Tag Archives: contemporary reads

My Review of The Inconvenient Need to Belong by Paula Smedley #RBRT #TuesdayBookBlog

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The Inconvenient Need to Belong by [Paula Smedley]

I received The Inconvenient Need to Belong from the author as a member of Rosie Amber’s Review Team #RBRT in return for an honest review.

I gave The Inconvenient Need to Belong 3*out of 5*

Book Description:

In the summer of 1953, twenty-year-old Alfie steals away from his troubled childhood home in London to start a new life in Exeter. His own life. And at first it’s everything he ever dreamed it would be. For the first time in his life Alfie feels like he belongs.

Today, in a care home in the Midlands, eighty-six-year-old Alfie is struggling to come to terms with his dark past.

Alfie’s story is one of regret, the mistakes we make, and the secrets even the most unassuming of us can hold. But it is also a story about family, friendship, the things we should treasure and protect, and how the choices we make can shape our lives and the lives of others.

My Review:

I found this book a difficult one to review.On the one hand there was much to enjoy about the story, it’s an interesting account of a man’s life: the friendships and relationships formed over a lifetime, the honest self realisation of someone nearing the end of his life, living within the controlled regime of a care home. A regime he rebels against in small ways,which emphasis the greater rebellion in his earlier life when he left home and the controlling rigid rules of his father. On the other I think an extra edit would have shortened and tightened the story, making it much stronger.

On the plus side I liked the portrayal of the protagonist, Alfie. Nicely rounded, the internal dialogue adds layers to the character as he recounts his life story. Unfortunately I didn’t get much of an insight to a lot of the other characters and I wonder if this is because there are too many minor ones, whose limited input add little to the story. However, there is another storyline that runs parallel to Alfie’s story, that of Julia. This is a much stronger portrayal and I think this character is worthy of a separate story of her own. But this is only my thought.

On the whole the dialogue is good and differentiates the characters. And there are evocative descriptions to give a few of the settings a good sense of place. And it is a poignant easy read that, I’m sure, will appeal to any reader who enjoys what reads as a fictional memoir.

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Tenby Arts Festival 2016: Day Three: Monday 26th September.

Posted on September 5, 2016

Tenby Arts Festival 2016: Day One: Saturday 24th

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Brass Ensemble

To announce the opening of the festival with a swing, a brass ensemble will perform a medley of popular musical numbers.

Outside St Mary’s Church
High Street

11am

Free

 

Book Fair                               11998866_10152946036952132_7601875809175322308_n

For the fifth year running the Book Fair is the popular opening event in Church House for the Tenby Arts Festival. We will have twenty-eight authors and two publishers for all to chat with, who are either Welsh based or have set their books in Wal12049533_502977976546241_4653897117982364739_nes. There will be three competitions this time: an adults short story competition, one for teenagers and one for children. Details to be announced separately in May through the media.
Talks, books, relaxing music, refreshments; a morning of friendly chatter and discussion – a great morning for all.

Here is what a visitor said of last year’s fair (see picture):

“This weekend I’ve attended the Book Fair at the Tenby Arts Festival. Having seen the busy London Book Fair last year and on the other end of the spectrum some deserted halls with only two tables and four attendees elsewhere, I was pleasantly surprised to find a good vibe and a great buzz in a busy hall with lots of mingling and literary delights.”

Church House
11am – 3pm

Free

 

Sand Circles

Marc Treanor

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The essence of all you see, only exists because of a very profound order of certain repeating mathematical formulas that create the foundation of all matter, from atoms to galaxies. Sacred Geometry is the ancient science that explores and explains the energy patterns that create and unify all things, and reveals the precise way that the energy of Creation organises itself. On every scale, every natural pattern of growth or movement conforms inevitably to one or more of these geometric shapes. The strands of our DNA, the cornea of our eye, snow flakes, pine cones, flower petals, diamond crystals, the branching of trees, the path of lightning, a nautilus shell, the star we spin around, the galaxy we spiral within, and all life forms as we know them emerge out of timeless geometric codes. Sacred Geometry may very well provide the answers that you have been looking for.  (http://www.maya48.com/)

The patterns Marc creates on the beaches are all inspired by sacred geometry. The idea of ‘sacredness’ transpires from the  realisation that these patterns appear everywhere from the very small, the quantum field or the microcosm, to the very large, the cosmic realms or the macrocosm.

