Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by hux
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G. B. Edwards
4.0
This was an exquisite piece of work. A proper good-old yarn.
It felt so real that about halfway through I googled G.B. Edwards to see if this was literally just his life. But no, he left Guernsey, lived in London, had a very different existence. Ebenezer feels too real to be fictional though; too cantankerous and funny and opinionated. Most novels are narrated by personality-lacking robots who gaze into the middle distance and say nothing remotely human. Yawn. This was sweeping and epic and full of life. A real life.
I so desperately wanted him to get together with Liza Quéripel but it just doesn't happen. Because that's just not how life works. I felt for him when his best friend Jim died in the First World war. When Tabitha lost her husband. When Raymond lost his faith. When the sisters Prissy and Hettie fell out and made up again and again. When Neville Falla vandalised his property. When he killed a Nazi. When he befriended another. And when he told us about the book he was writing.
This book was an absolute joy. And to learn it was yet another book which publishers rejected reminds me how incompetent most publishers are.
"The older I get and the more I learn, the more I know I don't know nothing, me."
It felt so real that about halfway through I googled G.B. Edwards to see if this was literally just his life. But no, he left Guernsey, lived in London, had a very different existence. Ebenezer feels too real to be fictional though; too cantankerous and funny and opinionated. Most novels are narrated by personality-lacking robots who gaze into the middle distance and say nothing remotely human. Yawn. This was sweeping and epic and full of life. A real life.
I so desperately wanted him to get together with Liza Quéripel but it just doesn't happen. Because that's just not how life works. I felt for him when his best friend Jim died in the First World war. When Tabitha lost her husband. When Raymond lost his faith. When the sisters Prissy and Hettie fell out and made up again and again. When Neville Falla vandalised his property. When he killed a Nazi. When he befriended another. And when he told us about the book he was writing.
This book was an absolute joy. And to learn it was yet another book which publishers rejected reminds me how incompetent most publishers are.
"The older I get and the more I learn, the more I know I don't know nothing, me."