Tag: contemporary fiction

‘Val looked around. The baby appeared to be all on its own. There was no sign of a mother. No sign of anyone.

Val didn’t think about it. She didn’t even break her stride. She kicked the brake off the pram and pushed it as if she did it every day.’

Val, a widow living in Weston-super-Mare, spends lonely evenings dressing up as the movie star Elizabeth Taylor. It seems to be a way of coping with the loss and sadness she has experienced in her life. One day, when Val sees a pram left unattended on the seafront, on a whim she kicks off the brake and walks away with it…

Set in the present and the 1970s, Becoming Liz Taylor is a vivid and touching depiction of love, loss and bereavement – thought-provoking, moving fiction for fans of Rachel Joyce, Emma Healey and Ruth Hogan.

Elizabeth Delo trained as a teacher and has worked in schools in London, Birmingham, Paris and Somerset. After writing fiction in her spare time for many years, Elizabeth took a break from teaching to do a master’s degree in creative writing at Bath Spa University, graduating with Distinction. She runs creative writing classes and has worked as a freelance editor. She lives in Somerset with her husband and has three children.

My thoughts: still grieving her losses, Val Hinsby finds release by dressing up as her idol, Elizabeth Taylor. She does this in the privacy of her own home, knowing that it’s not easily explained. But even in her every day life she dresses with a touch of glamour in full skirts and carefully styled hair.

Walking home from the hairdresser, she sees a pram apparently unattended. And she takes it. There’s a little boy inside, and Val pretends he’s hers. Setting off on a madcap road trip first to Wales, she’s on the run and the whole country’s looking for her.

I felt sorry for Val, she’s suffered some terrible grief, and not dealt with it very well. She doesn’t seem to have much support or any friends, both in the past and in the present. No family around, no one to suggest at any point she get help. The same for her son Rafe, whose story is interwoven with hers in alternating chapters. It’s rather sad, two lives forever altered, two people who can’t connect.

Bits of the book are blackly comic, the B&B in Wales especially, poor sweet Howard, dreaming of a happy life, birdwatching and eating his dinner every night with Val and her “grandson”. But even he’s rather tragic, sad and alone. No one in this book is happy and they’re all so disconnected.

Although there is a little note of hope for Val and Rafe at the end, even if it isn’t conventional, perhaps they can rebuild their relationship, get some help with their past, learn to move on in some way. Who knows. A moving, haunting tale of grief, tragedy and delusion.

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

Zoe has a special talent for saving lost causes…but she’ll need a miracle to save herself from this mess!
When her biggest advertising account cancels their contract, single mum Zoe Taylor’s Good News Gazette – Westholme’s pre-eminent feel-good news source – faces an uncertain future.
Determined to save her paper, Zoe strikes a bargain with millionaire developer Daniel Lewis – he’ll help her find advertisers and in exchange she’ll spearhead his campaign to save the Art Deco cinema from destruction.
But with her boyfriend Sam no fan of her new business partner, an unexpected job offer from her old boss, and an unshakeable feeling that there’s something more between her and Daniel than there should be, Zoe’s future soon feels as uncertain as her paper’s…and she’ll be forced to make a decision that changes everything for her and her son Charlie.

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Jessie Wells lives with her husband and two children in Merseyside. She has always written in some form, and previously worked as a journalist on the Liverpool Echo and Sunday Mirror
and as a freelancer for various national women’s magazines and newspapers before moving into finance. She loves nothing more than getting lost in her imaginary worlds, which are largely filled
with romance, communities bursting with character and a large dose of positivity.

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My thoughts: I like Zoe, although occasionally I think she needs someone to shake some sense into her. The Good News Gazette is a fantastic idea and while it might be tough to find enough stories to fill its pages and very tough to get enough advertisers to keep it going, it seems really worthwhile. But Zoe is being pulled in different directions – her old boss is offering her a dream job in London, property developer Daniel needs her on his new project and her relationship with Sam is on life support.

As she weighs up her options, helps renovate the beautiful old cinema, tries to help her best friend, teaches her dad how to use an air fryer (one of the funniest bits in the book) and looks after son Charlie, could the Gazette be about to close its pages?

