Blog Tour Review: Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home

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☕☕☕☕

Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
Anne Goodwin

Fiction

Inspired Quill

May 29, 2021

302 pages

Amazon | Goodreads

In the dying days of the old asylums, three paths intersect.

Henry was only a boy when he waved goodbye to his glamorous grown-up sister; approaching sixty, his life is still on hold as he awaits her return.

As a high-society hostess renowned for her recitals, Matty’s burden weighs heavily upon her, but she bears it with fortitude and grace.

Janice, a young social worker, wants to set the world to rights, but she needs to tackle challenges closer to home.

A brother and sister separated by decades of deceit. Will truth prevail over bigotry, or will the buried secret keep family apart?

In this, her third novel, Anne Goodwin has drawn on the language and landscapes of her native Cumbria and on the culture of long-stay psychiatric hospitals where she began her clinical psychology career. Find out more on

Matilda Windsor’s webpage. 

My Review

Matilda Windsor is Coming Home is heartbreaking, funny and surprising all rolled into one good cup of tea.

Focused on three characters- Henry, who is holding out hope that his sister, Tilly, will someday return; Matty, a 50- year- resident in Ghyllside psychiatric hospital; and Janice, a social worker who is truly in the profession to help people.

All Henry remembers is that his sister Tilly left when he was very young, some 50 plus years ago. While he is encouraged by others to get on with his life and stop waiting around for her to come back, he just can’t seem to do so. He seems to be so stuck in the past that even his career suffers because of it and he is handed a demotion, which may just be a blessing in disguise.  He aggravated me to no end; I wanted to kick him along throughout the story and make him stop acting like such a victim. I felt he could’ve done more in looking for his sister. And Irene- I just can’t with her.  I just cannot like her.  {You’ll know what I mean when you read the book}.

Matty, in her own reality,  thinks she lives on an estate where she entertains “guests” with poetry.  (Basically, she puts on a reoccurring one woman show for the residents in the lounge). A bit out of touch with the real world, she believes not only that her mother married a prince, but that the institution’s counselors who talk to her are “journalists”, seeking out her story. {She is my favorite character, of course.  She is so comfortable in her own skin, and even though she does not have a solid grasp in reality, she does function well in her own world}.

All three characters’ stories play out on the peripheries of each other; a perfect storm brewing with none of them prepared for it to hit land.

For me, the book was a good look into the world of mental illness and the unjust treatment of women- in this case in the early 20th century. Without giving anything away, we do find out why Matty has been relinquished to Ghyllside and what her life has been like there for the last five decades.

Overall, an easy read with a good storyline. Terribly heartbreaking to think about the years lost that the two characters could’ve had together.

Author bio

Anne Goodwin grew up in the non-touristy part of Cumbria, where this novel is set. When she went to university ninety miles away, no-one could understand her accent. After nine years of studying, her first post on qualifying as a clinical psychologist was in a long-stay psychiatric hospital in the process of closing.

Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, about a woman who has kept her past identity a secret for thirty years, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize. Her second novel, Underneath, about a man who keeps a woman captive in his cellar, was published in 2017. Her short story collection, Becoming Someone, on the theme of identity, was published in November 2018. Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of prize-winning short stories.

Author links: Website | Twitter | Facebook| Inspired Quill |

 

 

 

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