Jaffareadstoo is exited to be hosting today's Blog Tour stop
My thoughts on In Her Wake...
Our lives are made of up of a
rainbow of memories; some, perhaps, are a little more fragile than others, but deep
within ourselves there’s always a real sense of belonging. Imagine then,
finding that the memories you have lived with for all of your life are without
substance and are as ephemeral as the wind.
Peeping into the corners of a
closeted childhood spent at The Old Vicarage, with her parents, Elaine and
Henry, Bella Campbell was a lonely, only child. There’s no doubt that she was loved beyond
reason, but being the absolute centre of her parent’s life meant that she was
never really free, and as the ghosts of her past are laid bare and opened up to
scrutiny, we learn that there is far more to Bella’s life than we could ever
have imagined.
What then follows is the gripping
story of Bella’s quest to lay aside the ghosts and demons of her past in order
to discover where she really belongs. Her journey of discovery takes her to the
rugged beauty of the Cornish coast and to a 25 year old mystery which threatens
to destroy her future.
Psychologically chilling, from
its dramatic beginning through to its powerful conclusion, In her Wake is beautifully written by an author who has the supreme
confidence to flip a story on its head and who isn’t afraid of taking a risk by
not giving you the blindingly obvious. It’s a story of love in its most
controlling form, it’s the story of families and of the secrets we keep hidden,
and it’s also about the hopelessness of catastrophic grief and the sadness, almost
beyond reason, of devastating loss.
Rarely have I been so utterly gripped by a story that I wanted to race through it at top speed, and believe me, when I want to, I really can speed read but such is the emotional pull of the story that almost with a feverish compulsion I read until my eyes ached with tiredness. And yet, as much as I wanted to discover what happened to Bella, bizarrely, I didn’t want the story to end, because then I would have to say goodbye to a set of characters who had become as dear to me as friends.
Even now, days after finishing
the story, I keep remembering snippets, hidden clues, unspoken
nuances that reveal far more about people and which lay bare the
foundations of a life filled with secrets and lies.
As you can tell, I absolutely
loved it.
Best Read with ….A creamy cappuccino
and bowl of soup, heated to lukewarm…
Amanda Jennings is the author of two previous books Sword Secret and The Judas Scar
Twitter @MandaJJennings #InHerWake
@OrendaBooks
Huge thanks to Amanda Jennings and Karen Sullivan at Orenda Books for their kind invitation to join in with this blog tour.
Blog Tour runs between 27 March - 29 April
Do visit the other stops for more exciting content.
Do visit the other stops for more exciting content.
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I've seen this novel about and will download it now. An excellent review!
ReplyDeleteHi Helena, I'm so pleased that you have downloaded In Her Wake - do come back and let me know what you thought of it :)
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