🎧BlogTour ~ Salt & Honey by Candi Miller

 

September 2025
#1 Koba Trilogy 

Estimated run time 7 hours

Read by John Maytham

Thanks to the author and Rachel’s Random Resources 

Hide!’ shouts her father. Then he breaks cover to draw the hunting party away across the blackened plain. The child sees them shoot him. And murder her mother. 

It’s the 1950s but Koba is a hunter-gatherer from an ancient living culture. She’s a survivor. Alone in a cave, she fends for herself, talks to her ancestors, breaks taboos. She gains healing power and tries to ignore the warnings she feels. She trades with the teenage son of the family who orphaned her – bushcraft for jive dancing, salt for honey. 

But now she’s in the greatest danger she’s ever faced: she’s falling for a white boy in Apartheid South Africa, where love across racial divides is brutally punished. She hears the axe shatter the bedroom’s wooden shutters but Koba won’t run. Book 1 of this fast-paced saga introduces a striking character into romance-writing, offering readers a fascinating glimpse into a forgotten way of life and into recent black history.

* Occasional, deliberate use of racist language by the villain.

🎧 My Review..

This is an interesting coming of age story during a difficult time in South Africa’s history. It tells of the forbidden relationship between Koba, an indigenous girl who lives alone and Mannie, an Afrikaner teenage boy, whose family were responsible for the loss of Koba’s family. This is a fascinating book to listen to as the beautiful narration by John Matthew really enhances the story in a special way however, it is in the troubled landscape, and the friendship between Kobe and Mannie where the true power of the story lies. 

The story flows well, the pacing of the narrative kept my attention and with a clear and expressive narrator the story came to life. I could feel the tension in the atmosphere and was fascinated by Kobe’s deep attachment to the land and the ancient culture of her people. This was a very different time and the writing reflects that and doesn’t shy away from explaining the brutality of apartheid and the harsh consequences of living during this difficult time in South African history.

Coming in at around 7 hours the audio book is managed in easily listening chunks and with a good narrator this was an interesting and informative book which brought Koba and Mannie’s story to life in a meaningful way.

About the Author

Candi Miller was born in southern Africa and has spent decades researching the first people of the region, a group who feature in the novel. She loves to tell the many unique and exciting experiences she’s had in the bush and around campfires. She taught creative writing in the UK where she now lives. She is republishing her novels to support a school feeding scheme for marginalised children which she co-founded in 2017.

Website:  https://www.candimiller.co.uk/my-novels.html

 

Substack: https://candimiller.substack.com/publish/post/141372314?back=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fdetail%2F141372314

https://substack.com/home/post/p-137297879

Link to the first chapter of the sequel, free to read.

https://candimiller.substack.com/p/dear-paid-subscriber

Facebook author page

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092417402759

 

Insta: @candimillerauthor

https://www.instagram.com/candimillerauthor/

📖 Book Review ~ True Love by Paddy Crewe

 

Doubleday Books
4 July 2024

My thanks to the publisher for the invitation to read this book

KEELY feels alone in the world — grief consumes her, she wants to escape it, to take both her father's and her own pain away. She knows that solace lies in the act of loving and being loved but, struggling in ever-deepening waters, she doesn't know how to find it. FINN has been devastated too. As a young boy, growing up with his grandparents, he feels his fate has already been sealed by the neglect of those meant to care for him most. With no real friends to turn to, he cannot find the vocabulary to deal with the loneliness and heartache that haunt him. As we watch them each grow, connection seems to be the answer – to be seen and heard and received as who they are. Maybe it's this that could release them from their private pains. Is it that simple?

📖 My Review..

Keely is twelve when we first meet her, she lives with her caring, but remote father, and her little brother, William. They eke out a meagre living picking sea coal and the caravan where they live is functional, but basic. When tragedy strikes, Keely must try and hold everything together but she doesn't know how to shoulder the unbearable burden of grief which hangs about her shoulders like a cloud. She searches for a means of escape, desperately seeking comfort in a world which doesn't seem to care very much about her. 

