I Let You Go, by Clare Mackintosh
I have been procrastinating on this post for 2 full months. I really enjoyed this book, and have lots to say on it, however there is literally no way I can think of to say it that isn’t in some way a spoiler. In fact, even saying that is enough to tell you that the book is spoil-able, which in itself is a bit of a spoiler…
I can say that it takes place in Wales. That’s nice. If I were to go to Wales this summer, I would actually seek out the story locations from the book, because the author does such a good job of making the locations very visual.
When I went to Ireland in 1994 with my girlfriend MCM we bicycled around the north coast. Once of the most wonderful and unexpected joys of cycling in Ireland is how immersed you can get in the sounds and smells and the feel of the country that you just can’t get from being in a car. You can hear the wind blowing across the fields and the sound of the mists hitting your rain jacket as you bike down a hill. You can feel the peace and quiet. You can smell the farms and the grass. Ireland is breathtakingly beautiful and the north coast has a ruggedness that you don’t expect from the Emerald Island (a deserved nickname if ever there was one). Clare’s description of the west coast of Wales kind of felt like this to me – like you could immerse yourself in her descriptions of the cliffs, the beach, the foreboding ocean.
Rating: Borrow it, read it and then let me know you’re done so we can talk about it. Don’t be put off by the back cover description, it’s not what you might think.