This series continues to be fun and enjoyable, although I did shout “Zoe, no!” towards the end, and you probably will too, hopefully the town survives the terrible weather they’re having and book three will fibd Zoe getting her act together. We’ll have to wait and see!

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

What a difference a year could make…
 
Jamie Matson had once enjoyed a wonderful life working alongside her best friend, organising adventures for single-parent families, and her son Bo’s artistic flair a source of pride rather than concern.
 
She hadn’t been prepared to lose her business, her home, and her friend. Not all in one dreadful year. And now she finds herself reeling – rebuilding her world, with Bo at its heart – swallowing her pride and asking for help.
 
Jamie certainly hadn’t expected to find such hope and camaraderie in the queue at her local Food Bank – thrown together with an unlikely and colourful group of people – all of them struggling to get by, yet still determined to reclaim their lost careers and agency over their lives. Even if just choosing their own groceries again is a goal they can all share.
 
As their friendships flourish, they quickly find it’s easier to be objective about each other than about themselves, and decide that – when you’re all out of options – it’s okay to bend the rules a little and create your own.
 
A story of friendship, possibilities, and hope, that maybe tomorrow will be brighter than today…

Penny Parkes survived a Convent education largely thanks to a ready supply of inappropriate novels and her passion for writing and languages.

She studied International Management in Bath and Germany, before gaining experience with the BBC. She then set up an independent Film Location Agency and spent many happy years organising shoots for film, television and advertising – thereby ensuring that she was never short of travel opportunities, freelance writing projects or entertaining anecdotes.

Penny now lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, two children and a geriatric spaniel. She will often be found plotting epic train journeys through the Alps, baking gluten-free goodies or attempting to prove that you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks.

Twitter: @CotswoldPenny

My thoughts: this is a happy/sad book set in our current, post pandemic, economic slump, underemployed times. Jamie lost her home, her best friend and her business. She’s trying to put her life, and that of son Bo, back together. Working in a posh deli for a boss who needs a slap, for minimum wage, dealing with a mouldy flat and a creepy landlord who keeps letting himself in, rushing to A&E with Bo, who has chronic asthma. None of this is good for either of them. And she’s really lonely.

But,in the queue for the food bank, she meets Bonnie and Kath and Amy. Three other women facing their own predicaments. Together the four new friends will pull each other up, help out and support one another.

A lucky break comes when, just as everything seems to be completely fallen apart, Jamie is offered a live in job with Ruth and Henry. This charming couple are starting to struggle, and with their son in the States, need a hand. Could this be the first step towards a better life for Jamie and Bo?

I was completely charmed by this book, despite recognising bits of my own current disaster of a life in Jamie and her friends, I thrilled to the moments when things went well for people. When Amy showed off her art, when Bo was happy in the garden, when Jamie was able to take a breath. I loved the whole gang, and I’d love a sequel, showing them in a few years time, when hopefully things are better for all of us.

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

Thirty-three-year-old Ruth Henderson and her daughter Maggie have some hard choices to make.
Following the tragic death of Maggie’s father, they are left with a mountain of debt and broken hearts. So, despite her vow never to return home after the fall-out from her teenage pregnancy, Ruth
can’t see any option other than for the two of them to move back in with her parents.
Going home means many things – finally confronting her estranged father, navigating her mother’s desperate need to make everything ok despite the wobbles in her own marriage, not to mention helping a still-grieving Maggie to settle into a new school, find new friends, and stop expressing her emotions through her ever-changing hair colour.
What Ruth needs are friends, but she abandoned her childhood ones when she left all those years ago. Luckily for Ruth, they haven’t abandoned her. Slowly she lets herself be embraced by a group of
women who have always had her back – even when she didn’t know it. And as the grief and shock recede, Ruth can even begin to imagine sharing her life with someone other than just Maggie – if Maggie will let her.
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Beth Moran is the award winning author of ten contemporary fiction novels, including the top ten bestseller Just the Way You Are and #1 bestseller Let It Snow. Her books are set in and around Sherwood Forest, where she can be found most mornings walking with her spaniel Murphy. She has the privilege of also being a foster carer to teenagers, and enjoys nothing better than curling up with a pot of tea and a good story.

