Tag: literary fiction

Release Blitz: Money Power Love by Joss Sheldon

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I’m thrilled to join the release day celebrations for Money Power Love by Joss Sheldon. Described as ‘a literary mélange of historical, political and economic fiction’, it’s set in the 1800s but addresses issues of money and power familiar and still relevant to us today.

Joss has kindly given me a review copy of Money Power Love and the more I hear about it, the keener I am for it to reach the top of my review pile.

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MoneyPowerLoveAbout the Book

“All wars are bankers’ wars.” Born on three adjacent beds, a mere three seconds apart, our three heroes are united by a shared nature, but divided by a compulsion to chase three very different things: money, power and love. This is a human story; a tale about people like ourselves, cajoled by the whimsy of circumstance, who find themselves performing the most beautiful acts as well as the most vulgar. This is a historical story; a tale set in the early 1800s, which shines a light on how bankers, with the power to create money out of nothing, were able to shape the world we live in today. And this is a love story; a tale about three men, who all fall in love with the same woman, at exactly the same time.

Format: ebook, paperback (298 pp.)           Publisher:
Published: 7th October 2017                        Genre: Historical/Literary Fiction

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

Find Money Power Love on Goodreads

Joss SheldonAbout the Author

Joss Sheldon is a scruffy nomad, unchained free-thinker, and post-modernist radical. Born in 1982, he was brought up in one of the anonymous suburbs which wrap themselves around London’s beating heart. Then he escaped! With a degree from the London School of Economics to his name, Sheldon had spells selling falafel at music festivals, being a ski-bum, and failing to turn the English Midlands into a haven of rugby league. Then, in 2013, he ran off to McLeod Ganj; an Indian village which plays home to thousands of angry monkeys, hundreds of Tibetan refugees, and the Dalai Lama himself. It was there that Sheldon wrote his debut novel, Involution & Evolution. With several positive reviews to his name, Sheldon had caught the writing bug. He travelled to Palestine and Kurdistan, where he researched his second novel, Occupied, a dystopian masterpiece unlike any other story you’ve ever read. It was with his third novel, The Little Voice, that Sheldon really hit the big time, topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and gaining widespread critical acclaim. Now Sheldon has returned with his fourth and most ambitious novel yet. Money Power Love is a literary mélange of historical, political and economic fiction; a love story that charts the rise of the British Empire, and the way in which bankers, with the power to create money out of nothing, were able to shape the world we live in today.   Visit Joss’s Wikipedia page

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Book Review: And The Birds Kept On Singing by Simon Bourke

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AndTheBirdsKeptOnSingingAbout the Book

Pregnant at seventeen, Sinéad McLoughlin does the only thing she can; she runs away from home. She will go to England and put her child up for adoption. But when she lays eyes on it for the first time, lays eyes on him, she knows she can never let him go. Just one problem. He’s already been promised to someone else.  A tale of love and loss, remorse and redemption, And The Birds Kept On Singing tells two stories, both about the same boy. In one Sinéad keeps her son and returns home to her parents, to nineteen-eighties Ireland and life as a single mother. In the other she gives him away, to the Philliskirks, Malcolm and Margaret, knowing that they can give him the kind of life she never could.  As her son progresses through childhood and becomes a young man, Sinéad is forced to face the consequences of her decision. Did she do the right thing? Should she have kept him, or given him away? And will she spend the rest of her life regretting the choices she has made?

Format: ebook (642 pp.), paperback (596 pp.)       Published: 26th January 2017
Genre: Literary Fiction

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

Find And The Birds Kept On Singing on Goodreads

My Review

The author has created a powerful coming-of-age saga following the same boy through two different possible lives. In one, his teenage mother, Sinead, returns to Northern Ireland with her young son, Seán, to live back in the family home.   In the other, she gives him up for adoption and Jonathan becomes the longed-for child of Margaret and Malcolm, unable to have children of their own.  As the two different journeys play out, the author explores the various factors that may determine a person’s life chances: domestic environment, financial situation, educational opportunities, moral codes and so on.

The balance of the book is definitely towards the depiction of Seán’s life. As well as taking up the larger part of the book, his is the voice that feels really distinctive and authentic and his is the story that will certainly stay with this reader longest.  Childhood incidents, family upheaval, schoolboy friendships and sexual awakening are played out against a background of realistic domestic detail: family meals (who remembers crispy pancakes?), music, hanging out with your mates, watching football on the TV.

I felt I didn’t get inside Jonathan’s head in the quite the same way as I did Seán’s, possibly because Jonathan’s story is as much about his family as about him. His story is of a life not without challenges and obstacles but it is much less raw and dark than Seán’s story.

Despite their different upbringings – in different countries, with different accents and different family dynamics – the author manages to convey a sense that this is in essence the same boy in both strands of the story. Whether it’s as Seán or Jonathan, the boy demonstrates the same sense of humour, raw intelligence, ability to analyse situations and determination to overcome obstacles.

This book is not an easy read. (Readers should be aware that the book contains swearing and explicit descriptions of sex and of drug use.) At times, I found it uncomfortable reading. It is also quite bleak and very sad at some points. However, it is also powerful, moving and has an amazing sense of realism.

You can read my interview with Simon about his book and his writing journey here.

I received a review copy courtesy of the author in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Gritty, realistic, powerful

SimonBourkeAbout the Author

Having spent the majority of his teens and twenties wondering just what would become of him, Simon chanced upon a hitherto unrealised ability to write. His dreams of super-stardom were almost immediately curtailed by a punishing, unexplained illness which took away three years of his life. He has since returned to his studies and couples them with a weekly column for local paper, the Limerick Post. If you were to ask him to tell you which career he’d prefer; journalist or novelist, he would smirk to himself and say that it’s impossible to make it as a novelist these days. He would then smirk some more and say that journalism is a dying industry.

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