#Blogtour All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

 It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour All The Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow.

About the Author

Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kent, and has extensive personal, professional, and academic experience relating to autism. Like her protagonist, Viktoria is autistic. She has presented her doctoral research internationally, most recently speaking at Harvard College on autism and literary narrative. Viktoria lives on the Margate coast with her husband and children.

About the book

I lived for and loved a bird-heart that summer; I only knew it afterwards. - Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly – her clever, headstrong daughter, now on the cusp of leaving home.

Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday’s book. Soon they are in and out of each others’ homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's polish lies something else, something darker. For Sunday has something that Vita has always wanted for herself: a daughter of her own.

Review

I think my heart broke a little for Sunday. Not sure if that was the intention, because the growth of the character or rather her ability to finally leave the expectations of the demands of society behind her, which is a positive development. Instead the bigger picture of the way Sunday is perceived, misunderstood and treated, is what I found most poignant.

The transition from trying to adapt to societal norms to make everyone else feel more comfortable about her to finally being able to lay that aside and just be Sunday - it's a powerful message about the way we perceive neurodivergence in our society.

Dolly is unfortunately also part of that unjust scale. Only really experiencing her mother's traits as inconvenient and perhaps even embarrassing - not really understanding how hard Sunday tries to curb the instinct and overrule the uncomfortable. Indeed her place in society as an adult is tolerated and Sunday is done unto instead of with or for.

Why is the expectation always - without fail I might add - how to conform and both blend and bend to fit in instead of acceptance of what can't be changed. There is no niche for neuro-divergency, because each person on the spectrum has a combination that is individual to themselves, and the common traits are an assumption of sameness, which means the vast differentiation isn't seen or catered for the way it should be.

It's a beautiful work of literary fiction - poignant and memorable, it will certainly leave a lasting impression on readers, regardless of how they experience Sunday's story. 

Buy All the Little Bird-Hearts at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Tinder Press: pub date 2nd March 2023 | £16.99 | Hardback- also available in Ebook. Buy at Amazon com. Buy via Tinder Press. 

#BlogTour The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

 It's my turn on the BlogTour The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd.

About the Author

Sue Monk Kidd is the author of The Secret Life of Bees, one of the most beloved novels of the 21st century. It spent 2.5 years on the New York Times bestseller list, and has sold over 8 million copies worldwide. It was long-listed for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction) and made into a film starring Sophie Okonedo, Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson. Sue’s subsequent novels, The Mermaid Chair, The Invention of Wings and now The Book of Longings, were all New York Times bestsellers.

Sue is also the author of several non-fiction books including the New York Times bestseller Travelling with Pomegranates, co-written with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. Sue lives in Florida. 

Follow @suemonkkidd on Twitter, Visit suemonkkidd.com, Buy The Book of Longings

About the book

Ana is born in Galilee at a time when women are seen as possessions, only leaving their fathers’ homes to marry. Ana longs to control her destiny. Taught to read despite her mother’s misgivings, she wants to be a writer and to find her own voice. A voice that will speak for the silenced women around her.

Betrothed to an elderly widower, Ana almost despairs. But an encounter with a charismatic young carpenter in Nazareth awakens new longings in her, and a different future opens up. Yet this is not a simple love story. Ana’s journey will bring both joy and tragedy, but it will also be enriched by the female friendships she makes along the way.

The Book of Longings is an exquisite tale of dreams and desire, and of the power of women to change the world

Review

I absolutely loved this book. I was impressed by the way the author has interspersed the read with the topics of faith, religion, the marginalisation of women and the changing perception of Christianity as the concept absorbed new ideas over time.

It is very much a story of the invisible, oppressed gender - made silent and forced to bow down to the whims of a male dominated society. Ana is a girl who yearns to be acknowledged and treated like the son her father wishes she were. She is a scholar, and yet the society she lives in will never let her be one. The reality of her situation comes in the form of a rude awakening when she is more or less given away like chattel. It changes everything.

