Tag: advance review copy

#BlogTour #BookReview Born of No Woman by Franck Bouysse @RandomTTours @wnbooks

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FINAL Born of No Woman BT Poster

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Born Of No Woman by Franck Bouysse, translated by Lara Vergnaud. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Weidenfeld & Nicolson for my digital review copy.

Born Of No WomanAbout the Book

Nineteenth-century rural France. Before he is called to bless the body of a woman at the nearby asylum, Father Gabriel receives a strange, troubling confession: hidden under the woman’s dress he will find the notebooks in which she confided the abuses she suffered and the twisted motivations behind them.

And so Rose’s terrible story comes to light: sold as a teenage girl to a rich man, hidden away in a old manor house deep in the woods and caught in a perverse web, manipulated by those society considers her betters.

A girl whose only escape is to capture her life – in all its devastation and hope – in the pages of her diary…

Born Of No Woman has won every prize awarded by readers in France, including the Grand Prix Des Lectrices Elle, one of the most important prizes in France. It has also won The Prix Des Libraires (given by booksellers), Prix Psychologies Magazine and and the Prix Babelio.

Format: Hardcover (368 pages)         Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date: 21st October 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction, Literature in Translation

Find Born Of No Woman on Goodreads

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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

Born Of No Woman is a powerful story of injustice, suffering and the cruelty that human beings can inflict on one another. But it is also a love story, a mystery and an exploration of how people deal with – or attempt to deal with – trauma; how, although seemingly powerless, they can reclaim some power over their lives and destinies.  For Rose, it is writing that gives her the strength to carry on despite everything she has endured.  As she says, ‘All that’s keeping me alive now is writing, or rather, if there was some word that meant to both scream and write, that would be better’. It’s also about power; the power men are able to exert over women, and the power the rich can exert over the poor.

An interesting aspect of the book for me was how many of the characters are struggling with guilt or regret, often misplaced. Although believing initially that he was faced with no other choice if he was to save his family from penury, Onésime, Rose’s father, is soon filled with regret at his actions and attempts to put things right. Rose’s mother feels a sense of guilt that she was able to provide her husband with only daughters – ‘the promise she hadn’t been able to keep; for in the end, their misfortunes had sprouted there, in her repeated inability to bring a son into the world. Everything that had led precisely to their loss’.

Similarly, the man Rose meets soon after arriving at the house of the person she will learn to refer to as the Master’ (described chillingly as ‘One who never lets go of his prey’) regrets she does not heed his warning to leave. He feels a sense of guilt at having stood by and done nothing to stop the terrible things that have happened in the past and, he feels sure, will happen again. On the other hand, the people who should feel guilt – the Master and his mother – show no sign of it although they have more reason than most given the evil they inflict on others, in particular Rose.

The book has the feeling of a dark fairy tale: Les Forges, the castle-like home of the Master, the Master’s mother playing the role of an evil Queen, and the dense and ancient forest that surrounds Les Forges. ‘Veined wood, riddled by thorn scars, covered with ants swarming in search of honeydew. Sick leaves, stained with black, felted in white, the green dissolved.’  There are also echoes of Jane Eyre in the existence of a locked room whose macabre secrets will eventually be revealed.

Born Of No Woman is not an easy read as there are some harrowing scenes. What makes it bearable is that, alongside the brutality and cruelty, there are also examples of tenderness.  Strangely enough, at the end of the book I was left with a feeling of hope and a sense that evil and injustice will be punished.

In three words: Powerful, intense, chilling

Try something similar: The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta

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Franck Bouysse Author PicAbout the Author

Franck Bouysse is a French author. His novels Grossir le ciel in 2014, Plateau in 2016 and Glaise in 2017 have met with wide success and won a vast array of literary awards. Previously a teacher of biology and horticulture, Bouysse lives in the south-west of France.

