Blog Tour - The Well Deceived by Isaac Kuhnberg

On Wednesday, The Well Deceived blog tour visited my blog and Isaac Kuhnberg shared his author inspirations with us ( see here ) Today, the tour is back and here is my review. 

Summary:
A thought-provoking mystery in turns comic and disturbing, set in a country that resembles England in the 1950s, with one crucial difference. No women.


William Riddle is a scholar at Bune, the ancient public school where the sons of Anglia’s first families are prepared for a leading role in society. His first few weeks are a miserable round of bullying and abuse, until he makes a friend: Paul Purkis, son of a government minister. Together they create a grotesque private world, known as Malcaster, populated by criminals and deviants, as an outlet for their contempt for the school and its staff.


Overnight William’s world collapses. He is called into the headmaster’s office and told that his scientist father has committed an unspecified act of treason. William is hauled off to a detention centre to be interrogated. Escaping, he finds refuge in the louche sub-culture of the capital city, and comes to learn that everything he has ever been taught is a complete fabrication.

My review:
The Well Deceived takes place in a country called Anglia, which is like a distorted mirror image of England. The similarities are there, however, one vital difference is the complete absence of women. 

Our protagonist, William Riddle, walks us through his story. We see everything through his eyes, the eyes of an intelligent, yet naive teenage boy. From his early days growing up in a  nursery in Alba ( Scotland, in this alternate world ) to his fall from grace from the prestigious Bune College. 

At this point, I think I should include a trigger warning. William is abused during his school days and the scenes where he describes the abuse and refers to the Bunian Code and the acceptance and at times encouragement of this abuse by the masters, is incredibly distressing. 

As we are seeing this world through William's eyes, we only find out what he can tell us. His experience of The First Union, which is an almost cult like practise that teenage boys endure if they are deemed worthy, leaves us with more questions than answers. What exactly happens and why, is alluded to, but left for the reader to come to their own conclusion. 

When William's father is arrested for committing a crime ( we don't find out what this is until the very end of the story ) William is taken to a mental institution, where he is interrogated. He escapes and my favourite part of the story begins. At this point I will add that William does not make it easy for him to like us, he is pretentious, stubborn, and often angry, still, what teenage boy isn't guilty of behaving in an antagonistic way at times. Despite all this, I cared about him, I wanted him to be safe, and felt his pain as he stumbled upon some of life's harsher truths. I hoped as he faced one dilemma after another, that around the next corner he would find his happy ever after, or at least encounter a genuine friend who would help him. 

Whilst on the run from the authorities and trying to find his father, William is befriended by a journalist, and so we are introduced in more detail to the politics of this extraordinary and terrifying world. We have the ruling Pragmatic party ( akin to the Tories ) and the opposition parties, the Proles, the Plebs and the Worker's Party. William witnesses acts of violence as he travels the country with Mark during the lead up to a general election and realises the truth, that the rich will do anything to keep hold of power, even if that means killing large  numbers of innocent people and using the media to subvert the truth. 

As we see William struggling both to survive and to make sense of the world he lives in, we are taken to some very dark places. Despite the many distraction on the way, he continues to search for his father, and as we reach the final pages of the book ( after a crazy car ride in which a nemesis from the earliest chapters returns ) we become aware of the fact that Isaac Kuhnberg is isn't going to tie everything up in a neat bow. He is going to leave us wondering whether it isn't just the inhabitants of Anglia who are well deceived, but maybe it's us, the reader too. In the words of the author, the story is a mystery that poses only questions, many of them unanswerable. 

The Well Deceived is an unusual, intriguing novel that takes the reader on an uncomfortable journey, and makes us think, makes us question, makes us WANT to question and search for the truth. 



Information about the Book
Title: The Well Deceived
Author: Isaac Kuhnberg
Release Date: 15th May 2017
Genre: Dystopian
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Format: Paperback

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                           The Well Deceived by Isaac Kuhnberg - blog tour 

The Well Deceived blog tour is visiting today, and I have the pleasure of sharing with you a guest post written by the author Isaac Kuhnberg. 


