#Blogtour Mongrol by Hanako Footman @hanakofootman @WeAreFootnote @bonnierbooks_uk @RandomTTours @annecater #Mongrel

The Blurb

Mei loses her Japanese mother at age six. Growing up in suburban Surrey, she yearns to fit in, suppressing not only her heritage but her growing desire for her best friend Fran.

Yuki leaves the Japanese countryside to pursue her dream of becoming a concert violinist in London. Far from home and in an unfamiliar city, she finds herself caught up in the charms of her older teacher.

Haruka attempts to navigate Tokyo’s nightlife and all of its many vices, working as a hostess in the city’s sex district. She grieves a mother who hid so many secrets from her, until finally one of those secrets comes to light . . .

Shifting between three intertwining narratives, Mongrel reveals a tangled web of desire, isolation, belonging and ultimately, hope.

My Review

Mongrel was one of those hauntingly beautiful novels that stays with you long after the final page has been read and the book closed. It was a story of women displaced, of grief, of years of trying to find their true selves , their place within their world.

Yuki, talented violinist in pursuit of a musical career arrives in London only to fall in love with her teacher, to marry, to give birth only to lose her identity. Footman made me wonder whether she suffered the ravishes of postnatal depression or the abandonment of a husband who just did his duty. Her turmoil and emotions were brilliantly evident within Footman’s narrative, the aching love for her child the disconnect with her homeland, the longing for heir own mother.

Mei, was just as confused, in love with her best friend Fran, a love never reciprocated yet she clung on throughout the novel in the for that one day when it would happen. Again Footman sent her search for belonging, an encompassing grief for a mother she never really knew, an incident that would set her own on a trajectory of discovery to her Japanese heritage and homeland.

Finally Haruka, defined by grief set on a path of self destruction. Footman threw her into the Tokyo club world of men who used and abused Haruka for sex, Haruka only to willing, a sense of self punishment, of looking for the love of a father she never knew.

I was wrapped within their hurt and emotion Footman’s narrative raw and unforgiving. At times it felt too much but in a good way, left me emotionally drained. I left the characters hopeful in the knowledge that maybe that had or would find their path, find happiness and a place in the world they resided.

A beautiful and stunning debut.

I would like to thank We Are Footnote for a copy of Mongrel to read and review and to Random Things Tour for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Hanako Footman is a British-Japanese actor and author living in London.
Mongrel is her debut novel.

#Blogtour The Descent by Paul E Hardisty @Hardisty_Paul @orendabooks @annecater @RandomTTours #TheDescent

The Blurb

Kweku Ashworth is a child of the cataclysm, born on a sailboat to parents fleeing the devastation in search for a refuge in the Southern Ocean. Growing up in a world forever changed, his only connection to the events that set the world on its course to disaster were the stories his step-father, now long-dead,
recorded in his manuscript, The Forcing.
But there are huge gaps in the story that his mother, still alive but old and frail,
steadfastly refuses to speak of, even thirty years later. When he discovers evidence that his mother has tried to cover up the truth, he knows that it is time to find out for himself.
Determined to learn what really happened during his mother’s escape from the
concentration camp to which she and Kweku’s father were banished, and their subsequent journey halfway around the world, Kweku and his young family set out on a perilous voyage across a devastated planet. What they find will
challenge not only their faith in humanity, but their ability to stay alive

My Review

Be prepared The Descent is going to challenge and test you in the most brilliant way.

We are in the future, the world is ruined, its population scattered, controlled by those with power. Kweku is ‘free’ living with what remains of his family in an isolated spot, his only communication with the outside world a nightly radio broadcast from a woman named Sparkplug, a woman on the inside of the individual’s that plunged the world into total disaster.

Add in his Stepfather’s book of their journey to their now home and Hardisty was going to take us on a journey we didn’t want to believe, or even comprehend.

I loved the dual narrative and timeline, the deft switch Hardisty employed between the two as Kweku, forced by the violence of others set sail on the Providence with his wife and son to discover the lost pages, of his stepfathers book.

