There’re the usual awesome contributions from the rest of the Cornish cast and the way they rally round Gideon is really special to read, especially how he behaved like an arse the last time he was at Chi an Mor. This book explains so much about why and how Gideon became the closed off, surface selfish man he appears, but the truth is so very different. And let me tell you, when Eli takes Gideon to bed the first time that scene is everything! He saw inside to the hurt boy and he nurtured the love that Gideon was desperate to share but didn’t know how. I don’t think I’ve hated a character with as much venom as I did Frankie for quite a while (apart from Peter in Annabelle Jacobs’ Wounded Soul because he was just evil!īut Eli, oh he was such a gem of a character, I could hear his Welsh lit in the words he spoke, his kindness, his snark – because this wouldn’t be a Lily book without a snappy retort and lots of sarcasm – and the unfailing way he just got Gideon. He’s found fame as a top Hollywood actor, but it’s come at the hands of a Machiavellian manager who I wanted to eviscerate slowly. Gideon is a little boy lost, in his heart he’s still a seven-year-old being parcelled off to boarding school by two parents who were too busy for him, but not too busy when his younger brother Milo came long just three years later.

Redemption stories are probably one of the highest forms of kryptonite for me (it comes in a variety not just the green one 😉 ) and with Gideon, Lily crafts one that works so well because, when we actually get to know Gideon, it’s not really a redemption so much as a realisation. I also need to learn not to drink tea at the same time as I read a Lily Morton book because this one nearly killed me five times in the first 20%.

Gideon by Lily Morton