Review ~ M for Mammy by Eleanor O'Reilly

Two Roads
March 2019

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

Meet the Augustts: a loving, Irish family who, like all families, are a bit complicated. But they are bound together by their love for each other and the way their words shape their world.

Things become even more complicated when the mother has a stroke, and the force of nature who is Granny Mae-Anne comes to try and take charge to keep the family together.

She has a job on. There's the son Jacob with all his words trapped in his head by The Autism, the father Mickey struggling to express himself at all, and Jenny, the daughter, quietly writing it all down to try and make sense of it.

My thoughts..

M for Mammy is quite a different sort of story which offers a powerful message about the bond of family and of the drama of holding everything together when it seems as if the world is falling apart.

The Augustts are a loving Irish family who have their share of family problems but they are somehow muddling, as best they can, through life. Told in a series of clear voices a story emerges of a family on the brink of  significant change especially since early on in the book, mum, Annette Augustt, suffers a debilitating illness and Granny Mae-Anne, the family matriarch, with a heart of gold, and penchant for apple crumble steps into the brink, keeping the family together in her own inimitable style.

M  for Mammy is an interesting story, parts of which I thought worked better than others as some of the narrative is a little bit over long in places, but that didn't spoil my enjoyment of this lovely story. I thought the characterisation was excellent, especially little Jenny who I loved from the start, especially her written composition about A Good Day which opens the book,  her description of eating chips with her dad and little brother Jacob, fairly sizzled on the page. Jacob's autism is particularly well done and I heard his voice loud and clear, however, Granny Mae-Anne was, for me, the glue that kept the story together, and, believe me, every family needs a granny just like her!

M for Mammy is a good debut novel and I look forward to seeing what the author does next.

About the Author

Eleanor O’Reilly is a teacher of English and Classical Studies in Co. Wexford who has just completed an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Having first started writing five years ago, she has received several literary prizes, including the 2015 RTE Francis McManus Radio Short Story Award and the 2013 William Trevor International Short Story Award, and has been shortlisted for several others, including the 2016 Colm Tóibín Literary Award.

She lives in a small town on the east coast of Ireland with her husband and daughter.

Twitter @eoreillyauthor

@TwoRoadsBooks

Blog Tour Giveaway ~ Books for Living by Will Schwalbe

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting today's stop on Publication Day

Books for Living Blog Tour

 From the cover..

In an age when we can google the answer to everything, Will Schwalbe has always believed that the answer to everything can actually be found in a book, if we just slow down enough to find out and then take the time to think about it and share with others. Books for Living is a wide ranging exploration of what books can teach us in the modern age.

Books covered include these classics :

David Copperfield 

Rebecca

Stuart Little

The Importance of Living

Giovanni’s Room

Bird by Bird

The Girl On The Train

Two Roads 12th January 2017

My thoughts about the book..

A book about books is always really fascinating for an avid reader. There is something almost voyeuristic about gaining access into the inner most thoughts of a bibliophile. Wondering just what books have influenced and encouraged others to read is a deeply satisfying process.

In Books for Living the author shares his thoughts very eloquently about the books which have influenced his thoughts and by using anecdotal stories he shares just how important reading has been to him in his life thus far. He includes an extensive and far reaching book list and more than once I found myself reaching for a pen to scribble down a note, or an idea, or even the name of an unfamiliar author. 

Of course, like many readers given a list of books, ever curious, I immediately turned at first to those stories I was familiar with just to see what the author made of some of my favourites, which include, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I was heartened to learn that he found much in them to ponder and enjoy. But then I was equally just as fascinated by the author's inclusion of Reading Lolita in Tehran which couldn't be more different from his thoughts about Stuart Little. But then, that's the beauty of sharing a love of stories, there is something for everyone.

I think that the real joy of Books for Living is that you can open the book at any place at whim and find something precious and profound within its pages. It is a book to treasure and to keep, it's a book for a rainy afternoon, or a summer in the garden. 

There is a thought that sometimes a book comes into your life at just the right time. The author puts it much more eloquently than I ever could:

"Every now and then the universe tells you what book you need to read ; it does this by placing the name of that book and author in front of you in various contexts, until you can't help but take note. You ignore book recommendations from the universe at your peril". 

I think that Books for Living is one such book and with its engaging celebration of the love of reading, I am sure that this will appeal to readers everywhere.

Best Read With..one of those sharing buckets of fried chicken  and a side order of cola...

About the Author

Will Schwalbe has worked in publishing for many years.

He is the author of the international bestseller, The End of Your Life Book Club and co-author (with David Shipley) of Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better.

He has also worked in digital media, and was the founder of Cookstr.com. As a journalist he wrote for the New York Times and the South China Morning Post.

He lives in New York City.

willschwalbe.com

twitter.com/willsch

My thanks to the publishers for their invitation to be part of this blog tour and for this generous giveaway opportunity

Find out more about the book by clicking here 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

** Good Luck **

Review ~ The Butcher's Hook by Janet Ellis

Two Roads
February 2016

When I was offered the chance to read The Butcher's Hook, the debut  historical novel by Janet Ellis, I jumped at the chance, as it sounded just the sort of book I enjoy reading, and I'm pleased to say that I wasn't disappointed.

