Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book. These opinions are completely my own.

I did not realize this novel was a sequel and was pretty lost upon reading it. Sadly I could not finish it this time.

This had everything that I was looking for from the description, it had a great overall feel to it and worked in the historical feel. Emer Martin does a great job in bringing this world and characters to life and thought the overall feel to this environment.

Unable to finish due to the ARC having it written every couple paragraphs in huge font that this is an ARC and not to be distributed. This formatting made it incredibly difficult to read, so I could not finish. Unfortunate because I did really want to read this novel. rating 3/10 as to not mess up any ratings based on this

i didn’t expect this to be a direct sequel to ‘the cruelty men’ going into it, but i’m so happy that it was! i really adored getting to pick up where it left off & follow a new set of characters throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. i particularly enjoyed the focus on the north and the troubles, as well as its fascinating depiction of the jewish-irish community. deirdre’s pov was my favourite, i think, but martin’s second novel is just as polyphonic and poetic as the first one, so it’s hard to pick one, really. i thoroughly recommend this one!