The plot was a bit slow, the characters seemed very real. It was just okay! ( )

One of those books with a present day storyline and a past storyline, which are gradually brought together so that you have just about got the complete picture by the time you reach the last page. It's a common device, but I often find myself irritated in the early stages by things I don't understand, or things seemingly significant but for reasons I won't be told for another hundred or so pages. I had that problem here. I found it hard to get a grip on the characters - there were lots of them - but by the halfway mark I began to settle in and enjoy this book. I liked the way the author included little dramas for each character, and her description of the two bully-boys and the way they would disrupt games of football was superb. There was also a real sense of impending doom concerning the protagonist and his performance in the operating theatre. First half: slow read, second half: pageturner. ( )

There are two secrets that central character was hiding. One about his current life, but the one the story is based on is something that happened on the day of the Queen's Jubliee street party in 1997. It was't really his secret and I really expected something less predictable than what it turned out to be. I couldn't really feel for or like the characters very much. The writing style, switching between present and past, is good but I felt it took to long to get to the point and that the point was disappointing when I got there. ( )

Very slow to get going, was expecting a much bigger and better twist to the story. ( )

At the time of the Queen Elizabeth's silver jubilee when many street parties were happening a photograph was taken of one of them and in the centre of that photograph was Satish a Pakistani immigant to Britain. The photograph was shown as an example of how Britain was and should be - a multicultural country embracing others from different countries. When we fast forward to the present Satish is a successful cardiologist who regularly saves lives. He is asked to take part in a reenactment of that photo with all the people from the original photo getting together again, but Satish does not want to do this for he has a secret. Things were not as they seemed on that day. This book goes back and forward in time. It captures the lives of all the participants in the photo and how relations were between them at the time and it tells the story of where their lives have taken them from that day. I enjoyed this story a lot. ( )