This has been on my Kindle for far too long. I really enjoyed the recreation of that hot summer of 1976 and that claustrophobic atmosphere of a small close where everyone knows each other (or think they do). An intriguing mix of humour and grit, mostly seen through the eyes of a child, which is notoriously difficult to do, but handled with quiet aplomb here.

I thought the author's writing style was really lovely. It felt almost soothing in a way, and lulled me in to the hot languid summer setting. I did get a little confused with so many characters, but was usually able to keep them straight.

Telling most of the story through a child's eyes worked really well, though it did mean that sometimes the story had to be taken away from our narrator because she couldn't possibly know the secrets the adults were truly hiding. The big reveal about the folded tea towel and the fire was really well done and I was completely shocked, which is always a treat.

It felt like there were too many storylines going on sometimes, with some storylines going nowhere-I know that they needed the possible pedophile storyline to set up the fire, which was so central, but it kind of just hung there. Same with the Jesus storyline. The religious elements felt a little heavy and overplayed.

The writing style was just so beautiful though that I was swept away in the book, whatever its faults.

I loved this dry wit narrative that 10 year old Grace is given, so beautifully and subtley told, the hidden secrets of the village where Mrs Creasy has gone missing are revealed one layer at a time. Grace and her best friend Tilly are watching a kind of chaotic strangeness decend into their village since the disappearance of Mrs Creasy a few days ago. They go looking for God, because "God is everywhere", and when they find him, they will find Mrs Creasy and everything will be normal again. They go through the town interviewing key people, sorting out the goats from the sheep and find out way more than they bargained for.

Its often just down right hilarious and this might be because I am exactly the same age a Grace was at the time. The English culture/pop culture is so familiar to me, the cigarettes were a different brand to the Benson and Hedges my parents kept on their coffee table, but the TV shows, Are you being served? Yuri Geller the spoon-bender! What a trip. Cannon has presented the era in exactly the way that I remember it. This book just nudged its way sneakily into the top of my TBR this week and I'm glad that it did.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I liked the characters and was able to relate to them.

I atrongly recommend this book to everyone

It was a fun mystery though it dragged a bit. I enjoyed the characters and sense of place. Any enjoyable read.

I found this book a struggle to read and abandoned it at 45%. I
Could not bond win any of he characters and sorry to say but it was boring me .

My mum always tells me about how hot the summer of my birthday was. And how long that summer lasted. Summer in the UK usually equals a few warm muggy days followed by dull warm days, rainy days, and on the rare occasion hailstones. Some readers must wonder why this rare long hot summer in the 70s featured so strongly in this book and I can only imagine the author was usually it to explain why the characters of this novel acted out of character. Basically nothing was normal that summer.

On a suburban street in the West Midlands Mrs Creasey has gone missing and Grace along with her friend Tilly (who has a mysterious illness meaning she wears a sou'wester or cardie even in the heat) decide to investigate the disappearance. They turn to the Vicar to ask for help and he uses the idea of Goats and Sheep to describe the way people behave. There are other characters on the street, all with interesting personalities and, as becomes clear, stories to hide.

As the story develops we see how each individual interacts with the others and it builds to an explanation of Mrs Creasey's disappearance. We see characters change, mature, and develop. I liked the focus on the current story interspersed with look backs to 1967 when events on the street changed things forever. I liked the twist at the end.

I thought it a well written novel; I liked the comments on life in the 1970s, and I think these built up to an interesting portrayal of suburbia.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEP was a strange sort of read for me. On the one hand, I often got frustrated with the pacing, but on the other I couldn't stop myself from coming back to it again and again to see what happens. Tilly and Grace's friendship was by far the most compelling part of the narrative; Cannon perfectly explores the nature of pre-teen friendships, the power dynamics but also the fierce love and loyalty. She also has a knack for metaphors and similes, tossing out great lines like "I had only ever known Mrs. Morton as she was now, tweeded and scrubbed, and rattling like a pebble in a life made for two" or "She knows that her presence on the street will switch conversations on like a string of fairy lights." Though not a good or bad thing, this novel felt particularly British in a way I can't quite explain. I'm glad I stuck through to the end, and though I hope her next novel has a slightly faster pace, I'll be eager to see what the author writes next.

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - A Review

I absolutely loved this book - one of the best I've read for a long time. As a 35 year old in 1976, I was totally absorbed in the period which I felt the writer got spot on. Her writing was so graphic - one could feel the heat, smell the smoke and imagine the toxic atmosphere between the neighbours. The tension built up very slowly but thanks to the charming and funny commentary between Gracie and Tilly, two ten year olds - it never wavered. Thanks to NetGalley for giving me I the opportunity to read this book which I highly recommend and give it five stars.

This was one of the last books I read just before Christmas and it immediately rocketed up my list to be my Book of the Year. Quite simply I loved everything about it. I knew I was in for a great read when I started highlighting passages – always a good sign. The above blurb tells you all you need to know about the plot, but what it can’t tell you is just how delicious the writing is. From summing up characters:-

"Early widowhood had forced her to weave a life from other people’s remnants, and she had baked and minded and knitted herself into a glow of indispensability (Mrs Morton)"

to personifying actions:-

"My Mother looked at him and did loud staring. Thankfully the sound of the loud staring was interrupted by the front doorbell."

to capturing a mood:-

"She sounded like someone who had won a competition that she had never really wanted to enter in the first place."

to perfectly capturing the things you heard as a child:-

"Have you gone to China for that tea, Brian?"

I could go on, but I’ll restrain myself. Needless to say the book is full of perfectly crafted phrases that accurately describe an action or an individual, or evoke a mood/feeling.

The characters that inhabit the book are perfectly drawn, and in a few phrases we feel we ‘know’ them, though of course what we think we know is not always the reality, but often someone else’s perception. Each of the residents has a story to tell and often a secret of their own that colours their perceptions of others. The thing that unites them is their distrust and dislike of Walter Bishop, the reclusive resident of No. 11. But as Tilly perceptively states, ‘the world is full of goats and sheep. You just have to try and work out which is which’. My favourite characters without doubt are Grace and Tilly. Grace strolls through the book with a knowing innocence and confidence that only a 10-year-old can possess, while Tilly has a quieter, balancing quality and wisdom. Between them they often unknowingly highlight the truths and facts that an adult ceases to see. They are a joy to meet.

In addition to the mysterious story line and great characters, the other element that really brought the book to life for me was it’s time setting. I was a teenager in the long hot summer of 1976 (though I still maintain that it bypassed Hull). The cultural references are spot on, from what was on the TV, what was being eaten, what we were wearing and what a 10 year was doing. Which 10-year-old (or 18-year-old!) didn’t love highlighting what they’d like to buy in the Kay’s catalogue.

In short this is a book that just has to be read, for me it was sheer perfection and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is engaging, witty, warm and full of heart. As a debut novel this will no doubt garner a queue of people clamouring for the next one.