A character-driven examination of how one profound event, in this case finding an injured boy in a field, can dramatically alter one’s outlook on life forever. This was not a mystery or a psychological suspense as I had initially thought. But it was an intense and heartfelt look at the lives and actions of the three children who discovered the body. This isn’t the type of book that I normally read, but I enjoyed the overall flow of it and felt that I really got to know each of the characters.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Harper and Margot Livesey for my complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

From the description of this book, I was ready for an intense mystery as these siblings found a boy in a field and they try to solve the mystery. Those elements were in this book, but it was just missing that heart pounding ingredient were you are barely able to flip the page fast enough to find out the mystery.

I think the author included too many other sub plot lines that took away from the main one from a cheating father to relationship drama to the question of who is my birth mother - all good storylines, but they felt as though they were distractions from the main plot.

This was one of those books that was fine, but I can't recommend to anyone because it just didn't work for me.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

I like how the opening is one long paragraph that draws the reader in, I like the way information is distributed. For example, “Zoe was the one who spotted something through the hedge. She had a gift for finding things: birds’ nests, their mother’s calculator, a missing book, a secret.”
Brilliant.

The boy, who’s been stabbed, recovers thanks to the help of the teenagers but it sets off a lot of questions for the teens mainly who could have done something like this and why. Each one will cope with the aftermath of this crime in different ways. Matthew by trying to find out the assailant, Zoe who is growing up and trying to find love and Duncan who decides to look for his birth mother.

I really loved this book because I think the author does a great job of showing us how each child is maturing and coming into their own. Along the way the teens start to think about their own parents as people they love but also people who make mistakes. It almost made it into my favorites of the year list but definitely gets an honorable mention.

I enjoyed this book and read it quickly. The first thing that grabbed me was the cover, but I'm also automatically interested in anything having to do with sibling or family relationships. This book tells the story of three siblings who find victim of a violent crime laying in the middle of a field on their way home school and how their lives change as a result of the encounter. It's an exploration of how three people can witness the same thing, take away different pieces, and be impacted in completely different ways.

I was expecting the book to be darker, for the children to be less mature, for the story's resolution not to come off as such a perfectly tied bow. The book was a little dark, but I wouldn't call it scary, a thriller, or even too much of a mystery though it's that, too. All three of the children are unbelievably mature, thoughtful, charming, and wise beyond their years. Everything ends up resolved in a pretty nice, non-controversial way. I surprised myself with the fact that none of these points bothered me in the least (I would have expected them to!) or prevented me from enjoying the prose and the heartfelt storytelling. I enjoyed the complexity of the characters, although the mother was maybe the most poorly crafted for me, followed by the father. I adored Duncan, his patience, his heart, and his wisdom.

I can understand why other reviewers point out how unrealistic the children seem, given that all three are incredibly intelligent, intuitive, thoughtful, and wise - albeit in different ways. I've known plenty of children as wise as those in this book. Maybe some families would have one kid like any of the three in this book, but three of them?! I understand why folks might find that unrealistic. I didn't let that hinder my experience, but appreciated the warmth and care shown by the characters among themselves and with those outside of their family. The characters are written to be lovely people who have multiple opportunities to just... lose their shit, or freak out. But they never do. So I get why that might feel disingenuous for readers.

Maybe it's just what I needed to feel and read right now, and that's why I enjoyed it. There's no backstabbing, characters you're obviously to hate, nothing deeply devastating occurs. Instead, it's this mostly pleasant story about this family that really, really loves one another. Felt a bit like a rose-colored view of the world and humanity, which normally I'd avoid because I find in phony, but the book felt too good to read and the writing was too good for me to care. This felt genuine and earnest. To me it felt like a balm over the 2020 hellscape. A reminder that, oh yeah... people can be kind and patient and caring and loving. I also loved Lily the dog, knower of all things.

I understand this book might be too sweet for folks who enjoy straight mystery. To me this book is all about family, and I didn't mind that at all. The boy in the field sometimes felt ancillary (I was cool with that). The writing was lovely, subtle, well crafted. I'm interested to read more by Margot Livesey now.

Thanks to #NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest view.

Three siblings are walking home and discover a stabbing victim in a field. From there, you think the novel will turn into a whodunit. No, its a beautiful look into how the finding of the victim shapes each of their lives. Wonderfully written.

