A train journey to Edinburgh with Henry Applebee -Celia Reynolds

Submitted: 18th September 2019

Edinburgh bound with Henry Applebee -Celia Reynolds

There’s some novels that come along and warm your heart. There are others that make you smile and make you think about your own life and the friend in it. There are novels that do all this and more. I feel I have a new set of friends now – Henry and the others in this novel. It’s delightful and charming and sad at the same time. But it’s very memorable and very moving – not just as it’s set on a train either. The journey might be from London to Edinburgh but it’s got so many twists and turns, changes of direction and flashbacks that who knows where we will all end up?

Hop aboard!

BookTrail Travel to the locations in Finding Henry Applebee

A train journey to Edinburgh with Henry Applebee -Celia Reynolds

Setting: On a train from London to Edinburgh

BookTrail Travel to the locations in Finding Henry Applebee

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Harold Fry set on a train! That’s what I first though, but then that doesn’t do the book justice in its own right. It’s unique, lovingly written and emotional.

Delightful and charming and just a tiny bit teary. Oh yes.

Set on a train that travels from London to Edinburgh, but it really is the journey that shines and matters here. Who does Henry meet on the train and who impacts his life. Whose life does he make an impression on?

Two people meet on a train and get chatting. It happens every day to many people, but who could imagine that this person could have such an impact on them? There’s several characters in the book and each comes into contact with each other at some point. Their stories intertwine, their voices carry over from one chapter to the next so you feel as if you’re on that train and meeting these people for yourself. It’s people watching booktrail style. How many times do you look at someone on a train and imagine who they are, what they do, where they are going and why? A train is the ideal place for a study of life itself, of life’s microcosms, of lives ups and downs.

BookTrail Travel to the locations in Finding Henry Applebee

And then there’s the delightful flashbacks – like the scenery flickering past the windows, it comes and goes and stays in your vision throughout the novel. We learn of Henry’s early life and his time in Blackpool, why he is on the train and who he’s going to meet. The lovely girl he meets, the trouble teen Ariel is an interesting one. Their relationship between this two is a delight to read but you really have to discover this for yourself, and meet the others as the joy of this novel is to be a fellow passenger on the train yourself.

This is an emotional read – there’s time for laughter, tears, shivers, warm hugs and more. Next time I’m on a train, I’m going to look for an Henry Applebee, Ariel and the others. I’m sure I’ll see a flicker of them in the windows as we rush through the English countryside

Delightfully emotional.