Trinidad born and raised, now London based Claire Adam’s debut novel “Golden Child” won the 2019 Desmond Elliot Prize, the 2020 Author’s Best First Novel Award and the 2020 McKitterick Prize.
 
It was also included in the BBC’s List of “100 Novels that Shaped our World” in the Coming of Age Section alongside Margaret Atwood, Edna O’Brien, JK Rowling, Sue Townsend and Stephanie Meyer.
 
In the UK it was published by Faber and Faber – but in the US it was the second book for the then new SJP imprint of Hogarth – SJP being Sarah Jessica Parker who is of course a Booker judge this year. Just saying.
 
The story of the book is superficially very straightforward – but takes its depth from decades of complex and conflicted family relationships all stemming from an incident in the English-based narrator’s late childhood some forty years earlier and combined with an excellent portrait of Trinidad and its own complex and conflicted societal developments over the same period.
 
The narrator – Dawn Wilson (but real name Bishop from the famous Bishop’s Fruit Juices a family owned business which at one time extended to an conglomerate) is now fifty eight and living in a small terraced house Brockley in South London, divorced from her Doctor ex-husband (their larger family home in Wandsworth sold in the settlement) and with two adult children (one a Junior Doctor, the other a Post Doc in the US).  When she was sixteen we learn in an opening section she fell pregnant in her first sexual encounter (the usual Literary Fecundity Fallacy) and was smuggled off (almost literally) by her family to Venezuela to a nun-run house for pregnant girls where the babies are immediately given up for adoption, before returning to Trinidad where her family take a pact never to mention the incident again.
 
Now – from an online site she has joined which seeks to match adopted children with their birth mothers – an Italian lady of the right age reaches out to say that she was herself adopted as a bady when her parents were working in Venezuela and this prompts her to revisit the memories of her childhood and tell her story.
 
One of the most impressive aspects of the novel is the authentic way these memories are presented – often fragmentary with in many cases Dawn unsure if she is inventing or conflating some of the images and incidents that come back to her from decades earlier.  
 
I also enjoyed the way that further depths to Dawn’s emotional journey are revealed, as well as the nuances of her relationship with her children, ex-husband, mother, father and brothers and how she sees that the incidents of her childhood have influenced them all. 
 
And the economic and societal fortunes of Trinidad with its oil boom and bust, its interplay with Venezuela (with an even more pronounced economic and political roller coaster) form an important and well crafted backdrop to the fortunes of the Bishop family and the interplay of the family members.
 
The story Dawn tells is at other times very deliberately expository – we are told for example in asides how Derby is pronounced, how South London terraces are set up or some of the detail of the Carnival in a way which is very conscious and very much as told to a third party rather than simply to a journal (or internal memories). But I was left at the end of the book unclear exactly who this third party might be – and this for me was the weakest and most surprising element of the novel.
 
The novel culminates in a family reunion in the Tobagan villa they have owned for years and in a well-rendered sub-trip which gives Dawn and the novel a fitting sense of closure
  
Overall this was a novel I enjoyed and one I suspect will appear on some prize lists in the year ahead.

Born into a wealthy, middle-class white Trinidadian family, aged sixteen and smart, with dreams of becoming a doctor, Dawn Bishop has the world at her feet. It’s the 1980s, a time of picnics and parties for Dawn, when one hot sultry evening, a charming tourist invites her to join him on the beach – a decision that creates waves that last a lifetime.

Single and pregnant, her family arranges for Dawn to make the perilous crossing by small boat, with only the moon as lamplight, towards the dark coast of Venezuela, where she gives birth to a baby girl whom she leaves with nuns for adoption.

This is a tender, heart-breaking tale of a ‘plight’ that has befallen so many young girls, but the unique dangers and beauty of its Caribbean setting sets Love Forms apart.
As narrator, Dawn shares her story in a wonderful straightforward style. The descriptions of life in Trinidad and Tobago – the lush countryside, healing power of the ocean, increase in criminality and violence – are all done with a lightness of touch that draws the reader in.

Tides rise and fall, decades come and go, but the implications of an impulsive teenage decision follow Dawn and her baby daughter, her parents, siblings, husband and sons.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy from Netgalley in return for my honest opinion.

