Many thanks to Bookouture for inviting me to take part in the blog tour for ‘The Locket’ by Natalie Meg Evans, and for supplying me with an ARC via Netgalley. All thoughts written are done so in an unbiased manner. Before we get to my review, here is a little bit more about the book:
England, 1942. ‘It has to stay secret,’ he whispers, placing the locket around her neck. ‘If they find it, they’ll send me away.’ As she holds the locket, glinting in the moonlight, she can’t hold back the tears. ‘I just wish we didn’t have to hide…’
When farmer’s daughter Irene meets Theodore at a village dance, sparks fly instantly. The war has brought him all the way from Louisiana to build a US airbase just across her father’s fields, but as they sway together, there is nothing else in the world. Only his gentle touch and his deep brown eyes. But being together comes at a price. As Theodore is Black, the might of the US Air Force is against them, and all the members of the little village community disapprove of their relationship. And they will all go to terrible lengths to tear the two young lovers apart…
Decades later, heartbroken Ruby is back at her family’s crumbling farmhouse for the first time in years, after the loss of her beloved grandmother Irene. The roof has fallen in, family photographs are damaged – and her grandmother’s jewellery is nowhere to be found.
When Ruby uncovers her grandmother’s waterlogged diaries, she discovers that Irene treasured one piece of lost jewellery above all. A locket from a man called Theodore. And the missing locket holds the key to unravelling a heartbreaking secret that changed her grandmother’s life…Is someone in the village hiding the locket to keep the truth about Irene and Theodore buried?
And can Ruby find a way to honour her grandmother’s memory – or in digging up the pain of the war, will she tear her family apart?
TWG’s Thoughts
I wasn’t sure what to make of this at first, whether it was a case of ‘boy meets girl at the wrong time, all is lost’, or whether it was something else entirely. Ruby had had her heart broken so she took herself to her late grandma’s house to distract herself. What she didn’t expect to find however, was written snippets from grandma Irene’s past, and an aunt who refused to give her a straight answer so that she could try and find out the truth.
Even though a locket was a huge part of the storyline, hence the title, there was a lot more to the book such as racism in the 1940’s, lies, abuse, true love, tangled family history, and so much more. It was hard to read about the fate of Irene and Theo, and I couldn’t help but find myself getting angry because of Aunt Philippa and her brother, Norman’s actions. I know that’s easy for me to say given times were a lot different back then, but those lies the family told cost Irene dearly and had a domino effect on other members of the family. How could they live with themselves knowing what they did?
I demolished ‘The Locket’ in one day, I was hooked on Irene’s story and the way Ruby was trying to fix the puzzle pieces. I was so invested in the storyline, that I felt emotional when the truth came out and and was as though I had personally endured a loss. Daft eh.
This book is a triumph. A beautifully written, tangled web of both heartache and love, mixed with a dash of forgiveness and laced with such raw emotion that weaves its way into the readers heart and soul. Natalie Meg Evans has done her characters proud, and has certainly left a mark on me. I honestly cannot recommend this enough – beautiful, stunning, poignant, just everything I could ever want from a book.
‘The Locket’ by Natalie Meg Evans is available to buy now from Amazon.
The Writing Garnet 
a magic story I think, somehow it has found its way to my reading pile…
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