Tag: bookblitz

#BlogBlitz #BookReview Sleeping Through War by Jackie Carreira

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Sleeping Through WarToday I’m delighted to be joining the birthday blog blitz for Sleeping Through War by Jackie Carreira and once again sharing my review of this wonderful book.

Sleeping Through WarAbout the Book

The year is 1968. The world is changing. Students are protesting, civil rights are being fought and died for, nuclear bombs are being tested, and war is raging in Vietnam. For three women, life must go on as usual. For them, as it is for most ‘ordinary’ people, just to survive is an act of courage.

Rose must keep her dignity and compassion as a St. Lucian nurse in East London. Amalia must keep hoping that her son can escape their seedy life in Lisbon. And Mrs Johnson in Washington DC must keep writing to her son in Vietnam. She has no-one else to talk to.

Three different women in three different countries, They work, they bring up children, they struggle to make ends meet while the world goes around and the papers print the news. History is written by the winners – and almost all of it has been written by men. The stories of women like these go unremarked and unwritten so often that we forget how important they are.

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

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk   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.

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In three words: Touching, insightful, thought-provoking

Jackie CarreiraAbout the Author

Jackie Carreira is an award-winning novelist, playwright, musician, designer, and co-founder of QuirkHouse Theatre Company, and award-winning playwright. A true Renaissance woman or a Jack Of All Trades?  The jury’s still out on that one.

She grew up in Hackney, East London, but spent part of her early childhood in Lisbon’s Old Quarter. Sleeping Through War was inspired, in part, by some of the women she met when she was young. One of her favourite places to write is the coffee shops of railway stations. Her second novel, The Seventh Train, was born in the cafe at Paddington Station. Jackie now lives in Suffolk with an actor, two cats and not enough bookshelves.

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Book Blast: A Different Kind of Fire by Suanne Schafer

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I’m delighted to be taking part in the celebrations to mark publication day of A Different Kind of Fire by Suanne Schafer.  Watch the book trailer here.

WinFor US readers only, there’s a giveaway with a chance to win a Fiery Bookish Prize Pack, including a literary scarf, beaded velvet bookmark, a copy of A Different Kind of Fire and a $10 Amazon Gift Card! Read the terms and conditions and enter via the form on the tour page here.

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02_A Different Kind of FireAbout A Different Kind of Fire

Ruby Schmidt has the talent, the drive, even the guts to enrol in art school, leaving behind her childhood home and the beau she always expected to marry. Her life at the Academy seems heavenly at first, but she soon learns that societal norms in the East are as restrictive as those back home in West Texas.

Rebelling against the insipid imagery women are expected to produce, Ruby embraces bohemian life. Her burgeoning sexuality drives her into a life-long love affair with another woman and into the arms of an Italian baron. With the Panic of 1893, the nation spirals into a depression, and Ruby’s career takes a similar downward trajectory. After thinking she could have it all, Ruby, now pregnant and broke, returns to Texas rather than join the queues at the neighbourhood soup kitchen.

Set against the Gilded Age of America, a time when suffragettes fight for reproductive rights and the right to vote, A Different Kind of Fire depicts one woman’s battle to balance husband, family, career, and ambition. Torn between her childhood sweetheart, her forbidden passion for another woman, the nobleman she had to marry, and becoming a renowned painter, Ruby’s choices mould her in ways she could never have foreseen.

Praise for A Different Kind of Fire

“Writer Suanne Schafer spins a unique tale of a turn of the 19th century Texas heroine and her way of artistic expression.  A Different Kind of Fire depicts the journey of a determined woman to meet life on her own terms.” [Pamela Morsi, USA Today bestselling author of 26 books including The Cotton Queen and Bitsy’s Bait & BBQ]

“If you love historical novels about women who throw off the shackles of feminine convention, then this book is for you. In spare but sensuous prose reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy and E. Annie Proulx, Schafer brings Ruby Schmidt to life – a woman who doesn’t belong in the late nineteenth century but gradually finds her place in the twentieth. This is a powerful and deeply satisfying read.” [Helena Echlin, co-author of Sparked and author of Gone]

“An exceptional first novel. Schafer has woven a cohesive tale from disparate elements–a stark life in the rugged countryside of 1890s Texas vs the gentility of an arts academy in the East; a traditional marriage and motherhood vs a secret and haunting sexuality. Unequivocally recommended!” [Michael R. Hardesty, author of Amazon Best Seller, The Grace of the Ginkgo]

“With rare artistry, Schafer paints a life both creative and cursed in A Different Kind of Fire”. [Willa Blair, award-winning Amazon and Barnes & Noble #1 bestselling author of His Highland Love, Highland Troth, Highland Seer, and ten other books]

“The saga of a young woman determined to follow her dream, whatever obstacles cross her path.” [M J Fredrick, author of A Texas Kind of Love, Smitten in a Small Town, and twenty-five other books, two-time Epic Awards winner and four-time RWA Golden Heart finalist]

“Told in a rich, sensual, style, A Different Kind of Fire is a book about reconciling the irreconcilable. It is a book about boundaries: the dilemmas they place upon those would dare rise above them.” [James Hanna, author of The Siege, Call Me Pomeroy, and A Second, Less Head and Other Rogue Stories]

“Suanne Schafer’s A Different Kind of Fire tackles the sensitive subject of bisexuality in 19th century America with grace, compassion, and empathy through fully developed characters in a story readers will cherish long after the book ends.” [C.S. Fuqua, author of Walking after Midnight: Collected Stories]

Format: Paperback, audiobook (pp.)    Publisher: Waldorf  Publishing
Published: 1st November 2018      Genre: Historical Fiction

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

Find A Different Kind of Fire on Goodreads

03_Suanne SchaferAbout the Author

Suanne Schafer, born in West Texas at the height of the Cold War, finds it ironic that grade school drills for tornadoes and nuclear war were the same: hide beneath your desk and kiss your rear-end goodbye. Now a retired family-practice physician whose only child has fledged the nest, her pioneer ancestors and world travels fuel her imagination. She originally planned to write romances, but either as a consequence of a series of failed relationships or a genetic distrust of happily ever after, her heroines are strong women who battle tough environments and intersect with men who might – or might not – love them.

Suanne completed the Stanford University Creative Writing Certificate program. Her short works have been featured in print and on-line magazines and anthologies. Her debut women’s fiction novel, A Different Kind of Fire, explores the life of Ruby Schmidt, a nineteenth century artist who escapes – and returns – to West Texas. Suanne’s next book explores the heartbreak and healing of an American physician caught up in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Connect with Suanne

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