North Beach

Free

 

Jack Harris                          Jack Harris

Jack Harris writes and performs literate, compassionate songs, about subjects as disparate as Caribbean drinking festivals, the colour of a potato flower and the lives of great poets like Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop.
These have won him considerable acclaim. The Telegraph voted his album ‘The Flame and the Pelican’ #5 in their top 10 Roots/Folk albums of 2012. Q magazine praised his ‘unique lyrical mind’, and Maverick UK awarded the record its full 10/10 rating.
Jack is happiest when playing live. He has brought his music to a loyal, ever-growing audience, at festivals, venues and skating rinks across the world. On occasion he has opened for some of Folk’s biggest names, including Anais Mitchell, Cara Dillon and Dick Gaughan. His live show is a riveting mix of song craft and theatrical story-telling, delivered with warm voice, dry humour and nimble, string-picking fingers. Come on out and see.

Church House
8.00pm

£10

 

 

Cantemus

The Messiah

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Under the baton of Welsh National Opera chorus master, Alexander Martin, singers from all over Pembrokeshire and beyond, choir members or not will rehearse and perform Handel’s Messiah  in the beautiful surroundings of St Mary’s Church.

Born in London, Alexander Martin studied Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, and the piano at the Royal College of Music in London. In 1992 he was appointed répétiteur at the Opéra National de Lyon in France under Kent Nagano. From 1995 to 1998 Alexander spent four seasons in Germany as répétiteur at the Opera, and répétiteur and conductor at the Hesse State Opera in Wiesbaden, before returning to live in France to pursue a freelance career. He has worked as guest conductor, assistant and coach for Lyon, Marseille, Avignon, le Capitole Toulouse, l’Opéra National du Rhin (Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia), La Monnaie, le Grand Théâtre Geneva, as well as for Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, and Montepulciano Festivals. Alexander also worked closely with Philippe Jordan Britten’s Peter Grimes and The Turn of the Screw (Graz), and collaborated with René Jacobs in Rome for Tancredi. Following three seasons as Chorus Master in Bern (where he also conducted Cendrillon and Dave Maric’s Ghosts), Alexander worked as Chorus Master at the Opéra National de Bordeaux from 2010-2014. During this time he also worked in Bayreuth with Philippe Jordan on Parsifal (2012). He became Chorus Master at WNO at the start of this season.

The choir will be accompanied by Jeff Howard, organist.

Jeffrey Howard was born in Cardiff and studied at the University of Wales College, Cardiff, and the Royal Academy of Music, specializing in organ performance and church music. Since graduating, he has pursued a freelance career as organist, pianist, singer, coach and conductor. He has accompanied leading international singers including Bryn Terfel, Sir Willard White, and, Rebecca Evans.

Jeff has performed throughout the United Kingdom and Europe including the Wigmore Hall, The Goethe Institute, Brussels, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, and has worked with orchestras such as The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Royal Philharmonic. He made his Royal Albert Hall debut in 2002 as soloist in Shostakovitch’s second piano concerto. Recent performance include performed Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto at St. David’s Hall, Cardiff with the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra and a recital with Bryn Terfel at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Jeff frequently provides arrangements for the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, S4C and various solo artists. He is accompanist, singer and arranger for Only Men Aloud!, winners of the BBC competition ‘Last Choir Standing’ who recently won a Classical Brit Award for their second album on the Universal label. Jeff is also involved in cabaret and music theatre having worked with names such as Michael Ball, David Owen Jones, Peter Karrie, and more informally, Dame Shirley Bassey!

For the past 18 years, Jeffrey has held a post as vocal coach at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and at Welsh National Opera and Welsh National Youth Opera.

For those wishing to join the choir there will be rehearsal before the performance during the day. There will be a charge of £10 for those taking part and in addition a refundable deposit for copies of the music/text.

St. Mary’s Church

Rehearsals will be at 3pm – 5.30pm
Performance 6.30pm – 8pm

Tickets £8 

 

 

 

Enquiries to: tenbyartsfestival@yahoo.co.uk

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 Mutterings by author, Thorne Moorethorne header

This is a post copied and posted from  Thorne Moores’s website.

Fair Play – why book fairs?

 

I’ll be taking part in a small flurry of book fairs soon: The Rhondda, on September 3rd, Tenby  (which I am helping to organise) on September 24th, and Carmarthen on October 1st.