And what of Sparkplug? Here was a woman lured by the trappings of wealth, her boss rich beyond her imagination, her role widening to that of trusted PA as he planned world domination. Was the Boss Mr Trump in disguise? Maybe, maybe not but Hardisty had created the perfect bad man hellbent on world domination. The Boss’s use of presidential candidate Bragg was brilliantly ruthless, you could see him pulling his strings, bending and flexing him to his will.

As Kweku sailed to the isolated peoples of the southern ocean the true horror of the ravaged world revealed itself. Hardisty gave us the matriarchal society pushed to the extreme before the subversive actions of a society that sent its women to the horrors of male ownership.

The past saw Hardisty embed Sparkplug more and more into the Boss’s relentless pursuit of more and more wealth, control of all the major producers and industry, a world dependent on the few. It was truly terrifying, too realistic, was this his Trump, his madman intent on satisfying his own selfish fantasy, his own reality.

Of course, the world literally fell off a cliff, the the climate won, the people fought back. Hardisty made us question if they were any better as factions were created, a world divided, its population forced to survive in various small communities around the world.

What an awakening for Kweku as he searched for his mother’s story, found family he never knew he had. And what about Sparkplug? The woman you could have despised, her willingness to just go along with the Boss, to enjoy the benefits he offered. No, Hardisty was clever, she was our narrator, our historian, placed to warn us, to listen, react, to love not only each other but the world we live in.

Paul E Hardisty, What a novel, what a story, you have created, utterly compelling, just brilliant.

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of The Descent to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an
engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa. He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a. Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear, Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Telegraph Thriller of the Year. The Forcing (2023) was a SciFi Now Bookmof the Month, with The Descent out in 2024. Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen
outdoorsman, and lives in Western Australia.

Blogtour A Sign Of Her Own by Sarah Marsh @SarahCMarsh @TinderPress @annecater @RandomTTours #ASignOfHerOwn

The Blurb

Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell. While her fancé is eager to make a potentially lucrative acquaintance, Ellen knows what Bell really wants from her. Ellen is deaf, and for a time was Bell’s student in a technique called Visible Speech. As he instructed her in speaking, Bell also confided in her about his dream of producing a device which would transmit the human voice along a wire: the telephone. Now, on the cusp of wealth and renown, Bell wants Ellen to speak up in support of his claim to the patent to the telephone, which is being challenged by rivals. But Ellen has a different story to tell: that of how Bell betrayed her, and other deaf pupils, in pursuit of ambition and personal gain, and cut Ellen off from a community in which she had come to feel truly at home. It is a story no one around Ellen seems to want to hear – but there may never be a more important time for her to tell it. A Sign of Her Own offers a fascinating window onto a hidden moment in history, and a portrait of a young deaf woman’s joumey to find her place in the world, and her own authentic voice.

My Review

What can I say about A Sign Of Her Own ? It was so beautifully written, Ellen portrayed with sensitivity, emotion and a real understanding of the deaf world. It was an example of an author, also deaf, who could articulate in the most natural and brilliant way the world in which she herself resided and magically turn into an outstanding novel.

Ellen was young impressionable, her mother, grandmother desperate for her to integrate into the hearing world, be seen as normal. What Ellen wanted, needed or even what may have been best for her was never considered. Packed off to boarding school, then sent to Boston to be taught by the famous Alexander Graham Bell the master of vision speech.

Marsh showed a young girl on the brink of womanhood entranced by this man, a man lost in his inventions, his own world. Snippets of his latest discoveries were fed to Ellen made her feel important, part of his world. It was only when Marsh introduced Ellen to Frances that her mind broadened, she began to question Bells methods and the sense of an impending clash loomed.

We don’t know instantly what that would be as Marsh pushed forward in time to London, Ellen is engaged to Harmon, her mother dead, but then a letter, a clandestine meeting, a re-acquaintance with Bell. A seamless switching between Boston then and London now, smattering of industrial espionage, the patent of the newly invented telephone at stake. More importantly Marsh made Ellen question not only herself, but others. Who were they, and particularly Bell to tell her and other deaf individuals how to communicate in order to fully integrate with main society. One final showdown filled with bravery, an important statement for the deaf community and an Ellen comfortable in her own self, confident, and decisive ready to live the rest of her life as she wanted.

