A Place Called Here...

‘A Place Called Here’ is a truly magical an enchanting tale. I can honestly say I still never really understood what was going on by the end of the book, yet I felt like I’d been on a rollercoaster journey – Sorry for using the inevitable talent show line there - backwards and forwards with the character, feeling her frustrations, excitements, her wonderfully endearing highs and her ever suppressing lows.

Half way through the book I was dying be able to come to some sort of conclusion as to where 'The Place Called Here' could possibly be. The only seemingly logical explanation I came up with was that the character – Sandy Shortt, I talk more about her later - had to have been dreaming, which would of been somewhat disappointing as we all know, if a book ends with 'It was all just a dream' you might as well of not bothered reading it, it would be an overwhelming disappointment of a climax.

This book however was different, the world she creates, that she simply names 'Here' is a parallel universe to the one we live in. It is so utterly believable by the end you just except it as truth, similarly as I did with 'Harry Potter' - I'm convinced there is a platform 9 and 3/4 and there is Hogwarts immersed within a spectacular world of wizards, witchcraft and mystery, as I understand many others across the world to be with me on this too. When an author can create a world that the reader immerses into and believes that's the evidence of a truly exceptional writer.

I've loosely referred to Harry Potter as a parallel to this book, but as well as the famous wizard, the book also makes reference to the classic tale the 'Wizard of Oz' a childhood dream of a story, there is even reference to the ruby slippers and the words 'There's no place like home'.

The essence of this book centres on the character Sandy Shortt, a woman who from an early age is desperate to find all those missing things. Just where does the stray sock from the pair go, and why is it that you never ever find it again? What happens to the teddy, that once sat so proudly on your bed and then one day vanishes never to be seen again... (You think!)

Sandy dedicates her whole life to missing things and missing people – she sets up a missing person’s agency and finds out everything about their lives and every detail of where they were when they went missing, what they were doing, why there were doing it? With many, the only thing she doesn’t find is where have they gone?

Her entire life is filled with questions, it’s only when she goes for a jog and stumbles upon the ‘Place’ that she’s been searching for her entire life – this is where she sets out to find all the answers to her never-ending list of questions, and comes face to face with old friends.

An utterly addictive story that I would recommend, again and again - No questions asked.