📖 Blog Tour ~ The Girl in the Maze by Cathy Hayward

 

Delighted to take part in this blog tour today

Agora Books

ebook 28 October 2021
paperback 25 November 2021

My thanks to Agora Books for my copy of this book
and to Peyton for the invitation to the blog tour

‘I would caution you against delving into the past. The past is often best left exactly where it is.’ 

Emma Bowen has never had a close relationship with her mother, barely speaking with her in the last years of her life. But after her mother’s death, Emma finds something that might just explain the distance between them. Discovering letters between her mother and grandmother, it seems to Emma that her mother has always been difficult. As she searches for answers about her own childhood, Emma is drawn into the mystery of her mother’s enigmatic life. The more she finds, the more lost she feels, but Emma is determined to uncover her mother’s past, and the secrets held within it, whatever the cost. An enthralling story of three women, generations apart, linked by one terrible tragedy.

📖 My thoughts..

After her mother's death Emma Bowen discovers rather more about her mother than she could ever have imagined. In the last years of Margaret's life Emma's relationship with her was pretty much non-existent, which makes clearing the debris of her mother's life all the more difficult. Moving forwards and backwards in time we get a picture of the family events which shaped Margaret's personality and which altered the course of her life forever.

The story opens with a harrowing first chapter which I thought was exceptionally well written and which placed me distinctly in the moment, experiencing all the shock and confusion, so lost in the moment, that I found myself wincing in one particular spot. I think that sets the scene perfectly for the rest of the story which is sometimes quite shocking in nature, whilst at other times it is so delicately observational that it quite moved me to tears.

The eponymous girl in the maze is an intriguing premise for the story and as the plot starts to dance and twirl so the meaning behind the title becomes clearer. It's very much a story about motherhood, particularly the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters, a process which is in itself so complex that all the twists and turns in the story only adds to the perception that we never really know someone until we look deep inside their soul.

I read The Girl in the Maze until my eyes ached with tiredness as I couldn't bear to not know what happened to both Margaret and Emma and hoped that there would be some sort of resolution for both of them. There is a further complicated dimension when an intriguing third person enters into the story which only adds a delicious twist to what is an already complex family drama.

Beautifully characterised, and wonderfully descriptive, The Girl in the Maze is an exceptionally accomplished debut novel from an exciting new talent. I can't wait to see what Cathy Hayward comes up with next time.

About the Author

Cathy Hayward trained as a journalist and edited a variety of trade publications, several of which were so niche they were featured on Have I Got News for You. She then moved into the world of PR and set up an award-winning communications agency. Devastated and inspired in equal measure by the death of her parents in quick succession, Cathy completed The Creative Writing Programme with New Writing South, out of which emerged her debut novel, The Girl in the Maze, about the experience of mothering and being mothered. It won Agora Books’ Lost the Plot Work in Progress Prize 2020 and was long listed for the Grindstone Literary Prize 2020. When she’s not writing (or reading) in her local library, Cathy loves pottering in second-hand bookshops, hiking, and wild camping. She lives in Brighton – sandwiched between the Downs and the sea – with her husband, three children, and two rescue cats – one of whom thinks he’s a dog.

Twitter @CathyHayward7 #TheGirlInTheMaze

@AgoraBooks

📖 Blog Tour ~ In the Mirror, a Peacock Danced by Justine Bothwick

 

Thrilled to host today's stop on this blog tour

Agora Books
24 June 2021

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book
and the invitation to be part of the blog tour

Agra, 1938: Eighteen-year-old Florence Hunt has grown up riding horses past the Taj Mahal and chasing peacocks through her backyard under the critical gaze of her father. Increasingly enamoured with his work on the booming railway, Florence yearns to know more, but finds herself brushed away, encouraged only to perform the more ladylike hobbies of singing and entertaining guests. So when a dazzling young engineer walks into her life, she finds herself not only gripped by secret lessons in physics but swept entirely off her feet.

Portsmouth, 1953: Fifteen years later, Florence finds herself pregnant and alone in post-war England – a far cry from her sun-drenched existence in India. Struggling to cope with the bleakness of everyday life in a male-dominated world, Florence is desperate to find the woman she used to be. But when someone from her past reaches out, Florence might just have a chance to start over.