The author is an excellent storyteller, which is especially evident in the way Jesus - with all his centuries of reputation and status as a martyr for the cause - becomes almost inconsequential in comparison to Ana. Instead the plight of women and girls takes centre stage in this reimagining of life during the times of Jesus of Nazareth. I think the most poignant aspect of that is the fact not very much has changed at all and depending on what country you live in - nothing has changed at all.

Aside from the very real possibility of what the life of the real man would have looked liked, as opposed to the changed narrative we all know, which of course portrayed a man of virtue, the suggested scenario is probably more likely. I am sure scholars and zealots will have plenty to grumble about when it comes to this story, but it doesn't change the fact it's a cracking read.

Buy The Book of Longings at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher : Tinder Press pub date 21 April 2020) 18th March 2021 I £8.99 I Paperback. Buy at Amazon com.

#BlogTour The Carer by Deborah Moggach

Today it's my turn on the BlogTour The Carer by Deborah Moggach.

About the Author
Deborah Moggach, OBE is an English novelist and an award-winning screenwriter. She has written nineteen novels, including The Ex-Wives, Tulip Fever, These Foolish Thing, Heartbreak Hotel and Something to Hide. She lives in London.

Follow on Goodreads, on Amazon, Visit deborahmoggach.com, Buy The Carer

About the book
From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever, a deliciously funny, poignant and wry novel, full of surprising twists and turns: James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy’s virtues, their shopping trips and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss.

Then something extraordinary happens which throws everything into new relief, changing all the stories of their childhood - and the father - that they thought they knew so well.

Review
The aspect I particularly loved about this story was the caretaking of an elderly parent, something I think the majority of us can relate to. If you have to make the choice between becoming the carer or getting a carer there are multiple hurdles to overcome. If you are the carer you know that eventually you will have to cross boundaries of intimacy, which will change your relationship forever.

If a stranger gets that role then you have to put your parent in that same position of having to share things or need help in areas they have up till that point always been able to do themselves. You need an incredible amount of trust.

Mandy, the carer, seems like the perfect solution until her relationship appears too friendly, and James is acting like a completely different man. How can the man who neglected them be so close to a stranger? Phoebe and Robert might come off as middle-aged children behaving like jealous brats at times, but at the core the issues of trust and concern are very much alive and well.

It's an emotional story of family, relationships - love isn't always experienced or perceived the way we expect it be. This family is no exception to that rule.

Moggach plucks the veils from the often hidden complex family dynamics and serves them up for readers with a portion of humility and honesty. We only know what a person is willing to show us and share with us. Our parents are often the biggest secrets we will ever encounter.

Buy The Carer at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Tinder Press: 14 May 2020. Buy at Amazon com.

#BlogTour The Den by Abi Maxwell

Today it's my turn on the BlogTour The Den by Abi Maxwell. It's historical fiction, and it is also women's fiction.

About the Author
Abi Maxwell is the author of an acclaimed story collection, Lake People, and her fiction has also appeared in McSweeney’s. She studied writing at the University of Montana and now lives in New Hampshire, where she grew up, with her husband and son.

Buy The Den

About the book
A hypnotic story of youth, sex and power.
A story of two women cast out by the same community though separated by a hundred years. A story of two extraordinary, magnetic women and their disappearances - a hundred years apart - from
the small New England town they call home.

Henrietta and Jane are growing up in a farmhouse on the outskirts of town, their mother a remote artist, their father in thrall to the folklore and legend of their corner of New England. When Henrietta falls under the spell of Kaus, an outsider and petty criminal, Jane takes to trailing the couple, spying on their trysts, until one night, Henrietta vanishes into the woods.

Elspeth and Claire are sisters separated by an ocean. Elspeth’s pregnancy at seventeen meant she was quickly married and sent away from her Scottish village to make a new life in America. When she comes to the attention of the local mill owner, a series of wrenching and violent events unfolds, culminating in her disappearance.

As Jane and Claire search in their own times for their missing sisters, each uncovers the strange legend of Cold Thursday, and of a family apparently transformed into coyotes. But what does his myth really mean?

