Norton is really good at undemanding, popular fiction with emotional weight and something to say about the vagaries of contemporary life ... Forever Home is effortlessly readable – mainly thanks to its reliance on explanatory speech rather than descriptive prose – possessed of a super twist and full of rounded characters to keep close to your heart.
Forever Home is likely to please a great many people with its gently humorous, clear and unfussy writing ... Norton is good on bristling relationships and catty exchanges ... A pleasant and pleasurable read.
Norton skilfully interweaves some sections of narrative from the points of view of these, now adult, children ... Norton creates an iconic Irish mammy in the redoubtable person of Moira, Carol’s mother.
Norton... misses the mark ... The family dramas... are evocatively rendered, but the oddly downplayed central traumas clash with the mildly humorous tone. Despite its zany plot, this is more limp than madcap.
