The author writes with such passion. She uses her own experiences as a child born to an unwed mother. Well done. I can’t wait to see what the author has in store for us next.

I would like to thank Ms. Harris, Lake Union Publishing, Amazon Publishing UK and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Judith and Jimmy meet whilst squatting together back in the 1960’s, they are both torn apart which leads to heartbreak on a massive scale. Years later, fate brings them together which leads to gut wrenching truths being revealed.This book features deep topics including adoption which made this a heart breaking and gut wrenching read. There was so many emotions throughout which I thought was lovely this was explored. I wasn’t 100% in love with the book as I didn’t feel completely gripped by the plot but it’s still hard not to feel sad for Judith and everything she has been through.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this story. What I got was more. I love that the author is writing from some true experience, some true heart. I have a brother who was given up for adoption in the early 1960's so in many ways it hit close to home. I may never find him (as like the author-his records were lost in a fire). My only hope to find him is if he or his family enter DNA in the system. My mom passed away a few years ago so she will never have that peace of mind and even in her 70's (as Jude is in the book), she never forgot, never let go of the hope. There were points that were slow but all in all, I enjoyed the story.

My thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union publishing for the opportunity to review this book.
I love a book set in different decade's especially when its depicting a characters viewpoint.
This book has everything love, loss, found family and historical content.
I can highly recommend this book

When I First Held You by Anstey Harris

Published: January 24, 2023
Lake Union Publishing
Pages: 317
Genre: Literary Fiction
KKECReads Rating:
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Anstey Harris is based in the Unesco Biosphere of Galloway and South Ayrshire in beautiful south-west Scotland, where she lives with her violinmaker husband and their dog, Pen. A former teacher & university lecturer, as well as outstanding cook, Anstey runs the popular writing retreat, WriteSouthWestScotland.com. Anstey writes about the things that make people tick, the things that bind us, and the things that can rip us apart. In novels, Anstey tries to celebrate uplifting ideas and prove that life is good and that happiness is available to everyone once we work out where to look (usually inside ourselves). Her short stories tend not to end quite so well...

“Sometimes, the irony of life is ludicrous.”

Judith is trying to decide what she should do. Should she follow her heart and let someone else run her late partner's beloved shop, or should she stick it out? When the last person she ever expected shows up and flips her world upside down, everything changes. The past comes crashing into the future, blending with the present.

This was beautiful. The writing, the story, the characters, the heartbreak- all of it. I wasn’t sure what to expect in this novel, but my heart needed this.

The characters in this book are beautiful. I loved how the story was told, how things unfolded, and how the plot moved between the past and the present. The character narration was vivid, emotional, and honest.

Reading the acknowledgments at the end and how close this story is to Anstey Harris’ life only made me appreciate the morals of this brilliant book.

This is the first book I received through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

This felt like two books to me...maybe even 3. Story 1 follows Judith who is a young woman living in Glasgow in the 1960s. Like so many teenagers, she finds herself fighting against the world of her parents and the larger world in which she is growing up, specifically around the issue of nuclear weapons. She decides to leave and set out on her own winding up in a hovel inhabited by a group of other young folks who want to change the world and do a few things about it.

The story is told from Judith's perspective once she is much older and it is revealed that something significant happened and Judith was forced to split from her friends and the cause. In story 2, another perspective is added...that of Ruby, a teenager at the time Judith is older who is looking for her mother's birth family through sites like ancestry. It is quickly revealed that Judith had to leave because she had fallen pregnant, another member of her group was the father and she's spent years grieving the abandonment of this man and the loss of her child who she was forced to give up for adoption. The unwed mother/adoption/finding your family felt like the largest chunk of the book. The main story. I thought it was done well.

The third story, which fit in more with the second, was the story of the lives of Judith and James between the time they split and their reunion. Obviously that background is inherently a part of long-lost adoption stories so it fit more than the first bit.

In the author's note at the end, we are given insight into the fact that the author's mother was born in an unwed mother's home and was tied in some way to the nuclear stuff from story one. However, I felt like that detail could have been left out. It felt disjointed and made the book extremely hard for me to get into initially. I enjoyed how it ended up playing out but, if I didn't get it from NetGalley I may have given up because I just didn't get invested in the story until about half way through.

What an amazing story! I loved pretty much everything about it. The characters were well developed, the plot was deep, heartbreaking and downright beautiful.
This book is a very emotional read and I can definitely recommend it! Just be prepared to shred a tear or two.

I only have one complaint about the book and that is the time jumps. To me it felt like they happened out of nowhere with no warning, so in the start of the book I often got confused. I got used to it the longer I got into the book, but I would have preferred and indicator of some sort to whenever there was a time jump.

“You can’t change the past, Ruby, no one can. But the purpose of being alive is to curate the future. It’s our responsibility.”

When I First Held You is the third novel by award-winning British author, Anstey Harris. Four years widowed, Judith Franklin is still grieving the loss of her partner of almost fifty years, artist Catherine Rolf. In her memory, and funded by the sale of her phenomenal work, Judy runs a little shop where volunteers repair, restore and repurpose items brought in by customers; no money changes hands.

It’s a local interest TV spot featuring The Mending Shop that brings Jimmy (now James) McConnell back into her life. He’s the very last person she wants to see: fifty-six years earlier, he left her holding the baby, literally. Having finally tracked her down, he wants to catch up, and is totally unprepared for her anger, and utterly confused by her furious accusations.

Back in the mid-sixties, Jude and Jimmy were part of a protest group trying to stop Polaris missiles coming to Faslane. Their group shared a squat in Glasgow and, in the lead-up to their biggest campaign, Jimmy was arrested and put in prison for six months. Pregnant, Jude went home to her Catholic parents whose shame and disgust saw her sent to a Liverpool unmarried mothers’ home to give birth to a daughter, then adopted out.

