Blurb

Allison has been with Owen since university. She’s given up on writing her novel and is working a dull office job at the local council – now it feels like the only interesting thing about her is that she’s Owen’s girlfriend. But he’s slipping away from her, and Allison has no idea who she’ll be without him.

Panicking, she absorbs him…

Soon Allison begins taking on Owen’s best qualities, becoming the person she always thought she should be. But is Owen all she needs to complete herself? Will Allison ever be a whole person?

Absorbed is the original and timely debut novel from Kylie Whitehead; a darkly comic story of female insecurity, body horror and modern relationships.

Review

When I heard that two of my favourite indie presses, Dead Ink and Influx Press, had got together for a collaborative project, I got a bit excited. And then I read about it and got even MORE excited. From the website:

“New Ruins is a paperback originals imprint focused on the porous and uncanny boundary between the edge-lands of literary and genre fiction.

New Ruins publishes books that are comfortable sitting across, within, or outside of genre labels, for readers unafraid of transgressing boundaries.”

To me, that is just music to my ears. And so I was delighted when the lovely Jordan Taylor-Jones sent me a review copy of New Ruins’ first book, Absorbed by Kylie Whitehead, which sounded as weird and wonderful as I hoped.

I read this book so quickly, devouring it, perhaps appropriately, over a couple of night time reading sessions. It definitely gave me weird dreams. And it definitely flits across boundaries – it is a modern love story, a horror story, at times a story of personal development, at others dipping into supernatural mysteries. It is unsettling and engrossing in equal measures. The protagonist, Allison, is a curious mix of being pretty self-aware, calling herself out on her flaws and foibles, and (pardon the pun) self-absorbed, childish, unable to see how her actions affect those around her until it is too late and the consequences have spiralled out of control. She isn’t particularly likeable, but that is a strength of the book – I have said it before, I’m sure, but we need more dislikeable women in novels.

The plot, as is clear from the blurb, is as mad as it sounds. Yes, Allison literally absorbs her boyfriend. There’s no rationalising or metaphorizing it – that is what happens, and then Allison must try and figure out what to do next. You do need to hop on board and accept this premise, but there is a decent amount of Allison also feeling bewildered and confused and trying to figure out what the hell has happened, so it’s clearly not ‘normal’ even within the confines of the storyworld. As we learn more about Allison’s past, there are hints of how this could have come about, but again, everything is hazy and the truth is hard to pin down. Two characters, Maggie and Odile, are remarkably accepting of Allison’s version of events, but by allowing her to share the story of her absorption of Owen with a couple of people, the plot can open out a little to include witnesses to her drama.

The story gets gradually darker and more physically uncomfortable – always with the shadowy sense of not being sure exactly what is going on. In this way, Whitehead allies us closely with Allison’s first person narrative – like Allison, we are struggling to make sense of the changing sensations and emotions she is going through. I felt quite on edge reading this book, always waiting for something horrific to happen, for some massive revelation, and I think there is some very clever suspense threaded through the sometimes rather casual-seeming descriptions of Allison limping on with her existence as best she can in the circumstances. There’s a good pay-off for this, though not the one I was expecting, and I got a lovely shiver down my spine when I realised where the narrative was headed.

It is tricky to describe my feelings for this book, which is about as far from a warm and fuzzy read as you can get – it definitely provoked a visceral reaction, and I found myself oddly aware of my body as I was reading. There is a delicious warping of reality, a scratching away at the veneer of normality – at one point I couldn’t stop thinking about how bloody weird pregnancy is, having another being growing inside you, at another, I wondered how far loving someone means wanting to be them. This book raises so many questions, and has dark fun exploring them, though it is not necessarily forthcoming with the answers. Relationships, friendships, parent-child bonds are all examined through the smashed surface of a fractured mirror, and it’s a disorientating and weirdly compulsive experience. I would absolutely read more of Whitehead’s work, and I am excited to see what New Ruins comes out with next, too.

Absorbed by Kylie Whitehead is out in May from New Ruins, and is available to pre-order here.

Blurb

The 2017 #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and abuse felt like a flagship moment, a time at which women were empowered to share their stories in a spirit of empowerment and solidarity and demand change. But have some men simply changed tactics?

