She, You, I
Sally Keeble
Publication date: January 11th 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary
An emotional page-turner of a story about a family torn apart by the legacy of war that asks the question: what happens to the hurt we can’t forget?
When Skye Stanhope returns to her grandmother’s childhood home, she’s searching for the roots of her life story. Why her tough-minded granny ran away to war. And why her brilliant mother died.Behind the women’s successes, lies deep trauma. As Skye strips away the layers of secrecy, she confronts their inner torments: forces that bound the women together, but also tore them apart. It’s a journey from a poverty-stricken tenement block to an airbase in wartime Suffolk, through boom-time London to a coffee cart beside the sea.
Woven into the women’s lives is Tseng Hsiao Ling, a feisty, enigmatic seamstress whose fortunes become inextricably linked with theirs.
It’s a sweeping tale of love, war and family secrets over three generations.
Through each woman’s story, “She, You, I” holds up a mirror to the complexity of family relationships: mothers, sisters, daughters, and the unexpected twists in Skye’s search for closure.
My Review…
She, You, I is a captivating story spanned over three generations. We follow the lives of grandmother Maisie, her daughter Isla and granddaughter Skye and their struggles from the aftermath of WW1 to the present. This book is an emotional journey, and there are many buried secrets which are only fully revealed by the end of the book. Behind the apparent successes of Maisie and Isla lies deep trauma and it’s only when Skye returns to to her grandmother’s childhood home that key secrets of Maisie’s past are revealed.
This is a real page-turner of a book with brilliant storytelling and wonderful character portrayal. The characters are very well developed and interesting and the story is compelling. Each woman’s character is shaped by the social and cultural context of their lives. The novel is very well written with a woven narrative running through it and that is the story of Tseng Hsiao Ling. On this emotional journey through the book you learn how their lives played out in unexpected ways and how the traumatic experiences can define life and you as a person.
She, You, I by Sally Keeble is a lovely journey back in time. It is a story of women’s struggles to free themselves from control and define their own identities and lives. I really liked the characters and exploring the themes of class and ethnicity. It is fast paced and vibrantly written. I highly recommend this book.
My Rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Author Bio:
Sally writes novels about the things she’s passionate about—the triumphs and tragedies of people’s lives, their families and life stories.
It’s what originally took her into journalism and then politics, in the UK and beyond. She spent her early years in the USA, Switzerland and Australia, returning to the UK after working as a journalist in South Africa. After serving as an MP, she worked in international development and travelled widely, especially in Africa and South Asia.
“She, You, I” is her first novel. She’s written nonfiction previously. Sally splits her time between Northampton and Bawdsey, a village in coastal Suffolk.
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Diane’s Book Journal 
Thanks for being on the tour! This sounds like a well written, compelling story!
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