Another Big Thank You

Over the weekend, I received an incredibly thoughtful and generous response to Sanctuary from the book reviewer and graphic designer, Rosie Chomet @rosiechomet (full review reproduced below).

That anyone should spend six or seven hours reading the novel means a lot. But when someone engages with it in this depth and describes it so elegantly, the feeling of gratitude is almost decommissioning.     

The book post design is a work of art too. Thank you again, Rosie - very much indeed!

"Some books teach you, some move you, and some keep you turning the pages; Sanctuary, Tom Gaisford's debut, does all three.

The concept is ingenious: refugee lawyer Alex Donovan poses as an asylum seeker in order to expose the system's injustices.

Alex cares deeply, but he's imperfect, and he finds himself signed off with stress, facing demotion to the firm's billing department, unable to help those he desperately wants to.

Then there's Amy, a junior barrister who's captured his attention, but is out of reach. I'm not usually one for romance, but Alex is drawn to Amy for her character and integrity, not just her looks, and I was rooting for him in his audacious plan to win her over.

The author spent a decade as an immigration and asylum barrister, and it shows: you feel like you're in the law offices and courts, sharing his frustrations with the system.

Not knowing the law (my gap, not the book's), the legal detail pulled me out of the story at times, but like a Swingball I quickly came back round.

Gaisford handles weighty subjects without it feeling too heavy, balancing darker scenes with real wit. Just as the plot tipped into the far-fetched (or so it seemed), he reins it in, and the sobering moments really hit home.

There's beautiful writing too. One particular image I won't forget: the National Theatre 'morphs from shamrock green to warm sunset red, majestic like a Rothko monochrome, tightly framed by the night sky.'

The sharp dialogue and Alex being sidelined at work reminded me of Slow Horses, and I can see it working brilliantly as a TV series. It also reminded me of Little Prisons by Ilona Bannister, another novel showing how compassion can change the lives of people society overlooks.

Gaining empathy through fiction is one of the main things I seek through reading, and Sanctuary gave me a sense of how dehumanising immigration removal centres can be.

A timely story about dignity, belief, and love of every kind, asking what it means to do the right thing in an inherently flawed system. Eye-opening, witty, and brimming with humanity.

Thank you to the author for the gifted (and now rather battered as I could not put it down!) copy."