First, I absolutely adored The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey and I was super excited to see she had a new book out! The Boy in the Field was a completely different type of book from Gemma. It tells the story of three siblings Matthew, Zoe and Duncan and how they find an unconscious boy in a field on their way home from school one day. They call the police and the boy's life is saved but the siblings lives are changed after this incident. Matthew becomes obsessed with finding the boy's attacker, Zoe wanders through town looking at older men, and Duncan who has been adopted as an infant, becomes interested in finding out who his birth mother is.

I did enjoy this book overall. It was a nice, safe story about a family, and it had a happy ending. A solid coming of age book.

I enjoyed this mystery a great deal. Margot Livesey has a remarkable talent for writing about adolescent. I know she will gain new readers when people discover this book.

I loved this book. It's sort of a mystery, sort of a family saga, vaguely supernatural. All of the characters are completely endearing, and distinct in their blossoming personalities but also fully recognize their roles within the family unit. The novel feels old fashioned, in the best way, in the earnest undertone that runs through it; I loved this about it: it's complete lack of irony or self-consciousness. Wonderful!

This read like a fable and I absolutely loved it. It was a compelling mystery with substance. Everyone should pick this up!

At first I liked this story of 3 siblings finding an injured boy in a field and getting help for him. It affected all 3 in different ways, but all felt strongly affected by the experience. So far, so good.

The youngest child, 13 year old Duncan, is adopted and this experience makes him want to meet his mother. after he sees her in a dream that night. Matthew is the oldest. He wants to catch the bad guy and goes about it by teaming up with the boy's brother who was an awful downer type of personality. He also pursued his questions with the police who were quite open with him. Middle child Zoe is turning 16 and is pursuing romance with strangers after breaking up with a guy who is obviously out for his own needs. And here I had thought they were rather naive for their ages. The siblings get along remarkably well for teenagers and are not like any teens I have ever known,

About a third of the way into the book, I started wondering if the father was having an affair, something the kids were thinking about and wondering why this was thrown into the story as it really didn't fit. It was also left without some answers so that made it even odder.

The boy who was injured seemed the most sensitive of all and wasn't all that happy about being saved. His brother was the most unpleasant of the characters. I really liked Duncan and liked how his situation was handled, but as for the rest of the book, it left me thinking the first third was the best part. After that the stories seemed like filler before getting to the end.

Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

It is difficult to describe the impact this book has. Simply written, the insights into the characters of this tale are remarkable. Three siblings, who have a close relationship, find a seriously wounded young man in a field. Their actions save his life. The impact of this simple interaction has profound effects on each of these siblings. Each finds themselves reflecting on the event . These thoughts then precipitate actions that differ for each of them. The intertwining of the coming of age and the various familial dependencies are moving. This is a marvelous book; one not to be missed.

I love how a quiet story can engage the reader. Focusing on three teenage siblings, Livesey has created a coming of age story set in a small English village close to Oxford. When Matthew, Zoe and Duncan find a boy, bloody and unconscious, lying in a field as they return home from school, while there is a mystery about what happened, the story is more about how it impacted their lives. What I appreciated most about this book, is the ability of Livesey to get inside the head of all three of the teens. Yes, they are siblings, but they are all different. And I am so glad she didn’t leave me hanging. In the end I got to celebrate the adults these three, along with Karel, the boy in the field, grew into.

Three siblings have their lives changed when they encounter a bloody and unconscious boy in a field and then save his life. The author does a great job of demonstrating how three people can experience the exact same thing, but be affected by it in different ways.

"The ultimate locked room is another person's brain".

September 1999. The turn of the century was almost upon us. The Lang teenagers, Matthew 18, Zoe 16, and Duncan 13, were about to experience a life changing walk home from school. Their father, Hal, the town blacksmith and owner of the small town forge, failed to pick them up from school as expected. They started a five mile trek home along the fields bordering the road, barley on one side, cows on the other. Zoe spotted something in the field...a motionless boy, chest rising "fractionally", eye lids closed, torn shirt, and bloody legs. The youngest sibling, Duncan, returned to the road to flag down a passing car .....call an ambulance. The injured boy whispered a single word, heard differently by each teen.

