Tag: advance review copy

#BookReview Those I Have Lost by Sharon Maas @Bookouture

whatcathyreadnext1 Comment

Those I Have Lost - BT Poster

Welcome to day one of the blog tour for Those I Have Lost by Sharon Maas which is published today. My thanks to Sarah Hardy for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Bookouture for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

Those I Have LostAbout the Book

A family on a faraway island. Seas crawling with Japanese spies. A terrible war creeping ever closer…

1940. When Rosie loses her mother and is sent to Sri Lanka to live with her mother’s friend Silvia and her three sons, her world changes in a heartbeat. As she is absorbed into the bosom of a noisy family, with boys she loves like brothers, she begins to feel at home.

But the war in Europe is heading for Asia. Searching for comfort from the bleak news and the bombings, Rosie meets a heroic soldier on leave, and falls in love for the first time. Yet the war will not stop for passion; he must move on, and she must say goodbye, knowing she might never see him again. She is left with just a memory.

Meanwhile, one by one, the men she considers brothers leave to fight for their island paradise. As she waits in anguish for letters that never come, tortured by stories of torpedoed ships and massacres of innocent families, she realises that she, too, must do her bit. Rosie volunteers to work in military intelligence, keeping secrets that will help those she loves and protect her island home. But then two telegrams arrive with the chilling words ‘missing believed captured’ and ‘missing believed dead’. Who of those that she loves will survive the devastating war, and who will she lose?

Format: ebook (430 pages)        Publisher: Bookouture
Publication date: 9th July 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Those I Have Lost on Goodreads

Purchase links
Amazon UK
Link provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The early parts of the book deal with Rosie’s childhood, first in Madras and then in Sri Lanka (known at the time as Ceylon) where she is sent to live on the tea plantation owned by her late mother’s friend, Silvia (who Rosie refers to as Aunt Silvia) and her husband Henry.  Rosie spends time with the two younger sons of the family, Victor and Andrew. (The eldest son, Graham, is away at boarding school in England.) She finds the two brothers very different in character. Whilst Andrew is ‘soft and gentle’, Victor is all ‘hard, tight-balled muscle and rough in manner’.

Since the brothers are away at boarding school for much of the time, initially it’s not quite the new family situation Rosie imagined when she left her grief-stricken father behind in Madras. However, she takes comfort in knowing she’s following the wishes of her late mother and in her friendship with a Tamil girl, Usha, the daughter of the family’s housekeeper. Even though their social positions are very different, Rosie has inherited the unusually enlightened views of her parents and their ‘sharp and disapproving eye for racial arrogance’. Unfortunately, things becomes complicated when Rosie can’t stop herself from interfering in affairs of the heart. She clings to the hope that one day she will have an opportunity to put things right.

Although I found the sections of the book covering Rosie’s childhood and early adolescence interesting, it was the outbreak of war in Europe that really brought the story alive for me. When its impact eventually reaches Ceylon it means big changes for all the family, including Rosie. The book description above gives you a pretty good idea how events unfold from this point on but I won’t spoil your reading enjoyment by answering the questions it poses at the end. Safe to say, in war nothing is certain, and grief and loss are only a telegram away. A section of the book I particularly enjoyed was one towards the end which focuses on Rosie’s war work, including an unexpected reunion.

The book’s prologue remained in the back of my mind throughout, making me wonder how the events it described would connect to Rosie’s story. Have patience, because eventually the different strands of the story do come together; in fact, fragments of the picture are revealed before that.

The author skilfully handles the multiple storylines whilst at the same time bringing to life the culture of both India and Sri Lanka through the descriptions of food, clothing and daily domestic life. Although a fairly chunky read, the book’s setting, the wartime backdrop and the element of romance means Those I Have Lost offers plenty for readers to enjoy.

