I loved this book. The characters were well developed and intriguing.
This is a heartbreaking family saga which is well written

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. A good historical fiction novel. Highly recommend. Love the cover.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Despite the high rating on Goodreads, I didn't like this book nor am I a fan of Kitson's writing. It is too choppy, tells rather than shows and the characters feel flat and are hard to follow. Not highly recommended for me.

Another great book in the byland series. Love the family saga. You will find this hard to put down. One of the best series I have ever read.

The first book in this series and I quite enjoyed it. The Cowgill family about a man (Albert) wanting to make his life better with all the up and downs of life and family, war and loss.

Slow to start but the story builds and becomes more interesting as you read on. It is interesting, love the setting as you can picture all the is happening and it makes it more real.

A good book that covers a period in time that we have all heard about but this is a new slant on it. The characters are good but at times I did get lost as there seemed to be a few too many to keep track of.

Overall a good book and I look forward to reading the next installment soon.

Bill Kitson's Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent is the heartwarming story of the Cowgill family. A story of love, loss, murder, and family drama, this book tells the story of the family as they continue through life. A great read!

Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent by Bill Kitson is the beginning of The Cowgill Family Saga. It is a touching family saga that follows the life of Albert Cowgill who is determined to escape his humble beginnings. We follow Albert has he works his way up in a wool company, marries, and starts a family. We get to meet Albert’s colleagues, neighbors, and children. When the children grow up, they marry, and have children of their own. It is a realistic story that includes life’s ups and downs. The author captured the Great War with the battles and what the people involved endured (soldiers and nurses for example). So many families were forever changed by their losses. The author did not shy away from difficult subjects. He also added characters that you would not normally find in a historical saga. Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent is an emotional novel. It was interesting to learn about the wool trade and see how it changed with the industrial revolution. The book follows the Cowgill family from 1878 through 1922. This is a story that will keep you riveted once you get into it. It is a little bit of a slow starter, but I soon found myself engrossed. I had a tough time putting it down (the dog insisted on going for his walk). I liked the author’s writing style. It made for an engaging and easy to read historical novel. Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent moved along at a good pace. I am eager to read the next installment in The Cowgill Family Saga. Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent is a dramatic saga with an ambitious Albert, the helpful Hannah, a bustling business, a fine family, a waging war, a smarmy snake in the grass, and a startling surprise.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily.
This novel is the first book in a trilogy of historical drama. It follows the fortunes of a few families in the North of England, starting before the first world war.
I found the narrative more factual than anything written by a female author, and there were just a few spelling errors. There are a great many characters, so a few family trees at the start of the book would have been helpful. I thought Ethel's illness was very strange, there was a lengthy list of symptoms but we were never told exactly what it was. Towards the end of the book Rachel describes how Mark "would take in a little soup, or gruel, even ice cream, although he was unconscious" - this is incorrect, an unconscious person cannot swallow and has no protective gag reflex so giving him food or drink could have been fatal. She also describes how she was in love with him before he awoke from his coma; I found this very strange as she knew nothing about him then, loving him only for his appearance perhaps?
Those few negative points have resulted in my removal of 1 star from my rating, because in all aspects I have enjoyed this book very much and I am going straight on to read the next in the series.

I did enjoy reading this book but feel that l might not get to know all of the characters because there are so many. It is a happy story and also a sad one. I will look forward to reading the next one to find out what happens to them all. I learnt a lot about life at that time.

This is a new author for me. After looking him up, I saw that he wrote primarily thrillers, so I will definitely add those to my TBR a list. Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent follows the Cowgill family from the late 1800s into the First World War. There is a lot of tragedy in this family. The writing was beautiful and the author made you feel like you were in history with the characters. My only criticism is there were too many characters so you didn’t get to know them. I would have appreciated more focus on a few of the characters and their personalities.

4/5 stars

I loved this book so much. The story gripped me right away and the characters were so interesting. I really got into this book and at times I actually gasped while I was reading it. It was sad at times but also there was a lot of happiness in this . I’m very excited to read the next one in this series very soon. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent by Bill Kitson

Set in 1878 , this family saga looks set to be a fabulous series.
We start off by learning about Albert Cowgirl who at aged 14 begins working at sorting through wool .
Once grown and working his way up in the company he marries well and the business becomes Ackroyd & Cowgirl . Albert and his wife ( Hannah ) do very well for themselves , have 5 children and move to the coast at Scarborough .
I very much enjoyed this first book and reading about the characters lives.
I will definitely look out for further titles in this series. For me this had an almost Catherine Cookson vibe to it and for me that is a good thing .

First of all many thanks to the author and Joffe Books for giving me the chance to read this book.
Historical Family Saga Yorkshire starting in 1878.
It's perfect for Downton Abbey fans.
Albert Cowgill starts at the age of fourteen as a wool sorter in the wool business company in Bradford working for Philip Ackroyd and Edward Haigh and is working his way up. After marrying Hannah Ackroyd the business is then known as Haigh Ackroyd & Cowgill and becomes the best business in Bradford. the couple settle in Byland Crescent Scarborough and have five children.
The history that is told in this book is so remarkable and such an interest to be read. It consists of Four parts ending in 1922. The family have lived through life and I found it fascinating all the way.
And never fault any of it and look forward to starting more to follow.

“Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent” is the first book in a historical fiction series (The Cowgill Family Saga) by Bill Kitson. This book follows, mainly, the Cowgill family from the 1870s thru WWI and into the early 1920s. Albert Cowgill, the first lead character, works with sheep and wool, starting out at a low-level job and quickly moving up the ladder at the company. Along the way, he gets married and his wife’s family is introduced to the story … then they have kids and the stories about the children (and their spouses) are told. So, through this book at times there are a lot of names to keep track (as we have a few servants, some neighbors, and other people connected to the story). Then, toward the end, of course there is WWI - where situations (and more characters!) are introduced. At its heart, this is a family saga - with love, misunderstandings, togetherness, and all the other things that bind families together (and sometimes apart). I read this book rather quickly, as it was engaging. I did have some quibbles with some of the pronouncements family members made (and their actions), but in what family is everyone perfect? I learned a little bit about the wool trade, but as the book continued it became more about business opposed to wool details. My one minor complaint is that one of the characters was presented as “the bad guy” but he was rather flat and was bad/evil just to cause tension. Some of the characters have more depth than others, but as the cast is large, that’s a common issue in books and plays.