This week I'm celebrating Historical Fiction Week on the blog, so I thought it would be the perfect time to read and review this novel set in Kenya at the beginning of the 20th century. Have a look at my thoughts here:

Title: The Girl and the Sunbird

Author: Rebecca Stonehill

Published: June 17th 2016 by Bookouture

Amazon | Amazon UK

Blurb: A haunting, heartbreaking and unforgettable novel of a woman married to a man she can never love, and drawn to another who will capture her heart forever… 

East Africa 1903: When eighteen year old Iris Johnson is forced to choose between marrying the frightful Lord Sidcup or a faceless stranger, Jeremy Lawrence, in a far-off land, she bravely decides on the latter. 

Accompanied by her chaperone, Miss Logan, Iris soon discovers a kindred spirit who shares her thirst for knowledge. As they journey from Cambridgeshire to East Africa, Iris’s eyes are opened to a world she never knew existed beyond the comforts of her family home. 

But when Iris meets Jeremy, she realizes in a heartbeat that they will never be compatible. He is cold and cruel, spending long periods of time on hunting expeditions and leaving Iris alone. 

Determined to make the best of her new life, Iris begins to adjust to her surroundings; the windswept plains of Nairobi, and the delightful sunbirds that visit her window every day. And when she meets Kamau, a school teacher, Iris finds her calling, assisting him to teach the local children English. 

Kamau is everything Jeremy is not. He is passionate, kind and he occupies Iris’s every thought. She must make a choice, but if she follows her heart, the price she must pay will be devastating.

First of all I would like to thank the publishers for sending me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Review: The Girl and the Sunbird tells the heart-breaking story of Iris Johnson, a girl who is sent to Africa to marry an older man. When we meet her, she is still living in Cambridge with her parents, who give her two options: stay and marry an awful Lord or travel to Africa and marry an unknown man (her mother finds an advert in a magazine). So Iris decides to leave her family and everything she knows behind hoping to find a fair man at the end of her journey. 

As she travels to Kenya, she is accompanied by a chaperone, Miss Logan. A beautiful and deep friendship grows between the two women and I was happy to discover that she remains a true friend to Iris for the whole story. But as soon as she arrives at Nairobi, Iris realises that Jeremy Lawrence, her new husband, is not a kind nor a fair man. Faced with this reality, Iris decides nevertheless to enjoy and discover her new country as much as she can and starts exploring around her new home.

I really enjoyed following Iris around Nairobi. The descriptions of this new and exotic place were generous and detailed and I could easily picture how it all must have look back then. Iris soon finds friendship in her tailor who introduces her to a local teacher, Kamau. That's when the story gets really interesting as you can feel the chemistry between them but know, at the same time, that nothing can happen between them and their future is doomed. However, I really liked the character of Kamau, he was kind and passionate and I was rooting for them since the beginning.

After this first part of the story, there are two more parts set later in time. I was a bit lost at the beginning of the second part as the jump in time is quite big and we don't really know what happened at the end of the first part. This annoyed me a bit as I just wanted to know more about Iris and Kamau. But as this part progressed and finally jumped into the third part, everything was discovered and I just couldn't stop reading to know it all. 

I was really shocked and touched with Iris' story. At the end of the novel, I felt like she was a close friend of mine and I couldn't help feeling both happy and sad by her story. Hers was not an easy life and she had to take too many tough decisions. She had many flaws and made some decisions I didn't completely agree with but all her flaws just made her all the more real to me. I'm sure this story will leave no one indifferent. A highly interesting and haunting historical novel. 

Rating: 4 stars

Read my interview with Rebecca Stonehill here

The next guest in my Historical Fiction Week is Rebecca Stonehill, Bookouture author of The Poet's Wife (September, 2104) and The Girl and the Sunbird (June, 2016). Read all about her writing, her novels and her research process in this interview and don't forget to enter the giveaway to win a book bundle from Bookouture:

1) Hello Rebecca and welcome to Alba in Bookland. First of all could you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hello Alba! Thanks so much for hosting me on your blog. I have been writing for many years but my first novel, The Poet’s Wife, was published by Bookouture in 2014. I am from London but for the last three years have been living in Nairobi with my husband and three children, aged 10,8 and 5. My husband’s job in international development working as a water and sanitation engineer brought us here. When I’m not working on my own current writing projects, I run creative writing sessions for school-aged children and also volunteer at a vocational training centre for girls doing motivational and life writing activities.

