#Blogtour The Better Brother by Simon Gravatt

It's my turn on the Blogtour The Better Brother by Simon Gravatt.

About the Author

Simon Gravatt is a first-time novelist who lives in South London. He's drawn from personal experience as a brother and business owner to write his tale of sibling rivalry and the combustibility of small business. Simon is married with two adult children. Follow @SimonGravatt, Visit simongravatt.net

About the book

Michael Merriweather despises his brother. He never wants to see Jack again. But then their father dies and leaves a will that requires the warring siblings to run the family funeral business together as a condition of them receiving their inheritance. As a result, the brothers face a series of difficult decisions that will change their lives.

Michael and Jack are at each other from the word go. Their opposing views on how to run the business descends into a very personal conflict that will have catastrophic consequences. Soon, all that matters to each of them is a burning desire to come out on top and prove himself to be the better brother.

Layers of festering resentment are gradually unpeeled in this darkly comic tale of sibling rivalry, laced with the power, passion, reprisals and everyday friction of family business.

Review

Ahh, sibling rivalry. This natural sense of needing to best the other, but for what purpose in the end. It's an issue that can cloud relationships, and often those relationships turn toxic or become a major stress factor.

For Michael and Jack the truth of their strained relationship is about to be tried, tested and put on display for the world to see. The death of their father, and subsequently his intention to create a bridge between the two, leads to upheaval and the kind of confrontation they have both been avoiding.

The story also explores the topic of acceptance, forgiveness, power and dysfunctional family relationships. Are the brothers primed for their reaction to each other, making a clash inevitable, and should the finger be pointing elsewhere because of that. There is a book club question in the back that I found quite intriguing, whether the fact they were two brothers mattered, and not two sisters, thereby exploring preconceived ideas about sibling rivalry and contention in the frame of a specific gender.

I wonder if this is the end or whether the author will revisit the two brothers as they grow, or not, and age? Explore what happens at the end of the book a bit more. Aside from giving readers the fraught tension between two brothers and their emotional warfare, it's a read that has a serious reflective side to the fictional plot dynamic - one that perhaps many can relate to.

Buy The Better Brother at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: RedDoor Press, £8.99 PB. Buy at Amazon com. At Red Door Press.