Synopsis
1918. Fleeing from her past, Cathy Carmichael is new to the Sixteen Streets. She has nothing to her name, no plan and nowhere to go.
Cathy thinks she’s struck gold when she runs into Mrs Sturrocks, an elderly lady who offers her a room at her boarding house. Her son, Noel, might be strange and sulky, but he gives her a job at the Robin Hood pub and before long, Cathy is thriving as the new barmaid.
The Sixteen Streets was only meant to be a temporary stop for Cathy… but could it become home instead?
My Review
I have a little confession to make. Although I have all of Elsie’s books on my ‘to be read’ mountain, I haven’t actually got around to reading one…….until now. When I was invited to take part in the blog tour for ‘The Runaway Girl’, I knew that I wouldn’t get a better chance to read one of Elsie’s books and see just what it is I have been missing! Well having read ‘The Runaway Girl’ and enjoying it as much as I did, I am now rather cross at myself that I haven’t read her books before! I LOVED reading ‘The Runaway Girl’ but more about that in a bit.
‘The Runaway Girl’ is the first in a new trilogy based around the ‘Sixteen Streets’ area of South Shields, which was at that time (and still is to some of us) in County Durham. As soon as I started reading, I realised three things – firstly that I was reading something special, secondly that I would become addicted to the story and thirdly I wouldn’t be doing anything other than reading for a good few hours because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to put the book down. I was spot on with all three predictions. I started reading and didn’t stop for a solid three hours. I found that I just couldn’t put the book down. My copy of the book wasn’t exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it travelled everywhere with me. I couldn’t bear to miss a single second of the story. Part of the reason why I enjoyed the story so much has to do with the main character of Cathy, who ended up feeling more like a friend rather than a character in a book. I had to keep reading to see if the story was going to pan out as I thought that it would and what implications this meant for Cathy. I was so wrapped up in the story that I didn’t realise just how quickly the time was passing and just how quickly I was getting through the book. All too quickly I reached the end of ‘The Runaway Girl’ and had to say goodbye to Cathy and the others. I found ‘The Runaway Girl’ to be a gripping, dramatic and at times rather tense story, which certainly kept me guessing.
‘The Runaway Girl’ is superbly written. Elsie has an easy going writing style that is easy to get used to and easy to get along with. Elsie certainly knows how to grab the reader’s attention and draw them into what proves to be one hell of a story and then some. I love the fact that the story is set in and around South Shields, which at the time of the story was part of County Durham – and still is to some of us. South Shields is a place very close to my heart as most of the paternal side of my family come from there. Elsie clearly cares about her characters and this shines through in the very vivid and realistic way in which she describes them. She makes her characters seem just as real as you and I. As I mentioned earlier, Cathy ended up feeling more like a friend rather than a character in a book. Reading ‘The Runaway Girl’ certainly took me on an unpredictable rollercoaster ride with all the ups and downs, twists and turns and so on and so forth. I found that I ended up going through the same emotions that the different characters went through. I love the way in which Elsie makes the reader feel as though they are part of the story and at the heart of the action. That’s how I felt anyway.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The Runaway Girl’ and I wholeheartedly recommend the book to other readers. In fact ‘The Runaway Girl’ has to be one of my favourite reads of 2024 so far. I look forward to reading much more of Elsie’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.
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