Tag: Blog Tour

#BlogTour #BookReview Sleeping Through War by Jackie Carreira

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Sleeping Through War

Today I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for Sleeping Through War by Jackie Carreira.  Do check out the reviews by the other great book bloggers taking part in the tour (see bottom of this post) and find out why I’m not alone in my appreciation for this wonderful book.

Sleeping Through WarAbout the Book

It is May 1968. Students are rioting, civil rights are being fought and died for, nuclear bombs are being tested, and war is raging in Vietnam. For three ordinary women in Lisbon, London and Washington life must go on as usual. For them, just to survive is an act of courage. How much has really changed in 50 years?

Format: Paperback, ebook (224 pp.)
Publisher: Troubador/Matador
Published: 28th February 2018
Genre: Literary Fiction

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

Find Sleeping Through War on Goodreads

My Review

Sleeping Through War tells the stories of three different women and is set against the backdrop of world events in 1968, a turbulent time of student demonstrations throughout Europe, civil rights marches in the United States, political tension in Eastern Europe and the Vietnam War.     Although the backgrounds of the three women are different, they live in different parts of the world and there is no direct connection between them, their concerns are similar: home, family, worries about the future.  In addition, the church plays a role in all their lives.

Both Amalia, a single mother widowed in the war between Portugal and Angola, and Mrs. Johnson, with a son serving in Vietnam, are coping with the consequences of war.  Rose, a nurse recently arrived in England from St. Lucia, is engaged in a different kind of war – a war against racial prejudice and discrimination.  The author, Jackie Carreira, is a playwright and therefore used to communicating the stories of her characters to an audience through dialogue.  Her skill at this is evident from the stories told in the first person – by Rose and Mrs. Johnson – in which the reader gets a real insight into their thoughts and feelings through the distinctive narrative voice of each.

Having said this, Amalia’s story was probably the one I found most engrossing.  Left alone to support her son, she is forced to do whatever it takes to earn money to put food on the table, placing herself at the mercy of others as a consequence.

You would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the letters Mrs. Johnson writes to her son, Rod, in which the cheerful snippets about domestic life back home barely disguise the despair she obviously feels at being parted from him.  A final revelation is heartbreaking, but not in the way you may have been expecting.

Rose was definitely my favourite character.  Although she encounters both casual and overt racism, she responds with kindness, understanding and tolerance to those around her, particularly towards her neighbour, Brenda.  I also loved her observations about the differences between her birthplace in St. Lucia and England – the cold and rain, the English fixation about discussing the weather, the queuing, the feigned politeness, and how ‘everything in London always looks so dull’.   I particularly liked her experience of attending a church service in London.  ‘I sing with everyone else during the hymns, but not as loud as I might have done at home.  The songs they sing in church here are all so slow.’ Rose felt so real to me in the end that it got to the point where I found myself thinking, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what Rose would do’ or ‘You go for it girl!’.

Sleeping Through War is an engrossing, beautifully written novel about the challenges facing three women in a time of upheaval and change.  It made me laugh, it made me cry, it taught me some things I didn’t know and it made me think.  Honestly, what more do you want from a book?

I received a review copy courtesy of the author and Rachel’s Random Resources in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Touching, insightful, thought-provoking

Jackie CarreiraAbout the Author

Jackie Carreira is a writer, musician, designer, co-founder of QuirkHouse Theatre Company, and award-winning playwright. She mostly grew up and went to school in Hackney, East London, but spent part of her early childhood with grandparents in Lisbon’s Old Quarter. Her colourful early life has greatly influenced her first novel, Sleeping Through War.

Jackie now lives in leafy Suffolk with her actor husband, AJ Deane, two cats and too many books.

Connect with Jackie

Website  |  Facebook ǀ Goodreads

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Blog Tour/Excerpt: With or Without You by Shari Low

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I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for the latest novel by Shari Low, With or Without You.  It’s described as ‘a clever, captivating and bittersweet story of what might have been’, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Marian Keyes.

You can read an excerpt from With or Without You below.  Do check out the other great bloggers taking part in the tour for reviews, interviews and more excerpts from the book.

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With or Without YouAbout the Book

Have you ever made a life-changing decision and then wondered if you made the right one…?

When Liv and Nate walked up the aisle, Liv knew she was marrying the one, her soul mate and her best friend. Six years later, it feels like routine and friendship is all they have left in common. What happened to the fun, the excitement, the lust, the love?

In the closing moments of 1999, Liv and Nate decide to go their separate ways, but at the last minute, Liv wavers. Should she stay or should she go? Over the next twenty years we follow the parallel stories to discover if Liv’s life, heart and future have been better with Nate… Or without him?

Format: ebook (pp.)            Publisher: Aria Fiction
Published: 1st June 2018    Genre: Fiction, Romance

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

Find With or Without You on Goodreads

Excerpt from With or Without You by Shari Low

Prologue

The Last Minute of 1999

There were sixty seconds left of the twentieth century.

Hogmanay. The biggest night of the Scottish celebratory calendar, when we eat, we sing, we dance, and we welcome in the New Year with the people we love. The music was blaring, the revellers were dancing up a storm, and glasses were being topped up with champagne, as I leant close to my husband’s ear.