My author inspirations


Children’s Books

I can still remember the thrill of the moment in E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It when the Psammead – a magical creature, part monkey and part snail – emerges from the dirty sandpit and starts to talk. For me E Nesbit was a kind of substitute mother, funny, infinitely understanding, and full of practical wisdom. Magic in children’s books is too often used as a cheat, an easy way of getting out of scrapes. Nesbit’s brand of magic is one you can believe in: the sort that gets you into trouble, rather than out of it. Precisely when her child heroes most need its services, it turns out to be unavailable, forcing them to fall back on such worldly resources as courage, kindness and luck.


My love of children’s fiction did not end with childhood. When my children were small I read to them every night: classics like E. Nesbit and Beatrix Potter and C.S. Lewis and The Hobbit, together with authors I was discovering for the first time like Dr Seuss and Roald Dahl. I also read them Enid Blyton’s Adventure series, which had been my favourite reading before I discovered E Nesbit. The poor reputation of Blyton’s books among teachers doesn’t detract from their immense readability. Watching my children’s reactions to these and others of the books I read them was a profoundly useful lesson in what works, not just in children’s fiction but in writing in general.


Science Fiction

My childhood love of magic steered me as a teenager to the related pleasures of science fiction. The first novel I read in this genre was John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. David Strorm, the narrator of this greatly under-appreciated book, is a telepath, who tells of a childhood in a post-apocalyptic world where mutants are considered blasphemies and either sterilized or sent into exile. The theme and narrative strategy have clear parallels to those of The Well Deceived. David Strorm, I have just realised, is a character who exists somewhere in the background of my own protagonists, and once I started writing novels myself I invariably began them in the first person. This approach rarely fails to grip me – it is, for example, the one used in Kaiso Ishiguro’s heart-breaking dystopian novel Never Let Me Go, another major influence on The Well Deceived.



At some point my father – another science-fiction fan – introduced me to Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Huxley’s Brave New World, two opposing but equally seminal visions of the future. Before long I was totally hooked, and because I could never find enough science-fiction in the local public library, my father took me several times to a second-hand bookshop in Portsmouth which specialized in the genre. The shop was presided over by a tall bald silent figure, rather similar in appearance and manner to my father. One day to our enormous disappointment we found it closed. We asked after the bookseller in the shop next door, and a woman told us, with a twirly gesture of the fingers, that he had been ‘taken away.’ The association of science fiction and madness persists to this day.



Puzzles

Many of the books that most appeal to me are in one way or another puzzles: three-dimensional constructs created from different viewpoints, where the reader has to distinguish truth from lies, and reality from illusion. Most readers come across these in the form of the detective story, or spy fictions like the novels of John le Carré, but the best puzzles, like Vladimir Nabokov’s marvelous Pale Fire, have a tragic emotional truth at their heart.


Classics

Favourite authors among the literary classics include Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, James Joyce, E.M. Forster Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen, but these have had very little direct influence on the things I write. What I particularly enjoy is reading accounts of past societies by novelists who lived during the period they write about, and noting their relevance to the social issues that interest me. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James is a particular favourite. There are other books which mainly interest me from a technical point of view, like J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, which has taught me a great deal about the possibilities of first person narrative.


Stephen King

I also enjoy a lot of popular fiction: thrillers, crime fiction, horror. Such books are popular for a reason: as well as being immensely readable, they have a direct line to the collective unconscious of contemporary society. The novels and short stories of Stephen King were once regarded as rubbish, but lately critics have woken up to their qualities. In terms of
quality they are incredibly patchy, and the writing is often lurid and lazy, but the best of them – Christine, The Shining, 11/22/63, and the great bulk of the short stories – have a visceral impact that stays with you long after you have laid the book to rest. King is a news buff, which ensures that the ideas he explores are always current; he is also a master at projecting himself into the dark heart of any given situation. After a particularly horrible train crash, I read in a news report that the scene of the accident was punctuated by the unanswered ringing of the victims’ mobiles. My youngest son (also a King fan) pointed out that this was a detail only Stephen King could have dreamed up.


