I was hoping this book would be more thrilling, instead it is the type of book that appeals to the readers and reviewers of the New York Times Book Review.
The story is told by three characters 2 of which were not the least bit interesting to me. Only the bomber from the IRA, was at all interesting but I was hoping for something like a Stuart Neville character, not Dan, the bomber in this book, and there wasn't enough of the book from his perspective to make slogging through the other two viewpoints, worth it.
Oh well. ( )

I can't really think of anything I didn't like about this book, and yet it was just a 3 star for me. The characters were engaging and I felt like I really got to know them, and life in Brighton in the 1980's too. I like the author's writing style - it felt effortless to read but not at all fluffy, and I didn't mind that the bombing itself wasn't the central point of the novel. I think maybe it needed a little more narrative tension. ( )

This is a well-written, character-driven novel. Yes, there's an assassination attempt but the bomb itself often feels tangential to the real story of people just trying to live their lives in a politically fraught time. (Not that that resonates at all these days.) Should make for fantastic discussion in this year's Tournament of Books. ( )

El juny de 1986 l’IRA va posar una bomba al Gran Hotel de Brighton on se celebrava una convenció anual del Partit Conservador amb la intenció de matar a la Sra. Thatcher.Hi van haver 5 morts. La M. Thatcher aquell dia havia anat a sopar a un altre hotel.
Van detenir a Patrick Magee com l’autor de l’atemptat.
L’autor novella la sospita d’una segona persona que hauria participat a la preparació dels explosius. Fa confluir la vida del director de l’hotel, la seva filla adolescent amb aquesta segona persona, un jove de l’IRA.
N'esperava més. ( )

The time period 1978-1984 was a peak period of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, what locals call The Troubles. The IRA was branching out into England with bombing, trying to turn popular English opinion into pressure against politicians to leave Northern Ireland.

Dan is a young Catholic idealist who joins the IRA to avenge the death of his father. Over in Brighton, England, Freya has left school and despite stellar A-levels is not sold on going to university. Her father Moose, the deputy manager of a fancy hotel, failed to parlay his young athletic prowess as a diver into a degree, which he blames for both the failure of his marriage and his less-than-prestigious job. He's desperate to convince Freya not to make the same mistake, but in the meantime she spends her days working the reception desk for him.

These days Moose's attention is divided between worry for Freya's future and an upcoming event at the hotel that could finally earn him the promotion he craves to feel that his life has not been wasted. The Conservative Party will hold their annual conference at this hotel. Unsurprisingly, this attracts the attention of the IRA ...

This is one of those books where all the characters are sympathetic and likable, and as I read all I could think was that nothing was going to end well for any of them. The scenes at the hotel with Moose and his staff reminded me of Stewart O'Nan's [Last Night at the Lobster] in the way it offered a peek behind the curtain that most of us never see as guests. Like O'Nan, Lee portrays his somewhat hopeless characters with an empathy that draws the reader in.

On days when ambition and regret got the better of him, when lost opportunities stuck to his shoes like bubble gum gone to ground and created ugly slouching strings that halted progress, he told himself that all human life was here (at the hotel).

Over in Belfast, Lee applies the same empathetic filter to the lives of Dan and his compatriots.

There was the rising sense ... that Belfast's carnage stole not only the victims' lives but large parts of the witnesses too. You disintegrated into the recriminations, the headlines, the pictures. You scattered yourself into proofs, warnings, suspicions, arrests. You rode out into the dark outrage of others, saw human loss shaped toward political ends, and though you hoped for the occasional gleam of uncontaminated compassion it seemed that the world was dimming.

In the end, Lee detonates bombs both externally and internally in his characters, and none of them will ever be the same. Readers might feel the same way. ( )