Into the Summerland by Julian Cundy #blogtour

Hi everyone, today is my second stop on the Into the Summerland blog tour, you can find my first stop and the author's guest post here 

Summary 

The eternal question - what happens when we die? Is there a consequence from how we lived? Is there a reckoning?
Henry Ashton's turbulent life is at an end. As he moves on from this world, he discovers how elusive the final peace can be.

With a spirit companion by his side, Henry learns there can be no peace without reconciliation, no rest without acceptance. He must walk his own path to absolution.

"For some souls the transition from mortal life to eternal peace is an easy one, soon completed. For others, who have been troubled in their life or who cannot reconcile the events and their part in them, the journey is longer...and harder. But every soul will find its rest."

My review

Into the Summerland is a wonderfully moving story that addresses the meaning of life and of life after death; it is a short, quick read but held me captive from beginning to end.

Henry, like all of us, went through life seeing the entire world through just one perspective, his own. When he dies he finds himself in a cavern with a giant dwarf named Chuttlewizz who will be his spirit guide to the afterlife. The journey will depend on how quickly Henry can find balance, acceptance and reconciliation. To say that Henry is unimpressed is an understatement, he has had a stormy life with a lot of heartbreak along the way, reliving even a moment of it is the exact opposite of what he wants to do. However, he soon comes to realise that the journey isn't a choice, it's an inevitable path and as he travels through the different chambers, each one a different colour ( and here the author really REALLY shines as the description is so dazzling you feel as if you are there too ) he navigates through a lifetime of memories and learns not only about his life but also about what his time on earth meant. 

It was the unresolved tragedy in Henry's life that really got to me. Chapter eight - the white chamber had me shedding more than a few tears as it's here that his heart finally becomes whole again. 

This is a moving and though provoking book, don't expect to read it without shedding a tear or two. 

Information about the Book
Title: Into the Summerland
Author: Julian Cundy
Release Date: 1st March 2018
Genre: Spiritual
Publisher: Little Bang Publishing

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About the author
Living in Westcliff-on-Sea Essex, Julian Cundy is a British adventurer, dedicated day dreamer, wordsmith and observer of life and all its absurdities. He is a recognisable character in his home town thanks to his eye-catching outfits comprising fine hats, cravats, tails and spats.

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     #blogtour The World is Never Enough by Sarah Donohue  

My review:

Sarah Donohue's story is so incredibly inspiring, I am in awe of this amazing woman! 

In The World is Never Enough, the author opens up the pages of her life to us, and narrates her experiences in such an honest and open fashion, that she makes the reader feel a part of that journey. As she recounts her highest and lowest moments, we are with her, often awaiting the next chapter with bated breath, and it's one hell of a turbulent ride.

From her humble beginnings in Yorkshire, to being a showgirl at the Moulin Rouge. From her extraordinary success as a power-boat racer, to surviving and recovering from a horrific crash. From creating the Miss Galaxy Universe fitness competition, to cyber bullying and being sued by Donald Trump. Every step of the way Sarah Donohue has embraced each opportunity and proven just how much you can achieve if you work hard. Seizing not just the day, but every single moment in it, has accorded her possibilities beyond most peoples dreams. Her courage, work ethic and can do attitude has taken her to dizzy heights and she has proven herself to be phenomenal. 

This is an uplifting story, full of heart; so, grab a copy, buckle up and prepare yourself for a fascinating adventure that will leave you full of determination and hope. 

Summary:
This is the action packed story of a female racing driver and stuntwoman who lives life on the edge and enjoys every extreme moment of it… A thrill-seeker by day and glamorous showgirl by night, Sarah Donohue believes in living out her dreams and living life to the full bringing colour and laughter to the lives of everyone around her.

Even after a high-speed powerboat crash putting her on a life-support machine, Sarah didn’t let dying for four minutes or a face held together by titanium plates dampen her spirits. The crash was documented as one of the worst crashes seen in powerboat racings history yet Sarah returned back to racing with BBC’s ‘999’ and ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ hiring her as the stuntwoman to re-enact her own near fatal experience. Soon after she became the European powerboat champion. Her journey of triumph over adversity is both inspiring and extreme.

This story of life will take the reader through a roller coaster of emotions as Sarah experiences the highest of highs on podium tops to the lowest of lows as she suffers jealous cyber abusers. The funny stories recalled as a forces pinup and staunch supporter of the military through to the not so funny story of Sarah enduring Donald Trump, the now president of the United States of America and his legal team for almost four years.

This feisty girl from Yorkshire loves life and puts as much into it as she can whilst taking anything it throws back at her remaining positive and up beat. This shows that even the impossible can be made possible with the right attitude no matter who you are or where you come from. A motivational, funny and inspirational book showing one woman’s journey on taking on any challenge head to head and her world-renowned success in the male dominated sport of offshore powerboat racing. Even death becomes her.

Information about the Book
Title: The World is Never Enough
Author: Sarah Donohue
Release Date: 12th June 2018
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Deringer Publishing
Format: Paperback

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Author Information

Born and raised in Saddleworth, Yorkshire born Sarah Donohue has enjoyed over twenty five years competing as a powerboat racer, and is currently the most successful female competitor within the sport. She’ll be returning to race again this year in the US and Hong Kong as the face of the Asia Powerboat Series. As well as racing, Sarah is a qualified personal trainer, international Tri-Fitness champion and, between the years of 2011-2017, created and ran the annual Miss Galaxy Universe fitness competitions in the UK

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          Into the Summerland by Julian Cundy 

Today I have the privilege of hosting a guest post by author Julian Cundy on my blog. The blog tour will return on Thursday 21st June for my review of his book, Into the Summerland. 