2) You have just released your second book, The Girl and the Sunbird, which is about an eighteen year old who is forced to choose between marrying the frightful Lord Sidcup or a faceless stranger, Jeremy Lawrence, in a far-off land in East Africa and chooses the second. What sparkled this idea?

My female characters are always strong women. Iris, my protagonist in this book, is left with a very unappealing choice: to marry a pompous Lord who far from supports her desire to go and study at university (this is 1903, so very few women of that day went to university), or to wed a man she knows nothing of in a far-flung British colony. Headstrong Iris also has a terrible relationship with her mother, thus opting for a new start in Africa. Living in Kenya these past few years, it made sense that I set my novel here. Many years ago I wrote a historical short story about a girl called Iris who has to watch her elder brother go off and study whilst she has to stay at home and prepare herself for marriage. Whilst not the same person, the original Iris provided inspiration for my new Iris and a story slowly built around her.

3) You are currently living in Nairobi, where your novel is set. How do your own personal experiences influence your writing?

My experience of living here in Nairobi has influenced my current novel hugely. Sitting at my desk and writing, sunbirds used to flit around outside the window and would only stay there for a short while, and if I stayed extremely still. They are the most beautiful little birds and the sunbirds in my novel became a central motif and a metaphor for the love story that develops between Iris and Kamau.

The birds aside, ever since arriving here I have been fascinated by the fact that Nairobi, this vast, teeming metropolis, is not much more than one hundred years old. When Iris arrived here in 1903 it was a tiny little township, in fact Nairobi was never intended as capital. I loved pouring over old photographs and maps of Nairobi in the early twentieth century, bleak and windswept plains over which roamed wild animals and Masaai herders, a start contrast from the Nairobi of today.

4) Each of your novels is set in a different country in a different time. How do you research your settings? 

Apart from living in Granada for eighteen months many years ago (providing the original inspiration for The Poet’s Wife) I researched a great deal of my first novel from the fantastically stocked British Library in London as I was living in the UK at that time. Here in Kenya, the historical research has proved far more of a challenge! There are a few small libraries here but they are a little chaotic so most of my research has been through books I have begged, borrowed and stolen from people or via kindle. To research the second half of The Girl and the Sunbird in the 1950’s, I have been lucky enough to talk to some fascinating people in their eighties and nineties (with astonishing memories) who have filled me in on what life was like in Nairobi during the Mau Mau Emergency.

5) Which one did you find the most difficult to recreate in your novels?

Both novels have come with their own challenges. Because the Spanish Civil War happened between 1936 and 1939, few people are still around to give me first hand accounts of what they went through, which is why reading a wide variety of books around the subject was so important. As for The Girl and the Sunbird, as Nairobi is so built up now, I had to really exercise every ounce of my imaginative powers to envisage the Nairobi of the early twentieth century, no easy task!

6) How did you feel when you held your first book in your hands?

I felt really, really proud of myself, that this was what all my hard work and perseverance was for. Ever since I was a young girl, it has been my number one dream to see my name on the front of a book so it’s a stirring, emotional feeling to finally hold that book in your hands.

7) What made you start writing historical fiction? 

It’s interesting you should ask this because I wrote a blog on this very subject not long ago. Here is the link to the blog: http://rebeccastonehill.com/the-poets-wife/read-historical-fiction/

In short though, I fell into historical fiction a little by accident! The setting of Granada came first from when I lived there, and when I started playing around with ideas for a story set in Granada, it was almost as though the novel wanted to be set in the past and I just had to follow it. As soon as I started hearing murmurs about the Spanish Civil War, which ended so long ago but remains highly taboo and deeply controversial, I knew I had a story there.

8)What do you think makes a historical fiction novel stand out?