The latest addition to The Indigo Press’s Mood Indigo series sees Sam Mills, author of the acclaimed novel The Quiddity of Will Self (“ambitious and outrageous” Guardian), and recent literary memoir of caring, The Fragments of My Father (“brave and original” The Times) investigate the phenomenon of ‘chauvo-feminism’, where men present themselves as feminists publicly, in order to advance their careers, while privately exhibiting chauvinistic attitudes.

Through testimony from women and men, as well as her own experiences with a chauvo-feminist, Mills explores the grey areas of modern relationships, gaslighting and emotional abuse, the psychological underpinnings of the chauvo-feminist, and asks how we might move beyond ‘trial by Twitter’ to encourage an honest and productive dialogue between the sexes.

Review

A few months ago, I read and reviewed Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel, a short but powerful essay on women and desire in the age of consent. When Sam reached out and kindly offered me a copy of her book Chauvo-Feminism: On Sex, Power and #MeToo in exchange for an honest review, I jumped at the chance to read more on this fascinating and important topic.

This essay is as thought-provoking and challenging as Angel’s, though it approaches the topic from a different angle. In Chauvo-Feminism, Mills turns the lens back onto men, and asks if performative allyship with the #MeToo movement is allowing a new kind of chauvinist to evade detection. She details her own experiences with one such man, and provides one of the best descriptions of the now-ubiquitous expression ‘gas-lighting’ that I’ve come across. What was really interesting to me was that as I read of her interactions with R, the anonymous chauvo-feminist she encounters, I found myself going back and forth as to whether I could find any ‘wrong-doing’ in his actions, until I realised that the reason it was hard for me to condemn his behaviour was because it is SO common, I’ve seen and experienced it so often, that it feels normal to me. And that, as I think Mills is arguing, is the problem – these kinds of behaviours are so insidious, and as women we are so used to them, that as long as more overt anti-feminist stances appear to be vanishing off the radar, we’re at risk of thinking the work is done, and equality is all but achieved.

The conversations around #MeToo have, by their very nature of occurring mostly on social media, been performative to a certain extent. It is very difficult to have honest talks, even in person, about these issues – I am sure I am not alone in having had some fairly fraught conversations even with those men closest to me, where no one wants to step outside of the accepted rhetoric and pull at some of the loose threads. I have had some pretty open discussions, too, but even with those I love, we are dancing around the edges of something dangerous when we press too far into the truth of some of the feelings that the #MeToo movement has provoked. I honestly don’t even want to go into detail here for fear of making it sound like I know chauvo-feminists – you can see how fraught it is! The very fact, however, that it all feels so uncomfortable to discuss is an absolutely blinding sign that we NEED to be talking about it.

Luckily, Sam Mills is far bolder and more eloquent than I am, and here she uncovers much of the hypocrisy that swims around the rhetoric. She weaves anecdote and research with aplomb, creating a highly engaging, readable account that gave me so much food for thought. I highly recommend getting your hands on this short but impactful piece of writing, and opening yourself up to some of the difficult conversations it will provoke.

Chauvo-Feminism by Sam Mills is out now from The Indigo Press and is available to purchase here.

Blurb

In the small lake town where LuLu, Rainey, and Saul are growing up, day-to-day life is anything but easy. Navigating the usual obstacles of youth would be enough for anyone, but for this trio a world marred by the Vietnam War, detached parents, and untimely death create circumstances overloaded with trouble. Yet through their unyielding resourcefulness and the willingness to expose their vulnerabilities, these three friends discover deeper bonds than even they could ever imagine.

Told through kaleidoscopic images and in prose that will keep you on the edge of your seat, Sybelia Drive is a story of three friends who push beyond the typical woes of childhood into teenage years transformed by the shared baggage of a generation, years when men walk on the moon; students are killed during a peace demonstration at Kent State; and the obligations of military service claim the lives of fathers, husbands, and children.

Investigating the personal impact of social upheaval with unparalleled sensitivity and depth, Sybelia Drive is a novel that will stay with you for a long, long time. It is an extraordinary debut.

Review

There is a whole long backstory to how I ended up with both a digital and physical copy of Karin’s book – I owe thanks to Lori @TNBBC, Karin, her publishers and Blackwell’s – we got there eventually, and I would consider myself a fool for not reading this gorgeous book as soon as I got the PDF, except that the physical book is a thing of beauty, and I’m just getting so much more into the actual turning of physical pages these days. Anyway, now that I own a copy, with a lovely bookplate, I am going to treasure it forever – and here’s why.