Finn is an introspective child, brought up by his grandparents, he is always on the outside looking in, and although perfectly content with his own company, he remains a lonely child, an easy target for bullies and made fun of by those who see him as some kind of misfit. On the surface these two lost and lonely souls would never have met but as this hauntingly beautiful story unfolds we start to discover that sometimes the stars align and what will be, will inevitably, be.

True Love wrapped itself around me like a blanket and even when I wasn't reading it my thoughts returned to Keely and Finn, two of the most memorable literary characters I have met in a long time. Whilst the story is a complex study into the fragility of relationships it is also desperately sad and deeply moving. It’s the story of two people searching for something only to have life get in the way and though desperate for a happy ever after ending, I knew that life isn’t always kind enough to give us what we want. Strong and beautiful the essence of True Love lingers long after the book is closed and Keely and Finn’s story is finally told.

About the Author

Paddy Crewe was born in Middlesbrough and studied at Goldsmiths. His debut novel, My Name Is Yip, has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, a South Bank Sky Arts Award and The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.

X @DoubledayBooks

#PaddyCrewe #TrueLove

 

🎧 Book Review ~ Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Hodder & Stoughton
Audio : November 2022
Paperback : August 2023

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

🎧 My Review..

Searching for something to listen to whilst I completed a complicated crochet project my eyes alighted on this beautiful honey bee cover and decided to take a chance on listening to Mad Honey. Jodi Picoult has long been one of my favourite American authors but I wasn't familiar with Jennifer Finney Boylan so did a quick google search to discover more about her.

Small town America comes alive in this coming of age story which looks at the poignancy of first love alongside a story of undeniable tragedy. Mad Honey is told in two distinct voices that of Olivia McAfee and Lily Campanello, a pretty teenager, who is involved romantically with Olivia's son, Asher. Both voices are compelling and during this dramatic and rather sad court room drama we get to know in intimate detail Olivia's past life with her ex-husband and the reason for her, and Asher, making their lives in Adams, New Hampshire. Lily Campanello is a fascinating enigma and it is her voice which comes across so breathtakingly beautiful that I was, at times, reading through tears of sadness.

Covering some relevant topics we learn of Lily's struggle to find her identity and of the prejudice which has followed her and her mother, Ava, from place to place. The small town of Adams offers another new start for them and it is here that destiny will bring Lily and Asher together. I'm conscious of not saying too much as I went into the story not knowing any of the details so when the reveal is made it came as a real surprise and took the story in a whole new direction. Sensitive and compelling Mad Honey had me captivated from beginning to end, and Lily Campanello's sad story will stay with me for a very long time to come.

Beautifully narrated by Carrie Coon and Key Taw, in two very different voices, this audio version of the story was particularly powerful and the 15 hours and 12 minutes flew by in a flash.

Twitter @jodipicoult #MadHoney

@HodderFiction

 

📖 Book Review ~ The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop

 

Bantam Press
25 May

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Rachel has been in love with Alistair since she was seventeen. Even though she hasn't seen him for sixteen years and she's now married to someone else. Even though she was a teenager when they met. Even though he is twenty years older than her. She's found it impossible to forget their summer together on a remote, sun-trapped Greek island. Until now.

When Rachel unexpectedly reconnects with a girl that she knew back then, she is forced to re-examine her memories of that golden summer and confront the truth about her relationship with Alistair and about her time working for an enigmatic and wealthy man on the island. And when Alistair returns, the pull of the past could prove impossible to resist...

📖 My Review..

Rachel fell in love with Alistair when she was seventeen and on the adventure of her life. Travelling with her friend Caroline they arrive at a small Greek island where Rachel, in particular, is soon captivated by island life. Rachel decides to stay on the island, finding work and friendship but always in thrall to the much older Alistair and whatever he wants Rachel does unquestioningly even when it means she is drawn into a world she is neither prepared for nor understands.

