Convergence by John Needham

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A gentle and thought provoking inter-racial love story.

About the book: Martin is a bachelor, a house renovator who has retired to a cottage in the beautiful South Shropshire Hills. His final project is a pair of stone cottages: one for himself and his springer spaniel to live in; the other to rent out to supplement his pension.
Lily’s parents came to Britain from the West Indies on the Empire Windrush in 1948 in search of a new beginning. She has spent her life as one of the first generation of British-born black people, suffering prejudice in her early life. Also retired, Lily seeks a place in the country for her twilight years too.
Their disparate life-lines meet when Lily becomes Martin’s tenant. Just when they’d both thought it would never happen again, romance, surprisingly passionate romance, blossoms. This gentle story of inter-racial love in the autumn of life is at once poignant and uplifting – and it is angry, raging against tribalistic hatred and fear of the outsider. There is ultimate sadness as the two lost souls coalesce but their convergence is also life-affirming; a celebration of intrinsic human kindness.

Review by Susan Keefe

Having enjoyed carrying out many house renovations, when Martin Spencer decides to stop, and make the second of a pair of cottages an income, by renting it out, he discovers that being a landlord isn't as easy as he thought it would be.

Martin had married, very young, Judith, his Indian landlord's beautiful daughter, and they had had two children. Never racist, he welcomes his new black tenant Lily Richards, who has found herself sadly alone in the world in later life too. Very soon they are enjoying each other's company, and an easy friendship develops.

As Martin and Lily share their very different lives with each other, the reader, gains an insight into the prejudices, from both sides, associated with mix marriages through the decades.

The book actually continues into the future, following their lives forward....

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this gentle, love story. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, there are many life lessons, nestled, within the pages of this lovely book.

At the end there is the opportunity to sample chapters from the author's new novel ‘Forebears.’

Available from Amazon.co.uk in Kindle format http://www.amazon.co.uk/Convergence-John-Needham-ebook/dp/B00A00L3D...

and also Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Convergence-John-Needham-ebook/dp/B00A00L3DI/...