The story opens with the introduction to the cloistered life of Anne Jaccob, who, it must be said, is a rather unusual young woman. The home Anne shares with her mother and father is a sad place, wreathed in gloomy shadows and in fractured, almost pointless relationships. In the summer of 1763, while the house readies itself for the birth of another baby, Anne tiptoes around content to leave the matter of birthing to her mother, and yet, this latest birth hangs heavy with Anne, as she is determined not to get too close to another baby, only to grieve its loss when fate intervenes.

With her mother incapacitated following the birth, Anne takes it upon herself to learn more about household management in the hope of striking up a friendship with Fub, the enigmatic butcher's boy, with whom she hopes to start a romantic affair. However, Anne's father has already picked out a suitable match for his daughter, the odiously named Simeon Onions, but unfortunately, this loathsome suitor, is not a man to make Anne's heart flutter with sensual excitement. With a determined candour, Anne sets out to thwart her father’s plans, and with an unease I found quite unsettling, she becomes quite a chilling character, not terribly likeable but always fascinating in her desire to do things 'her way'.

There is no doubt that in the hands of this talented author, Georgian London comes gloriously alive; the fractured underbelly of the lower classes teem with darkness and as this sinister edge starts to infiltrate, before you know it,  you are completely under its spell. The story has an edginess which is quite disturbing and, it must be said, not what I was expecting from this lovely, smiley author.

As a debut novel's go this is up there with the best of them and I am interested to see where Janet Ellis goes from here, as she has certainly set the bar high with The Butcher’s Hook.

Best read with…. thick slices of rare, roast beef and a glass of good red wine... 

About the Author

Janet Ellis trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She is best known for presenting Blue Peter and contributes to numerous radio and TV programmes. 

She recently graduated from the Curtis Brown creative writing school. The Butcher's Hook is her first novel.

Visit the author on her website

Follow on Twitter @missjanetellis

The Butcher's Hook was published on the 25th February by Two Roads Books

#TheButchersHook

Read a guest post by Janet Ellis here

My thanks to Two Roads and Bookbridgr for my review copy of The Butcher's Hook

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Blog Tour ~ A guest post by Janet Ellis, author of The Butcher's Hook..

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to welcome you to the first stop on 

The Butcher's Hook Blog Tour

 

Janet ~ a huge welcome to Jaffareadstoo and thank you for sharing your thoughts about keeping a diary and your inspiration for your novel, The Butcher's Hook...

When I was nine, I started keeping a diary. Using those tiny (they measure about three inches by four)  Letts page-a -day journals , I faithfully recorded my doings and thoughts. For years, as I moved house, I packed the little volumes up without opening them. About twenty years ago, contributing to Danny Baker's radio show, the subject of diaries came up. I mentioned mine and, in the way of these things, Danny suggested I read some extracts aloud. For a few weeks I opened their pages at random and offered my young self up to public edification. My first thought was- I was rather priggish. Secondly, I was massively self-absorbed. I was a young teenager in the Seventies. Quite large events were happening on the world stage and closer to home- the Beatles broke up, we went decimal, terrorists attacked the Munich Olympics, that sort of thing. They mostly passed my teenage self by. We might have had troops in Northern Ireland, I was more concerned with whether Helen Copp would turn up to choir practice. We might have won the World Cup - but would Upper Sixth Greg fancy me?

Reading more diaries over the years - it's a form that's always fascinated me, with its  'is this for history and for me?' stance, I realised that I often wasn't alone in this solipsistic attitude. Most people are concerned with living their lives, getting through things and recording the prosaic. History is what happens when you look back- as you write your diary it's just daily life. Some notable diarists have, of course, coloured in our knowledge of past times with their vivid accounts of political and social events. And in the course of my research, I was very grateful to them. But I'm just as indebted to the ordinary note-takers, the letter writers and list-makers who had no idea that what they wrote would be held to any account. I drew on their domestic doings with glee.

While I love stories set in times gone by, when I started writing The Butcher's Hook I had two objectives - aside from those concerned with characters and plot. I wanted Georgian London as a backdrop, not centre stage ( the people I imagined were not at the mercy of great historical events) and I wanted to flesh out my (hardly original ) certainty that, despite their world looking, sounding and indeed smelling different from ours, they felt the same. All the big emotions -like  love, hate, greed, sorrow and the rest- and all the small ones, too -such as irritation or laziness-  haven't changed over the years.

That's where my diaries came in useful. Granted, I chose a year - 1763- where nothing much did happen (I didn't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment of the story with neglecting to mention a big battle or without anyone dying of a virulent, widespread illness) but I wanted Anne to navigate her path without commenting on the bigger picture. Just as Janet Michell Ellis did. And in that respect - but obviously in NO other, we're very alike!

About the Author

Janet Ellis trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She is best known for presenting Blue Peter and contributes to numerous radio and TV programmes. 

She recently graduated from the Curtis Brown creative writing school. The Butcher's Hook is her first novel.

Do visit the author on her website

Follow on Twitter @missjanetellis

The Butcher's Hook was published on the 25th February by Two Roads Books

#TheButchersHook

Huge thanks to Janet for her kind invitation to join her blog tour and for giving us such a fascinating insight into her inspiration for The Butcher's Hook.

Please visit the other stops on the tour which runs until Friday 4th March

I'm in great company with Vanisreading today where you can read a Q&A with Janet Ellis.

 

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