Thank you to author Isaac Kuhnberg for sharing his inspirations with us, and to Faye Rogers for including me in the blog tour for this thought-provoking mystery! 

The blog tour will be returning on Monday, when I will share my review of The Well Deceived with you. 



Information about the Book

Title: The Well Deceived
Author: Isaac Kuhnberg
Release Date: 15th May 2017
Genre: Dystopian
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Format: Paperback

Words on pages... a few of my favourite books 
published this year (2017)
part two - adult fiction 

So, here is part two ( part one found here ) of the books that "Swallowed me up, heart and soul" 

                               

The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman 

Luna and her sister Pia have lost their mother. Along with their grief they have to grapple with a heartbreaking secret she revealed after her death. When they visit Brooklyn, their mother's birthplace, to settle her affairs, they realise that the past may hold more questions than answers. Suddenly, Luna finds herself pulled into the past, literally. She travels through time and finds herself back in the summer of 1977, at the time the tragedy that destroyed her mother is about to happen. Can Luna change the past and if she does, what will it cost her? 

What would be your moment? The one moment in your past, in your history that you would want to go back and change? What price would you be willing to pay, what would you be willing to lose? 

I love Luna. I love everything about her. I love her mind, her determination, her incredible spirit. She stole my heart. 

This is a beautiful, clever, special book. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading it yet, then please, please do! 


                                                          

How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

Matt Haig is one of my favourite authors. I read The Humans, which is utterly brilliant, a couple of years ago and that my friends, was the beginning of a love affair with each ad every one of his incredible, beautiful books. 

I am old. That is the first thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong.

How to Stop Time is Tom Hazard's story. It's the story of a man who has lived for centuries. He may look like a 41 year old, but he is much, much older and has had to change identities throughout the years to keep himself safe. Now he is living in London, he's a history teacher and he is trying to live by his one rule, he mustn't fall in love. He's done that before and his heart has never recovered. 

This is one of those books that stays with you forever. It takes up residence inside your heart and before you know it, it's part of you. No words I write will ever do How to Stop Time justice, it is a masterpiece. Please don't take my word for it, grab a copy and find out for yourself. 


                                                          

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman 

When I heard about this book I knew I NEEDED to read it. It is utterly brilliant and I have bought copies for so many people, every household needs a copy. 

Eleanor is completely fine. She goes to work. She has her own apartment. Her life is exactly the way she wants it to be... or is it? When she meets Raymond and together they save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has had a fall, her entire life is turned upside down. As the story progresses we start to see glimpses into her life that she wouldn't want us to see, and we realise that completely fine is the lie we tell others, and ourselves when things are falling apart. 

This book will make you think, it will conjure every emotion and make you feel it. It's fascinating and heartbreaking. Eleanor is such a relatable character, she is quirky, she is different and she is hurting more than she will even admit to herself. As the story progresses so we see the full extent of her psychosis and our heart breaks for her. I don't have the words to describe just how ingenious and powerful this truly is. 

                                         Spare & Found Parts                                                                                            by Sarah Maria Griffin 

What did I love about Spare & Found Parts? Let me count the ways...

Nell 
Nell is an incredible protagonist. She is beautiful, she is strong and in the face of fear and ignorance she shines so brightly. From the first page her emotions became my emotions. She grabbed me by the hand and didn't just pull me into her story but made my heart beat in time with hers. I saw Black Water City through her eyes and it was honest and terrifying. She made me care. 

Nell may seem lost, she is an outsider, she is in her mother's shadow, terrified of her father and grandmother's reactions to her choices, eclipsed by her vivacious best friend Ruby, tentative in rebuffing Oliver's advances but... BUT she is in truth an incredibly strong young woman. Despite the world she lives in, despite the expectations of the people around her, despite the constant onslaught of assumption and demands from Oliver, she rises above it all and shows herself and everyone around her that she is Nell, and being her amazing, unique self is all that she needs to be.