  
Tenby Book Fair 2015
 

To stand at a stall, offering my wares, might seem a very Mediaeval way of going about things in the days of internet ordering and e-books. Besides, what are bookshops for, if not to provide any book that anyone is looking for? Literary festivals like Hay, with big names addressing crowds of fans are all very well, but why bother with book fairs?

The reason is that for most of us authors, such events are the only occasions when we get to meet our readers in the flesh, to discuss our work and hear their opinion. We write for ourselves, mostly, and perhaps to please a publisher or agent, but ultimately, since we choose to be published, rather than storing our work in notebooks under our bed, we write for “the reader” out there, who will devour our polished words. It becomes a somewhat surreal situation if our readers never materialise in the flesh. We need the contact to keep it real.

A fair also allows us to meet our fellow authors, in an atmosphere where everything is all about books, and sometimes it’s very healthy to escape the private isolation of writing and remind ourselves that we are not alone. There are other people as obsessed with writing as us.

For indie authors, who self-publish, and who want to rely on more than Kindle sales on Amazon, fairs can be almost the only way to put their printed books out there, for people to see. Many bookshops simply don’t stock independent authors. An ISBN number is not enough to get you on the “List.” And for us conventionally published authors, there is no guarantee that bookshops, even their local bookshops, will pay them any attention whatsoever. If you are lucky, you might find a copy of your book, buried in a dark corner, out of sequence, while the front displays concentrate on the highly promoted big names. If you are in the hands of one of the mega-publishing houses, which sees you as a potential block-buster in WH Smiths or on airport concourses, then they might send you off on tour round the country or the world, to meet your readers. They might flaunt your book cover on billboards for you. 99% of authors don’t get that treatment, so we have to put ourselves out there.

And that’s what book fairs are for. So do come. We’re a rare breed and well worth gawping at.

Presenting the Authors at the Tenby Book Fair 24th September 2016

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Over the last few weeks I’ve been introducing the authors who will be at the Tenby Book Fair, http://bit.ly/27XORTh, the first event of the Tenby Arts Festival http://bit.ly/24eOVtl 

 I’m almost finished interviewing them all now.

In the next few weeks I’ll be showcasing the three publishers who will be with us: http://honno.co.uk/, http://www.fireflypress.co.uk/ and http://www.cambriapublishing.org.uk/

And I’ll be sharing a post from the brilliant http://showboat.tv/ Who always video and share our Tenby Book Fair.

So far here are the wonderful authors. Please feel free to check them and their great books out: Rebecca Bryn: http://bit.ly/1XYWbtF, Thorne Moore: http://bit.ly/1P6zDQh , Matt Johnson: http://bit.ly/1RUqJFg , Christoph Fischer: http://bit.ly/1svniAr , Sally Spedding: http://bit.ly/1VNRQci, Wendy Steele: http://bit.ly/1PMoF8i ,Kathy MIles:  http://bit.ly/1twN3Bg , Carol Lovekin:http://bit.ly/1Y2z6HT, Colin R Parsons: http://bit.ly/1tvBc5G , Lisa Shambrook: http://bit.ly/28NMI5v:  ,Alex Martin:  http://bit.ly/28VLsQG ,  Judith Arnopp:  http://bit.ly/290cJMl , Sharon Tregenza: http://bit.ly/29frGPq    Juliet Greenwood:http://bit.ly/29jylrM , Nigel Williams: http://bit.ly/29racfO , Julie McGowan:http://bit.ly/29CHNa9 , John Nicholl: http://bit.ly/29NtdtX  ,Tony Riches:  http://bit.ly/29y3a8k:  ,Wendy White: http://bit.ly/29TMCpY  ,Angela Fish:http://bit.ly/2a5qY2U  David Thorpe: http://bit.ly/2a9uG0V . , and Eloise William: http://bit.ly/2aoZk1k And thanks to Thorne Moore for interviewing me: http://bit.ly/1VTvqGq 

Panorama

 I would also like to say,Thanks, Thank You, Message, Grateful

to everyone who has shared our interviews so far and spread the word. 