A combination of a fascinating, well-researched historical period and setting and believable characters that jump off the page are really important. The second a reader thinks It wouldn’t have been like that, or they wouldn’t have said that, you’ve lost their trust. Belief in a writer’s created worlds must be seamless, no matter the genre.

9) Could you recommend us a novel that has stayed with you? 
A favourite historical novel of the past year has been Longbourn by Jo Baker. I wasn’t particularly drawn to it by the blurb but am so glad I gave it a chance: exquisite prose and delightful characters and plot combine to make this a wonderful and memorable read. Inspired by the Bennet’s house Longbourn from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Jo Baker re-imagines the intricate workings of the lives and relationships of the servants. Think Downton Abbey, with none of its clunkiness!

10) And finally, are you working on a new project? 

Yes! I grew up looking at dozens of photograph albums of my mother’s adventurous travels around the world during the 1960’s and 1970’s. I particularly loved looking at the time she spent on the island of Crete in 1967, spending a short while living in some Neolithic caves that had evolved into a kind of hippy, utopian community! Using this as the inspiration springboard, this novel will have three timeframes: Crete during WW2, 1967 and the present day. I am loving writing this! And the middle timeframe is certainly a great deal easier for me to research!

About the book:

Title: The Girl and the Sunbird

Author: Rebecca Stonehill

Published: June 17th 2016 by Bookouture

Amazon | Amazon UK

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Today I've got a little treat for you! To celebrate the paperback publication of the fantastic Summer at the Comfort Food Café, I am sharing a little extract here that I'm sure will leave you quite curious about this story. This is the perfect summer read, highly recommended from me! 

EXTRACT

‘Yes,’ I reply, turning my attention back to Matt, but using his tactic of not quite making eye contact. I feel very slightly awkward now we’re alone, mainly because I have caught myself out having naughty thoughts about him.

I am both shocked at my own behaviour, and also a bit humiliated, as though he can tell and already feels repulsed at the very concept.

‘Yes, we’re going to the café. For lunch.’

‘Good,’ he says, nodding firmly. ‘Have a nice time, then.’

He turns, not exactly abruptly, but certainly without any preamble, and starts to walk away. I am caught unawares and find myself watching his backside as he strides off towards what I assume to be the Black Rose.

He stops, suddenly, and comes back towards me, as though he’s remembered something. Turns out he had, and I could have lived without it.

‘I found these,’ he said, digging his hand into one of his pockets. ‘While I was working on the lobelia in the borders. I think they’re yours.’

He hands a small, scrunched bundle to me, before nodding again and walking more briskly away, like he really means it this time. I open my clenched fist, already slightly sick about it.

If I was feeling humiliated before, nothing he could have found lurking in the lobelia could possibly be about to make it any better.

And most definitely not a pair of size-fourteen skin-tone tummy-control pants with an elasticated panel for holding in the wobbly bits.

Want to read more? Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe by Debbie Johnson is just 99p on Amazon!

I had read some books by Debbie Johnson before this one and I had really enjoyed them, they were light hearted cute stories with lots of fun situations. So for this one I was expecting something similar, but what I got was so much more. This is such an exceptionally beautiful story with such wonderful characters. I completely fell in love with the Comfort Food Cafe and all its quirky characters.

Read my full review here

The Next Guest in my Historical Fiction Week is Sharon Maas, Bookouture author of The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q and The Secret Life of Winnie Cox and next month she will release The Sugar Planter's Daughter. Today she joins me to talk about her books, her writing and researching process and her love for Historical Fiction. And you can win a copy of her latest, check out the giveaway at the end: 

1) Hello Sharon and welcome to Alba in Bookland. First of all could you tell us a bit about yourself?

