📖 🎧 Blog Tour ~ The Mother Sun by Sui Annukka narrated by Nimmi Harasgama

Audible Original
May 2023

My thanks to the publishers and Midas Campaigns for the opportunity to listen to this book
and to be part of the blog tour.

Sent on a marketing conference from Sri Lanka to London by her boss, Surya is supposed to be enjoying a change of scene after a tragedy that has left her grief stricken and lost – and compulsively fixated on a long-buried, shameful episode from her past.

Finding herself in the same city as the boy she birthed for an English couple seventeen years ago – in exchange for the money that paid her college tuition – Surya is prepared to risk everything for a glimpse of him.

Surya promises herself that she will be satisfied with just seeing her boy and knowing that he is safe and well. But when she tracks him down and follows him to work at a local café, she is left with more questions than answers. Why has he dropped out of school? Why is he at odds with the world? As they get chatting and he offers to give her a tour of London, she can’t resist the chance to get to know him better.

Forced to confront her past, Surya starts to navigate a way beyond her feelings of guilt, shame, and grief, towards a hopeful future – but what will happen when the boy finds out who she is? Could finding all she ever wanted mean losing everything for a second time?

Sui Annukka is the Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Discoveries Award 2022. The Mother Sun is an exclusive novella for Audible.

📖 🎧 My Review..

Surya has left her life in Sri Lanka to attend a marketing conference in London. The visit to London provides Surya with the ideal opportunity to find the son she gave up at birth, seventeen years ago, when she acted as a surrogate for an English couple. With no plan in mind other than to find her son in London, in order to check that he was well, and happy, Surya discovers that there is more to the boy than she expected and confronting her past is more painful than she could ever have imagined. 

Beautifully read by Nimmi Harasgama, the narration is pitch perfect, and each character, particularly Surya comes skillfully alive. The novella moves at a gentle pace as we learn of Surya's life in Sri Lanka and of her fears and anxieties particularly in light of a recent tragedy and of the cultural differences between herself and the boy she gave up at birth but whom she had never forgotten. 

Overall the 6 hours and 43 minutes of the story was an easy listen with interesting detail and there's a genuine sense of rapport between Surya and her boy which adds some poignancy to this story of motherhood, lost opportunities and forgiveness.

About the Author

Sui Annukka is a British author of Sri Lankan heritage. Sui has had poetry and short fiction published in the following anthologies: Filigree - contemporary Black British Poetry (Peepal Tree, 2018), Shots in the Dark (Crocus Books, 2018), Sounds Exceeding 80 Decibels (Crocus Books, 2017) and Elevator Fiction (Crocus Books, 2016). Sui currently lives in London where she writes and works part-time as a High School Teaching Assistant.

The Mother Sun is the first title from Audible’s collaboration with the Women’s Prize Trust and was an original commission offered to the winner by Audible as part of the Prize. As part of the commission Annukka received editorial support from Audible and audiobook production of her novella, which is brought to life by Nimmi Harasgama.

Twitter @suiannukka #TheMotherSun

@AudibleUk

@midascampaigns

📖 🎧 Blog Tour ~ The Only Truly Dead by Rob Parker

Audible Original
18 May 2023

My thanks to the Audible UK and Midas for my copy of this book
and the invitation to the blog tour.

The Only Truly Dead marks the thrilling conclusion to the Thirty Miles Trilogy as worlds collide.

The Only Truly Dead is the ultimate fight against corruption from one of the greatest Northern crime authors. The criminal underworld’s power has been gathering, with gangs from two cities that threaten to compromise everything Foley and Madison have fought for. Can these two detective masterminds take on the best of the best? Facing a highly illegal transport plan called The Twilight Express, our partners-in-arms must perform as never before.

The stakes become higher when Foley’s son is kidnapped, and he realises that his corrupt brother is involved. Along with their old colleague, Salix, and an IT whizz kid, they set out to crack this final case against the world’s most vulnerable. Everyone’s careers and families are on the line, after all. But it’s more than that – this is an ultimate fight for justice, played out between Manchester and Liverpool, that will have unpredictable and tragic consequences.

📖 🎧My Review

I was a little worried before starting to listen to The Only Truly Dead as it's the final book in the Thirty Miles Trilogy and as I hadn't listened to the previous two stories I wondered if I would be able to pick up from where books one and two left off. I needn't have worried as thanks to the author's gift for story telling I was soon immersed in this gritty northern crime drama. Placing the story slap bang in the middle of the north west of England has been an absolute treat for me as I know the area well and can picture the locations with an ease which more than does justice to the author's imaginative recreation of Warrington and surrounding districts.

Primarily this is a story of  family corruption at the highest level and those law enforcers who are hell bent on bringing to justice the perpetrators of some truly heinous crimes. The plot never falters or fails to bring to life characters who are on the edge of desperation and for whom there is no moral compass or limit to the depths they will go to to satisfy their thirst for greed, revenge and ultimately retribution. The plot moves along at a cracking pace and the introduction into the story of well loved characters gives the book an emotional edginess as they all know just what's at stake in the quest to rid the north of those who seek to profit from illegal means.

I've really enjoyed listening to The Only Truly Dead and the 7 hours and 3 minutes passed by really quickly, mainly down to the lure of the story but also to the narration which is beautifully brought to life by Warren Brown, whose northern accent sits very comfortably with the story.  The pace is fast and furious, there is much to take in both in terms of plot and malice, and there are some really good baddies who you hope will get their comeuppance. I am sure those who have followed this trilogy from the start will be delighted with this conclusion as there is a definite sense of the tying up of loose ends. The story is believable and I can well imagine the subterranean criminal underworld which is described in such detail that it really brought the places and people to vibrant life.

The Only Truly Dead is fast, furious, gritty and thought provoking, I loved it 😊

About the Author

Rob Parker is a married father of three, who lives in Warrington, UK. The author of the Ben Bracken thrillers, Crook’s Hollow and the Audible bestseller Far From The Tree, he enjoys a rural life, writing horrible things between school runs. Rob writes full time, attends various author events across the UK, and boxes regularly for charity.

He spends a lot of time in schools across the North, encouraging literacy, story-telling and creative-writing, and somehow squeezes in time to co-host the For Your Reconsideration film podcast, appear regularly on The Blood Brothers Crime Podcast, and is a member of the Northern Crime Syndicate.

Twitter @robparkerauthor #TheOnlyTrulyDead

@audibleuk

@midascampaigns