In three words: Emotional, detailed, eventful

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

Sharon Maas Author PhotoAbout the Author

Sharon Maas was born into a prominent political family in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1951. She was educated in England, Guyana, and, later, Germany. After leaving school, she worked as a trainee reporter with the Guyana Graphic in Georgetown and later wrote feature articles for the Sunday Chronicle as a staff journalist. Her first novel, Of Marriageable Age, is set in Guyana and India and was published by HarperCollins in 1999. In 2014 she moved to Bookouture, and now has ten novels under her belt. Her books span continents, cultures, and eras. From the sugar plantations of colonial British Guiana in South America, to the French battlefields of World War Two, to the present-day brothels of Mumbai and the rice-fields and villages of South India, Sharon never runs out of stories for the armchair traveller.

Connect with Sharon
Website | Twitter

#BookReview This Shining Life by Harriet Kline @RandomTTours @TransworldBooks

whatcathyreadnext5 Comments

This Shining Life BT Poster

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for This Shining Life by Harriet Kline. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Transworld for my review copy. Given the beautiful cover, it was quite hard to opt for a digital rather than a physical copy. However I’m always conscious that the latter are in short supply and not everyone is able to read digitally.

This Shining Life CoverAbout the Book

For Rich, life is golden. He fizzes with happiness and love. But Rich has an incurable brain tumour.

When Rich dies, he leaves behind a family without a father, a husband, a son and a best friend. His wife, Ruth, can’t imagine living without him and finds herself faced with a grief she’s not sure she can find her way through.

At the same time, their young son Ollie becomes intent on working out the meaning of life. Because everything happens for a reason. Doesn’t it?

But when they discover a mismatched collection of presents left by Rich for his loved ones, it provides a puzzle for them to solve, one that will help Ruth navigate her sorrow and help Ollie come to terms with what’s happened. Together, they will learn to lay the ghosts of the past to rest, and treasure the true gift that Rich has left them: the ability to embrace life and love every moment.

Format: eARC (320 pages)        Publisher: Transworld
Publication date: 1st July 2021 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find This Shining Life on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

This Shining Life is an intimate exploration of the impact of Rich’s diagnosis and subsequent death on the members of his extended family. All of them struggle to cope in different ways, partly because some of them face other challenges on top of their grief at his loss, such as difficult childhood memories or caring responsibilities. The book switches between before and after Rich’s death and unfolds from the points of view of a number of family members, including Rich himself.

The most powerful of these for me were the sections told – in the first person- by Rich’s young son, Ollie. Ollie’s neuro diversity gives him an unique perspective as he struggles to interpret the words and actions of others, in everyday life let alone at a time of such heightened emotions. As he says, “I hate trying to work out special meanings. You can never be sure whether you’ve got them right of wrong”. Indeed, a particularly interesting aspect of the book is the way it explores how we interpret the meaning of words and learn to discern whether their use is literal, metaphorical or merely a ‘turn of phrase’ such as Rich’s personal favourite, ‘Life’s too short’.

Ollie, in particular, exemplifies this struggle to understand the meaning of words in his touchingly literal interpretation of his father’s remark that life is a puzzle. It’s a puzzle Ollie is determined to solve, applying himself to the task with the same determination he did to memorising the names of the members of football teams or to solving sudoku puzzles.

Rich’s desire to leave gifts behind that will communicate to the recipients what they meant to him involves much careful thought on his part. And perhaps it is that degree of thought that, in the end, means just as much to the recipients as the gifts themselves. In fact, the whole gifting process turns out to be an apt metaphor for the emotional confusion that often follows a bereavement.

This Shining Life tackles some big subjects including terminal illness, caring for people with dementia, bereavement and mental illness. However, the author always manages to stay the right side of the maudlin or sentimental. And a cover quote by an author of the pedigree of Rachel Joyce describing the book as ‘exquisitely beautiful and compelling’ is not one that can be easily ignored is it?

In three words: Tender, emotional, insightful

Try something similar: One Last Time by Helga Flatland

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

This Shining Life Graphic 2

Harriet Kline Author PicAbout the Author

Harriet Kline works part time registering births, deaths and marriages and writes for the rest of the week. Her story Ghost won the Hissac Short Story Competition and Chest of Drawers won The London Magazine Short Story Competition. Other short stories have been published online with Litro, For Books’ Sake, and ShortStorySunday, and on BBC Radio 4.

Connect with Harriet
Website | Twitter