Ruby Cooper-Li is a twenty-two-year-old Master’s student at London University when she gets a hit from the genealogy website to which she sent her DNA. The match is likely a grandparent, her mother’s father, and she knows her mother would likely have disapproved, so she goes to her father for advice on how to handle the contact she wants to make.

James is excited and enthusiastic at the prospect of meeting a granddaughter of whom he was unaware but, after forty years as a social worker, Judith is well aware that most adoption reunions aren’t happy-ever-afters. And digging up the past? Although it’s true that “people are who they are. And sometimes the narrative we tell ourselves, or the picture we paint, doesn’t match with reality. It’s no one’s fault”, there are secrets, lies, betrayals: how can this end well?

In what is her best novel yet, Harris draws on her personal experience to tell this story, the sort of story that happened thousands of times in the 1960s, into which, without doubt, she has poured her heart and soul. Her characters are real, flawed human beings with whom it is impossible not to empathise. And while there are moments that will move readers to tears, there are also joyful, uplifting ones. Utterly wonderful!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK.

The latest novel from Anstey Harris is a deeply personal one, so it’s better if I start this review with a quote from the very end of the novel, from the author note, for context:

‘I wrote Judith and Penny’s story to give me – and the half a million like me – a voice, and to remind those of you who have not been through this that it is an inhumanity we must never return to.’

When I First Held You is a story about the forced adoptions that were prolific throughout the 1960s and 1970s. I have previously read about this within novels set in Australia, America, and Ireland. It was interesting to read it within a UK setting. Interesting most of all to see the similarities – all involved parents who were acting out of shame, all involved girls being sent to homes run by the Catholic church, and all involved a total lack of regard for what the young women actually having a baby wanted, much less needed.

‘I struggle to remember the difference between forgiving and forgetting, I know that you can live with one and that the other will eventually destroy you.’

This story is told from the perspective of Judith, who was forced to give up her baby, and Ruby, her biological granddaughter. These two perspectives allowed for a sensitive balance within the story. James – aka Jimmy – has his perspective included via his interactions with both Judith and Ruby. You see, as the story progresses, just how much of an injustice was done to both Judith and Jimmy, by their own parents, whose well-meaning intentions caused nothing but grief with far-reaching consequences.

‘It’s partly that I haven’t shared this time with her – I have missed it and it can never be replayed. But it’s more than that – it’s the secrets and the joys. The memories of the conversations, the holidays, even the dark moments: none of which are mine.’

This story is so good though because it isn’t a simple blame game. It also outlines the social policies of the era, the lack of welfare, birth control, and independent options for young women who were pregnant and wanting to keep their babies. While you can acknowledge that what their parents did was entirely wrong, you also can acknowledge that they were acting out of a place where they too, didn’t know what else to do.

‘I am reminded of what I have always known: that it isn’t hope that moves mountains – mends hearts – it is unity.’

Entirely heartfelt and not given to melodrama, When I First Held You is a beautiful story about love, family, and forgiveness. It’s a fascinating look at a period of history that is best kept exactly where it is – in the past. Five stars to this one from Anstey Harris, who always seems to know just how to tug on your heartstrings. Thanks to her bravery as well for sharing, through the medium of fiction, aspects of her own personal family history.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

This is a heartwrenching read that will leave you feeling gutted. Anstey Harris really finds a way to pick your heart into pieces, slowly but surely.

I experienced various emotions while reading this beautifully written story. It was a story that will stay with me after the last page.
Many thanks to Amazon Publishing UK and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Another wonderful read from Anstey Harris.

Judith and Jimmy meet and fall in love in 1960s Glasgow, when they are both anti nuclear activists, living in a squat.

Their perfect live story is ripped apart when the squat is raided and Jimmy is sent to prison.

Pregnant, homeless, jobless and alone, Judith is forced to return home, where she is quickly moved on to a mother and baby home and her daughter is put up for adoption.

50 years later, Jimmy walks into the charity mending shop Judith runs on behalf of her late partner. The pair have a lot of catching up to do and whatever happened to their daughter?

A beautiful story spanning 50 years, heartbreaking and heartwarming. Anstey has an amazing writing talent. I have enjoyed all her books and look forward to future reads.

— 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 —

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: When I First Held You
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: N/A
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫(𝐬): Anstey Harris
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Historical Fiction
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝: 24th January 2023
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 4.5/5

”In Britain, in 1967–right up until the Children’s Act of 1975, actually–it was illegal for an adopted child to trace their parents. And’–I make sure he is looking at me, that he understands the importance of this–‘it was impossible for a parent to trace their child.’
‘But—’
I stop him. I learnt long ago that there are no buts. ‘When we had our children taken away from us, it meant we knew that we would never ever see them again. Never.’”

One reason why I love Anstey Harris’ writing is that she doesn’t play it safe. She tackles difficult subjects head on and writes the truth of them in a manner so tender and raw that I can’t help but weep in admiration.

At one point in the story, one of the characters says ”what exquisite pain” and this sentiment suits this story perfectly. It’s a story that involves the female main character joining a movement for anti-nuclear freedom fighting, and how that led to her experience in a Mother and Baby Home, where both freedom and fighting were an impossibility. The story reminds me of Waiting For The Miracle by Ann McPartlin, another book I sobbed my heart out to.

Reading the authors note of her lived experience has left me in teary awe. I really thought I would either die of dehydration from my tears or perhaps drowning. I couldn’t stop crying throughout, I can’t stop crying throughout this review. I will be accepting life jackets from here on out.

Sometimes, it’s not even about how the book was written, the story being told, the characters, it’s how a book made you feel, and this book broke my heart.

🧚🏻‍♀️

This was an emotional read, well written and well put together.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.