It has been a long time since I read anything set in the era of the Vietnam war, and I certainly can’t remember reading anything that uses the backdrop of the war in such a clever, complex way. On one level, we have a coming-of-age story, as we follow Lulu, Rainey and Saul through their childhood by the lake, into adolescence and early adulthood. All three grow up in the shadow of fathers and older friends lost to the war, some to return, some not, and the absences at the heart of their young lives are poignantly depicted. Rainey has the added complication of being more or less abandoned by her mother, living with the Blackwoods in a kind of limbo between sibling and stranger. A novel that focused solely on these three incredibly complex, real, fascinating characters would have been a triumph of a debut in itself.

But Davidson is even bolder with her structure and the breadth and depth of her exploration: a multitude of characters are given a voice, in a dazzlingly skilful balancing act. I’m still puzzling out how she manages to flick so smoothly between first person viewpoints, something I have rarely seen done so effectively, and certainly not in a debut novel. We move between the inhabitants of Sybelia Drive (and also characters from across the world) getting glimpses of insight into their secrets and desires, and by the end, as the community comes together again, we feel we are a part of it. It is powerful to feel so bonded to a fictional place and its people; I was genuinely sad to leave them behind at the end of the book.

This review is hard for me to write, because I loved this book so fiercely – similar to how I felt recently about Cory Anderson’s What Beauty There Is – and it is difficult to express just how much the prose moved me. Davidson writes with a magic touch, weaving truth and beauty out of words, creating sentences that honestly made my heart ache. There is a sense of the organic here, of personal growth and development and the ebbing and flowing of affection and resentment between characters that just feels stunningly real. Every character had my sympathy at one point or another, though I think spiky, funny, sometimes cruel Lulu was probably my favourite. These are characters so vivid, written so beautifully, that I miss them and carry them with me still.

Sybelia Drive is the sort of book that leaves me feeling that everyone should know about – it deserves to be widely read and loved. It’s a lyrical, intelligent, probing book that also hums with the comfort of friendship and connection, and moves along at a rhythmically soothing pace. It is subtle but also surprising, written with a lightness of touch and a depth of feeling that left me feeling changed. I am so excited to have discovered Karin Cecile Davidson’s work, and I urge you all to seek it out as well.

Sybelia Drive by Karin Cecile Davidson is published by Braddock Avenue Books and is also available to purchase in the UK here.

More info can be found on the author’s website.

I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed and anxious today (not an unusual state of affairs for me – I have Anxiety with a capital A and the prozac prescription to prove it), and so instead of tackling my monstrous To Do list, I am of course procrastinating further by writing a rambling blog post.

Yesterday I found myself feeling guilty because I hadn’t had time to post on bookstagram for a few days, or, more importantly, to boost my friends with the complicated, algorithm-busting combo of saving, adding to stories, comments over five words only, typed while standing on your head and reciting Shakespeare backwards, or something. Anyway, the point is, I felt guilty. And then I started to feel guilty about the three reviews I need to write, all the beautiful proofs I need to read, and a whole bunch of other stuff related to my book blogging hobby. In no time at all, because such is the nature of my fantastic ability to spiral, I had convinced myself I was letting everyone down, that I didn’t have the dedication and commitment it takes to be a good, supportive bookish presence on social media, and that maybe it would be better for me to just step away.

I am not posting this as any sort of bid for sympathy or rallying cries of “Oh, no, Ellie, you’re great!” – I am writing it to clear my head, and, perhaps, to illustrate that we all have these wobbles. How can we deal with that nagging guilt as the TBR pile gets bigger and bigger, as does the list of reviews to write and blog posts to schedule and bookstacks to take pictures of?

In my case (and we’re all different, that’s one of the things I love most about the book blogging community) I think it is about remembering why I do this. I love books, I love interacting with other readers and authors and getting excited about great reads. Any tiny little contribution I can make towards that hugely positive feeling of sharing enthusiasm about books is worthwhile, and if I sometimes don’t post on Instagram or don’t quite manage to read a book before publication date, as long as I’m enjoying it and doing my best, it’s okay.

I’ll always honour blog tour commitments and proofs I’ve requested – blog tour organisers work SO hard, and deserve a level of professionalism that matches theirs, and getting ARCs is an absolute privilege. I am in awe of some of my fellow bloggers who manage to fit in so many blog tours – more than a couple a month makes me a bit jittery! If I ask for a proof, I make sure it’s one I would buy anyway (and I usually end up doing so to support the author) and will never take for granted the thrill of an early read.

