Book Review – Lights Of Liverpool

Ruth Hamilton has written 25 novels and is one of North West England’s most popular writers, but maybe you have to be British and a lover of romance novels to appreciate that.

Of the 440 pages there was only one fragment I liked: Tess is depressed and has patched up her marriage after one conversation with her adulterous husband, which already I find a miracle and totally unbelievable. But what appealed to me was the eccentricity of Tess who is painting the carpet because she does not like the pattern.

The story is about three families and their lives in the sixties in Liverpool. We have Maureen and Tom, who take part in, and are witness of, a gang killing at their wedding. Tess and Don, who suffered from poverty in childhood and a war injury and have marriage troubles and Rosh who is mourning the death of her husband Phil, but is courted by her neighbour Roy.

Until halfway through the book, there is another voice, at the end of each chapter, which turns out to be the freakish psycho-killer. Genres are mixed up, viewpoints are switched and there is a lot of thinking and wondering. Not my kind of book.