Soaring from the shimmering heights of the big top to the depths of heartbreak, can Florence find the happiness, independence, and passion she once had in order to start living again?

Set against the lush backdrop of early 20th-century India, In the Mirror, a Peacock Danced – the debut novel from Justine Bothwick – is the moving story of one woman’s journey back to herself.

📖 My Thoughts..

From the intriguing title, and the sumptuousness of the cover, In the Mirror, a Peacock Danced draws you into the exotic world of colonial India in the heady years just before the country's independence.

The story opens in 1938 and into the life that Florence Hunt enjoys in Agra with her widowed father. In a world of privilege and dazzling colour, Florence reaches her eighteenth birthday as a beautiful self-possessed young woman with a lively mind and an enquiring nature. The story then jumps forward to 1953 where we meet up with Florence in Portsmouth and my interest was immediately piqued as to how Florence came to be living in such dreary circumstances in post-war England. 

I enjoyed piecing together Florence's life in India, especially her enthusiasm for all things engineering and in particular her interest in the railways which makes her something of an oddity amongst her female contemporaries however, she is filled with a questioning mind and it is this which moves the story forward. The author writes with a lovely, light descriptive touch bringing Florence's complex character to life with all the contrasts, both in India and England.

In the Mirror, a Peacock Danced flows beautifully with such an authentic feel to time and place that I was equally at home chasing the peacocks in India as I was immersed in the post war gloom of Portsmouth. Florence is a worthy protagonist, full of contrasts which comes from being caught between two worlds and it was fascinating to watch how all the pieces  of her life finally came together.

I am sure that on the strength of this debut novel we shall expect to see much more from this talented new author in the future.

About the Author

Justine Bothwick grew up in Kent and Hampshire, and studied in London. In 2005, she moved to Italy and now teaches English in an international secondary school in Rome. She is married to a Roman architect. Together they have a flat in the city with a small balcony on which she grows her ever expanding collection of plants and watches the local birdlife. Justine is a graduate of the Manchester Writing School’s Creative Writing MA programme and has short stories published in Fictive Dream, Virtual Zine, Confingo Magazine, and forthcoming in The Lonely Crowd, and with Nightjar Press. In the Mirror, a Peacock Danced is her debut novel.

Twitter @Bothwick_Cro #APeacockDanced

@AgoraBooksLDN

📖 Blog Tour ~ The Girls from Alexandria by Carol Cooper

  

Delighted to host today's stop on this Blog Tour

Agora Books
29 March 2021

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
and the invitation to be part of the blog tour

‘Memories are fragile when you are seventy years old. I can’t afford to lose any more of them, not when remembering the past might help with the here and now.’ 

Nadia needs help. Help getting out of her hospital bed. Help taking her pills. One thing she doesn’t need help with is remembering her sister. But she does need help finding her. Alone and abandoned in a London hospital, 70-year-old Nadia is facing the rest of her life spent in a care home unless she can contact her sister Simone… who’s been missing for 50 years. Despite being told she’s ‘confused’ and not quite understanding how wi-fi works, Nadia is determined to find Simone. So with only cryptic postcards and her own jumbled memories to go on, Nadia must race against her own fading faculties and find her sister before she herself is forgotten.

Set against the lush and glamorous backdrop of 20th century Alexandria, Carol Cooper’s The Girls from Alexandria is equal parts contemporary mystery and historical fiction: a re-coming of age story about family, identity, and homeland.

📖 My Thoughts..

Seventy year old Nadia is an inpatient in a British hospital and whilst the, rather uncaring, medical people around her struggle to find out what is causing her health problems, Nadia is more concerned with trying to find her older sister, Simone, who she hasn’t seen for fifty years.

The story splits between two time frames, so that we get to spend time, in the present, with the elderly Nadia in hospital, and then, as she reminisces, we go back to the 1950 and 60s, and back to a time when Nadia and Simone were growing up in Alexandria. Using her own experiences of growing up in this part of the world the author describes Nadia’s life really well, painting a a colourful picture of growing up in a complicated family with a motley collection of aunts, uncles and family friends. We also get a real sense what was happening politically, and culturally, in Egypt during this time.