I read about ten books a month, which for me is good going, but it definitely means that sometimes I’m going to fall behind. Not only have I started to get unsolicited proofs (which, by the way, is AMAZING) but authors sometimes reach out and ask if I’ll review their book – and if it sounds interesting, I try to do so, and I feel very lucky to be in this position. But there are also the many, many books I buy for myself and which sit on my shelves for months sighing patiently and waiting for me to have time to give them some love – a lot of these books, I am desperate to read, and sometimes, I feel a bit sad that I haven’t had the chance yet! I’m thinking at some point there will need to be an ARC pause just for a stretch of free-reading, with reviews entirely optional!

I need to remember that there is no obligation here. I actually love messing around taking book pics, I find it a fun, creative thing to do, but if I don’t have time, that’s okay. I want to be a good friend to my fellow bloggers and boost them as much as I can, but the ones that know me will understand if I don’t always manage it. And I think – certainly I hope – that by this stage most publicists and authors know I’m not just out for a free book (I spend approximately ten times more on books since discovering Book Twitter!) so if I don’t get to a book before publication day, I hope I’ll be forgiven!

I am not really sure what the point of this post is! I guess that I’m a person, not a book blogging machine, and that I have a whole host of spinning plates to balance at the moment – two small and very time-consuming kids, a new business, settling into life in a new area, not to mention the small matter of trying to write my own book, and I simply MUST remember to be kind to myself, and not to start feeling guilty about something which is supposed to be fun! The pressure is entirely of my own creation – I very much doubt that there are publicists lying awake at night wondering why “that Ellie hasn’t written her review of the ARC I sent her at least two bloody months ago” – and I need to stop trying to do everything, all the time!

Anyway, if you’ve ever felt bad for not keeping up, I hope maybe this post makes you feel you’re not alone! And hopefully it also explains why I steer clear of NetGalley – as incredible and tempting as it sounds, I don’t need MORE unread books judging me, thank you!

I won’t stop, because I LOVE shouting about books, and I am so happy when authors say thank you for a review or readers say they bought a book because of my review. Those little things mean so much. But mostly, I won’t stop because reading is part of who I am, and sharing it with you all is a pleasure. The guilt is some kind of residue of my need to push myself, my inner critic who, these days, is normally much quieter, and I know I can overcome it and just be happy to be chatting books with you all.

As for the massive To Do list, tomorrow is another day…

Happy reading!

Ellie x

• 

Blurb

It’s 2006 in the fictional East London borough of Leytonstow. The UK’s pub smoking ban is about to happen, and thirty-eight-and-a-half year old John Torrington, a mopper and trolley collector at his local DIY store, is secretly in love with the stylish, beautiful, and middle-class barmaid Lois. John and his hapless, strange, and down-on-their-luck friends, Gabby Longfeather and Glyn Hopkins, live in Clements Markham House – a semi-derelict Edwardian villa divided into unsanitary bedsits, and (mis)managed by the shrewd, Dickensian business man, Mr Kapoor.

When Mr Kapoor, in a bizarre and criminal fluke, makes him fabulously credit-worthy, John surprises his friends and colleagues alike by announcing he will organise an amazing ‘urban love revolution’, aka the Dig Street Festival. But when he discovers dark secrets at the DIY store, and Mr Kapoor’s ruthless gentrification scheme for Clements Markham House, John’s plans take several unexpected and worrisome turns…

Funny, original, philosophical, and unexpectedly moving, The Dig Street Festival takes a long, hard, satirical look at modern British life, and asks of us all, how can we be better people?

Review

I’m so delighted to be back with my favourite combo of a Damp Pebbles blog tour for a Louise Walters book! Thank you to Louise for providing me with a digital arc – although I couldn’t resist getting the paperback, which is gorgeous, and includes fabulous photography by the author on the inside covers.

The Dig Street Festival is beyond quirky – it is a surreal, madcap adventure through the streets of the fictional borough of Leytonstow, led by our narrator, John Torrington, a man who finds himself on the fringes of society, and his ‘found family’, Glyn and Gabby, two of the best characters I have come across for a long time.