Writing has always been my “thing”. I was an extremely shy child who avoided speaking whenever I could... but I loved reading, curling up in a corner with a magical story of adventure, losing myself tot that fictional world. A chronic introvert. I stared writing my own little stories when I was about 8, but never dreamed I could one day write something that other people might like to read. I grew up awkward, self-conscious, insecure, tongue- tied, and sometimes miserable about my lack of social success, yet with a sense of adventure which helped me to take the lid off of that poor self-image. But it wasn't until my late 40 s that I actually believed, no, knew, that I could pull stories out of myself and write them down and get them published and loved by others. My first novel was published by HarperCollins in 1999 and the rest is history, as they say. I'm still awkward in social situations, hopeless at small talk and chit-chat, hesitant to speak my mind. Fiction is my best attempt out at self-expression. If you want to know me, read my novels! It’s all there; I'm in the characters, in their lives. That’s where I best reveal myself. The “me” you might meet in real life ... well, I'm very boring. I'm that person most people ignore, as inept as ever in conversation, the wallflower at parties to this day! But it doesn’t bother me the way it did in my youth. In fact, I’m more confident than ever; it’s just that I don’t put myself forward, and that’s perfectly OK. I’m still an introvert, but I no longer see it as a disadvantage.

2) You will soon release a new book, The Sugar Planter's Daughter, the story of a woman torn between her family and the man she loves, set in Guyana in 1920. What sparkled this idea?

The story was sparked by a photograph, that of my grandmother’s wedding, which must have been around 1908... that, and later on, other delightful vintage photos of her family. She had eight boys, no girls, which is an interesting set-up I borrowed for the story. Also, she was a white woman who married a black man... and I could only imagine what a scandal that must have been at the time. So I imagined it into a story. Obviously it's not about her... her life would have been very different to my Winnie (and yes. her name was Winnie too, and her husband was George, just like in the book!) So I created this character who faced a whole litany of problems, with situations borrowed from my grandmother’s life. It’s a story about marriage, motherhood, womanhood, betrayal, bad things happening to good people. I'd describe it as bittersweet; it made me cry while writing, and if my readers cry too ill have done the job!

3) You were born in Guyana, where some of your novels are set, and have lived in several countries and lived quite an eventful life since then. How do your own personal experiences influence your writing?

My life experiences are the warp and woof of my writing. They provide the nourishment, so to speak, the roots out of which my novels have grown. The book “Becoming a Writer” by Dorothea Brande played a big part in my finding the courage to write seriously and its a quote from her that gave me the confidence to even begin. Stories, Brande says, are formed in the unconscious mind, which must “flow freely and richly, bringing at demand all the treasures of memory, all the emotions, scenes, incidents, intimations of character and relationship" which is stored away beyond our awareness. She says that we can learn to tap that rich store, and that book helped me to learn how to do that.

That's how I feel: that everything I’ve ever experienced is subconsciously put together deep inside of me, and writing is a matter of accessing that area of myself. 

4) Your novels are set in different times and places. How do you research your settings? 

My main settings are Guyana, or rather, the colony British Guiana as it was called when I was growing up there, and India. I have a deep and lasting love for India and when I go there - which is almost every year - I simply merge myself into the life I find there, lose my old self and take on a whole different persona. I write mostly from my own observations , and what I don't know, I research, I talk to people, read books, look up obscure details, and so on. Obviously research is much easier today than it was when I first started writing, I honestly don't know how I managed without Google! Sometimes I reach out and find an expert who can help me; for instance, when writing my last book, the Secret Life of Winnie cox, I needed information about telegraphy and Morse; I found an expert on the Internet, contacted him, and he answered my questions. When I write my very first published novel, I somehow found a historian who worked at the British Library and she answered my questions, and I even met her at the library once, and she showed me how to look things up. I still have my old British Library card, but I never had to use it again.

5) Which one did you find the most difficult to recreate in your novels?

It’s not so much places that I find difficult, it's times. Researching the past can be very tricky, as I don't want to make mistakes but nobody was actually there and some of the information I need can be obscure, so often no-one really knows, For instance: how long would it take to get from a to b in 1914 British Guiana? But the good news is, is that since nobody was actually there nobody is going to say I'm wrong. I do try to be as accurate as possible but sometimes if the information is simply no there I take the creative license to make an informed guess.

6) Which authors have inspired or influenced your writing?

