Tag: literary fiction

#BookReview The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks @HutchHeinemann

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About the Book

A child will be born who will change everything

When young American academic Talissa Adam offers to carry another woman’s child, she has no idea of the life-changing consequences.

Behind the doors of the Parn Institute, a billionaire entrepreneur plans to stretch the boundaries of ethics as never before. Through a series of IVF treatments, which they hope to keep secret, they propose an experiment that will upend the human race as we know it.

Seth, the baby, is delivered to hopeful parents Mary and Alaric, but when his differences start to mark him out from his peers, he begins to attract unwanted attention.

Format: Hardback (368 pages) Publisher: Hutchinson Heinemann
Publication date: 7th September 2023 Genre: Literary Fiction, Science Fiction

Find The Seventh Son on Goodreads

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Hive | Amazon UK 
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My Review

The Seventh Son opens in the near future – 2030 to be precise – just far enough away to feel familiar but also scarily prescient. Technology has advanced beyond what we have today but not necessarily for the better. Climate change has wrought havoc and forced all sorts of changes to individual lifestyles and freedoms. Power and wealth still remains in the hands of a few.

The Seventh Son explores the various ways in which individuals and society respond to those who are different: acceptance, curiosity, exploitation, intrusion, prejudice, fear but also unconditional love. And it brilliantly evokes what it’s like to be the person who is different from everyone else. It poses the ethical question, just because you are able to do something does that mean you should? And if you do, are you prepared for the consequences? It’s also a book about obsession, isolation and sacrifice… and a love story.

I’m not going to say more for fear of giving too much away, other than I hope Elon Musk never reads this book. The Seventh Son was a ‘wow’ book for me and I finished it with tears running down my cheeks. I thought it was absolutely brilliant and I’m looking forward to hearing Sebastian talk about the book at Henley Literary Festival in October.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Penguin via NetGalley.

In three words: Thought-provoking, moving, compelling

Try something similar: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

About the Author

Sebastian Faulks has written nineteen books, of which A Week in December and The Fatal Englishman were number one in the Sunday Times bestseller lists. He is best known for Birdsong, part of his French trilogy, and Human Traces, the first in an ongoing Austrian trilogy. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a journalist on national papers. He has also written screenplays and has appeared in small roles on stage. He lives in London.

Connect with Sebastian
Website | Twitter

#BookReview #BlogTour The Unheard by Anne Worthington @Confingo @RichardsonHelen #TheUnheard

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Unheard by Anne Worthington. My thanks to Helen at Helen Richardson PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Cōnfingō for my review copy.

The Unheard is a book that has been wowing readers. If you don’t believe me, check out this fabulous review by Linda at Linda’s Book Bag.

About the Book

Tom Pullan knows that the people who visit him are trying to tell him something, but he cannot remember what. He knows the faces in his memory, the ones he loved, are not the ones around him now.

We are drawn into a world where brutal events from the past lie just below the surface. Plunged inside the characters’ heads, we experience their thoughts and feelings: sorrow and rage they cannot share; the intense feelings and turbulent sexuality of a teenage girl; a boy who saw something that casts a long shadow over his life.

What do we do with a lifetime of unheard truths, questions and fears? The Unheard is a novel about memory, and what happens to the experiences that are too much for us but we are unable to leave behind.

Format: Paperback (160 pages) Publisher: Confingo Publishing
Publication date: 11th July 2023 Genre: Literary Fiction

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My Review

Tom has dementia and May, his wife of many years, is seriously ill. They’d always promised each other they’d stay together to the end but now this seems it might not be possible. Tom forgets a lot these days, like what time it is or whether he’s had his tea. But there have also been things in his life that he couldn’t forget even though he wanted to, like his experiences during the war. And, as a child, there were things he was told he must forget, terrible things that he didn’t fully understand at the time. If your heart hasn’t been broken a little bit by the end of the first part of the book then prepare for it to have been torn asunder by the end. (Please can someone invent a way to reach into a book and give the characters a hug.)

Moving back in time, alongside depicting events in Tom’s life, the book explores social and political issues such as economic injustice and digital exclusion, particularly during the section of the book set in 1984, a time of industrial unrest in the UK. Tom has a visceral reaction to the person he calls ‘that woman’ (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) and has no truck with the theory of ‘trickle down’ economics. As he says, ‘When have the rich allowed their money to spill over for the rest of us? And when has money ever flowed down to the poor?’. Quite, Tom.

The experiences of Maggie, his teenage daughter, are raw and disturbing but demonstrate that there are many ways to be, or feel, unheard.

Being inside Tom’s head is often unsettling and heartrending but at other times his resilience and determination to do the best for his family make it joyous.

The writing is wonderful. Even when the author is describing pain or despair, there’ll be a phrase that makes you stop and think, yes, that must be what it’s like – or even, I know that feeling. I especially loved the use of repetition, the phrases that occur in Tom’s head over and over again, like a refrain.

The Unheard is one of those books that it’s difficult to do justice to in a review and I don’t think I’ve come close to communicating how brilliant I thought it was. It’s a short book but it packs a real punch. And after this I don’t think I’ll ever think about the song ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine’ in quite the same way again.

In three words: Moving, powerful, lyrical

Try something similar: Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry

About the Author

Anne Worthington is a documentary photographer and writer. She was awarded an MA with Distinction for Creative Writing in 2018. Anne was a finalist for Iceland Writers Retreat 2015, and shortlisted for the Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2018. She lives in the north of England. The Unheard is her first novel.

Connect with Anne
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