A lot happens in this book, most of it completely bizarre, and at times it almost feels overstuffed with incidents. But for me, this is all part of the fun – the novel has a breathless excitement that carries you along, no matter how strange things gets. I was very happy to willingly suspend my disbelief and follow John, Glyn and the wonderful, beautiful Gabby as they try to save their crumbling home, Clements Markham House, uncover nefarious schemes at the DIY store where John and Glyn (and briefly, Gabby!) work, and suddenly find themselves artificially rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Dig Street is masses of fun, but it also has both brains and heart. Glyn in particular is a really interesting character – at first I didn’t warm to him, falling head over heels for the childish, naive, gorgeous Gabby instead, but as the novel progressed, Glyn’s eccentric wisdom and oddly peaceful acceptance of his own quirks and mores grew on me, and I think there is something very profound about him as a character. Which seems an odd thing to say about a man whose defining characteristic is his penchant for gentlemen’s magazines of a certain genre, but then, this is an odd book.

The Dig Street Festival is also a brilliant exploration of male friendship, subverting norms and expectations at every turn, and, wonderfully, showing three men who love each other and hug each other and despair of each other with a depth of feeling that is rarely shown in fiction. The trio at the heart of the novel is the emotional core from which all the crazy adventures spiral out, and I loved to see it.

The novel is highly original, and it doesn’t bear direct comparison with much else that I have read, but I was reminded at times of Drew Gummerson’s equally quirky and hilarious Seven Nights at the Flamingo Hotel, which I read last year. What these books share, I think, is a determination to forge their own path, to explore characters who don’t fit neatly into predefined boxes, and, perhaps most importantly, to have FUN with the story and with language and ideas. It is no coincidence that they’re both published by wonderful indie presses. We need books like this, to push the boundaries, to be playful and funny and wise all at once, to show the beating human heart beneath the oddness. John, Glyn and Gabby (oh Gabby, I’m so fond of you still) may not be the characters you’re expecting from your fiction, but, my god, they are the characters we need.

About the Author

Chris Walsh grew up in Middlesbrough and now lives in Kent. He writes both fiction and non-fiction, an example of which you can read here in May 2020’s Moxy Magazine.

Chris’s debut novel The Dig Street Festival will be published by Louise Walters Books in April 2021. 

Chris’s favourite novel is Stoner by John Williams and his favourite novella is The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy. His top poet is Philip Larkin. He is also a fan of Spike Milligan.

Social Media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WalshWrites

Purchase Links

Louise Walters Books: http://bit.ly/3f9jJvz

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3cakZfQ

Foyles: https://bit.ly/3lBCCIJ

Waterstones: http://bit.ly/3tO2VhH

Book Depository: http://bit.ly/3caF7yg

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2QoYsn3

Publishing Information

Published in paperback and digital formats by Louise Walters Books on 15^th April 2021

Blurb

She could be the girl dancing on tables one night, and the next she’d be hiding in the shadows.

Just when I thought I understood her, she would melt away and become a completely new person, and I’d have to start all over again.

That’s how it was with Anna.
_______

Nick and Anna work the same summer job at their local cinema. Anna is mysterious, beautiful, and from a very different world to Nick.

She’s grown up preparing for the end of days, in a tightly-controlled existence where Christmas, getting drunk and sex before marriage are all off-limits.

So when Nick comes into her life, Anna falls passionately in love. Their shared world burns with poetry and music, cigarettes and conversation – hints of the people they hope to become.

But Anna, on the cusp of adulthood, is afraid to give up everything she’s ever believed in, and everyone she’s ever loved. She walks away, and Nick doesn’t stop her.

Years later, a tragedy draws Anna back into Nick’s life.

But rekindling their relationship leaves Anna and Nick facing a terrible choice between a love that’s endured decades, and the promises they’ve made to others along the way.

Review

Huge thanks to the author and publisher for my spot on the blog tour, and for providing me with a gorgeous finished copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t read that many love stories, mostly because I enjoy having absolutely no idea what is going to happen in a novel, but as the tagline for this book says, this is not just another love story. The characters in Another Life are complicated and frustrating and very, very real. The relationship at the heart of the book has echoes of the couple in Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water, two young people who have found each other before they have really found themselves. Anna is such an interesting character, brought up in a religion that sees non-believers, or ‘worldly’ people, as distinctly ‘other’ and not to be trusted, and while she has her rebellious side, it is clear that she is still firmly rooted in the traditions she’s been raised with. I think Chapman, who draws on her own experiences here, does a wonderful job of showing just how agonising and difficult it can be to go against the only life you know – the way that Anna keeps getting pulled back to her roots is completely understandable.