Are their sisters dead, destroyed by the men who desired them? Or have they made new lives, elsewhere, beyond the watchful eyes of the community they longed to escape?

Review
At the beginning of the book and during the first few chapters the story of Henrietta is narrated by her younger sister Jane. I must admit it was a great intro and paved the way for the rest of the story.

She paints a picture of her older sister Henrietta, the Lolita.The precocious teenager who is discovering her power over both boys and men. Henrietta treats her sister with disdain, well actually everyone, with that special brand of teenage disdain.

Although the women have a lot in common there are certain differences. Henrietta's story is a coming-of-age one, whereas when the reader meets Elspeth she has already overcome those stages in her life. The two of them share the fact they were both pregnant as teenagers. Elspeth is sent overseas under a cloud of scandal and Henrietta just disappears one day.

In a way it is an example of the time periods that lay between them. How the woman in the 1850s has less choice and more obstacles in her way than the teenager in the more modern era. On the other side of the lives of these women are the sisters. Jane and Claire, who have been left behind by Elspeth and Henrietta.

Whilst the reader learns what the disappearance means to the sister left holding up the rest of the family and the impact it has on those left behind, they are also eager for Henrietta and Elspeth to be safe and independent.

It's historical fiction, and it is also women's fiction. A story that speaks of oppression, rape, manipulation and also of strength, perseverance and a strong will to survive. At the same time it also takes a look at the often complex relationships between sisters. How discord and disagreements doesn't negate the bond between them. Women are the glue that keeps families together, and yet they are also the weapon that has the capability to destroy them.

I really enjoyed the read. I especially enjoyed the voice of Jane and the relationship between her and Henrietta. It was realistic in its assessment of the complexity that exists between two women bound by blood.

Buy The Den at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.  Publisher: Tinder Press Hardback; pub date 16th May 2019. Buy at Amazon com.

#BlogTour The Six Loves of Billy Binns by Richard Lumsden

Today it's my turn on the BlogTour The Six Loves of Billy Binns by Richard Lumsden. The life of an old man seen through his own frame of references. His sense of nostalgia about his escapades and relationships.

About the Author
Richard Lumsden has worked as an actor, writer and composer in television, film and theatre for 30 years. As an actor his films include Downhill, Sightseers, Sense & Sensibility and The Darkest Hour, as well as numerous television shows and theatre productions. THE SIX LOVES OF BILLY BINNS is his first novel.

Follow @lumsdenrich @TinderPress
Visit richardlumsden.com
Buy The Six Loves of Billy Binns

Billy Binns - A note from the author: I was twenty-seven in 1992 and living in Shepherd’s Bush when I first had the idea for this book. Inspired by old photographs on the walls of the library (now the Bush theatre) of trams on the Green, and an old white arch beside the central line station, I mapped out Billy’s story but became daunted by the amount of research required to detail all of the last century and turned to writing TV & radio scripts instead.

In 2000, I discovered a series of booklets published by the Shepherd’s Bush Local History Society. I phoned their secretary, Joan Blake, who invited me to their monthly meetings in the back of St Luke’s Church on the Uxbridge Road. Over the next few months I listened to stories of growing up in W12 through the 20s, 30s & 40s, and watched slide shows featuring the exhibition palaces and canals at White City. With the kind help of Joan and her friends I was finally able to get started. It took me eighteen months to research and write part one of the novel. Then, faced with more intensive bouts of historical research for parts two to five, I decided I wasn’t cut out to write novels and abandoned the idea.

By 2009, having already worked on a couple of plays for BBC Radio 4, I decided to write ‘The Six Loves Of Billy Binns’ as a play too. It still needed more research but a 45 minute radio script was less daunting than going back to the novel. In 2009 Sir Tom Courtenay gave Billy his voice, and the radio play, of which I’m very proud, still gets repeated from time to time. However, I knew I’d bottled out by not telling Billy’s story as originally intended.

