📖 Blog Tour ~ The Heart Stone by Judith Barrow

 

  Thrilled to host today's blog tour stop on Hist Fic Saturday

Let's go back to ...1914

Honno
18 February 2021

My thanks to the publisher for my ecopy of this book
and to Random Things Tours for the invitation to the blog tour

1914 - and everything changes for Jessie on a day trip to Blackpool.

She realises her true feelings for her childhood friend, Arthur.Then just as they are travelling home from this rare treat, war is declared.

Arthur lies about his age to join his Pals' Regiment.

Jessie's widowed mother is so frightened of the future, she agrees to marry the vicious Amos Morgan, making Jessie's home an unsafe place for her. Before he leaves, Arthur and Jessie admit their feelings and promise to wait for each other.Arthur gives Jessie a heart-shaped stone to remember him. But with Arthur far away, their love leaves Jessie with a secret that will see her thrown from her home and terribly abused when she can hide the truth no longer.

Faced with a desperate choice between love and safety, Jessie must fight for survival, whatever the cost.

📖 My thoughts..

On a day trip to Blackpool, in 1914, sixteen-year old Jessie realises that the feelings she has for her friend, Arthur, run far deeper than that of mere friendship. However, after this idyllic day trip to the coast is over, life for both Arthur and Jessie would change forever. 

As WW1 is declared Arthur is determined to fight for king and country and joins one of the PALS regiments leaving behind his sweetheart with only the promise of meeting up with her again once the war is over. Everyone expected the fighting to be done with by Christmas and for a very special reason the time can't go quickly enough for young Jessie.

What then follows is a heartbreaking family saga about the struggles of surviving, not just the hardships of wartime, but also during the personal tragedies which test Jessie's mettle time and time again. So visceral and raw is Jessie's suffering that it becomes unbearable at times to see just how much she had to endure in her personal life when all ever she wanted was to be happy with Arthur. 

With excellent research, and a fine eye for all those special little details, the author brings the history of the time to life, both on the brutal battlefields of Northern France, and in the steady camaraderie and stoicism of a small community which has been split apart by war, and where gossip and sly innuendo flourished on street corners and in back kitchens. The characterisation is excellent, some people you love, whilst others you love to hate but without doubt they all bring something vital and valuable to this rather special story of tragedy and heartbreak.

The Heart Stone is a beautifully written historical saga by an author who creates characters who not only come to life on the page but who also touch you emotionally as their complicated lives progress. 

About the Author

Judith Barrow has lived in Pembrokeshire for nearly forty years.She is the author of six novels (five for Honno), and has published poetry and short fiction, winning several poetry competitions, and had a play performed at the Dylan Thomas Centre. Judith grew up in the Pennines, has degrees in literature and creative writing and makes regular appearances at literary festivals. She is the joint founder of the Narbeth Book Festival.

Twitter @judithbarrow77 #TheHeartStone

@honno

@RandomTTours

Blog Tour ~ The Jeweller by Caryl Lewis, Translated by Gwen Davies

Jaffareadstoo is thrilled to be part of this Blog Tour 

Honno Press
19 September 2019

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

That was the horror of love: your sweetheart could stick a knife into your eyeball and sharpen it a notch every chance they got.

Mari supplements her modest stock as a market-stallholder with the trinkets she acquires clearing the houses of the dead. Living in a tiny cottage by the shore – alone apart from a pet cat and the monkey, Nanw – she surrounds herself with the lives of others, combing through letters she has gleaned and putting up photographs of strangers on her small mantelpiece for company. Mari is looking for something beyond saleable goods and borrowed memories. As she works on cutting a perfect emerald, she inches closer to a discovery that will transform her life and throw her relationships with old friends into relief. To move forward she must shed her life of things past and start again. How she does so is both surprising and shocking…

What did I think about it..