Nick, too, is a fascinating character, and his family history is heart-breaking. I won’t give anything away here, but by the end of Part One, I was crying my eyes out. As we follow Nick into his future, we can see how he, too, has forces holding him back, in a different way to Anna, but no less powerful. Their interactions in later years are so poignant and realistic – there is no simple answer to overcoming the obstacles that keep them apart. The only character in the whole book I wasn’t totally convinced by was Laura, whose storyline seemed a little too convenient for me personally, but the other secondary characters, particularly Sal, more than made up for this. I loved Sal A LOT.

This novel is complex, beautifully written, utterly absorbing, and very hard to tear yourself away from once you’ve started reading. I really liked the way that Another Life doesn’t dismiss the feelings of young people as simply naive or foolish – there is an intensity to emotions experienced in your late teens and early twenties that is captured brilliantly here, without judgement or dismissiveness, and it made me ache for the time when I felt things so deeply. This is a nostalgic, intelligent, fascinating book – a love story, yes, but so much more besides.

Another Life by Jodie Chapman is out now from Michael Joseph Books and is available to purchase here.

I am delighted to be able to share a fabulous competition with you all today! Simon Van der Velde, author of the bestselling short story collection Backstories, is offering THREE lucky readers the chance to win a signed copy of the book, along with a chocolate treat!

Full details of the competition and how to enter are in the PDF below, but here’s the extract – to be in with a chance of winning, you need to guess who the lost little boy in the story is, and then sign up on Simon’s website here with your guess!

Here is the full PDF with instructions:

And here is my review of Backstories if you need extra convincing to enter!

GOOD LUCK!

Blurb

Parents have a natural and automatic desire to rescue, protect and shield their children from difficult situations. Parents want to show their love by stepping in and helping wherever they can: with homework, bedtime monsters, the dark, new experiences, making friends…

But by rescuing our children, are we helping them to build their self- esteem? By stepping in and fixing things, we communicate that we don’t think they can do it on their own. We make them think they need us. What if there was a better way?

This book will give parents the skills to guide their children to find their own solutions and to create new possibilities. These tried and tested coaching skills, drawn from the author’s vast experience of working with parents and children, will give children choices. It will give them a positive mindset, and an ‘I can’ attitude.

If we can show children how to fix things for themselves, then we set them up for a lifetime of independence, and confidence in their own abilities.

Review

I reviewed Judy’s book Understanding Children and Teens at the end of last year, and I have found it really helpful – I still use quite a few of the techniques with my kids. So I was very pleased when Helen at Literally PR reached out and asked me to join the blog tour for Judy’s latest book. Huge thanks to Helen, Judy and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

One of the reasons that Judy’s work resonates so strongly with me is that as a child, I was a real ‘bottler’ of feelings. I was a highly emotional, highly imaginative child who gradually learned to push everything down and lock it up tight, and I very strongly believe that my struggles with depression later on in life were intimately connected with this repression of my emotions. Don’t worry, I have since let it ALL out (and then some!) but when I became a parent, I promised myself that I would make sure my kids felt able to express and process their emotions openly.

A key technique that Judy introduced me to is describing emotions in terms of colour. This has been so useful with both of my children, but especially with the youngest, who has really latched onto the idea, and can name a whole spectrum of emotions according to his own personal rainbow (with some pretty surprising colour choices – but hey, it’s his thing!) In Empower Your Kids! this is expanded upon, and this week we’ve been describing his feelings using colours, size (comparisons to animals and fruits, as per Judy’s advice!), whether it is moving or still, hard or soft. It is really special to see a four year old thinking about his emotions in such a way – there’s very little hesitation, he gets the concept entirely, and I think it is really useful for him.

The tapping is something I’m still getting to grips with it – I am actually using it for my own anxiety, and once I feel more confident, I’m going to use it with the kids. We do a sort of version of our own at the moment – I have tattoos of the kids’ initials on my wrists, and when my daughter started at her new school, I told her to tap on her wrist in the spot where I have her initial, and now when she comes back she asks me how many taps I felt. It just gives her a little bit of security and connection. Judy describes EFT, or tapping, as acupuncture without the needles, and she explains it in her trademark straightforward, easy to understand style. There is a very good section in Empower Your Kids! about supporting your own wellbeing with tapping – as parents, we really do need to focus on our own mental health if we are to support our kids as we would wish – and the exercises that she leads the reader through are extremely useful.

