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| Tinder Press 7 July 2022 My thanks to the publisher for my copy of the book and to Random Things tours for the invitation to the blog tour |
She thinks of blue mountain, her favourite place. 'We're going somewhere where we can be safe. We never have to come back here.' As the rest of the world lies sleeping, Eleanor straps her infant daughter, Amy, into the back of her car. This is the moment she knew must come, when they will walk out on her husband Leon and a marriage in ruins since his return from Vietnam. Together, she and Amy will journey to blue mountain, a place of enchantment and refuge that lit up Eleanor's childhood. As the car eats up the miles, so Eleanor's mind dives back into her fractured relationship with her mother, Kitty. Kitty who asked for so much from life, from love, from family. Kitty who had battled so hard to prise her husband George out of the grip of war. Kitty, whose disapproving voice rings so loud in Eleanor's head.
📖 My Review..
Eleanor's marriage is in ruins and over the space of this sparsely furnished novel we get to know why she is leaving her husband in order to get far away to the Blue Mountain, her favourite place in the world. With her infant daughter Amy in the car Eleanor sets off on an emotional journey recalling the events in her life which have led to this moment. Eleanor’s challenging relationship with her mother is pretty much at the core of the story as is her fractured relationship with her husband, Leon, who has recently returned from the conflict in Vietnam.
Blue Hour took me by surprise, not just because the story is so powerful but also in the way the author uses her words so sparingly and yet delivers such a thought provoking and intensely personal story of trauma and abuse. Covering such an array of topics from toxic motherhood, to PTSD and every level of emotional discontent, the story should be difficult to read and yet it flows so beautifully that I had difficulty putting the book down. Right from the start I felt a brooding respect for Eleanor, unlike her mother, Kitty, who made my skin crawl.
Clever writing by this talented author makes Blue Hour such powerful and emotional roller coaster of a read and the connection, made between author and reader, is a very personal one. Throughout the story there is a sad intensity as we witness fractured lives spiralling out of control.
🥛Best read with... a glass of Milo
Sarah Schmidt is the acclaimed author of See What I Have Done, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and won the AIBA Literary Fiction of the Year 2018. She lives in Melbourne where she works as a librarian.
Twitter @ikillnovel #BlueHour
@TinderPress
@RandomTTours
Thanks for the blog tour support x
ReplyDeleteThank you for the opportunity to take part, Anne x
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