Cover Stars: Shifting Colours by Fiona Sussman

Every month I choose my favourite cover from my TBR pile. Feel free to comment or add your own suggestions for ‘Cover Stars’.

 

 

‘This is the sweet memory of Mme, my dear mother. The first sweet memory ... Sometimes her laughter bursts into my head or I hear her call me – my name full and round in her mouth. Frustratingly though, as with all the memories I have of Mme, her face always blurs under the pressure of my focus.’

Celia Mphephu works as a maid for Mr and Mrs Steiner in a leafy, white man’s suburb of 1960s Johannesburg. When racial tensions in the country reach fever pitch and the Steiners plan to relocate to England, they offer to adopt Celia’s young daughter Miriam and raise her as their own.

But Miriam finds England to be very different to the place the Steiners have told her about. And so begins her long journey through the years, back to South Africa, to find her mother and herself.

Set against the violent backdrop of apartheid South Africa and then the calm of late twentieth-century Britain, Shifting Colours traces the lives of a mother and daughter separated by land, sea and heart-rending circumstance.

*     *     *     *     *

 

Shifting Colours has quite a stripped back cover, but it's so striking. With the vibrant purple of the tree's leaves, my eye is instantly drawn to the book, inviting me to pick it up and see what it's all about. And then there is the flash of red of the girl's dress, which I find intriguing. Who is this girl and what is her story? The cover is simple, but it has certainly done its job of grabbing my attention!

 

 

Click here to see all 'Cover Stars' 

 

Calling All Summer Book Lovers!

 

 

Summer is the perfect time for enjoying a good book, whether you're at the beach, lounging on a picnic blanket in the park or sitting with a cup of tea in the garden.

 

So I thought I would set up a new feature on the blog - creatively named 'My Summer Reads' - where we can share our love for reading in the sun with summer-based posts.

 

If you'd like to take part, give me a shout at jenniferjoycewrites@gmail.com with your post and any links/images you'd like to go with it.

 

Posts can include:

• Your favourite summer read
• The summer reads you're looking forward to this year
• Your Summer Reading List
• Your Top 5 or even Top 10 summer reads
• Your favourite summery book covers
• What you look forward to most in a summer read
• Your favourite place to read during the summer

Or feel free to get creative with your own ideas!

 

If you'd like to take part but don't want to write a post, I can send you some questions about your summer reading habits instead.

 

If you're a writer and have a summery read you'd like to share, please get in touch too! You could tell us the inspiration behind your story or setting or any research you did for the book. Again, feel free to get creative with your own summer-based ideas!

 

I'm hoping to run the feature throughout July and August, so please do get in touch if you'd like a spot.

 

Click here to see My Summer Reads posts

Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly

 

 

Natty strives to have the perfect life with her husband Sean and their daughters Alice and Felicity. Together, she and Sean have built up a successful hotel and are now enjoying the benefits of a more affluent lifestyle, with their large house and expensive cars. But their idyllic life is torn to shreds when Felicity is taken ill while on a school trip to France. Natty rushes to her side, but when she returns, Sean reveals he is in love with another woman. And that woman is Natty's friend, Eve.

 

Natty is devastated and knows she must try to move on with her life, but she can't let go, especially when she receives an anonymous note telling her that this isn't the first time Eve has stolen somebody's husband.

 

I enjoyed Paula Daly's debut novel, Just What Kind Of Mother Are You? so I was looking forward to reading Keep Your Friends Close. It has such a great, eerie premise of a woman taking over her friend's life completely, with the friend feeling powerless to stop it and the book didn't disappoint at all. To begin with, I wasn't sure I would take to Natty as she is quite compulsive as she strives for perfection. Everything has to be pristine and I was afraid this could become annoying, but we do find out why Natty behaves the way she does. I couldn't help feeling for her when she returns with Felicity to find her life has been ambushed by Eve. Not only has Sean been having an affair with her friend, he has fallen in love with her and no longer wants to be with Natty. The time frame in which this happens is a little tight for my liking, but I suppose that is the power Eve has on men and I went with it.

 

Eve is such a bitch. She is cold and calculating, manipulating those around her without becoming a pantomime villain, which, for me, made her a fantastic character to root against. As a reader, we can see the woman she truly is but we have to see how and if Natty can prove that Eve is dangerous and shouldn't be trusted. As Natty digs into Eve's past, we also find out what happened to Natty during their days at university together and I enjoyed learning about her and her relationship with Sean, discovering the events that have shaped her life.

 

I thought Keep Your Friends Close was a fantastic read that hooked me from the start and kept me turning the pages to find out what would happen to Natty and Eve. I thought the ending in particular was brilliant and I'm looking forward to Paula Daly's future releases.

