AUTHOR STEVIE TURNER is a novelist from “across the Pond”, Great Britain. “THE DONOR” is my first read of her lengthy list of novels. Now,I am excited to read every novel she has written.
In “THE DONOR”, Ms. Turner has crafted a novel with characters so well developed, you instantly visualize their physical appearances and through her real descriptions of their personalities, through “their” thoughts and words, you feel you KNOW them as living human beings. I found her writing style to be very unique. I have been a voracious reader for over sixty years and must confess I have never read any book that is outside the traditional “first persone” or “third person” point of view. I was immediately quite impressed that Ms. Turner has written “THE DONOR” with each character’s individual point of view.
I am amazed at how Ms Turner deftly switches between her characters to pen a very touching novel. ‘The Donor’ opens in 1970 with the end of a three day band festival, a sort of British version of America’s infamous ‘Woodstock’ of 1969. The reader is introduced to Clare Ronson, who at almost 19 had secreted away three days earlier with her best friend Ruth to attend the festival, unbeknownst to her father Donald and mother Marian. Her father, a doctor and her mother, a nurse are upper-middle class and devoted to Claire and her older sister, Isabel (“Izzy”), At the end of the festival, having been awake for three days and nights, she has her food stolen, and she is penniless. We then meet “Ross Tyler”, a blond Adonis, her “Knight in Shining Armor”. He provides her with an apple. He wraps a protective arm around her and offers to take her to the Ferry Station and assure her safe passage home. They spend several hours together, hitching a ride with a farmer to the Ferry boat station. Claire instantly falls in love with Ross and is positive he will be her “soul mate”. Ross invites her to a local Pub, where he and his band will be performing the following Saturday night. She agrees. She knows, however that her father will never approve of Ross, an art student and guitar player /singer in a rock band.
Once home, she finds her sister Izzy is home from the University, where she is a medical student. She tells Izzy all about the festival and her meeting Ross. She learns from Izzy that she has broken off her relationship with her long-time boyfriend, Jeff. She invites Izzy to the pub to meet Ross and watch the band’s performance. Izzy accepts and they tell their parents they are going to visit her friend Ruth. Events unfold from there, taking the reader through the next three decades with many twists and turns, incidents unfold which tears the family apart. The reader is gripped as each character describes the incidents through their individual point of view. The ending will blow your mind!
“THE DONOR” is a love story that has all of the characters intertwined. Reading how each character views the evolving events in “real time” through the years is unique and makes “THE DONOR” one of the very BEST novels I have read in the last eighteen months. I LOVED it!
I give “THE DONOR” FIVE STARS, would give more if allowed. I highly recommend it. Ms. Turner is a true professional. Now, I will purchase every novel this extremely talented Author has written. A list of her novels appears in the front of “THE DONOR”. Oh, did I mention that Ms. Turner has used a lot of true English slang, and I loved it.
