whatcathyreadnext

About the Book

When Sophie Taylor’s life falls apart, there is only one thing to do: escape and find a new one. Dragged to Montenegro by her best friend Anna, Sophie begins to see the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. But when she stumbles into an old, run-down house on the Bay of Kotor she surprises even herself when she buys it. Surrounded by old furniture, left behind by the former inhabitants, Sophie becomes obsessed by a young Balkan couple when she discovers a bundle of letters from the 1940s in a broken roll-top desk. Letters that speak of great love, hope and a mystery Sophie can’t help but get drawn into. Days in Montenegro are nothing like she expected and as Sophie’s home begins to fill with a motley crew of lodgers the house by the bay begins to breathe again. And for Sophie, life seems to be restarting. But letting go of the past is easier said than done…

Format: eBook (258 pp.) Publisher: HQ Digital
Published: 24^th May 2017 Genre: Fiction, Romance

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Under an Amber Sky on Goodreads

My Review

Tragically and suddenly bereaved, Sophie feels strangely drawn to an old house in need of renovation near Kotor in Montenegro. Taken there by her friend, Anna, on a restorative holiday following her bereavement, Sophie decides to cut her ties with the UK and the sad memories it holds, purchase the house and make it her home. Her decision is partly influenced by letters she discovers in the house dating back to the Italian occupation of Montenegro in World War II and her desire to understand the story behind them and why they have remained unread.

The stages of Sophie’s grief are convincingly portrayed and her decision to up sticks and move abroad doesn’t seem so unbelievable given her state of mind and the fact that Matt, her husband, was not only her best friend but the person she had relied on for almost everything. In fact, her first few months in Kotor pass in a kind of haze, with an overwhelming torpor permeating her, making it a challenge to even get out of bed some days. ‘She could have been a decaying Miss Havisham, moving among the sordid remnants of her misery.’

Gradually, though, the atmosphere of her surroundings seems to work its magic on her. She even observes parallels between Kotor’s ability to recover from disaster and her own process of recovery. ‘After the earthquake in 1979, the local craftsmen had rebuilt the entire town by hand, stone by stone, painstakingly reassembling it just as it had been for centuries before, but better, stronger, more able to withstand future tremors. Maybe it was possible to put things back together. To remake them.’

Having suffered the terrible misfortune of losing her husband, Sophie’s fortunes change as not only (conveniently) does a builder arrive on her doorstep who can undertake the renovations needed to the house but it’s not long before she meets two equally attractive men: Darko, who helps her translate the letters and provides details about wartime events in Kotor; and Anton (Ton), who is battling demons of his own. The dynamics and likely outcome of this triangle seemed fairly obvious to me but, surprisingly, it takes Sophie some time to work it out.

When the author contacted me about reviewing her book, there were two things that influenced my decision to say yes. One was the setting, as I’ve visited Kotor twice (although only as a one day stop on a cruise) and been completely charmed by the place. I thought the author really captured the beauty of Kotor, its lakeside setting surrounded by mountains (reminiscent of Norwegian fjords) and the charming old town full of narrow streets and hidden squares. The beer is pretty cheap as well. [There are some great photo’s of locations from the book on Rose’s website – see bottom of this post.] The author also paints a wonderful picture of the open, welcoming people of Montenegro. I really enjoyed this aspect of the book and the insight into the wartime history of the country.

This historical aspect was the second element that attracted me to the book, in particular the mystery of the letters that Sophie finds. They take the reader back in time to World War II and start Sophie on a quest to find out more about Mira, the writer of the letters, and Dragan, the man to whom Mira is writing. I’ll be honest and say the letters didn’t seem completely realistic to me. There were too many literary flourishes – more, I think, than you would put in a letter even if you had a poetic bent. For example: ‘Her eyes were so red with crying, the lids so puffy, that she looked like a paper version of herself left out in the rain to swell and bloat.’

Furthermore, I was greedy for more detail of Mira and Dragan’s story and found myself still a little peckish at the end of the book. I wondered if perhaps, alongside the letters and Sophie’s modern day experiences, a separate narrative told through the eyes of Mira and/or Dragan might have worked. In fact, maybe their story and events in Montenegro during the war would make great material for a whole separate book (the historical fiction fan in me coming out here).

There is a lot to enjoy about Under an Amber Sky and if you adore a well-written story with an element of romance, set in an enchanting location, full of emotion and a little sadness but tinged with hope, then this is the book for you. I received a review copy courtesy of the author and publishers, HQ Digital, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Emotional, hopeful, romance

Try something similar…Under A Tuscan Sky by Karen Aldous (click here to read my review)

About the Author

Rose has had more careers than is probably strictly necessary, including TV producer/director making programmes for all the major broadcasters, freelance feature writer for publications including The Guardian and secondary school English teacher, not forgetting cocktail waitress, melon picker and interior designer.

