Ellen recommends... Wandering Souls - Cecile Pin

Ellen recommends... This is a beautifully written and accomplished debut novel. I found it profoundly affecting, and there are certainly parallels to be drawn between the way refugees were treated in the 1980s, when this book is largely set, and Britain today. Despite heavy themes and subject matter, I found it very easy to read and could hardly put it down.

An extraordinary story of the journey of one young family through love, loss and unwavering hope. There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies - everything in between is speculation. One night, not long after the last American troops leave Vietnam, siblings Anh, Thanh and Minh flee their village and embark on a perilous boat journey to Hong Kong.

Their parents and four younger siblings make the crossing in another vessel but as weeks go by it becomes clear that only one party has survived the voyage. Anh, Thanh and Minh suddenly find themselves alone in the world, without family or home. They travel on, navigating refugee camps and resettlement centres until, by a twist of fate, they arrive in Thatcher's Britain.

Here they must somehow build new lives with only each other to turn to, but will that be enough in a place that doesn't seem to want them? In this piercing debut, the siblings' faltering journey is deftly interwoven with the voice of their lost younger brother, Dao, following them from a place between the living and the dead, and the records of an unknown researcher intent on gathering the strands of their story.