As a child my favorite authors were A A Milne, Enid Blyton, Mary O’Hara. Later n, at school, I had to read the classics, and though I found some of them boring I adored Jane Eyre. Every term at school we took on one of Shakespeare plays and to this day I can recite some of the speeches I was forced to learn by heart. I think this learning by heart is a magnificent way to absorb the sense of rhythm and beauty into the psyche; it seems that it's not encouraged so much in today's schools and that's a pity.

Contemporary authors who made me see what kid of books I'd like to write are Rohinton Mistry and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 

7) What made you start writing historical fiction? 

I like reading it! I love going back into the past and reliving it through reading fiction, so when it came to writing it seemed a given. In my own life, the best times were back in the fifties, sixties, seventies. Not exactly history, but those years bring back a nostalgia which feeds into the stories I create.

8) Do you think that in historical fiction, the time period and setting is as important as the story itself?

Absolutely. The background – time as well as place – are absolutely essential to the stories I tell. I couldn’t simply lift the stories out of their time and setting and place them, say, in 21st century UK. Well, I suppose I could, and some writers do adapt older novels to the present, but there is a certain atmosphere in older times that simply dissolves when you transplant it to the present. A certain sense of leisure, of timelessness, which is simply non-existent in today’s society. I doubt that I will ever write anything set later than the seventies – at the most, I might create a story thread set today, but always as a framework for a much earlier story, as I did in The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q. That book is about a modern-day girl who discovers her grandmother’s story, and grows through it. I think we have a lot to learn from those who went before us, their attitudes to life and love, and I hope that this comes through in my novels.

9) Could you recommend us a novel that has stayed with you? 

Books by the two writers I mentioned above: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, and Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

10) And finally, are you working on a new project? 

Of course! I have a long line-up of projects. Next year I retire and I can’t wait to have the time to write them all down, or revise those already written!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharon_maas

Webpage: http://www.sharonmaas.com/

About the book:

Title: The Sugar Planter's Daughter

Author: Sharon Maas

Published: July 22nd 2016 by Bookouture

Amazon | Amazon UK

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to Bookouture, I've got an ebook bundle to giveaway to one lucky winner. The Giveaway is International and the winner will be contacted via email and will have 48h to claim their prize: 

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This week I'm celebrating Historical Fiction Week on the blog, so I thought it would be the perfect time to read this novel set during WWII that has been patiently waiting on my shelf for a few months already. Have a look at my thoughts here: 

Blurb: Rachel Booker has a difficult start in life. When her father dies, deep in gambling debt, her mother must harden herself to make ends meet, but becomes so hard she has little room left for affection or warmth. Mother and daughter work at the open market in Birmingham, selling second-hand clothes or whatever they can find just to put a little food on the table.

But the market has a silver lining: it's there that Rachel makes her first childhood friend, Danny. As they grow older, the friendship grows into something more and their innocent romance gives Rachel the care and comfort she's always craved. But at just sixteen, as World War II breaks out, Rachel falls pregnant. They marry in haste but it isn't long before Danny is called up.

Left on the homefront with a new baby and little else, Rachel must scrape by with the other residents of Sparkbrook. But if Danny ever makes it home, will he be the same boy she loved so fiercely? And if Rachel can sustain the family until then, will she end up as hard-hearted as her own mother?

War Babies is a moving and insightful novel about hardships on the homefront and how the war changed everybody it touched...

First of all I would like to thank the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Review: War Babies tells the story of Rachel Booker. When the novel starts, she is only a little girl who has just lost her father. Because of that, her mother has now to take care of them both, something that she finds hard and unfair and soon Rachel becomes more of a burden than a loved daughter. Rachel's childhood is not an easy one so when she meets Danny on the market they both work, he becomes her ray of sunshine. 

As the story progresses, Rachel grows older and as Danny reenters her life, their relationship becomes more serious and stronger too. But soon, war breaks out and Rachel finds herself with a baby and no husband to help her. Reading about Rachel's life during those long war years, it was easy to forget she was still a teenager. We watched her grow "old" way too fast, with too many responsibilities and too little help. Luckily, Danny's aunt and their neighbours were a great support for them, especially for Rachel who was faced with one problem after another. 