In 2015 I turned fifty, and at a very different stage of life, twenty-three years after starting part one of the novel. A supportive literary agent encouraged me to get it finished. I went back to my Shepherd’s Bush Local History Society booklets and took another two years to complete a draft to send out to publishers.

It’s a story about love, disappointment, and the flaws that make us human. Billy has a tendency to re-interpret his own history, but ultimately he’s an ordinary man who lived an ordinary life, and I hope the readers might take him to heart on his journey to remember what love feels like.

About the book

The Six Loves of Billy Binns is a deeply moving, bittersweet century-spanning debut set in London against the backdrop of the changing 20th century. It is reading group fiction perfect for those who loved the quirky pathos of Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and the warmth and humour of Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

At well over a hundred years old, Billy Binns believes he’s the oldest man in Europe and knows his days are numbered. But Billy has a final wish: he wants to remember what love feels like one last time.
As he looks back at the relationships that have coloured his life - and the events that shaped the century - he recalls a lifetime of hope and heartbreak.
This is the story of an ordinary man’s life, an enchanting novel which takes you on an epic yet intimate journey that will make you laugh, cry, and reflect on the universal turmoil of love.

Review
As Billy reminisces about his long life he does so from his care home and often when he is walking through the many memories he has. There are plenty of those after over a century of lived moments. At times it is hard to differentiate where Billy is at any given moment, sometimes he is right there in the moment and other times he is just muttering about the past.

It's a sweet premise, however it is defined by the one voice and one character approach to the story, which means a subjective experience. So with all of Billy's loves there is no attempt to view his story from anything other than his own, as opposed to his many loves and their points of view.

Perhaps Evie would have seen his escapades in a slightly more negative light, and his other conquests might have had a word or two to say about it too. It's written very much in a boys will be boys jargon with crude language and especially when referencing women's anatomy.

The story seems disjointed at times, perhaps because it has a screenplay or radio show feel to it. In fact I can imagine myself listening to Billy tell me all about his life, loves, trials and tribulations. It has the feel of a Hendrik Groen, but with less political posturing and wit. I think the charm it tries to evoke gets lost in the selfish and thoughtless actions of Billy. It's hard to engage with a character who is so fundamentally flawed and yet in awe of his own choices.

This is the difference between Billy Binns and Harold Fry or Eleanor Oliphant. The latter two acknowledge their imperfections and mistakes. As it stands Billy Binns is an old man living in the past thinking about the most important romantic connections in his life and how his choices determined his path in life. It's ambitious, but has a strange pull instead of a peculiar charm. The life of an old man seen through his own frame of references. His sense of nostalgia about his escapades and relationships.

Buy The Six Loves of Billy Binns at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.
Publisher: Tinder Press; pub date 24 Jan. 2019

#BlogTour The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola

Today it's a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola. It's a sort of Jane Eyre meets Christie with a gothic atmosphere. - Out in Paperback on the 10th January 2019.

Photo of Anna Mazzola - copyright Lou Abercrombie

About the Author
Anna is a writer who, due to some fault of her parents, is drawn to peculiar and dark historical subjects. Her novels have been described as literary crime fiction or historical crime. Anna's influences include Sarah Waters, Daphne Du Maurier, Shirley Jackson and Margaret Atwood.

Her debut novel, The Unseeing, is based on the life of a real woman called Sarah Gale who was convicted of aiding a murder in London in 1837. Her second novel, The Story Keeper, follows a folklorist’s assistant as she searches out dark fairytales and stolen girls on the Isle of Skye in 1857.

She studied English at Pembroke College, Oxford, before becoming a human rights and criminal justice solicitor. She now tries to combine law with writing and child wrangling, to varying degrees of success.Anna loves to hear from readers, so do say hello on social media or via her website.