The writing was very good but the story is sad. The mother has two sons but has never forgotten the baby girl that she was forced to give up. Forty years later she searches for her which has various twists and turns. The ending? Well I leave you to work it out. A very powerful book and thanks to NetGalley for ARC.

Taking the reader on a mothers search for the daughter she left behind a lifetime ago.. A gobble-it-all-up-in-one-sitting kind of book

A really intriguing start which had me completely hooked. The information on Trinidad was fascinating but when the story moved to London it seemed to lose momentum and Dawn's unhappiness made the story drag; plus her relationship with her sons seemed so stilted and formal. I would have liked to have heard more about her marriage but her husband hardly featured. Overall an interesting but not riveting read.

This is one of the most powerful literary portrayals about motherhood I have ever read, and I wish to start off this review by thanking the publishers and NetGalley for my complimentary ARC that allowed me to read this novel, culminating in the unbiased book review that now follows.

From the start, it is clear this is going to be a unique novel, as its plot oscillates between Trinidad and Tobago on the one hand and London, England on the other hand. The heroine is Dawn, born into a white Trinidadian family of industrialists. In 1980, and at the age of sixteen, she unexpectedly falls pregnant, and her family send her to Venezuela where she gives birth to the little girl that is subsequently placed or adoption. This momentously traumatic experience continues to influence Dawn as she moves to England, builds a career, gets married and then divorced, and gives birth to two subsequent children. It is easy to empathise with this woman, who despite her privileged start in a wonderful Caribbean setting, has been through so much, and who continues to suffer from the forced separation of a baby many decades earlier. Along with Dawn, the reader is left wondering what happened to Dawn’s daughter – and suspense heightens when, in the early 2020s, a woman gets in touch with Dawn through an internet forum, claiming she might be the daughter that Dawn has been searching for all of these years. It is all credit to the author that she sensitively manages to combine so many different threads and themes – those of societal injustices, cultural change, gendered notions, the complications of motherhood, and personal dilemmas – into the nuanced novel that we now have in front of us. Highly recommended, I hope this novel that, as the title hints, shows love in all its myriad forms, attracts as large a readership as possible.

I absolutely loved this book. I wasn't sure what to expect and requested on the basis of the rubrik. Very glad I did. A wonderful read. I was really invested in Dawn and her story. I felt I was with her all the way. The author's writing style just flowed and made it easy to read. Dawn is a great character and I felt that we really got to know her. A whole mixture of emotions as I read this book. Wonderful

Reviewed on Bluesky, TV Book Club on FB, Amazon when able

I very much enjoyed this novel. Which is mostly set in Trinidad and tells the story of Dawn who age 16 in find yourself I’m happily pregnant after a one night stand during carnival with a holiday maker. Her family Centre across the sea to Venezuela to stay in a mother and baby home run by nuns and the baby is immediately taken away and put up for adoption. We meet again at 58 when she starts actively searching for the Child his birth has been something that has not been talked about at all in the family since it happened.
Although do you want us to move to the UK in adulthood the majority of this novel is set in the Caribbean which adds an an extra element to the story
The author has a clear easily read writing style which is a pleasure to read. She has the ability to describe character as well and the people in her novel seem completely three-dimensional real people. It’s interesting to watch Dawn grow and see how her experiences have affected her throughout her life .

Originally copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for Non by his review. The book is published in the UK on the 19th of June 2025 by Faber and Faber Ltd.
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com. After publication will also appear on Amazon UK.

A teacher once told me: good storytelling is building a wall with bricks, without anyone noticing the construction and/or the individual bricks. That's this story. It never feels constructed.

A beautiful book, told from the perspective of Dawn Bishop, born and raised in Trinidad where her family has worked hard and has become a household name. A teenage pregnancy after an encounter not even worthy of the name one night stand, is not in the family’s books and so Dawn travels the perilous sea to Venezuela to grow big and give birth there.
Life goes on as was, afterwards. So it seems, but not for Dawn.
We meet teenage Dawn through the eyes of 58 y/o Dawn, living in the UK, now divorced, two sons. It’s her voice, her memories that take us through her past and current. At 16 Dawn didn’t focus on any details that might, at 40, or at 58, help her find her daughter.

I loved the voice, the change of times, the growing up, how all characters evolved throughout time.

