Extract: Because of You by Helene Fermont
Because of You by Helene Fermont is released today by Fridhem Publishing.
Because of You spans 36 years in the life of Hannah Stein, a Swedish teenager who arrives in London, at the tail end of the disco era, for a gap year before embarking on a teaching career. The people she meets change the course of her life irrevocably and the novel charts her changing personal and professional fortunes over the next three decades. Because of You is about love, coming of age, friendship, bereavement, stillbirth and rape. Its themes include redemption, acceptance, fidelity and family. Because of You is a story that every woman can relate to.
Thanks to Hélene, Fridhem and Palamedes PR, we have an exclusive extract to share with you. Enjoy.
As soon as Easter and Passover were over, Hannah organised a meeting between her grandmother and friends. “I booked a table at Cosmo,” she told the girls. “Ella and Granny’s old friends Katja and Tanya will be joining us.” May was approaching and with it, sunny hot weather. The ladies made the effort to look their best.
Opting to wear a light blue dress, her hair in a soft shade of red perfectly matching her lips, Zipporah admired Tanya and Katja’s bright kaftans, the latter wearing a turban to conceal her loss of hair due to old age. Meanwhile, Hannah assisted dressing Ella, choosing a lavender dress with matching jacket. Rosie and Sanna also made the effort to dress up.
Seated at the large table in the buzzing restaurant overlooking the crowd around them, Rosie kept thinking everyone looked wonderful. “You look years younger than your actual age!” she blurted out, referring to each by surname.
“Please don’t! Unless you refer to us by first name, we’ll feel ancient,” Zipporah whispered in her ear.
It was difficult choosing from the extensive menu. “I’m postponing my diet,” said Sanna. This place’s worth it.”
Nodding her agreement, Katja replied, “You’re a girl close to my own heart. Women are wrong assuming being thin as a stick’s attractive – men prefer a fuller, feminine figure!” Her Russian accent matched that of her friends’. Beaming, Sanna wholeheartedly agreed.
“I’d never contemplate cutting down on my food, neither would Tanya,” Katja added, winking at the larger woman seated next to her.
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Latest Book Releases: 11th August 2016
Hodder and Stoughton, 11th August 2016.
Sphere, 11th August 2016.
It’s Thursday. It’s come around quickly this week. I hope everyone has enjoyed what sunshine we have had. As it is Thursday, it is time for another list of new book releases.
What have you all been reading this week?
The first book released today is Acts of Love by Talulah Riley. If the name sounds familiar that is because she is also an actress and has been in St Trinian’s and The Boat That Rocked. Acts of Love is her debut novel and is about a girl called Bernadette who can be liberal with the truth. She has built her journalism career on lulling men into a false sense of security then exposing them publically through her tell all articles.
However, she may have met her match in Radley Blake. Despite her charms, Radley seems to immediately see straight through her.
This book sounds like a winner and I definitely will give it a read.
The second book released today is Rules: Things are changing at the little school by the sea which is the latest book from one of my favourite authors, Jenny Colgan. This is the second book in the Maggie Adair series and has been described as a Malory Towers for grown ups. I did love that series as a kid.
The basic plot is that it is a new year and the girls are breaking the rules. Which one of them will come out the other side unscathed?
Maggie loves teaching at Downey House. She is maybe less keen on planning her wedding to Stan whilst trying to ignore the crush she has on David who teaches at a neighbouring school.
Simone and Fliss have become friends. Zelda arrives and upsets things.
This sounds like this has the makings of a great series.
Simon & Schuster, 9th August 2016.
Mantle, 11th August 2016.
The third book released today is Miss You by Kate Ebelen. This is the debut novel from Kate and I think this is my favourite cover this week. It’s so simple but so pretty at the same time. This is the story of Tess. The motto she can’t seem to forget is ‘This is the first day of the rest of your life.’ She is in Florence for a final holiday before she goes to university. Her life is about to change.
Gus is also in Italy with his parents. He is being the dutiful son but he wants more. The paths of these two characters cross before the book covers the next sixteen years of their lives.
This book sounds like something I would really like. It has a cross between David Nicholls’s One Day and Vince and Joy by Lisa Jewell feel to it.
by Book Review: Harry Potter and The Cursed Child by J.K Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne
Little, Brown, 31st July 2016.
This is the review that I’ve titled ‘Harry Potter and the Underwhelmed Reviewer’
Hands up who amongst us have waited with baited breath for a new Harry Potter story? That’s pretty much every one of us. Now, hands up all those who think that this is that story…don’t be so hasty. Yes, this is Harry Potter, and at the same time, no it’s not.
I was so excited when I heard that they were releasing a script-book of the stage-play (I’ve tickets for this for May 2017) that I was determined to drop all my other reading as soon as it arrived. This I did and being a script, it didn’t take as long to read as one of the canon novels we’re used to. It didn’t help that I read it in two sittings, at least that’s no fault of the book itself.