I was quickly immersed in Rachel's story and felt more than once that I just wanted her to see sense and go home but of course, we've all been a naive seventeen, in love for the first time and unwilling to listen to anyone's advice. The story moves between two time frames so we meet, in the present day, a more mature Rachel, her dissatisfaction all too obvious, and her character rather jaded from the bright and beautiful seventeen year old who was in love with life on a sparkling Greek island. Gradually over the space of the story we learn that all was not idyllic on the island hideaway.

The Girls of Summer is a thought provoking #MeToo read which I devoured in the space of a couple of sittings as I couldn't book the book down. It would be a really good immersive summer read, especially if you are heading to the Greek islands for some sunshine. The Girls of Summer takes the idea of a classic holiday romance and turns it into something much darker and deeper, highlighting the nature of a coercive relationship and the ambiguity of consent and control. 

About the Author

Katie Bishop is a writer and journalist based in Birmingham, UK. She grew up in the Midlands before moving to Oxford to work in publishing in her early twenties. Whilst working as an assistant editor she started writing articles in her spare time, going on to be published in the New York Times, Guardian, Independent and Vogue.

Katie started writing The Girls of Summer during the first UK COVID lockdown, after becoming increasingly interested in stories emerging from the #MeToo movement. The novel is inspired by her own experiences of backpacking, and by her interest in how personal narratives can be reshaped and understood in light of cultural and social changes.

In 2020, Katie moved back to the Midlands, and now lives in Birmingham with her partner. She is a full-time writer.

Twitter @WhatKatieBWrote #GirlsofSummer

Website

@TransworldBooks

📖 Featured Book of the Month ~ Go As A River by Shelley Read

 

Doubleday Books
Transworld
13 April 2023

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family's farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado. As she heads into her village, a dishevelled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives.

So begins the mesmerising story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength.

Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life for ever.

📖 My Review..

Victoria Nash lives with her somewhat depleted family in the isolated beauty of a peach farm in rural Colorado. That her life is bleak and without meaning is evident from the very start, she toils ceaselessly often without thanks and certainly without love. The beautiful moment when she meets a charismatic stranger opens her heart to a world of possibility but it also heralds catastrophic change in the lives of those around her.

I think Go As a River is one of the saddest books I have read for some time and yet it is as beautiful as it is poignant. The writing so wonderfully lyrical that I had to stop and re-read whole sentences because they were just so descriptive. And as the tangled wilderness of the Colorado hills are laid open so we enter deep in to Victoria's soul as she faces tragedy on such a huge scale that it's impossible to comprehend the effect that this deep sadness has on her life going forward.

The story had such a profound effect on me that even now, days after finishing Go As A River, I am still imagining life with Victoria Nash, her bravery and beauty will live on forever in this lovely story.  I have no hesitation in making Go As A River Featured Book of the Month for May.

About the Author

Shelley Read is a fifth generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope. She was a Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and Honors, and was a founder of the Environment & Sustainability major and a support program for first-generation and at-risk students. Shelley holds degrees in writing and literary studies from the University of Denver and Temple University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing. She is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal, and has written for the Denver Post and a variety of publications.

Twitter #ShelleyRead #GoAsARiver

@DoubledayUK @TransworldBooks

📖 Blog Tour ~ Homesick by Jennifer Croft

 

Charco Press
23 August 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
and to Midas pr for the invitation to the blog tour

The coming of age story of an award-winning translator, Homesick is about learning to love language in its many forms, healing through words and the promises and perils of empathy and sisterhood.

Sisters Amy and Zoe grow up in Oklahoma where they are home schooled for an unexpected reason: Zoe suffers from debilitating and mysterious seizures, spending her childhood in hospitals as she undergoes surgeries. Meanwhile, Amy flourishes intellectually, showing an innate ability to glean a world beyond the troubles in her home life, exploring that world through languages first. Amy's first love appears in the form of her Russian tutor Sasha, but when she enters university at the age of 15 her life changes drastically and with tragic results.

📖 My Review..

Homesick is an unusual book, quietly introspective and cleverly arranged in short, thought provoking chapters, some little more than vignettes, which allow the story of sisters, Amy and Zoe to evolve at entirely its own pace. Powerfully evoking the special relationship between sisters author Jennifer Croft uses this memoir to explore the connection she had with her sister, the consequences of this relationship resonates throughout the book.