Follow @Anna_Mazz @TinderPress On Instagram On Facebook
Visit Annamazzola.com
Buy The Story Keeper

About the book
Audrey Hart is on the Isle of Skye to collect the word-of-mouth folk tales of the people and communities around her. It is 1857, the Highland Clearances have left devastation and poverty, and the crofters are suspicious and hostile, claiming they no longer know their stories. Then Audrey discovers the body of a young girl washed up on the beach and the crofters tell her that it is only a matter of weeks since another girl has disappeared. They believe the girls are the victims of the spirits of the unforgiven dead. Initially, Audrey is sure the girls are being abducted, but then she is reminded of her own mother, a Skye woman who disappeared in mysterious circumstances. It seems there is a link to be explored, and Audrey may uncover just what her family have been hiding from her all these years.

Review
Folklore is a way of passing on the stories of a people and their culture. It is also a way of passing on mythology and fairy-tales to the next generations. Folklore fuels fear, paranoia and mistrust, but it can also be conducive to bonding, feeling safe and a sense of community, especially on an isolated island.

Audrey has taken a job on the remote island of Skye in order to connect with her past and escape from the present. She has been employed to collect the stories of the islanders, the tales of the fae folk. The stories that can compel people to set fire to young girls or bury babies alive, in order to keep the fae happy.

They aren't the cute tiny magical beings of fairy tales changed to be more kid friendly, they are the creatures of nightmares and shadows of daymares. This is what the islanders believe, and also the reason every single possible crime and odd event is automatically blamed on the fae.

When young girls start going missing and one of them turns up dead the rumours are clear, the fae have reason to be displeased and are taking the girls. Audrey thinks there is a more human element to the situation, but is distracted and blocked at every turn of her attempt to gain clarity. It isn't long before the fae start to show her the error of her ways.

I really enjoyed the way the author hid a crime story in the middle of this tale of folklore, magic and paranoia. Mazzola hits the nail on the head when it comes to the seclusion of the population and the almost hermit-like behaviour of the majority of the population. She doesn't neglect the reasons for the hunger, despair and cruelty, which drives many of them into an early grave or on to supposedly greener pastures.

Mazzola gives the reader a combination of an old school classic vibe with a contemporary feel to it. A sort of Jane Eyre meets Christie, and a wee bit of gothic atmosphere mixed in to boot.

Buy The Story Keeper at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.
Publisher: Tinder Press
Paperback pub date 10 Jan 2019
Kindle Pub. Date 31st May 2018, Hardcover 26 July 2018 (Tinder Press)

The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola

Folklore is a way of passing on the stories of a people and their culture. It is also a way of passing on mythology and fairy-tales to the next generations. Folklore fuels fear, paranoia and mistrust, but it can also be conducive to bonding, feeling safe and a sense of community, especially on an isolated island.

Audrey has taken a job on the remote island of Skye in order to connect with her past and escape from the present. She has been employed to collect the stories of the islanders, the tales of the fae folk. The stories that can compel people to set fire to young girls or bury babies alive, in order to keep the fae happy.

They aren't the cute tiny magical beings of fairy tales changed to be more kid friendly, they are the creatures of nightmares and shadows of daymares. This is what the islanders believe, and also the reason every single possible crime and odd event is automatically blamed on the fae.

When young girls start going missing and one of them turns up dead the rumours are clear, the fae have reason to be displeased and are taking the girls. Audrey thinks there is a more human element to the situation, but is distracted and blocked at every turn of her attempt to gain clarity. It isn't long before the fae start to show her the error of her ways.

I really enjoyed the way the author hid a crime story in the middle of this tale of folklore, magic and paranoia. Mazzola hits the nail on the head when it comes to the seclusion of the population and the almost hermit-like behaviour of the majority of the population. She doesn't neglect the reasons for the hunger, despair and cruelty, which drives many of them into an early grave or on to supposedly greener pastures.

Mazzola gives the reader a combination of an old school classic vibe with a contemporary feel to it. A sort of Jane Eyre meets Christie, and a wee gothic atmosphere mixed in to boot.

Buy The Story Keeper at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.
Kindle Pub. Date 31st May 2018, Hardcover 26 July 2018 (Tinder Press)
Follow @Anna_Mazz @TinderPress
Visit Annamazzola.com