Ted and Irene Marshall – married in the 1950s when social and gender roles were much different than they are today.  The first blush of young love every so gradually dissipating with the drudgery of everyday life’s routines, and disappointments.

The beautiful and atmospheric setting of Morecambe Bay – a seaside town in Lancashire, England helped bring the story to life.

“Goodness knows happiness is not divvied up fairly in this life, is it?”

This moving and poignant novella was my very last read in the year 2020.  What a delightful way to end a great year of reading.

This spoke to my heart on a variety of levels. It made me think of my mother, it made me reflect on just how much society has changed in the past fifty years, it made me melancholy and joyful at the same time.  It spoke to the lives of every man and woman with thoughts on hope, love, and disappointments.

A novella, yet it had the heft of a much longer work. Enough heft that I would qualify it as ‘literary fiction’ which speaks to the heart. The characters were very realistically drawn, and the writing was outstanding.

I purchased a Kindle copy of this novella after reading many positive reviews from my fellow book bloggers. I have no regrets – it was worth every penny.

Publication date: November 23, 2020    Publisher: Louise Walters Books

ISBN: 9781999630577   ASIN:  B08GKZY35J     93 pages

Cath Barton lives in Abergavenny, Wales. She won the New Welsh Writing AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella in 2017 for The Plankton Collector, which was published in September 2018 by New Welsh Review under their Rarebyte imprint. She also writes short stories and flash fiction and, with her critical writing, is a regular contributor to Wales Arts Review. In the Sweep of the Bay is her second novella.

Follow Cath Barton on Twitter @CathBarton1