The writing
This story is so beautifully written. It's lyrical. The words dance across the page and into your heart. It's honest. Nell isn't perfect and sometimes reacted in ways that made me flinch, but that's the truth of humanity. We aren't perfect. We make mistakes. We hurt and lash out. We simply are. None of the ugliness is hidden, but is instead a piece of the puzzle, a fragment of what makes us who we are. The writing is enchanting and undeniably brilliant.

The setting
Nell's world is a post apocalyptic one. The city she lives in, Black Water City, has been devastated by an epidemic. Survivors are all missing parts. Her father creates biomechanical limbs that everyone uses. The stark, brutal picture painted of a society living in fear of the past, where everyone has to prove their worth, where suspicion and foreboding are rife is harrowing and yet the perfect backdrop for this story.

Character development
Nell took me through every range of emotions as she went from lost to soaring.
Oliver, oh Oliver, despite my loathing for his obsession with Nell, he remained a constant throughout. Even when he was terrified by Nell's choices, he remained on her side, on the city's side, on the side of truth... and maybe, slightly redeemed himself in the end??? 
Ruby, the confident, vivacious best friend who struggled to see Nell's true self, but undoubtedly loved her throughout. 
Her grandmother, lost in the past, in tradition, in the done thing, but who is formidable and true. 
The parents, Julian and Cora, obsessed, lost in their own glory... 
Io, a mechanical man, a computer brought to life, with emotions, the capacity to think for himself and the ability to make the reader love him. 
All the characters have their part to play, their piece of the puzzle that fits into Nell's life and their performances are perfect. 

Spare & Found Parts is an unusual story, but one that I fell in love with straight away.  A wonderful, terrifying, exciting, captivating book whose main character will stay with me forever. My words cannot possible do this story justice, please read it for yourself

Thank you to Titan Books for sending me this glorious book. 

                           Christmas at Woolworths Blog Tour

I am delighted to be involved in the Christmas at Woolworths blog tour and very excited to say that by reading my review copy in the staff room at work, two colleagues have already said that they are ordering copies for family as Christmas presents!

                                                                         Summary:

Even though there was a war on, the Woolworths girls brought Christmas cheer to their customers.

Best friends Sarah, Maisie and Freda are brought together by their jobs at Woolworths. With their loved ones away on the front line, their bonds of friendship strengthen each day. Betty Billington is the manager at Woolworths, and a rock for the girls, having given up on love . . . Until a mysterious stranger turns up one day – could he reignite a spark in Betty?

As the year draws to a close, and Christmas approaches, the girls must rely on each other to navigate the dark days that lie ahead . . .

With so much change, can their friendship survive?

                                                                         Review:

Christmas at Woolworths is the second book in the series, not having read the first one didn't affect my enjoyment of the book in the least.

The characters all come to life right from the beginning and I cared about their stories, their safety and their friendships. Freda is so feisty and REAL! She is my favourite character and the one I identified with. Each character is very different, and brings their distinctive personality to the story. And the supporting cast are incredibly strong too!

The work women did during WWII was incredible, and beautifully illustrated in this tale. Touched upon is the effect the brutality of the war had on the soldiers on the front line, but this is mainly a story of survival, of honesty, of refusing to be beaten and of taking care of those around you.

A wonderful, heartwarming book that will make you shed a tear but ultimately make you smile and restore your faith in humanity.

I am looking forward to reading The Woolworth Girls and Wartime at Woolworths ( which is published April 2018 )

                                                           Information about the Book

                                                        Title: Christmas at Woolworths
                                                             Author: Elaine Everest                                                                                                                               Genre: Historical Saga
                                                            Publisher: Pan Macmillan
                                                                Format: Paperback
                                                     Release Date: 2nd November 2017

goodreads link

amazon link

                                                               Author Information


Elaine Everest, author of Bestselling novel The Woolworths Girls and The Butlins Girls was born and brought up in North West Kent, where many of her books are set. She has been a freelance writer for twenty years and has written widely for women's magazines and national newspapers, with both short stories and features. Her non-fiction books for dog owners have been very popular and led to broadcasting on radio about our four legged friends. Elaine has been heard discussing many topics on radio from canine subjects to living with a husband under her feet when redundancy looms.


