Tinder Press| 26 March 2026| 294 pages e-book| Review copy| 5*

Synopsis

A journey. A reunion. A longing for a place called home…
When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane sails home to an England transformed by two world wars, his arrival triggers unwelcome self-examination for the family he abandoned.

His daughter feels duty bound to take him in but is ambushed by a long buried anger she has never before expressed. Harry’s effect on the next generation is less predictable, and enables his granddaughter to deal with an unspeakable trauma, while her gentle husband feels seen for who he truly is.

Can Harry stay and make a new life before it’s too late, or will he find himself cast out again, punished for having witnessed and understood too much?

LOVE LANE is a searing portrayal of escape and entrapment, and a powerful exploration of what home and family can really be.

I’ve read two of Patrick Gale’s books – Notes from an Exhibition and A Perfectly Good Man and enjoyed both of them. So when I saw Love Lane was available on NetGalley I requested it hoping it would be just as good – it is! Actually it’s a follow up to Gale’s earlier book, A Place Called Winter, which I haven’t read, but it reads perfectly well as a standalone. I love it. It’s so beautifully written and I quickly became engrossed in the story.

Set in the 1950s this is above all a character-driven plot about Harry Cane and his family. Harry was born in England, but the story begins in Canada, where had lived, near the town of Winter, Saskatchewan, for many years. In his earlier novel, A Place Called Winter, Gale tells the story of Harry’s life when he had emigrated to Canada and his relationship with Paul, a neighbouring farmer, secret lovers although each lived alone. Now, nearing retirement, Harry is forced to sell his farm, and leaves Canada to return to Liverpool in England to reunite with his daughter Betty and the family he had abandoned. All their lives change as they get to know each other again. It’s not just Harry’s story as we see events through Betty’s eyes and those of her husband Terry, a prison governor and of Pip, his granddaughter and her husband Mike, also a prisoner officer.

I really enjoyed this book for the characterisation, each person comes across as real, portrayed with compassion and understanding. It examines several issues, family relationships above all, and the attitudes to homosexuality. This really is a book that takes you back in time and place to a world long gone.

Patrick Gale has based his novel on the life of his maternal grandfather, using memories, stories and letters passed down to him by his family. In particular he used his grandmother’s unfinished memoir and the many letters between her and his parents. But he states that Love Lane is a novel, not a memoir.

And now I must read A Place Called Winter!

Many thanks to the author and Tinder Press for a review copy via NetGalley.