Reading like fiction but with its heart very much placed in memories, this coming of age memoir is beautifully and succinctly written and by keeping the dialogue in the third person it allows the author to remove herself emotionally whilst at the same time recounting her difficult growing up in Oklahoma with academic parents and the effect that her sister's diagnosis of a benign brain tumour had on all their lives going forward.

Homesick is easily read over the space of an afternoon but that doesn't mean it is light on content, far from it, as I found much to peruse and ponder over in the course of the book and all credit to the author for presenting this memoir in such a contemplative and rather different sort of way.

About the Author

Jennifer Croft won a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship for her novel Amadou, the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for her illustrated memoir Homesick and the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her translation from Polish of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is also the author of Serpientes y escaleras and Notes on Postcards, as well as the translator of Federico Falco’s A Perfect Cemetery, Romina Paula’s August, Pedro Mairal’s The Woman from Uruguay, Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob, Sylvia Molloy’s Dislocations, and Sebastián Martínez Daniell’s Two Sherpas. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from Northwestern University.

For Charco Press, she has translated Federico Falco's A Perfect Cemetery (2021), Sylvia Molloy's Dislocations (forthcoming 2022), and Sebastián Martínez Daniell’s Two Sherpas (forthcoming 2023).

Twitter @jenniferlcroft #Homesick

@charcopress @midaspr

📖 Book Review ~ Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life by Caroline Day

 

Zaffre
July 2021

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

'I don't have any friends, only dog ones, because they don't make you do bad things. I don't want any human friends, actually. It's for the best.'

Hope Nicely hasn't had an easy life.

But she's happy enough living at 23 Station Close with her mum, Jenny Nicely, and she loves her job, walking other people's dogs. She's a bit different, but as Jenny always tells her, she's a rainbow person, a special drop of light.

It's just...there's something she needs to know. Why did her birth mother abandon her in a cardboard box on a church step twenty-five years ago? And did she know that drinking while pregnant could lead to Hope being born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder?

In a bid to find her birth mother and the answers to these questions, Hope decides to write her autobiography. Despite having been bullied throughout school, Hope bravely joins an evening class where she will not only learn the lessons of writing (including the number one golden rule of 'show don't tell'), but may also begin to discover more about the world around her, about herself and even make some (human) friends.

But when Jenny suddenly falls ill, Hope realises there are many more lessons to come...

Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life is a heart-warming, coming-of-age novel about loneliness, friendship, acceptance and, above all, hope.

📖 My thoughts..

Twenty-five year old Hope was born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and was adopted at birth by Jenny Nicely. This story, told entirely in the first person, is how, in joining a writing group and writing her autobiography, Hope looked for answers, particularly about her birth mother, and in doing so found out far more about herself, and others, in the process. 

I liked Hope, she's quirky and funny, whilst at the same time serious and intense and yet is filled with such an uncomplicated view of the world around her that it becomes a real joy to follow her story. Filled with an abundance of characters make no doubt it is Hope's strident voice which comes across loud and clear as she immerses us in her lessons for life. Despite the many challenges which Hope faces this is never a sad story, nor does it sink into mawkishness, as it gives a brave and optimistic outlook on the life of a unique and unconventional individual.

Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life is a beautifully written debut which has a special warmth which shines far beyond the written word, and is one of those lovely coming of age stories which stays with you long after you've turned the last page.

About the Author

As a freelance journalist for national magazines and newspapers, Caroline Day wrote other people's stories: happy stories, sad stories, stories of the greatest tribulations and triumphs. To do this right, Caroline spent many hundreds of hours, trying to truly listen to what each of these people had top say. Hope Nicely's lessons for Life  is Caroline's first novel. And although fictional characters are a little trickier to interview, Caroline hopes that Hope will feel that she has listened well. Caroline lives in North London, with her husband, son, daughter and two obscenely greedy rescue dogs.