I received an eARC from NetGalley in return for my honest opinion

At 16, Dawn Bishop, white and rich, is secretly taken undercover of darkness, from her home in Trinidad to Venezuela. She’s to temporarily live with nuns until she gives birth, with the child being given up for adoption. She returns to Trinidad with a certain amount of bitterness and resumes her life. Now she’s Dawn Wilson and 58 years old, she’s been married, divorced and lives in England where she’s been for most of her life. Much of that time things are good and she has two grown-up sons although she’s had to downgrade her house and her London postcode following the divorce, her life is still okay. However, her mind is on the child she gives birth to all those years ago and she begins a search to see if she can find her. This is not just a search for an offspring, Dawn is searching for her sense of self to try to fill the void the baby leaves in her life and soul.

The start of the novel is really intriguing, an air of mystery as Dawn goes on the journey and what follows is a moving story as she describes her sadness, her confliction and other emotions really well and so I do feel empathy for her for what she has lost. She conveys her complicated life well, her complex relations with her sons, her mother and her brothers.

However, I think the storytelling of Dawn‘s search loses its way as it gets mixed up and infused with reflections on Trinidad and Venezuela, which whilst interesting, takes your eye off the search. I enjoy the Trinidad of her growing up years and then looking back at the age of 58 on how it has changed. There’s a lot on the political, economic and cultural situation of both Trinidad and Venezuela and the issues both places have today. There’s also her everyday life in her new home in Brockley (London) which compared to the rest is a bit mundane. Some of this causes me to lose some enthusiasm for the book which is a shame as the premise is a very good one. I suppose as much as anything it’s a love letter to Trinidad and the island is definitely on my bucket list.

The ending is a beautiful one, I feel what Dawn feels and it does choke me up and recollect.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Faber and Faber for the much appreciated Epub in return for an honest review.

A rather sad story of a mother who has built a life with two beautiful sons, but longs for the baby daughter she gave away when she was a girl. There is a dramatic description of how her family in Trinidad had her smuggled to Venezuela to secretly give birth and leave her baby with the nuns there. Having trained as a doctor in the UK and her marriage to a fellow medic fails she keeps trying to find her daughter. There are lovely descriptions of her family's life in Trinidad and Tobago where she often comes to visit.

Let’s start by saying ‘I absolutely loved this book’.

It is set in both Trinidad and Tobago and also London. But the main narrative happens in the Caribbean. I wanted to look up all the places as I read about them, but the story was so compelling that .i didn’t want to stop and search.

Dawn is the only daughter of a Trinidadian white family who have made their money in business selling fruit juices. At 16 Dawn makes her great ‘mistake’. She gets pregnant from a one night stand with a tourist and her family arrange for her to have the baby adopted. The rest of the story describes the effect this has on her life.

I felt all the characters were fully rounded and believable. Dawn herself, who narrates the story, is like someone you might know. She is self aware, she does her best to make her life a success, and on the outside at least she succeeds.. But marriage, career, children, apart, she still has a deep secret and a sad void in her life. So she does her best to find out what happened to her first baby.

I loved the writing, I felt very involved in Dawn’s story, and could hardly wait to read some more as I wanted her so much to heal. The descriptions of life in Trinidad are fascinating. There are tensions in the history of this island, and there are changes that. affect her family. The matter of fact way that they accept new dangers such as having to be careful while walking a few yards on the beach, and to have locked gates as well as houses, really brings home the reality of how easy it is to lose an easy and comfortable life style.

The book brings these social and cultural changes into the story but keeps well to its central theme ; the ties and bonds of motherhood.

Look forward to reading more by this author.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC copy.

I wanted to, and believed that I would, love this but sadly it didn’t gel with me at all. I had to force myself to read the whole thing as I just wasn’t hooked by the story or characters.

The first few chapters had me hooked, I was pulled into this chaotic scene with Dawn, with no context or explanation. However, from there I found the book to drag a little. The descriptions of Trinidad were beautiful, I could see her family home in my mind and feel the heat of the sun. But everything else fell flat, the writing during her time in London, the upper echelon these characters all lived in, it was hard for me to find anything to resonate with. There was a message somewhere in this book about love and family but it seemed lost in the grand scheme of things, at least for me.