And don’t forget, there is still time to write a masterpiece for our short story competitions:

 http://tenbybookfair.blogspot.co.uk/p/competitions.html

And for all our visitors, here’s how to find us:

 http://tenbybookfair.blogspot.co.uk/p/where-to-find-us.html

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TAF vs

Tenby Book Fair – Authors and Short Story Competitions

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Introducing the authors who will be at the Tenby Book Fair, http://bit.ly/27XORTh, the first event of the Tenby Arts Festival http://bit.ly/24eOVtl .  I’m looking forward to having many more such chats over the next couple of weeks. 

So far (there are more to come!!) I’ve cross-examined interviewed Rebecca Bryn: http://bit.ly/1XYWbtF, Thorne Moore: http://bit.ly/1P6zDQh , Matt Johnson: http://bit.ly/1RUqJFg , Christoph Fischer: http://bit.ly/1svniAr , Sally Spedding: http://bit.ly/1VNRQci, Wendy Steele: http://bit.ly/1PMoF8i ,Kathy MIles:  http://bit.ly/1twN3Bg , Carol Lovekin:http://bit.ly/1Y2z6HT, Colin R Parsons: http://bit.ly/1tvBc5G , Lisa Shambrook: http://bit.ly/28NMI5v:  ,Alex Martin:  http://bit.ly/28VLsQG ,  Judith Arnopp:  http://bit.ly/290cJMl , Sharon Tregenza: http://bit.ly/29frGPq    Juliet Greenwood:http://bit.ly/29jylrM , Nigel Williams: http://bit.ly/29racfO ,Alys Einion:  http://bit.ly/29l5izl  and Julie McGowan: http://bit.ly/29CHNa9  And thanks to Thorne Moore for interviewing me: http://bit.ly/1VTvqGq  Over the next week or two I’ll be introducing the rest of the authors. I’ll also be showcasing the publishers who will be in attendance and who will be giving short talks and may be able to give advice to would-be authors: http://honno.co.uk/ , http://www.fireflypress.co.uk/   and  http://www.cambriapublishing.org.uk/ ,

There may also be a short chat with John and Fiona of http://showboat.tv/ who, as usual, will be filming the event.

 And then we have the competitions: Besides the prizes, the winners of all three will be posted on both the Tenby Book Fair website:  http://tenbybookfair.blogspot.co.uk/   and on the Showboat website: http://www.showboat-tv.com/

competitions

The 2016 Tenby Book Fair will be offering three competitions this year.

Children’s Competition.

For entrants aged 7 – 12, an essay (one page) entitled: My Favourite Character.

Write about a character in a book that you like. Is he or she clever? Brave? Funny? Or just get to do all the things you’d like to do.

Include your name and age on the sheet and a way of contacting you – it can be your address, or your school, or a phone number – so we can tell you if you’ve won.

Hand your entry in to any library in Pembrokeshire, or post it to:

Tenby Book Fair, Saddleworth House, Carmarthen Road, Kilgetty, SA68 0XX

Send it by August 13th, 2016

Collections of books are very generously being donated as prizes by Firefly Press.
A winner and a runner-up will be chosen from each of two age groups: 7-9 and 10-12

Prizes will be presented at the Book Fair in St Mary’s Church House
on Saturday, September 24th, 2016

Young Adult Flash Fiction Competition

For entrants aged 12 – 18, a 100 word Creepy Tale.

You could write “A Creepy Tale,” about ghosts, vampires, zombies, the supernatural or anything that might give you the shivers. But can you write it in 100 words or less? That’s the challenge in this competition. A full story, in 100 words or less.

Include your name, age and contact details (address, phone number or email address) with the entry, and post it to:

Tenby Book Fair, Saddleworth House, Carmarthen Road, Kilgetty, SA68 0XX

OR paste it into the body of an email to:

Put “Flash Fiction” in the subject line

The closing date is August 13th 2016

First Prize £15 book token. 2 runners-up: £5 book token.

Short Story Competition

For entrants 18 and over: a short story, “The Bag Lady.”

Entry Fee £3 Send cheque, made payable to “Tenby Book Fair” with your entry, or pay on-line, via PayPal,
Write a short story of 2000 words or less, entitled “The Bag Lady.” How you interpret the title is up to you.

Include name and preferred contact details (address, phone number or email address) and post to:

Tenby Book Fair, Saddleworth House, Carmarthen Road, Kilgetty, SA68 0XX

or send as a Word or Rich Text Format document, attached to an email to:

Include “Short Story” in the subject line.