Twitter @snoopytodd #HopeNicely

@ZaffreBooks 

Book Review ~ The Land of Trees by L A Naylor

A gritty and evocative coming-of-age thriller set in the exotic rainforests and cities of Guatemala

RootsBooks
28 September

My thanks to Cameron PR for my copy of this book

Adoptee Lia has followed her Spanish teacher, Rafael, to Guatemala, for romance and adventure. She doesn’t know much about the country but she’s happy because she’s finally living life on her own terms. On their first night together Lia decides to declare her feelings, but before she gets the chance, the unimaginable happens and Rafael is brutally killed.

Devastated, Lia travels to Rafael’s family home in the countryside, determined to find out why. But not everyone is keen on her investigation and Lia has to decide what is more important: living without answers or taking the deadly consequences that come with the truth.

Set against a backdrop of civil unrest and huge political change, Naylor shows the powerful impact the past can have, even decades later.

What did I think about it..

Lia travels to Guatemala to meet up with Rafael , who was once her Spanish teacher, and with whom she has a romantic attachment. Lia barely has time to say hello to Rafael before something really dreadful happens and she is left quite devastated and feeling very alone in an unfamiliar country. Fortunately Lia has other travelling companions to support her however, it is Lia's journey in which she tries to discover what really happened to Rafael which gives the book it's impetus.

Initially off to something of a slow start, the story seems to take a while to get moving but I think the second half of the book which is perhaps the stronger part of the story is what worked best for me. The background to the story that of Guatemala's political and social unrest is well explained and there is an authentic feel to the novel which brings both the country and its people to life in a realistic sort of way. The mystery at the heart of the novel has enough suspense to maintain interest and I enjoyed trying to work out how the story would eventually play out.

The Land of Trees is an interesting coming of age novel  which begins with tragedy but ends with a distinct feeling of hope.

About the Author

LA NAYLOR has been a fisherwoman, the CEO of a charity, a wreck diver and an English teacher. She was awarded a grant from the Campaign for Learning to write a non-fiction book on miscarriages of justice in the UK. That book, Judge for Yourself, was a bestseller and was praised by The Guardian, Michael Mansfield QC and many more.

Naylor received a lifetime membership to the Millennium Awards Fellowship which recognises, celebrates and records the achievements of individuals working to strengthen and enrich their communities. The Land of Trees is her first novel. She lives in London.

Facebook

Twitter @Lanaylor11 #ThelandOfTrees

@CameronPMtweets

One from the Shelf...

Heron Books
Quercus
2016

My book from the shelf this month has been sitting around since 2016, and I was originally drawn to it by the beauty of its cover. Just why it has stayed on my shelf for so long is a mystery, as I can remember being fond of this author's previous work, and in particular, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, was a personal favourite when it was published in 2005.

Love Notes for Freddie starts off in the cloistered atmosphere of an all-girls boarding school and tells of an unlikely encounter between studious, Marnie Fitzpatrick and the more wayward, Rachel Porter. The two girls couldn't be more different and so when something happens which causes both girls to be expelled from St Libbys, there is no-one more shocked than Marnie's maths teacher, Julie Crewe, who had expected Marnie to go on to a brilliant career in mathematics.

Suddenly, Marnie feels that her life is ruined, that is, until she meets and becomes romantically obsessed with the quirkily named, Freddie Friday, a young man who has the potential to rise above his humble upbringing to become a dancer.

The story is told in two distinct voices, that of Marnie and her obsession with Freddie, and also that of Miss Crewe, who we learn once had a dream to be a dancer, and through their insightful narratives, a story emerges of the sadness caused by lost dreams and the pain of first love.

Love Notes for Freddie is a lovely coming of age story which emphasises the idea that we should never give up on our dreams. The author writes well and gives such an authentic voice to the characters that they literally leap off the pages. I enjoyed getting to know Marnie, Freddie and Julie and watched with interest as their stories started to merge in such a tender and realistic way.

Overall, what comes across in Love Notes for Freddie is the idea that love can break down barriers and that everyone should allowed to have a second chance and that with perseverance and hard work, dreams are there for the taking.