This is a practical, informative, easy to follow guide that I know I will be referring to again and again. Together with Understanding Children and Teens, I feel I now have a really useful reference set for dealing with my own and my kids’ emotions in the way that I had always hoped to – openly, honestly, without judgement. No parent can be perfect, and I mess up A LOT, but I feel much more confident having these brilliant resources to hand.

About the Author

Judy Bartkowiak is an NLP trainer and coach as well as an EFT trainer and coach who specialises in working with children and teens.  Before becoming a therapist, she worked in market research, and then ran a Montessori nursery alongside her therapeutic work. She has written extensively on NLP. 

Empower Your Kids! A coaching guide for parents by Judy Bartkowiak is published by Free Association Books and is available to purchase here.

March has been a great month of reading. My reading pace seems pretty set at around 10 books a month – I do wish I could read more, just because I have so many amazing-sounding books on my TBR, but one of my intentions for this year was to focus less on numbers and more on quality, and that I have certainly achieved. I began this month with a really strong theme of dark books about motherhood, and that kind of continued throughout the month, interwoven with my usual fairly eclectic mix of books! Here’s a quick round-up of my March reading, with links to my full reviews should you care to read more!

The Push by Ashley Audrain (2021)

This novel is excellent. Compelling, disturbing, and sharp, it is a gripping read that had me holding my breath as I turned the pages. I highly recommend The Push if you like your books intelligently written and tinged with darkness. You can read my full review here.

Call Me Mummy by Tina Baker (2021)

I loved Call Me Mummy. It is so disturbing, but it is also surprisingly funny. The humour is dark, of course, but that’s my favourite type. My full review of this brilliant, terrifying book is here.

Backstories by Simon Van der Velde (2021)

This brilliant collection of short stories offers a unique reading experience. One not to be missed, I can see myself revisiting these stories often. You can read my full review here.

Little Bandaged Days by Kyra Wilder (2020)

The language in this portrait of a descent into madness is exquisite, and though it is not an easy book to read in terms of subject matter, I was completely absorbed by it. My full review of Little Bandaged Days is here.

From My Balcony to Yours by Nino Gugunishvili (2020)

This is the first book I have read which directly references the current pandemic. And yet, it is full of humour, uplifting anecdotes, and hope. It is a slim book, and a total joy. You can read my full review of this lovely book here.

Manipulated Lives by H.A. Leuschel (2016)

I was on the Damp Pebbles blog tour for this interesting exploration of narcissistic personalities and manipulation. My full review of Manipulated Lives is here.

The Smash-Up by Ali Benjamin (2021)

This was my second buddy read with the good people at riverrun books. It is always such a pleasure to chat with like-minded bookish folk, and we had so much fun delving into the complex, highly relevant issues explored in this novel. You can read my full review here.

Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding (2021)

My final ‘dark side of motherhood’ book this month, and one that had a really strong emotional impact on me. You can read my full review of Bright Burning Things here.

My Brother the Messiah by Martin Vopenka translated by Anna Gustova Bryson (2021)

This book is a gem, a fascinating, surprisingly tender dystopian novel which places the focus firmly on the characters rather than the dystopia. The premise is incredibly powerful, and it’s executed brilliantly. You can read my full review here.

What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson (2021)

My final read of the month was something of a last-minute surprise – I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I absolutely adored this book. It hits so many sweet spots for me as a reader – it is “Cormac McCarthy does YA” (meant as an enormous compliment!) and I can’t stop thinking about it. My review is out today as part of The Write Reads blog tour, and you can check it out here.

It has been another fabulous month for reading, and as always, I am SO grateful to the authors, publishers, publicists and blog tour organisers who have introduced me to such a range of fantastic books. I feel so lucky to be a part of the bookish community. I’d love to hear what you’ve enjoyed this month, so do comment below!

Happy reading!

Ellie x

Blurb

When everything you love is in danger, how long can you keep running to survive?

Life can be brutal
Winter in Idaho. The sky is dark. It is cold enough to crack bones.

Jack knew it
Jack Dahl has nothing left. Except his younger brother, Matty, who he’d die for. Their mother is gone, and their funds are quickly dwindling, Jack needs to make a choice: lose his brother to foster care, or find the drug money that sent his father to prison.

So did I
Ava lives in isolation, a life of silence. For seventeen years her father, a merciless man, has controlled her fate. He has taught her to love no one.