My Review of The A-Z of Normal, by Helen Barbour

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The A to Z of Normal by Helen Barbour

I give The A-Z of Normal, by Helen Barbour 5*

I loved The A-Z of Normal, by Helen Barbour. Just by looking at the interesting cover I knew this wasn’t going to be a conventional romance when I chose to review this book. And thank you to Rosie and Helen for this great find.

No, this is as much the poignant story of the protagonist, Clare and her struggle with the condition of  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ( OCD) which she has kept secret from her family and friends all her life. Now, with a marriage proposal from Tom, she has to face up to all the issues that living with him will face. Although the subject of OCD is inherently distressing there is plenty of what I would call ‘dark’ humour that lifts the story and makes compulsive yet challenging reading.

As usual I will not give spoilers in my review. What I will do is urge anyone to give this book a go.

Helen Barbour has a wonderfully unique writing style and interweaves the main plot around sub plots with skill and subtlety. The story moves at a satisfying pace with no lapses

Told mainly from the first point of view of Clare, both the internal and the spoken dialogue is so well written that the words echoed in my head – always a sign to me that the speech resonates with the way  that character would talk.

Each of the characters is rounded and individual in their own way. And the interaction between them is loaded with complexity and tension that could only be expected where there is such a destructive secret. Yet it is satisfying to see how, as we gradually learn about her background, the relationship with both her father and her sister evolves

As I said at the beginning of this review, this is a book I loved. It made me think long and hard about a mental issue I hadn’t considered before and how it can ruin the life of so many people. Yet this story lifted me beyond that into admiring the writing, the words on the page. I would thoroughly recommend this book and hope we will see more from this author.

Fin a copy here:

Amazon.co.uk

http://amzn.to/1JVEy2G

Amazon.com

http://amzn.to/1N98nlP

Rosie's Book Review team 1

Today I’m really pleased to be chatting with Indie author Rosaline Riley

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Please introduce yourself and your books.

My name is Rosaline Riley and I am the author of two books – The End of the Road and Clad in Armour of Radiant White.

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I was born, grew up and went to school in Wigan, Lancashire. Since then I have lived and worked as a student and a teacher in London, Birmingham, Bristol and Solihull. I now live in Streatham in South London.

All my life, I have considered myself to be a writer. But the writing was almost always in my head, only making its way on to paper on rare occasions, until, late in life(!) I took myself in hand and began to take it much more seriously.

Why this reluctance to put pen to paper?

Well, as a child, I wanted to be a novelist – to write a whole book, not just short stories. But the problem was paper. Where would I get enough for a whole novel? I knew that my mother would buy me an exercise book (one of those red Silvine ones with the multiplication tables on the back) but they only had about forty pages in them. Even with the smallest handwriting I could manage, one wouldn’t have been enough and I felt sure that she would have refused my demand for . . . how many? . . . twenty at the very least!

So I contented myself with ‘writing’ in my head. I found that the best way to do this was if I was doing something else with my hands, and I spent many childhood hours batting tennis balls against walls whilst composing my stories. (As a consequence, my ball skills are excellent – even to this day!)

What was I ‘writing’ back then? Well, not anything that I had personal experience of, that’s for sure. There were lots of boarding school stories, I remember, all heavily dependent on whatever I happened to be reading at the time. I even had my very own Chalet School series! (Goodness knows how many exercise books would have been needed for that.)

 When did you start writing your stories down?

Over the years I made several attempts to write a novel but I never came anywhere near to finishing them. I always let life and family get in the way.

For many years I worked as a literature tutor in the Lifelong Learning Department at Warwick University, teaching the novel to mature students. The longer I did this – reading and studying other people’s novels – the more I knew that I really ought to write one of my own, before it was too late. Then we moved to London in 2006 and I had to give up this teaching. So, without a job, I had no excuses left. I’d already started Clad in Armour of Radiant White. Now I had to finish it.

radiant white

What facets of your life, both personal and professional, are woven into your books, if any? 

Clad in Armour of Radiant White is a coming-of-age novel that tells the story of Ellen, growing up in Lancashire in the nineteen-sixties. It is set in two towns which are fictionalised versions of the towns where I grew up and where I went to school. A lot of the details – places, events, situations, etc. – are very autobiographically based. The story is fictional.

I had always wanted to write this novel and I think one of the reasons it took me a long time to do so was because I needed to find a story/stories on which to hang my autobiographical details and not to make my autobiography (albeit disguised) the story itself. If that makes sense. Once I had the outline of the plot, I was away.