5 Inspirational Authors by Julian Cundy


Charles Dickens sits at the top of the tree for me. So much has been written about his characters, his capacity to portray entire societies in the microcosm of a handful of story threads, his compassionate approach to life’s less fortunate ones. All of this I love. For me, it is the sheer confidence that flows throughout his writing. You can see the development in reading the novels chronologically, but he is never less than compelling.

Dickens’ observation of human nature is so universal. The gallery is unparalleled: The rogues and villains, the pure and innocent, the plucky heroes, the pedants and rebels. I learned so much about presenting the nature first and the depths later. Of how some lives are irredeemably broken, while others may be salvaged.

Of course, Dickens is the master storyteller. Although the characters may threaten to dominate every chapter, the underlying reason why I read and re-read each book several times is the multiple threads of stories, carefully woven together. The convergence – often subtle, sometimes more broadly signposted – keeps me gripped to see how all the disparate tales will be resolved. If he were writing today, perhaps the descriptions would be briefer, but I recommend everyone tries the unabridged versions. There is so much there! This is why I spend so much time in day dreaming, sketching, planning and visualising my story lines before I get down to writing. You don’t need all the detail to begin, but you do need to know the high-level components and general direction.

Above all, Dickens writes like a man that needs to write. That sense of care for the right word used each time, the urgency in the telling of each tale. The firmness and certainty of delivery. My earliest writing were quite timid until I latched on to the delivery imperative. Charles Dickens taught me that well over a hundred years after his death. Your servant, CD.


HG Wells published his first novel The Time Machine less than 20 years after the death of Charles Dickens. Their literary worlds could not have been different. Whilst Dickens’ stories were firmly rooted in the Victorian society (apart from the historic novels) Wells’ mind was exploring the realms beyond his own time and indeed space.

The British godfather of science fiction is a marvel to me. His formative reading was Greek, Latin and English classics, but the ideas generated from his imagination were groundbreaking. Men on the moon? Travelling through time? Aliens invading earth? All this whilst still in the 1800s.

Well’s inspiration to me was the way he set the rules of context. However outlandish the situation he created, the characters had to be rounded and the story development credible. I best describe my own style of writing as portraying ordinary people in extraordinary situations. I like my readers to imagine ‘that could be me’ and for them to wonder how they would react.

It’s no accident that I fell into the Steampunk style, with HG Wells as one of my favourite authors. That sense of wonder, possibility and the excitement of the unknown to be discovered that Wells creates in his books; that Steampunk reflects in a modern retrospective fun way – puts a big splash of colour into my life.
JK Rowling is in many ways the modern yardstick that most of us measure against. Forgetting the stratospheric commercial success that she enjoyed with the Harry Potter series, it is the word that she created which is most impressive and inspirational to other writers.

I was introduced to Harry Potter a couple of years after the first few books had been phenomenally successful and just before the first movie was released. I had recently finished my degree (finally achieved at age of 36!) and someone bought me a gift pack with the first three books for my celebratory week in Cornwall.

By the time my train was passing through a suitably misty Bodmin Moor, I had already devoured the first book. The next two did not last beyond the following day as the ethereal Cornish autumn mixed perfectly with the tales from Hogwarts. I loved the books on so many levels.

The cast, whilst often portrayed through the eyes of the major child characters had enough about them to chime with my older perception. Like the best children’s movies that throw in a line or two just for the grown-ups. The perennial themes of good and evil, along with the haves and have-nots, friendship and loyalty were well delivered, without too much saccharin.

The main aspect for me was the discipline around the world she created. I learnt that you can dream up the setting that best enables you to convey your story, but you must remain true to its rules. There could be no unsubstantiated jumps – no “new rules” created only for convenience of plot gaps. I have used supernatural devices myself in my writing, ensuring the coherence. You can be as creative as you like, but respect the reader!


The two more conventional writers that formed early appreciation of storylines and structure were Agatha Christie and Jeffery Archer.

Dame Agatha’s books were always around as my Mum is a big fan. The first ‘proper’ book I read was The ABC Murders, when I was about eight. I remember well the already yellowed pages of this paperback, which still had the power to grip. The contrast of the genteel English settings with the brutal murders did more to develop my sense of dramatic timing and story pacing than any school creative writing classes.

Lord Archer’s blockbusters of the 1980s were a real education of plotting, suspense and pacing. The real-life characters and contemporary events gave them a really authentic feel. He continues to do this brilliantly. I learnt from this how locations, landmarks, key events and even famous people could be woven carefully into a storyline to help quickly establish the setting.

All of these authors have created worlds that I can escape to for a few hours at a time. It’s the kind of passionate, driven and high quality discipline that I aspire to achieve in my own writing.


If you want to learn – as we all should throughout our lives – then learn from the best. You won’t go far wrong. And if this enables me to achieve commercial success that will obviously be great. But the fulfilment of delivering a good story well told is hard to beat.

JC

About the Author


Living in Westcliff-on-Sea Essex, Julian Cundy is a British adventurer, dedicated day dreamer, wordsmith and observer of life and all its absurdities. He is a recognisable character in his home town thanks to his eye-catching outfits comprising fine hats, cravats, tails and spats.

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              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.