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#BlogTour #BookReview Liberty Terrace by Madeleine D’Arcy @Doirepress @MidasPR

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Liberty Terrace by Madeleine D’Arcy. My thanks to Francesca at MidasPR for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy.

Liberty TerraceAbout the Book

Liberty Terrace features a bevy of characters who reside in a fictional area of Cork City in the period 2016 to 2020. The inhabitants of Liberty Terrace come and go, and their lives occasionally intersect in stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes dark, often both.

The cast of characters includes retired Garda Superintendent Deckie Google, a young homeless squatter, the mother of an autistic child working part-time as a Census Enumerator, the dysfunctional Callinan family, an ageing rock star, a trio of ladies who visit a faith healer, a philandering husband, as well as a surprising number of cats and dogs.

These stories shed light on how we lived before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, on what we care about and on what, if anything, we can truly count on.

Format: Paperback (200 pages)          Publisher: Doire Press
Publication date: 28th October 2021 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Short Stories

Find Liberty Terrace on Goodreads

Purchase links
Publisher | Amazon UK
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My Review

One of my favourite kind of short story collections is those where the stories are interconnected, with characters from one story turning up in another one, albeit often only briefly. Liberty Terrace fulfils that requirement completely. Not only is it fun spotting names you recognise from an earlier story but often it provides additional insight into a character you’ve met before.

In a short story collection there are usually some stories that resonate more than others and Liberty Terrace is no exception. Often they are not necessarily the stories that you enjoy so much as admire for their craft. ‘Quality Time’ is one of the darker stories in which the tables are turned and a man experiences what it is like to be powerless. The theme of power manifests itself again in ‘Dignity’ in which a woman becomes determined to exercise control over what remains of her life. There’s humour as well such as in ‘The Silence of the Crows’ in which a woman conducts a silent war against the crows that disturb her sleep and is rewarded by them depositing  ‘random splats of grey-white bird poop’ on her car. Unfortunately, as it turns out that’s the least of her worries as a doorstep encounter will prove.

Another story I liked was ‘Milo’s Book of Feelings’ in which the mother of an autistic child receives an unexpected and inspiring gift. My absolute favourite story was ‘Ezinna’s Flamboyant Tree’ in which a recent immigrant to the country buys a small tree because it reminds her of the colourful trees in her birth country. The tree in its too small pot becomes a metaphor for how she feels – constrained and living in an environment in which she feels she cannot prosper. However, when she finds the right place for the tree, she discovers friendship and a new sense of belonging.  The final story in the book, ‘The Great Lockdown Rescue’, not only brings things full circle by featuring characters who appeared in the book’s opening story but sees Liberty Terrace inhabitants coming together to perform a daring rescue, evoking the real-life community spirit evidenced in many places during the Covid-19 lockdown.

By the end of the book I felt I could walk along Liberty Terrace and recognise the people I passed in the street, know whose door I could knock on for a cup of tea – and whose I should avoid. Liberty Terrace is a fascinating collection of well-crafted stories that span the spectrum from dark to light and, I think, offer something for everyone.

In three words: Assured, insightful, imaginative

Try something similar: The Wooden Hill by Jamie Guiney

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Madeleine D'ArcyAbout the Author

Madeleine D’Arcy was born in Ireland. She spent thirteen years in the UK, where she worked as a criminal legal aid solicitor and as a legal editor in London. She returned to Ireland in 1999 and lives in Cork City with her husband and son.

Madeleine began to write fiction in 2005. In 2010 she received the Hennessy Literary Award for First Fiction and the overall Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writer. Her debut short story collection, Waiting for the Bullet (Doire Press, 2014), won the Edge Hill Readers’ Choice Prize 2015 (UK). She holds an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork, and has been awarded bursaries by the Arts Council of Ireland and by Cork City Council.

Together with Danielle McLaughlin, she co-hosts Fiction at the Friary, a free monthly fiction event held in Cork City since 2017. (Photo credit: Publisher author page)

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