I think that I enjoyed the first part of the story (seeing Rachel grow and the start of her relationship with Danny) more than the second part (all the war years) as I felt that this second part dragged a bit too much and the whole situation made me really sad, plus there were some new characters that I didn't like at all. Something I did enjoy in this part was the camaraderie that you could feel between neighbours and also how Rachel never gave up and became such a strong character.

But all in all, I found this story interesting and entertaining, especially if you are curious about women's life during the war. Plus, I've just found out there's a sequel for this story, one I would really like to read to see how Rachel and her clan's lives continue after war. 

Rating: 4 stars

The next guest on my Historical Fiction Week is Iona Grey, author of the stunning Letters to the Lost, Winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award 2016. Today she stops by to talk about houses and their role in Historical Fiction:

I’m currently hard at work on my second book, and taking a welcome break to drop in to Alba’s fabulous blog and say hello! I’m at the stage of the book where it feels a bit like living underground and coming up for air every now and again, blinking stupidly in the daylight, but I can’t really complain as the (imaginary) place where I’m spending my days is a huge and beautiful eighteenth century house in the rolling Herefordshire countryside. There are far worse places to be!

As well as writing I’ve also been doing a few pieces of promotion for Letters to the Lost (which has recently been released in France and Germany) so I’ve been thinking a lot about setting and theme, and realising all over again how important houses and the concept of home are in my writing. In Letters to the Lost the small house on Greenfields Lane not only provides sanctuary to both Jess and Stella, but the link between the present and the past. Houses endure in a way that the people who pass through them cannot, though I love the idea that the lives that are lived within their walls leave an impression, and the events and emotions that are experienced there can echo down the years. I also like examining the way in which some things change and others stay the same, and how time and memory can give significance to things that might appear quite ordinary at first glance. 

So, with all this uppermost in my mind as I write my own book, I’ve been thinking about fiction I’ve loved where the present and the past collide against the beautifully evoked backdrop of a house. Here are my top five.

The Go Between L. P. Hartley

‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ For me that’s the most intriguing, promise-laden first line ever, matched only by the poignancy of the book’s last line when Leo finally returns to Brandham Hall. What comes between the two is a story that is told through the filter of memory, but which vividly conjures up a sweltering summer and a grand country estate in its heyday at the very start of the twentieth century – an era which will bring devastating change.

Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier

Another contender for the prize of ‘most magical first line’. A brief but brilliant opening chapter leads the reader down the tangled drive to Manderley, the house that stands at the heart of the story, and our interest is immediately, irresistibly hooked. We’re desperate to know the chain of events that have led to such a beautiful house being abandoned, and the glimpse the author gives us of how it used to be is both poignant and persuasive. Has anyone ever read the first chapter and not got any further? I seriously doubt it!

Carrie’s War Nina Bawden

I read this when I was about seven and think it was probably my first introduction to dual time frame novels. I can still remember the shiver that went up my spine when I read the opening paragraph (with its echoes of Rebecca, though I didn’t know that at the time) in which Carrie dreams about going back to the house she last visited as an evacuee, thirty years before. The story itself is gripping, but for me it was viewing it through the frame of the present, and seeing the changes that the years have made on the setting, that made it truly heart-wrenching (and instantly turned me into a dual time-frame addict!)

The House at Riverton Kate Morton

I read this on holiday when it came out in 2007 – almost exactly thirty years after I read Carrie’s War – and it was a bit like coming home! I believe (and I might be wrong about this – let me know!) that it marked the start of the resurgence in the dual time-frame/house-as-character genre, which was excellent news for me! I think this remains my favourite of Kate Morton’s books. In it the elderly Grace doesn’t go back to the house itself but to a film-set recreation of it, but the emotions it evokes in both character and reader are just as powerful.

Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh

The title says it all! This has got to be my favourite ever past-present juxtaposition, when cynical, world-weary Charles emerges from his hut in the army training camp he arrived at in the dark the night before, and says, ‘I’ve been here before.’ I’m part of the generation who discovered the book through the Jeremy Irons/Anthony Andrews TV series, which was lit up weeks of dreary Sunday nights when I was about ten years old, so I can never read the exquisite Chapter One, when Charles arrives at Brideshead for the first time (‘on a cloudless day in June, when the hedges were creamy with meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer’) without hearing the theme tune. Or without a lump in my throat. 