When she isn't writing, Elaine runs The Write Place creative writing school at The Howard Venue in Hextable, Kent and has a long list of published students.


Elaine lives with her husband, Michael, and their Polish Lowland Sheepdog, Henry, in Swanley, Kent and is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Crime Writers Association, The Society of Women Writers & Journalists and The Society of Authors as well as Slimming World where she can been sitting in the naughty corner.

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Introducing: Have It, Haven't Read It Yet Tote Bag



More info and buying link

Faye Rogers ( super awesome person who I adore ) has launched something very exciting!
Check out the amazing tote bag pictured above! 
These are available until 29th October 2017.
After that date, this bag will no longer be available to purchase meaning this bag will be totally exclusive!

However, the bag also has not yet been created. Because I want to make sure that this will work and not fail, I will only be creating this bag if I reach a minimum number of sales. So if you’re REALLY excited for this bag and want to make sure that you get one, make sure to spread the news that it’s available to buy!

So while the button below does say “Buy Now”, what you’re actually doing is pre-ordering the bag. It will then be sent to your address after the 29th October 2017.

You will get a FULL REFUND if the bag does not get made.

I will also let you know if we’re nearing the date and we’re close but not quite at minimum. I will also advise you as soon as the bag is definitely, 100% going to be made!

More info and buying link

                                   Stories for Homes volume 2
                                                  Blog Tour 

Today is my stop on the Stories for  Homes Volume 2 Blog Tour! A fantastic compilation of short stories that are not only a brilliant read, but also are helping to raise money for a worthy cause.

                       Published and unpublished writers come together to create an anthology 
                                                of stories about what ‘home’ means.

55 writers are included in a second charity anthology that brings issues around housing, poverty and crisis to life through the power of storytelling. Volume One of the Stories for Homes Project raised over £3K for housing charity Shelter and raised awareness of housing issues. Volume Two of the anthology includes stories, poems and flash fiction and again all proceeds will be donated to the charity.

                                                                  Review

What does home mean to you? Is it a place or is it the people you are with? What if you didn't have a home or it was taken from you? This collection of stories will entertain, will make you think and a few will make you cry.
So please, purchase a copy, enjoy the stories and help to give shelter to those in need.

I thought I would share a few of my favourite stories from the book.

Maude's Bungalow - A story of an elderly woman who is a hoarder. When the council come to clear her home they find a surprise!

How Wonderful You Are -  A husband revisits some wonderful places full of precious memories.

Straw Houses - This is a genius twist on the tale of the Three Little Pigs.

Day 89 - You'll need a box of tissues when you read this one, a beautifully written and painfully honest glimpse into the life of a refugee.

It Was Only A Patch On The Wall - The vicious cycle of poverty and the heartbreak it causes.

The Tablecloth - A poignant story of abandonment, foster care and triumph.

And my absolute favourite
Safi - a heartwarming story of a young refugee who faces the unforgiving world around him with courage and hope.

Information about the Book
Name: Stories for Homes volume 2
Release Date: 28th September 2017
In Support of: Shelter Charity
In Response to: Grenfell Tower
Format: Ebook
http://storiesforhomes.wordpress.com

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                                                            Praise for the Book

     Emma Darwin, author of The Mathematics of Love, commented on the quality of writing in the anthology as: “A cornucopia of witty, tragic, elegant, raw, heart-warming and terrifying stories that take the idea of Home, play with it as only truly talented writers can, and all to help those who have no home at all."


    Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, said: “Stories give our imaginations a home. It's good to see them helping to give people shelter in the real world, too...” reflecting the connection between the immediacy of housing crisis and the stories people tell about their lives around and within it.


    Sally Swingewood, who also edited the collections, commented: “The Stories for Homes collections would not be possible without the generosity of a huge number of volunteers. By working together we have produced a book which will not only delight but also help address one of the biggest humanitarian crises facing modern society. In a world where migration, identity and belonging are in the news daily we have a duty to help everyone have a home in which they feel safe and settled. Stories for Homes is one way we can be part of the solution”