Writing a novel is, however predictable the line seems, the realisation of Rose’s childhood dream and the result of finally finding ‘a voice’. The triumph is that the voice was heard above the racket created by her three children plus rescue cat (tabby white, since you ask). Rose likens the experience of penning Garden of Stars, a multi-layered love story, to another recent achievement of learning to ice-skate: progress is two-slides-forward-one-back; insecurity, self-doubt and despondence reign supreme; onlookers laugh, mock or even worse, smile indulgently…. But the finished manuscript, polished and pristine, is like the perfect pirouette performed on freshly raked ice. (Rose can’t do pirouettes yet, obviously, they just made the best simile.)

Rose is currently working on several new projects including a novel based on a relative’s true story of an epic journey as a ‘flüchtlinge’, fleeing the vengeance of the rampaging Red Army as Nazi Germany collapsed.

Connect with Rose

Website ǀ Twitter ǀ Goodreads

New arrivals

The New Mrs Clifton by Elizabeth Buchan (ebook)

As the Second World War draws to a close, Intelligence Officer Gus Clifton surprises his sisters at their London home. But an even greater shock is the woman he brings with him, Krista – the German wife whom he has married secretly in Berlin.

Krista is clearly devastated by her experiences at the hands of the British and their allies – all but broken by horrors she cannot share. But Gus’s sisters can only see the enemy their brother has brought under their roof. And their friend Nella, Gus’s beautiful, loyal fiancée, cannot understand what made Gus change his mind about their marriage. What hold does Krista have over their honourable and upright Gus? And how can the three women get her out of their home, their future, their England?

Haunted by passion, betrayal, and misunderstanding these damaged souls are propelled towards a spectacular resolution. Krista has lost her country, her people, her identity, and the ties that bind her to Gus hold more tightly than the sisters can ever understand…

Killed by Thomas Enger (ebook, review copy courtesy of Orenda Books)

Crime reporter Henning Juul thought his life was over when his young son was murdered. But that was only the beginning…

Determined to find his son’s killer, Henning doggedly follows an increasingly dangerous trail, where dark hands from the past emerge to threaten everything. His ex-wife Nora is pregnant with another man’s child, his sister Trine is implicated in the fire that killed his son and, with everyone he thought he could trust seemingly hiding something, Henning has nothing to lose … except his own life. Packed with tension and unexpected twists, Killed is the long-awaited finale of one of the darkest, most chilling and emotive series you may ever read. Someone will be killed. But who?

Song of Praise for a Flower by Fengxian Chu & Charlene Chu (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

For nearly two decades, this manuscript lay hidden in a Chinese bank vault until a long-lost cousin from America inspired 92-year-old author Fengxian Chu to unearth it. Song of Praise for a Flower traces a century of Chinese history through the experiences of one woman and her family, from the dark years of World War II and China’s civil war to the tragic Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and beyond. It is a window into a faraway world, a sweeping epic about China’s tumultuous transformation and a harrowing yet ultimately uplifting story of a remarkable woman who survives it all and finally finds peace and tranquillity.

Chu’s story begins in the 1920s in an idyllic home in the heart of China’s rice country. Her life is a struggle from the start. At a young age, she defies foot-binding and an arranged marriage and sneaks away from home to attend school. Her young adulthood is thrown into turmoil when the Japanese invade and ransack her village. Later her family is driven to starvation when Mao Zedong’s Communist Party seizes power and her husband is branded a ‘bad element.’ After Mao’s death in the 1970s, as China picks up the pieces and moves in a new direction, Chu eventually finds herself in a glittering city on the sea adjacent to Hong Kong, worlds away in both culture and time from the place she came from.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my Five Favourite December Reads.

Tuesday – I shared my Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read in 2017 which included five established authors whose books I read for the first time and five debut authors.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just finished reading, what I’m reading now and what I’ll be reading next. I also published my review of Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, a book on my Classics Club list and, just as importantly, a book from my TBR pile!

Thursday –For Throwback Thursday, I shared my review of 1066: What Fates Impose by G. K. Holloway. As well as clearing another book from my stack of review copies from authors, this was also a book that counts towards my Historical Fiction Reading Challenge and the When Are You Reading? Challenge.

Friday – I published an extract from Kit Sergeant’s fascinating sounding historical fiction, 355: The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring.

Saturday –I introduced the first book in my Buchan of the Month reading project: The Power-House. It was good to use my extensive collection of books by and about Buchan to research how the book came to be written and its reception at the time. There’s still time to join me in my Buchan reading project.

Sunday – I published my review of Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon.

Challenge updates

Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge – 3 out of 156 books read, 3 more than last week
Classics Club Challenge – 7 out of 50 books read, 1 more than last week
NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 (Silver) – 2 ARCs read and reviewed out of 25, 2 more than last week
From Page to Screen– 9 book/film comparisons out of 15 completed, same as last week
2018 TBR Pile Challenge – 1 out of 12 books read, 1 more than last week
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2018 – 1 book out of 50 read, 1 more than last week
When Are You Reading? Challenge 2018 – 3 out of 12 books read, 3 more than last week
What’s In A Name Reading Challenge – 0 out of 6 books read