The End of the Road is set in Solihull and Streatham, and this time the places are ‘real’ and named. There are lots of personal details in this novel too, although yet again the story is pure fiction. And as the plot hinges around an abduction, I think this is very apparent.

end of road

There are two objects in this one – a green cagoule and an IKEA high-chair – which caused my family much amusement when they read about them. This kind of recognition is fine. But I do strive to make it difficult for fundamental comparisons to be drawn between ‘real’ people and the characters in the book. Creating original characters should be the aim of the novelist, I think.

 

You are a self published author. Why?

When I’d finished Clad in Armour of Radiant White I tried to get an agent, but with no success. It wasn’t consider ‘commercial’ enough. So I put it aside and started on a second novel. I did a Creative Writing course at Birkbeck and then a six-month Novel Writing course at the Faber Academy. At the end of this, I did have a couple of agents interested in The End of the Road but (at the end of the day) they didn’t take it further. I sent it out to a bunch of other agents but it soon became clear that I was wasting my time. Times were hard in the publishing industry; no-one wanted to take on first-time novelists.

So I could either give up or self publish. And, as I felt that both books were good enough, I chose to do the latter. And I have to say that I’ve been very pleased with my decision. The feeling of being in control is gratifying, and my (albeit modest) expectations have been more than met.

 

What’s next on the horizon for you?

Now that I’ve finally launched both books into the world, I can start writing my next one. I’ve been thinking about this for some time and have lots of ideas floating around in my head. It’s going to be set in Australia – a country my husband and I fell in love with several years ago. And we might even have to make another trip there – for research purposes!

 

What single piece of advice would you give new authors?

The words of Nigel Watts (Writing a Novel):   ‘. . . a writer is someone who writes, not someone who thinks about writing.’ Which is what I keep telling myself every time I reach for my bat and ball.

Both of Rosaline’s books are available from Amazon.

http://amzn.to/1QVElR6

http://amzn.to/1C4OsMQ

Links:

Email: riley.rosaline@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosaline.riley.1?fref=ts

Website:http://www.thecommonreadercommonwriter.pathline.co.uk/

My review of Motherlove by Thorne Moore

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9781909983205_bach (1)I can’t remember the last time I read the final paragraph of a novel and then immediately turned back to the first chapter and started reading all over again. But that’s what I did with Motherlove by Thorne Moore. I loved this book – I mean I really loved it!

Where do I start? I suppose, firstly, I should say how much I admired the author’s style of writing: the pace is fast but steady, moving seamlessly from one scene to the next. The language, the metaphors, the clever mix of sentence lengths, all draw out the tension of this heart-breaking story. And keep the reader gripped and having empathy for each of the characters
My favourite genres are family sagas and thrillers/ mystery novels. Motherlove is contemporary fiction but holds both these genres within its pages, together with a psychological theme cleverly woven throughout. The title says it all; there are many ways to be a mother, a myriad of ways to show the love that comes with that label. I think this novel reveals the diversity of those ways.
Best of all, for me, the story is written from various points of views, each chapter, subtly and gradually revealing each of the characters; three mothers and two daughters, whose lives are initially inexplicably linked by a dreadful incident in the past.
An incident I won’t reveal here; I don’t like giving spoils in my reviews. And, anyway, the reader is plunged in straight from the beginning, so why spoil things?
But I can speak, briefly, from a constructive criticism point of view.
The intricate plot is skilfully threaded with a number of sub-plots, all intriguing, all necessary to the story..
The descriptions of the settings, from rural Wales to the streets and buildings of a run-down town to a soulless council estate, are subtly drawn and provide a poignant backdrop throughout the two decades that the book travels through, and reveals the social and cultural milieu of these eras.
The characters are strongly drawn to elicit emotions in the reader; from sympathy to fear, to distress, to hatred, to horror, to empathetic understanding.
Both the internal and spoken dialogue cleverly reveals each character, with their different nuances. There is never any doubt whose perspective we are reading.
Anyone who has read Thorne Moore’s first novel A Time For Silence and have been waiting with anticipation for her next, won’t be disappointed; Motherlove is a brilliant successor and if I could give more than five stars for this novel, I would.
I don’t only want to recommend Motherlove; I urge all those who enjoy excellent contemporary fiction to find a copy of this novel. And submerge themselves in it.