You will fall in love with Ellen, you will dislike Bell, you will delight in the wonderful narrative and leave with a fascinating insight into the world of a deaf person and its community.

Congratulations Sarah Marsh an absolute triumph.

I would like to thank Tinder Press for a copy of A Sign Of Her Own to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Sarah Marsh was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish prize in 2019 and selected for the London Library Emerging Writers programme in 2020. A Sign of Her Own is her first novel, inspired by her experiences of growing
up deaf and her family’s history of deafness. She lives in London.
@SarahCMarsh

#Blogtour Death Flight by Sarah Sultoon @SultoonSarah @OrendaBooks @ annecater #DeathFlight #RandomTTours

The Blurb

Cub reporter Jonny Murphy is in Buenos Aires interviewing families of victims of Argentina’s Dirty War, when a headless torso has washed up on a city beach, thrusting him into a shocking investigation…

Argentina. 1998. Human remains are found on a beach on the outskirts of Buenos Aires – a gruesome echo of when the tide brought home dozens of mutilated bodies thrown from planes during Argentina’s Dirty War. Flights of death, with passengers known as the Disappeared.

International Tribune reporter Jonny Murphy is in Buenos Aires interviewing families of the missing, desperate to keep their memory alive, when the corpse turns up. His investigations with his companion, freelance photographer Paloma Glenn, have barely started when Argentina’s simmering financial crisis explodes around them.

As the fabric of society starts to disintegrate and Argentine cities burn around them, Jonny and Paloma are suddenly thrust centre stage, fighting to secure both their jobs and their livelihoods.

But Jonny is also fighting something else, an echo from his own past that he’ll never shake, and as it catches up with him and Paloma, he must make choices that will endanger everything he knows…

My Review

Did you know about the Death Flights, the Dirty War or even the financial crash in Argentina. All rolled one after the other and although I had a vague recollection I had no real understanding. It took the skills of Sultoon to educate me, but at the same time embroil me in a tense and very dramatic novel.

Jonny her young and very ambitious journalist for the International Tribune was our eyes on an Argentina in turmoil, Paloma his photographer and accomplice.

A body or should we say, torso washed up on a beach was too much for Jonny to ignore, it’s possible connections to the Death Flights just the story he needed to make his name. Yet Sultoon set other eyes and ears onto his investigation. Hidden figures tracked his movements, kidnapped him, fed him clues to follow, Paloma and himself never far from danger.

But Sultoon gave us a determined Jonny, Paloma always that one step behind perhaps more reticent and Sultoon made you wonder if she too had secrets to hide.

As riots erupted, as people tried to steer them in another direction, Sultoon sent them speeding across the country. The tension was tangible, the reader on a knife edge as they hurtled headlong into trouble.

Assistance came in the form of an old friend from Jonny’s past, help appeared to be on the way, but hang on Sultoon wasn’t going to make it easy. Twist after twist, drama filled scene after scene and I couldn’t work out who was more exhausted, Jonny or myself.

I was exhausted in a good way, I’d been pulled into Jonny’s story, well and truly immersed in Argentina’s history, embroiled in a cat and mouse game with no idea of its ending.

I did and didn’t want it to end, knew that Jonny had other stories to tell, ones more personal, his own still to unfold. I felt grateful that this was a series Sultoon would hopefully continue, and revelled in the anticipation of a new instalment.

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of Death Flight to read and review and to Random Things Tours for o voting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Sarah Sultoon is a journalist and writer, whose work as an international newsexecutive at CNN has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. She has extensive experience in conflict zones, winning three Peabody awards for her work on the war in Syria, an Emmy for her contribution to the coverage of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, and a number of Royal Television Society gongs. When not reading or writing she can usually be found somewhere outside, either running, swimming or throwing a ball for her three children and dog while she imagines what might happen if… Her debut thriller The Source is currently in production with Lime Pictures, and was a Capital Crime Book Club pick and a number one bestseller on Kindle. The Shot (2022) and Dirt (2023) followed, with Death Flight due to be published in 2024.

Death Flight can be ordered:

https://orendabooks.co.uk/product/death-flight