‘I wish you’d had an affair,’ I said, my voice cracking. ‘It would be so much easier to do this.’

Nate, smiled, leaned in and kissed me, but not with any grand passion. That was part of the problem. We’d been together since midway through uni, and then married the year after we graduated, and since the day we’d danced up the aisle we’d had five years of contentment.

Contentment.

I hated that word. Imagine the obituary. RIP Liv Jamieson – a contented life. Worse, who wanted to be content at the age of twenty-eight? I wanted passion and excitement and maybe the odd little bit of danger, but contentment? It was like a scarf of boredom that got tighter with each passing year, until I could barely breathe.

I loved Nate, but – clichéd as it was – I wasn’t in love with him anymore. There was no-one else, no drama, no big scandal or cataclysmic event. Just a gradual drifting apart. A disconnection. And, in a twisted demonstration of our compatibility, he had reluctantly admitted that – while he wasn’t as far along the road of acceptance as me – he knew there was something missing too.

I loved him. He loved me. It just wasn’t enough.

Nate pulled back and pushed a stray curl of my red hair back from my face. ‘An affair? What if I told you I’ve had Kylie Minogue living in the loft for the last year because we’re having a torrid fling and she can’t get enough of me?’

‘I’d say please tell her I’ll let her have you – as long as she’s willing to trade you for her entire wardrobe.’

Nate’s brown eyes creased at the side as he laughed. It was my very favourite thing about him.

We’d tried. We really had. The previous January, just a day into 1999, we’d talked, and we’d agreed to give it everything we had for a year, determined to reignite the spark between us. We’d had weekly date nights. Lazy Sunday sex. Weekend breaks to quiet country cottages and busy city hotels. A fantastic holiday to Bali where we’d taken long moonlit strolls along the sands. We’d hung out with our gang of mutual friends and we’d laughed, celebrated, partied, and discussed it long into many nights.

Yet, much as it destroyed us to admit it, we were still in that ‘best friends’ zone. My heart didn’t flutter when he entered a room. His gaze made me smile, but it didn’t make my libido throb with lust. And neither of us could shake the feeling that there was something – or someone – else out there for us.

So we’d decided to call it a day. To wish each other well, split the CD collection and move on. That makes it all sound so simple, when the truth was that a piece of my heart felt like it was being surgically removed by a jackhammer.

Nate wasn’t one hundred per cent sure. He didn’t like change. Preferred familiarity and stability to the unknown. But he said he loved me too much to make me stay in a marriage that didn’t make me happy. And if he were honest, our marriage wasn’t making him happy either, not like he should have been. I wanted more for me, for him, for both of us.

Tonight was our last night together. It seemed apt. Fitting. The final day of the century, a chapter closing, and a whole new world out there for us to explore.  And if I kept telling myself that this was a positive move; the right thing to do, it squashed the part of me that was terrified.

I saw his lips move again. ‘Liv, are you…?’

I missed the last bit. It got carried away on the wave of noise that suddenly engulfed the room.

Ten…

The lead singer of the band was counting down the seconds to midnight. Every year we headed to The Lomond Grange, a gorgeous stately manor hotel on the edge of Loch Lomond, about forty minutes from home, to bring in the coming year. Despite our sadness, we hadn’t wanted to bail out on the people who shared our lives, so here we were. One last hurrah. On the dance floor, our closest friends, Sasha and Justin stood next to Chloe and Rob, all of them with their champagne glasses in hand, party poppers at the ready, expressions oozing excitement, braced for the big moment.

Nine… Nine seconds until my marriage was over.

A wave of sorrow.

Eight… ‘What did you say?’ I asked him.

Seven… Seven seconds until my marriage was over.

He had to lean right into my ear so I could hear him. ‘I said are you absolutely sure?’

Six… A stomach flip of doubt. We’d discussed this to death. Yes, I was sure. Of course I was. So was he. We’d agreed.

Five… Five seconds until my marriage was over.

‘Yes. Why are you asking now?’

Four… ‘I think…’ I could feel his breath on the side of my face. ‘I think I want to give it one more try.’

Three… Three seconds until my marriage was over.

A sick feeling of panic rising to my throat.

Two… ‘But Nate, we both know it’s time to move on.’ We did. Didn’t we?

One… ‘One more try, Liv. We owe it to each other to give it more time.’

Noooooo. This wasn’t the deal. We’d tried. It hadn’t worked. We weren’t right for each other. It was time to move on, to take different paths.

A deafening cacophony of sound erupted in the room. Happy New Year. Streamers shot in the air. Bagpipes bellowed out a chorus of Auld Lang Syne to say goodbye to the past and welcome the twenty first century.

We were entering a new millennium.

But was I going to spend it with Nate…

…Or without him?

ShariLowAbout the Author

Shari Low has published twenty novels over the last two decades. She also writes for newspapers, magazines and television. Once upon a time, she got engaged to a guy she’d known for a week, and twenty-something years later, they live in Glasgow with their two teenage sons and a labradoodle.

Connect with Shari

Website  ǀ  Facebook  ǀ  Twitter ǀ  Goodreads

 

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