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My thoughts: there’s lots of different families in this book, from the Henderson clan, to Lois and Matt and their five hundred foster kids (ok, just five, but still), to Ruth and Maggie, and David, Arnold and Ana Lucia. Families are not just born, they’re made, built from love. There’s also the family Ruth finds in her friends, and in the church her parents go to.

I grew up in the church and some of my oldest, closest friends are part of my church family, so I really resonated with that. You can find family all over the place.

And Ruth really needs them all – her parents, her sisters, her daughter, her pals. Even grumpy Veronica and Hannah, who lives mostly in her memories. She’s been through a really rough time, losing her partner, leaving her horrible job, having to sell her house and discovering a mountain of secret debts her partner didn’t deal with.

And then there’s creepy Carl, who won’t leave her alone. She really doesn’t need his weird and scary nonsense on top of trying to get her life back together. And Maggie needs her mum, she just doesn’t know what to say. My heart was aching for her. Fourteen is a horrible age, without all the grief and trauma she’s dealing with.

But the book isn’t all sadness and bleak misery, there’s a lot of cake, there’s dancing, there’s new life (literally a baby is born), there’s new jobs and new love and parties and I loved girls’ night. When Ruth lets the people in her life help her, support her, then she can thrive. A joyful book really.

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

‘Seahurst is set on the Suffolk coast. The area is famous for its folklore. I was born in the county and spent my childhood on the beaches, running along narrow, sandy paths that thread through the dunes. The vast empty skies, mudflats and whispering reed beds have inspired writers over centuries. What better setting could there be for a contemporary haunted house ghost story?’ – S.A. HARRIS

S.A. Harris returns with a gripping contemporary ghost story set on the Suffolk coast.

Evie Meyer and her son Alfie flee from her abusive partner Seth in Toronto to spend New Year with her half-brother Luke at their late father’s summer home on the Suffolk Coast, only to find Seahurst abandoned and Luke missing.

As Evie searches for her brother, she is filled with a deepening dread that something is very wrong at Seahurst and that their father’s death may not have been suicide after all. Can Evie uncover Seahurst’s sinister secrets and keep Alfie safe before the souls of the dead claim yet another terrible revenge?

‘Seahurst is a suspenseful spine-tingling ghost story I absolutely loved! One moment I was holding my breath, and the next my heart was aching for Evie and her son Alfie. Harris has once again held me with her spell-binding prose’ – RUBY SPEECHLEY

Sally Harris writes ghost stories and gothic fiction as S. A. Harris. Her first novel, Haverscroft was long listed for Not The Booker Prize, was one of Den Of Geek’s best books of 2019, a semi-finalist in the Book Bloggers Novel of the Year Award 2020, and a Halloween recommended read in Prima Magazine. Sally is a family law solicitor living with her husband and children in Norwich.

For more information visit https://saharrisauthor.com/ Follow Sally on Twitter @salharris1

My thoughts: Seahurst is on a crumbling cliff, parts of which have already fallen away. It may also be haunted. Perhaps using parts of the old Abbey in its walls was a bad idea. Evie’s father lived there alone, and committed suicide off those cliffs, and now her brother seems to have vanished in the same way.

During a fraught time in her life, attempting to get away from her abusive partner and protect her son., she’s returned to Suffolk to see her brother and old friends but the past lingers. Her father’s room is the same as when he died, her brother’s things are everywhere, as though he just left the room. There’s strange noises and smells, the house seems sinister, which it didn’t before.

There’s a lot of tension in the book, the characters are all carrying it and maybe are more affected by the house and the winter, cut off at times from anyone else, than they’d like to admit. Suffolk is famous for its ghosts and monsters, something about all that land that belongs more to the sea than anything else.

Evie is on edge and her son, Alfie, picks up on that. It’s only them that sense the sinister in the house, Evie’s friends seem unaffected, certainly her horrible ex, when he shows up, doesn’t feel it.

While this isn’t a happy book, and the ending, while one of escape and resolution, doesn’t feel enormously cheering, there is hope for Evie and Alfie, and for their found family.

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