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| Scribe 9 June 2016 |
Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting a stop on the
Hope Farm Blog Tour
A bit of blurb
It is the winter of 1985. Hope Farm sticks out of the ragged landscape like a decaying tooth, its weatherboard walls sagging into the undergrowth. Silver's mother, Ishtar, has fallen for the charismatic Miller, and the three of them have moved to the rural hippie commune to make a new start.
At Hope, Silver finds unexpected friendship and, at last, a place to call home. But it is also here that, at just thirteen, she is thrust into an unrelenting adult world — and the walls begin to come tumbling down, with deadly consequences.
My Review
Ishtar and her daughter, Silver
live a peripatetic sort of life, always moving and never staying in one place
long enough to put down any roots. That is until Ishtar meets the enigmatic
Miller and before long she and Silver pack up their belongings once again, and move with
Miller hundreds of miles away to the hippy commune at Hope Farm.
But all is not peace, love and
beads at the commune, there are also secrets and shadows and even as thirteen
year old Silver tries to fit in, there is always something which holds her
back. Resentful of Miller’s influence on her mother, Silver could be mistaken
for a stroppy teenager and yet, there is also something wise and wonderful
about her which makes the eventual outcome of the story so very poignant.
The book is written in two distinct
voices, firstly that of Silver, who explains the ordinary routine of her life in a pragmatic sort of
way, never belittling her mother’s lifestyle but always there's an undercurrent
of wanting something more, but Silver has no idea of what it is she wants or even of how
to express this longing. Running alongside Silver's story is the voice of another narrator, at first we don’t know who this person is, but
gradually their story unfurls alongside Silver’s, and soon the parallels start
to emerge and coalesce.
I thought that the story was
really cleverly achieved. The book is beautifully written with a real sense of
time and place and is so well described that Hope Farm in all its ramshackle
glory soon comes alive in the imagination. The stark brutality of shared
living, in almost abject poverty, really tugs away at the heartstrings, and by
the time the story really gets going, I had formed an emotional bond with
Silver, and just wanted to hug her. The immorality of the mid-nineteen
eighties, the laxness of morality, and the casual use of recreational drugs, infiltrates
the pages with gracious ease and is enlightening without being moralistic.
Hope Farm shows the best and the worst
of human nature. It’s a story about bravery and endurance, it’s about good
versus evil and it’s also about the overwhelming spirit of a plucky thirteen year old.
I loved it.
I loved it.
Best Read With ....Bowls of Dhal and Rice and sips of creek water, ice cold ans brackish
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My thanks to Sophie at Scribe for my review copy of this book and for the invitation to be part of this exciting blog tour.
Blog tour runs 6th - 13th June - do visit the other stops on the tour for more exciting content.
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