To the bread and butter question; is it any good?
Not an easy thing to answer actually. After so long in between official releases, those of us fans who’ve taken to getting our fix from some of the excellent fan fiction out there were perhaps always going to be the most critical, I’m certainly one of those. I can only give this 3 stars as I think the problem the author(s) came up against was trying to please everyone and when you try and do that, you generally end up pleasing no-one. It’s not quite as bad as that seems, as I did enjoy it. I did come away dis-satisfied though.
Why? Because of the above. Now, I don’t go in for spoilers/telling about the story, if I can at all help it in my reviews, so I’ll do my best here. But some of the things that happen to drive the story along are so contrived, that I’d really like to know who came up with the story? Whose idea was it and who fleshed it out? Characters act out of well, character, to what we’ve come to know about them (except when not in the canon universe – nearest I’ll come to having to give a spoiler alert), things happen that (nothing to do with the capabilities of magic here) are obviously just devices to drive the story along and I found myself saying out loud, ‘Puleeese….’
by Blog Tour: A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams – Review
Harper, July 2016
The blog tour train has arrived. Hello to Beatriz Williams who’s new novel, A Certain Age was released earlier this month by Harper. Here’s the blurb:
As the freedom of the Jazz Age transforms New York City, the iridescent Mrs. Theresa Marshall of Fifth Avenue – a beautiful socialite of a certain age – has done the unthinkable: she’s fallen in love with her young lover, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. But though times are changing, divorce for a woman of Theresa’s wealth and social standing is out of the question.
When Theresa’s bachelor brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the youngest daughter of a newly wealthy inventor, Theresa enlists her lover to present the family’s diamond rose ring to pretty ingénue, Miss Sophie Fortescue – and to check into the background of this little-known family. Yet even as he uncovers a shocking secret, Octavian falls under Sophie’s spell…
Divided loyalties and dangerous revelations lead to a shocking transgression and eventually Theresa must make a choice that will change them all forever.
My verdict on A Certain Age…
It took me a couple of chapters to settle into this book but once I had, I found it to be very compelling to the point where I couldn’t stop reading. This book beautifully captures what I imagine the twenties to have been like and the imagery is so vivid. I felt like I was in New York at the beginning of the 1920’s witnessing the lives of these characters.
The plot is developed well and has a good number of twists and turns. It didn’t turn out quite the way I imagined. There is mystery surrounding this story. You know me, I love a good mystery.
The story is told from the point of view of two women; Theresa (she’s been married to a wealthy husband for a number of years,) and 19 year old Sophie.
by Latest Book Releases: 28th July 2016
Century, 20th July 2016
It’s Thursday again. Is it me or did that week go incredibly fast?! It does mean that it’s time for some more book releases…
The first book is The Moment She Left by Susan Lewis which has been released today in hardback. The e-book version is also available.
Here’s the blurb:
Kesterly-on-Sea is full of secrets.
Some are darker than others; many are shameful. One is even deadly.
Andee is an ex-detective whose marriage is breaking up. So when a young female student disappears without trace, she throws herself into the search.
Meanwhile, the town’s beloved Rowzee Cayne has just discovered that she is terminally ill, and doesn’t want to burden her family and friends with the news.
Andee and Rowzee don’t know it yet, but their journeys are going to help them uncover a secret. One that is going to affect them more than they could ever imagine.
This one sounds like I’d really enjoy it. It’s got a lot of mystery and sounds very compelling. I shall definitely be giving this one a read.
Sphere, 28th July 2016
I See You by Claire MacKintosh has also been released today. I think this cover is so pretty. I have to admit, I’ve not read I Let You Go which was Claire’s debut novel but reading the synopsis for I See You, it’s one I will definitely pick up at some point. What do you think?
When Zoe Walker sees her photo in the classifieds section of a London newspaper, she is determined to find out why it’s there. There’s no explanation, no website: just a grainy image and a phone number. She takes it home to her family, who are convinced it’s just someone who looks like Zoe. But the next day the advert shows a photo of a different woman, and another the day after that.
Is it a mistake? A coincidence? Or is someone keeping track of every move they make . . .
Truly Madly Guilty is the latest novel from the fantastic Liane Moriarty.
Michael Joseph, 28th July 2016
Despite their differences, Erika and Clementine have been best friends since they were children. So when Erika needs help, Clementine should be the obvious person to turn to. Or so you’d think.
For Clementine, as a mother of a two desperately trying to practise for the audition of a lifetime, the last thing she needs is Erika asking for something, again.
But the barbecue should be the perfect way to forget their problems for a while. Especially when their hosts, Vid and Tiffany, are only too happy to distract them.
Which is how it all spirals out of control…
It’s the week for suspense and thriller. There is something about Liane’s books that draw me in so I can’t wait to read this one.
by Book Club
