Blog Tour: When Skies are Grey – Fran Clark

The secrets of Rayna Laurence’s past threaten to unravel the life she’s created for herself in West London in 1957.

A young West Indian girl with a talent for singing, Rayna takes a job as a barmaid in a local pub, and it’s there that she meets the charismatic leader of a West Indian jazz band, Eddie Keane. But when her affections become the subject of a tug-of-war between Terry Collins, the pub owner, and Eddie, Rayna chooses Terry, but the love triangle is far from over.

As her fame and fortune as a performer grow, Rayna finds her past catching up with her.

Will the secrets of her former life in the West Indies destroy the life she’s built for herself?

An emotional story of love, music, and hidden truths in post Windrush London.

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Fran Clark writes Women’s Fiction, both contemporary and historical. Her first novel was published by Indigo Dreams in 2014. In the same year she achieved a Distinction in her Creative Writing MA from Brunel University. In 2016 she was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. In February 2024, her Island Secrets Book Series will be published, starting with Holding Paradise Book 1.

Originally from London, Fran moved to the English countryside with her musician husband. A musician herself, Fran teaches vocals and leads a local choir. She has two sons.

Fran also writes under the pseudonym, Rosa Temple, writing contemporary fiction and published by HQ Digital and Simon & Schuster UK

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My thoughts: I am always interested in why people would pack up their lives and move to the sad, soggy archipelago that is the UK, confronting racism, the crap weather, the grinding poverty and the terrible jobs immigrants often take, which no one else wants to do.

In Rayna’s case, it’s desperation. The job she had back in Dominica wasn’t one she could return to – so to England, and a nursing course she came. My mum was a nurse for over 40 years and worked with lots of women just like Rayna, young, intelligent and resourceful, hardworking and a long way from home.

But Rayna gives up the nursing, ends up in a factory, then when that closes, panicking, she asks a new friend for help. Taking a job as a barmaid in West London isn’t her dream, but she hopes it will keep a roof over her head.

Her talent as a singer leads her on stage, first just in the Pelican, but from there, on world tours, but jazz draws her back to the corner of London she considers home. And into a conflict of the heart, the pub landlord who loves her, the jazz musician who offers her the world. It also brings her face to face with her past, with what she ran from.

It’s an engaging, intelligent book, there’s a lot of heart and Rayna is a wonderful protagonist – big hearted, gentle and talented. She’s not perfect and she makes mistakes but she admits to them, and makes changes to mend them. I really enjoyed this one and rooted for it’s characters all the way through.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.