We Are Animals by Tim Ewins

We Are Animals by Tim Ewins

Summary:

A cow looks out to sea, dreaming of a life that involves grass.

Jan is also looking out to sea. He’s in Goa, dreaming of the passport-thief who stole his heart (and his passport) forty-six years ago. Back then, fate kept bringing them together, but lately it seems to have given up.

Jan has not. In his long search he has accidentally held a whole town at imaginary gunpoint in Soviet Russia, stalked the proprietors of an international illegal lamp-trafficking scam and done his very best to avoid any kind of work involving the packing of fish. Now he thinks if he just waits, if he just does nothing at all, maybe fate will find it easier to reunite them.

His story spans fifty-four years, ten countries, two imperfect criminals (and one rather perfect one), twenty-two different animals and an annoying teenager who just…

Will…

Not…

Leave.

But maybe an annoying teenager is exactly what Jan needs to help him find the missing thief?

Featuring a menagerie of creatures, each with its own story to tell, We Are Animals is a quirky, heart-warming tale of lost love, unlikely friendships and the certainty of fate (or lack thereof).

For the first time in her life the cow noticed the sun setting, and it was glorious.

My Review:

There are some books that just stand out and just being rather special and We Are Animals (Eye/Lightning Books) by Tim Ewins is one of those books. A story of a man and a woman both called Jan. A love story that will make your heart burst. It is also funny and at a time when the world seems to have become deeply troubled, this is a story we all need in our lives right now.

We find ourselves on a beach in a far-off land as the man called Jan is talking to a young man called Sharkey and he is recounting his life story to the young man. This is his story of a love for his girl called Jan from how they met in a tiny English fishing village to their travels around the world and in and out of each other’s lives. For Jan he has now ended up in Goa and hoping that one day his lost love will re-appear again but so far, his girl called Jan has not appeared. Each day Jan will wait on the beach in the hope that she will suddenly walk across the beach to him. But there is also a cow on the beach and the cow seems to be waiting for something to appear. This chapter about the cow really struck a chord with me. But there are many more animals that make an appearance through this wonderful novel.

There were times I found myself laughing out loud even in a train carriage when I thought I was alone. This is a different novel that is so profound and at the same time beautiful in the way the story just is told and how Tim Ewins has crafted the story and the interesting characters you meet and their own hope and dreams for their own lives and this for me was the real pull of the story and how in some small way in our lives we can make a difference to other’s lives. Sometimes we may not even know we have.

We Are Animals is a novel that will last in the memory for quite a long time to come and I am very grateful for the chance to have read this wonderful novel.

320 Pages.

My thanks to Tim Ewins and Eye and Lightning Books for the review copy of We Are Animals by Tim Ewins.

We Are Animals by Tim Ewins is published by Eye Books and is now available in Paperback through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop or through Bookshop.org that supports your local independent bookshop. UK Bookshop.org