The story is particularly poignant in the present, especially as Nadia seems unable to understand just what it is that the doctors are asking of her and this general uncertainty is reflected in the way Nadia’s meandering thought patterns take her back time after time to her younger days in Alexandria. I especially loved how Nadia embraced the idea of social media and got to grips with a borrowed Ipad in quick time. 

Whilst this is a thought provoking and beautifully maintained coming-of-age story, it’s also about the frailty aspect of increasing age, and how easy it is for older people to become thought of as merely shadows of themselves and then are seemingly disregarded. The Girls from Alexandria is a quietly introspective story written by an author who understands how to hold the reader's attention with a beautifully written story about love, loss, family and cultural identity. 

About the Author

Carol Cooper is a doctor, journalist, and author. Born in London, she was only a few months old when her cosmopolitan family took her to live in Egypt. She returned to the UK at eighteen and went to Cambridge University where she studied medicine and her fellow students. On her path to a career in general practice, she worked at supermarket checkouts, typed manuscripts in Russian, and spent years as a hospital doctor. Following a string of popular health books as well as an award-winning medical textbook, Carol turned to writing fiction. Her first two novels were contemporary tales set in London. Ever a believer in writing what you know, she mined the rich material of her childhood for The Girls from Alexandria. Carol lives with her husband in Cambridge and Hampstead. She has three grownup sons and three stepchildren.

Twitter @DrCarolCooper #GirlsfromAlex

@AgoraBooksLDN

📖 Blog Tour ~ How to Save Your Own Life by Erica Jong

 

Republished 2021

My thanks to the publishers for my invitation to the blog tour
and my copy of the book

Hailed as one of the ninety-nine best novels published in English since 1939 by Anthony Burgess, How to Save Your Own Life is the daring sequel to Fear of Flying republished in time for International Women’s Day 2021. 

Three years after the events of Fear of Flying, we catch up with Isadora Wing. With two marriages and a bestseller in her wake, Isadora finds herself in sunny California and the hedonistic Hollywood. From grief and betrayal to jealousy and trust, Jong explores the ways in which a marriage unravels. In the end, Isadora must learn to save herself.

📖 My Thoughts..

We first met Isadora Wing in Erica Jong's, now iconic novel, Fear of Flying, which was first published in 1973, with How to Save Your Own Life following in 1977. There is no doubt that, at the time, both novels were controversial with their focus on feminism and female sexuality.

Reissued with a new cover, How to Save Your Own Life takes us on Isadora's quest to rid herself of a tiresome marriage. That Isadora is dissatisfied with her life is obvious, her angst and chagrin at her literary career and her search to find out more about herself is what comes across in this journey to save her own life. I found Isadora Wing to be an unusual protagonist, she's not always particularly likeable, nor are some of the other characters, but there is a vulnerability to Isadora which I didn't expect to find. She is a woman of strong contrasts, who seems to lurch from one crisis to another, and though she's both hedonistic and, at times, morally reprehensible, there's an originality to her which is hard, in the end, not to find interesting. 

That the story is of its time is perhaps what comes across strongly, and whilst it is still readable for a modern audience, it's not for those who are offended by explicit sexual references.  How to Save Your Own Life is, I think, quite definitely a classic book, and with its companion, Fear of Flying, both novels are now firmly placed in history as controversial novels which encouraged a generation of women to search for sexual freedom, a world away from the stereotypical confines of what was expected of them in the 1970s as wives and mothers.

About the Author

Erica Jong is an American writer famously known for her debut novel, Fear of Flying. Published in 1973, it revolutionised conventional beliefs about women, marriage, and sexuality. Erica created an outlet for every woman’s inner voice, and her frank discussions of sex and sexuality has made her one of the the world’s most iconic writers. With her work being published in 45 languages worldwide, Erica Jong is a hero to millions. Since beginning with Fear of Flying, Erica has published over 25 books spanning fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Twitter @ericajong #HowToSaveYourOwnLife

@AgoraBooksLDN

#InternationalWomensDay