For me, The Light at the End of the Day was a good book. It was very nearly a great book, but there were just a couple of things that, in my opinion, stopped the book from flowing as it could have and made it, at times, slow to get through.

I really enjoyed getting to know the characters. Despite many of them being flawed, I found them relatable and believable. The trouble with this was, I wanted to know them more. There were a lot of characters and I felt that very few of them were explored and explained adequately. I found myself forgetting who was who at times. Many of my favourite characters just disappeared until they were briefly mentioned again at the end. I wanted more from and about many of the personalities in the story.

I loved the setting/s which were so far removed from anything I've experienced. Despite this, though, I did find the frequent place and time hopping a bit difficult to keep up with at times and regularly found myself flipping back to remember what year I had been in in relation to the section I was about to begin.

I also felt that there were a few occasions where the build up to a certain event/change/moment was insufficient. There was often a lot of talking about what seemed like fairly unimportant parts of the story and then something fairly major would happen, seemingly out of nowhere (or maybe I'm just not good at picking up on subtle hints?!). I felt as though more build up would have made the story and characters more compelling.

Despite the above comments, however, I was so impressed by the originality of this story. It is truly unlike anything I've ever read before. I would certainly recommend it to lovers of historical fiction (though I would perhaps warn them of the few faults).

Many thanks to the author, Better Reading and Harper Collins for allowing me a sneak peek preview in exchange for my honest review.