Mari lives in her cottage by the shore with her cat and a monkey called Nanw. Mari supplements her income by running a market stall where she sells the vintage clothing and other trinkets she accumulates from helping her friend Mo who clears the houses of people who have died. Mari comes across as a rather sad character, she is prone to illness and introspection and there's an aura of grief and desolation surrounding her which adds to the overall ambiance of the novel.

The Jeweller is a quirky story which is made all the more interesting for having been translated from its original Welsh, a language which is as fascinating as it is lyrical, and the author's imaginative flair for story telling is complimented by the creativeness of just how strongly the story comes across in translation. It's an intelligently written character driven novel which explores the stifling power of family and of the meaning of friendship. As the story gets deeper it becomes obvious that Mari has a troubled relationship with those around her, often finding more comfort in the pieces of jewelry she collects and then polishes into something beautiful.

The Jeweller is about recognising the emotional pull of the past whilst having the strength to move forward into a more controlled sort of future.

Originally published as Y GEMYDD The Jeweller is published in English by Honno Welsh Women's Press.

About the Author

Caryl Lewis has published eleven Welsh-language books for adults, three novels for young adults and thirteen children’s books. Her novel Martha, Jac a Sianco (Y Lolfa, 2004) won Wales Book of the Year in 2005. Caryl wrote the script for a film based on Martha, Jac a Sianco, which won the Atlantis Prize at the 2009 Moondance Festival. Her television credits include adapting Welsh-language scripts for the acclaimed crime series Y Gwyll/Hinterland.

About the Translator

Photo Credit : Keith Morris

Gwen Davies grew up in a Welsh-speaking family in West Yorkshire. She has translated into English the Welsh-language novels of Caryl Lewis, published as Martha, Jack and Shanco (Parthian, 2007) and The Jewellerand is co-translator, with the author, of Robin Llywelyn’s novel, published as White Star by Parthian in 2003. She is the editor of Sing, Sorrow, Sorrow: Dark and Chilling Tales (Seren, 2010). Gwen has edited the literary journal, New Welsh Review, since 2011. She lives in Aberystwyth with her family.

Honno is the UK’s longest standing independent women’s press and is based in Wales. 'Honno' is a Welsh word meaning 'that one (feminine) who is elsewhere'. For more information on this award-winning acclaimed small publisher, visit their website

Honno would like to thank the Welsh Books Council for all their support in publishing this title.

Twitter @honno #TheJeweller

@WriterForster

Hist Fic Saturday ~ The White Camellia by Juliet Greenwood

On Hist Fic Saturday let's go back in time


to the ...Edwardian age

Honno Press
2016

BeatriceTressillion is trying to make a new life in London having been forced to leave her home, at Tressillion House, in Cornwall. Caught up in the suffragette movement, the whole concept that women could have their own voice, is for Bea, a tantalising, and it must be said, enlightening prospect.

Sybil Ravensdale is a strong willed and independent woman, who having made her fortune as a hotelier in America, returns to the Cornwall of her youth, and finds herself in the envious position of being able to buy the stately, Tressillion House .

On the surface neither of these two women should have anything in common but the thread of Tressillion House binds the two together and gradually a story of dark secrets, lost inheritances and secret love emerges.

There is much to enjoy in this beautifully written Edwardian saga which looks more closely at the changing attitude to women and of the danger of forging an independent path, which Sybil discovers to her cost. The author writes with descriptive ease and brings both the stark beauty of Cornwall and the exciting streets of London to vivid life. I especially enjoyed the sections at the eponymous White Camellia tearoom in London, with its hum of female voices and the prospect of a slice or two of the White Camellia's delicious tea loaf. But there is so more to the story than descriptive slices of cake, there is an underlying mystery and an ever present sense of intrigue.

Lyrical, descriptive and beautifully redolent of a bygone era, The White Camellia is one of those lovely historical sagas which is meticulously researched and written so lovingly by an author who really makes history come alive.

More about the Author can be found on her website by clicking here 

Twitter @julietgreenwood

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My thanks to the author for my copy of The White Camellia

Other novels by this author