Cover Reveal: Everything Changes But You

I've been itching to share my new cover with everyone, even when it wasn't quite finished and I was still tweaking away at it. But the time has come and I can finally give Book 2 an identity. I hope you like it as much as I do!

 

Introducing Everything Changes But You

 

 

Ally Richmond is dreading turning thirty and bidding farewell to her youth. And when her husband says he wants to start a family, she begins to panic.

Is this all that life has to offer from now on? Popping out babies and growing old gracefully? She wants a life crammed with glamour and spontaneous adventure, not one full of dirty nappies and night feeds.

When Ally makes a silly birthday wish for a new, exciting life, her wish is granted.

But when Ally is presented with the freedom and opportunities she craves, she soon realises this new life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and that there really is no place like home.
 

 You can pre-order Everything Changes But You here

Book of the Month: May

 

Keep Your Friends Close

 

by

 

Paula Daly

 

 
Natty and Sean Wainwright are happily married. Rock solid in fact. So when Natty's oldest friend, Eve Dalladay, appears - just as their daughter collapses on a school trip in France - Natty has no qualms about leaving Eve with Sean to help out at home.

Two weeks later and Natty finds Eve has slotted into family life too well. Natty's husband has fallen in love with Eve. He's sorry, he tells her, but their marriage is over.

With no option but to put a brave face on things for the sake of the children, Natty embarks on building a new life for herself.

And then she receives the note.

Eve has done this before, more than once, and with fatal consequences...

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

After reading and enjoying Paula Daly's debut novel, Just What Kind of Mother Are You? last year, I was eagerly awaiting the release of Keep Your Friends Close and it was definitely worth the wait. I loved the book and devoured it within a couple of days, hooked on Natty's tale as she tried to claw back the life stolen by Eve. I loved every page, particularly the ending as I thought it was brilliant. I'm very much looking forward to the future releases from Paula Daly!

 

My full review of Keep Your Friends Close will be on the blog soon.

 

 

Click here to see all Books of the Month

 

Spilt Milk by Amanda Hodgkinson

 

 

In 1913 sisters Nellie and Vivian Marsh are destined to remain spinsters. They live a simple, impoverished life on the outskirts of a village with only each other to rely on. But then Joe Ferier enters their lives and the fiercely close relationship between the sisters will be shattered, with the cracks remaining for years to come.

 

In 1939, Nellie's eighteen-year-old daughter Birdie finds herself pregnant. As an unmarried mother, Birdie feels she has no choice but to give the baby up for adoption. To shield herself from the stigma, Birdie goes to stay with her aunt Vivian for the duration of her pregnancy, where she begins to uncover the Marsh sisters' past.

 

Spilt Milk is told over several decades, beginning with Nellie and Vivian's childhood and moving through to their old age. Part one centres around the Marsh sisters and their meeting of Joe Ferier, who has a damaging effect throughout their lives. I did enjoy this part of the story, but I did think it dragged, especially compared with the second part, which swept through years and generations from one paragraph to the next. I think of the all the characters, I felt for Birdie the most as she suffered at the hands of fate time and again, which made her judgements quite harsh at times.

 

It was interesting to see how times changed for the Marsh sisters, beginning with such a secluded and hard life at the start of the century, moving through the decades and wars and shifts in attitudes. It was quite saddening to see the gulf in the sister's relationship and how that continued to shape their future and that of their loved ones. Spilt Milk isn't the most cheerful of reads, but I was drawn into the characters and their lives and wanted to keep reading to find out where Nellie, Vivian and Birdie would end up. A slight criticism for me would be the ending as I felt there were a few loose ends I would have liked tying up (but then I like my endings tied up neatly in a pretty bow). Overall, I thought the book was a good read, full of secrets and loss and the fragile ties of family.

Writing Book 2 - Part 5

Music To Write To

For me, writing and music go hand in hand. I always have to have some background noise otherwise it just feels too weird. I can't have the TV on, as this causes distraction and I end up watching the TV screen instead of my laptop's. But music is different. I can have that playing in the distance, even with lyrics, while I happily tap away at my keyboard.

The type of music is important too. If I'm writing something festive, it makes sense to have Christmassy music on (and also I'll use any excuse to listen to Crimbo music). And when writing A Beginner's Guide To Salad I listened to a lot of cheesy 90s pop to channel Ruth (who adores the cheese).

Book 2 (which now has a sparkling new title - Everything Changes But You) has a title that was inspired by the Take That song Everything Changes, so I've been listening to a LOT of Take That while writing the book. I also use Spotify to listen to music on my laptop, which allows you to listen to artists or songs that are similar to the ones you have chosen, which I find handy. I like Take That, but I think listening to the same songs for several months would have sent me ever so slightly barking!