Over the course of the summer months I will be sharing the recommended authors who feature in the Smorgasbord Bookshelf along with their books and a selected review.

The first book today is Matilda Windsor is Coming Home a contemporary novel by Anne Goodwin. A book that I can also recommend

About the book

“In the dying days of the old asylums, three paths intersect.

A brother and sister separated for fifty years and the idealistic young social worker who tries to reunite them. Will truth prevail over bigotry, or will the buried secret keep family apart?

Told with compassion and humour, Anne Goodwin’s third novel is a poignant, compelling and brilliantly authentic portrayal of asylum life, with a quirky protagonist you won’t easily forget. Published by Inspired Quill.”

One of the excellent reviews for the book on Goodreads

Set in the time when the old-fashioned long-term mental asylums were being replaced by “care in the community” and more up-to-date hospital accommodation, Anne Goodwin’s Matilda Windsor is Coming Home combines first-hand professional knowledge of the change with empathy for the individuals caught up in it, and a scalpel-sharp evaluation of the officaldom involved. The responses of decent local people to the prospect of a mental health unit being built in their neighbourhood are presented credibly but with fine irony. This is a well written novel, but the delicious touches of humour hardly ameliorate the overarching feelings of compassion and anger.

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