About the Author

Twitter @EvaRiceAuthor

Amazon UK

Blog Tour ~ The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to host today's stop on 


The Roanoke Girls Blog Tour

 

Beautiful

Rich

Mysterious

Everyone wants to be a Roanoke Girl

What did I think about it...

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

Leaving Los Angeles with barely enough money for the journey and with a head full of memories, Lane Roanoke heads back to Osage Flats and to Roanoke, her grandparent's home in rural Kansas. Her cousin, Allegra is missing and despite an absence of many years, Lane feels the pull of Roanoke and of the family secrets that creep and claw around her like a spider’s web.

Hodder 2017

This is only the second time that Lane has returned to Roanoke; the first time she was a young teenager barely functioning after her mother’s death.  However, her recollections of the warmth of Allegra’s welcome and of her difficult relationship with her grandparents, Yates and Lilian, make Lane determined, despite the uncomfortable prospect of reawakening old and painful memories, to discover Allegra’s whereabouts.

Roanoke is a place where nothing moves forward and yet, even after an absence of many years, Lane still feels an emotional attachment to both the place and its people. Slipping effortlessly forwards and backwards in time, Lane’s past, and also that of the Roanoke girls is revealed in startling detail. The narrative cleverly exposes a whole heap of family secrets which have been hidden for far too long, and which, inevitably must be revealed before life, especially for Lane, can begin to be put right.

So much goes on behind the rural façade of Roanoke that it is difficult to know where to start without giving too much of the entire plot away, so I won’t breathe a word more, except to say that this is probably one of the best coming of age/ family dramas that I have read in a long, long time. The story gets right under your skin, leaves you breathless with disbelief, and makes you want to read on and on until the Roanoke Girls have told their exceptional story.

The Roanoke Girls is a complex and, at times, uncomfortable dissection of a dysfunctional family who have learned, over time, to keep their secrets hidden and their enemies silent.

One of my reads of the year...so far..

Best Read with..Yates' delicious homemade ice cream and Lane's favourite lime slush..

About the Author

©Trish Brown Photography

Amy is the author of the young adult series The Book of Ivy. A former criminal defense attorney, she lives in Missouri with her family. The Roanoke Girls is her first novel for adults.

Find out more on her website

Follow on Twitter @aengelwrites

Visit her on Facebook  and Goodreads 

You can follow the tour on Twitter #RoanokeGirls

My thanks to Jenni at Hodder for her invitation to be part of this Blog Tour. 



The Roanoke Girls is published by  Hodder&Stoughton on the 7th March




~***~

Review ~ The Changing Season by Steven Manchester

The Story Plant
2016

At the start of The Changing Season, Billy Baker and his friend Charlie Philips are just graduating from High School. They are both looking forward to spending time together before starting college, and as the summer stretches before them they are filled with a youthful optimism, life is good and appears uncomplicated. Billy’s one abiding love and the constant in his life is his dog, Jimmy, who he adores unreservedly. This unwavering bond between Billy and Jimmy runs like a thread throughout the novel and is a joy to read.

This contemporary coming of age story has all the trademarks that we have some to expect from this skillful author, who always succeeds in getting into the heart and soul of the characters he portrays so vividly. And as Billy gradually grows into adulthood, he not only learns the value of friendship and family, he also experiences the heart break and unevenness of first love, and suddenly, the whole complicated business of growing up seems far more difficult than Billy could ever have imagined.

As always, the story line draws you in from the beginning. There is much to enjoy, not just in the evolving story of Billy’s coming of age, but also in the intricacies of ordinary life, which are written about in such detail and explained so thoughtfully that you could be right there in the midst of a Baker barbecue or sharing a tent on the beach with Billy and Jimmy.

The Changing Season is not just a coming of age story; it’s also about the treasure of family, the joy of friendship and of the unshakable bonds of love, both canine and human.

Best Read With....Char-grilled burgers from the Baker Barbecue and sneaky swigs of beer, straight from the bottle...

About the Author

Find Steven on his website
Follow on Twitter @authorStevenM

Amazon UK

My thanks to the author for sharing his book with me.

~***~