Did I feel the flutter of wings when Jack and I met? Did I sense the coming tornado?
But now Ava wants to break the rules – to let Jack in and open her heart. Then she discovers that Jack and her father are stalking the same money, and suddenly Ava is faced with a terrible choice: remain silent or speak out and help the brothers survive.

Looking back, I think I did . . .

Perfect for fans of Patrick Ness, Meg Rosoff and Daniel Woodrell, What Beauty There Is an unforgettable debut novel that is as compulsive as it is beautiful, and unflinchingly explores the power of determination, survival and love.

Review

Huge thanks to The Write Reads, Penguin and the author for my spot on the blog tour, and for providing me with a beautiful proof copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m going to get straight to the point: What Beauty There Is is something special. This book had me hooked from the opening pages, from the first lines, in fact, and I was in thrall to the exquisite prose and heart-breaking story until the very end. I didn’t know what to expect from this book – I certainly wasn’t prepared for such a powerful, emotional reading experience.

There are clear influences here from literary giants such as Cormac McCarthy – and as I read, in my head, I affectionately called it No Country for Young Kids (the naming of the antagonist after the actor who plays Anton Chigurh in the Coen Brothers film is surely no coincidence). The Coen Brothers’ film Fargo is also called to mind by the stark, snowy setting and the delightful banter between the amiable cops. But this is no pastiche – this is homage paid and knowingly referenced by a writer who is aware that she is working within a tradition but expanding it and utilising it to focus on next generation and the awful price they pay for their parents’ crimes. In that sense, it also reminded me of David Joy’s brilliant novel Where All Light Tends To Go, which I read a couple of years ago, in which the young protagonist struggles to escape the cycle of poverty and crime and drug abuse that seems laid out for him as an inevitable path.

What is so incredibly special about this book is that while it wears its influences openly and proudly, it also manages to be startlingly unique. Anderson’s writing is what I call ‘crystalline’ prose – each phrase seems hewn from glittering rock or ice, beautifully carved, sparkling like sun on snow. I adore her writing, especially Ava’s first person narrative, which drifts gently to the head of each chapter, settling on top of Jack’s third person story, gilding it with beautiful, poetic words. Ava is a mesmerising, enigmatic character – both the heart and the head of the narrative, and I know I’ll be thinking about her for a very long time. Her transformation and the opening of her heart is beautiful to witness: delicately heroic, she carries the story.

The relationship between Jack and Matty is beautifully drawn, too. There is so much hope, I think, in the love the brothers show each other, despite the traumas of their upbringing and the horror of their current situation. There is much that is bleak in this book, but the bond between Jack and Matty is absolutely a thing of beauty. Their story is so tense, so wrenching – it is impossible not to be totally caught up in it. If I was being super pernickity, I might be able to pick out one or two points where the drama goes a tiny bit too far, or the co-incidences stack up a bit too neatly, but I don’t want to pull this novel apart – it’s a bit like how I felt about Where The Crawdads Sing – yes, maybe, possibly, there are one or two tiny signs of it being a debut novel, but I DON’T CARE! The emotional resonance of this novel overwhelms any urge I might have to turn ‘literary critic’ with this book; I love it fiercely, and it means a great deal to me, and that is such a thrill and a privilege as a reader.

I am by no means an expert on YA fiction – I don’t read nearly as much of it as many of my blogging friends, not for any particular reason, and quite possibly to my detriment as a reader – but if it can in some ways be seen as a transition, I can imagine a reader (not too young – there is a lot of violence and some pretty graphic descriptions, especially of Jack’s wounds) discovering Cory Anderson’s writing and then, in time, moving on to McCarthy’s The Road, to Denis Johnson, to Donald Ray Pollock – to writers who, like Anderson, explore the clash between violence and beauty, who sculpt gorgeous shapes out of the harsh realities of our brutal world, and show us the core of humanity. I for one am extremely grateful to have had the chance to discover this outstanding writer, and I can’t wait to see what she produces in the future.

What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson is published in the UK by Penguin on the 8th April and is available to purchase here.

About the Author

Cory Anderson is a winner of the League of Utah Writers Young Adult Novel Award and Grand Prize in the Storymakers Conference First Chapter Contest. She lives in Utah with her family. What Beauty There Is is her debut novel.

Links

Twitter: @coryanderwrites

Author website: https://coryanderson.us/