Once the police station in Oxford, England was notified, Detective Hugh Price questioned each of the teens separately. The traumatic event set each teen on a journey of self-discovery. Matthew seemed fascinated by the extraordinary crime, one replete with victim and villain. He was a voracious reader of detective novels. Zoe noticed things. "Zoe was searching for something; she didn't seem to know what or whom". "Duncan had an amazing memory once he understood something". He was passionate about painting.

What was known about the victim, Karel Lustig? Karel worked the night shift at Cottage Hospital. After his shift, he planned to meet someone in Oxford but noticed that his bicycle tire was flat. He hitched a ride to town. He was found barely conscious in the field. Matthew wanted the police to work tirelessly to find Karel's attacker. Dissatisfied, he embarked upon his own investigation aided by Tomas, Karel's older brother, a milkman with "a black cloud hover[ing] around him". Zoe perceived strangers lurking everywhere. She took some risks, flying by the seat of her pants. Duncan had dreams of a dark figure beneath "the laburnum trees" summoning him. The dark vision faded. His birth mother...he must find her. Duncan felt more grounded after adopting a puppy named Lily.

Secretly, separately, each one returned to the field to look for clues...a St. Christopher's Medal and an apple peel was found. The ties that bound the Lang family were now fragile, tainted with uncertainty. Betsy Lang, the mother, was a solicitor by day and student of Greek Literature by night. She was always busy. Hal Lang, the father, worked at the forge by day and often drove into Oxford by night...a dalliance. The members of the Lang family had secrets, but they continued to support each other.

Besides the challenges faced with coming-of-age, Matthew, Zoe and Duncan had to deal with the psychological aftermath of finding the boy in the field. Duncan tried to memorize every detail of the boy by examining him closely. "Years later, he will remember him more vividly than men and women he had loved, friends he adored". "The Boy in the Field" by Margot Livesey is unsettling, providing no answers. "I thought if we could find the man, if I knew why he did what he did, things would go back to normal or I'd understand why they changed". Questions remained, many unanswered. A well written psychological, literary novel I highly recommend.

Thank you HarperCollins Publishers, Harper, and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Margot Livesey's The Boy in the Field is a wonderful combination of complexity and simplicity. Three young people walking home from school discover an injured boy in a field.

Stabbed and left by the stranger who picked him up on his way home, Karel whispers a word which each three siblings hears differently. Karel recovers, thanks to the interventions of Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan, but the lives of all four young people are changed. One traumatic incident with lasting, but different effects.

Livesey's prose tenderly examines the rippling repercussions of the one violent attack. The crime is sort of an inciting incident, and the narrative quietly follows the three siblings and the victim through their adolescence. Family dynamics play a role as the four grow into adulthood.

I loved this book. It was not at all what I expected, but it will remain one of those memorable experiences of both narrative and elegant writing that lingers for some time.

Read in March. Review scheduled for Aug.

NetGalley/Harper Collins
Literary Fiction. Aug. 11, 2020. Print length: 272 pages.

Thank you to Harper Collins Publisher and NetGalley for this ebook to read, review and enjoy.

This is a new author for me, but one I will remember. I call it a quiet book, not because it’s boring or written lazily, but because it just flows with the same intensity and you go along for the ride. Like a lazy river. It’s about a family living in England at the turn of the century. And a very enjoyable story. Quite a few nuggets, which I highlighted and may go back and enjoy again. Mostly, it’s about our relationships, and how we hold each other’s hearts in our hands. Whew.

My first Margot Lively novel was Banishing Verona in 2005. I picked it up from the remainder table and never made a better purchase. With later works like Mercury and Criminals the author moves around in time and place and has no recurring character template so each book is fresh and engrossing. The Boy in the Field uncovers yet another drama as unique as the others and revealed from the sequential viewpoints of three fully drawn individual children whose world has been tilted off balance by a random event. A satisfying read.

I was gifted a copy of this book from @netgalley and @HarperCollinsPublishers in exchange for an honest review. This book comes out August 11 ⭐⭐1/2 The Boy in the Field was an odd book and I'm not sure I am the right audience for it. It wasn't bad, it kept me interested, but there were some things I just didn't understand. Many times I felt I was reading a book wirtten long ago. I would suggest this book if you are looking for something a bit different.
#TheBoyInTheField #netgalley #HarperCollinsPublishers

What seems like a deceptively simple story becomes something else when the three Lang siblings discover an injured boy in the woods. A wonderfully complex coming of age story that is poignant and redemptive.