Review: There's No Place Like Home

There's No Place Like Home by Jane Lovering
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Join Izzy and five random strangers camping on the Yorkshire Moors for a new reality TV show where groups attempt to find proof of mythical creatures which roam outdoor spaces like the Beast of Bodmin Moor, or in Izzy's group's case, an alleged puma.

Izzy is more motivated by the £100 a day salary which, if she lasts the full 30 days, will give her enough money to put down a deposit on a flatshare than the share of £250,000 for incontrovertible proof that the animal exists, although it would mean an end to sofa-surfing in friend's flats.

Joining Izzy is misery-guts Mac from Glasgow, a Notting Hill socialite called Kanga who thought it would be more like Love Island, a married farmer called Seb, a young very religious girl called Ruth, and an American Big-Foot hunter called Junior.

Everyone has their own reasons for agreeing to be on the show, and everyone has their secrets, is anyone who they seem? But as they fight the elements and track the mysterious puma, is someone laying false trails or is there really something out there?

This was pleasant enough, but I didn't really get engaged. Maybe I needed the book to either start earlier in the story or continue after the reality TV show ended. Either way, I just felt like the problems each of the characters faced were told to the reader rather than being shown and, as a consequence, were less vivid. Not, in my opinion, one of Jane Lovering's better works.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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