How To Find Your Way Home by Katy Regan @katyreganwrites @MantleBooks #HowToFindYourWayHome #BookReview

 

What if the person you thought you’d lost forever walked back into your life?

On a sunny morning in March 1987, four-year-old Stephen Nelson welcomes his new baby sister, Emily. Holding her for the first time, he vows to love and protect her, and to keep her safe forever.

Nearly thirty years later, the two have lost touch and Stephen is homeless.

Emily, however, has never given up hope of finding her brother again and when he arrives at the council office where she works, her wish comes true. But they say you should be careful what you wish for – and perhaps they’re right, because there is a reason the two were estranged . . .

As the two embark on a birding trip together, Emily is haunted by long-buried memories of a single June day, fifteen years earlier; a day that changed everything. Will confronting the secrets that tore them apart finally enable Emily and Stephen to make their peace – not just with their shared past and each other, but also themselves?

Haunting, beautiful and uplifting, Katy Regan's How to Find Your Way Home is about sibling love, the restorative power of nature and how home, ultimately, is found within us.

How To Find Your Way Home by Katy Regan was published on 3 February 2022 by Mantle. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.

This review was originally published in S Magazine - 6 Feb 2022

Stevie Nelson and his younger sister Emily were inseparable as children. Stevie passed on his love of wildlife and the pair would spend hours birdwatching together in the fields near their home on Essex's Canvey Island. 

Almost thirty years later, Emily is a homeless officer at the local council, while Stevie sleeps rough wherever he can find a dry place. They haven't seen each other for thirty years.

But Emily has never given up hope of finding Stevie and, when he visits the council in search of help and support, it seems her wish has come true at last. 

However, Stevie had his reasons for staying way for all of that time. Emily discovers that real life is not like at TV show, full of hugs, forgiveness and happy ever afters. 

Repairing their relationship will take a lot of work, forcing her to face up to events she had buried away in the past. 

In a story driven by the power of love and shared memories, Katy Regan sensitively explores issues of mental health, cruelty, addiction and homelessness, set against vivid descriptions of the landscape and wildlife around Canvey Island.

This is a finely written story of hope and love. 

Katy Regan grew up near Morecambe in Lancashire. She began her writing career as a magazine journalist, and is ex-Features Writer and Commissioning Editor of Marie Claire, where she also had a long-standing and popular column, ‘And then there were three… sort of’ about her unconventional route to motherhood. She has written for most national magazines and newspapers. She has also written two self-help books (a cause for great amusement among those who know her well.)

She lives in Hertfordshire with her son. When she’s not writing, she mainly loves swimming in freezing cold lakes, reading and going on mini-breaks. How To Find Your Way Home is her sixth novel

www.katyregan.com

Twitter @katyreganwrites

Instagram @reegzwrites