What are your favourite fictional houses, or your most memorable journeys back to places from the past? I’d love to hear them!

***

Thank you Iona for such an interesting post. It's true that houses or places sometimes play such an important role as a character in novels. One example that comes to my mind now is The Silk Merchant's Daughter by Dinah Jefferies, where a French villa in French Indochina is central to the life of a métisse. 

About the book:

Title: Letters to the Lost

Author: Iona Grey

Published: April 23rd 2015 by Simon & Schuster UK

Amazon | Amazon UK

Blurb: 1943, in the ruins of Blitzed London…

Stella Thorne and Dan Rosinski meet by chance and fall in love by accident. Theirs is a reluctant, unstoppable affair in which all the odds are stacked against them: she is newly married, and he is an American bomber pilot whose chance of survival is just one in five.

…He promised to love her forever

Sixty years later Dan makes one final attempt to find the girl he has never forgotten, and sends a letter to the house where they shared a brief yet perfect happiness. But Stella has gone, and the letter is opened by Jess, a young girl hiding from problems of her own. And as Jess reads Dan's words, she is captivated by the story of a love affair that burned so bright and dimmed too soon. Can she help Dan find Stella before it is too late?

Now forever is finally running out.

Letters to the Lost was one of my favourite reads of 2015. There was not a single thing I didn't love about this book. It had me in tears in public more than once. It was heart-breaking but also uplifting. Extraordinarily beautiful, Letters to the Lost is one of those books you simply cannot miss.

Read my full review here

I'm celebrating Historical Fiction Week on the blog, so I thought it would be the perfect time to read this historical mystery from fantastic publisher Hot Keys Books. I was instantly captured by this story and highly enjoyed. Read my thoughts about it here: 

Blurb: A wealthy family. A deadly secret. A young woman with more to lose than she knows. 

Josephine Montfort is from one of New York's oldest, most respected, and wealthiest families. Like most well-off girls of the Gilded Age, her future looks set - after a finishing school education, she will be favourably married off to a handsome gentleman, after which she'll want for nothing. But Jo has other dreams and desires that make her long for a very different kind of future. She wants a more meaningful and exciting life: she wants to be an investigative journalist like her heroine Nellie Bly. 

But when Jo's father is found dead in his study after an alleged accident, her life becomes far more exciting than even Jo would wish. Unable to accept that her father could have been so careless, she begins to investigate his death with the help of a young reporter, Eddie Gallagher. It quickly becomes clear he was murdered, and in their race against time to discover the culprit and his motive, Jo and Eddie find themselves not only battling dark characters on the violent and gritty streets of New York, but also their growing feelings for each other.

First of all I would like to thank the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Review: These Shallow Graves is a fantastically executed historical mystery. The story revolves around Jo Montfort and it's difficult not to love this lively girl who is prepared to go to any lengths to discover the truth behind her father's death. Jo is definitely the star of the story and I loved following her around 1890 New York.

But Jo is an eighteen year old girl from a well-off family, her future is already arranged: she'll marry a worthy man and occupy her life with children, afternoon teas and luncheons. Not exactly what she would call an interesting life... But when she meets reporter Eddie Gallagher, her life makes a 180º turn and she discovers a whole new world, unsafer, more dangerous and poorer but way more exhilarating. And then's when she starts becoming her real self. And this is why I loved this character so much because she was such a brave, determined and clever girl who decided to break all the rules to become a better self.

Jo and Eddie make a great team and they soon start finding clues to her father's death. His death is followed by several more, all linked to a mysterious boat and a long dead man and the story gets more and more interesting and engrossing with every page. Every new lead brings even more questions but Jo and Eddie don't give up. Plus, as they get to spend more time together, they start having feelings for each other. I really liked this more romantic subplot as it intertwined subtly with the main suspense plot and made their characters feel even more real.

This was a story full of surprises, twists and turns and you never knew which way it was going to go next. I had my suspicions about who was behind all of it but the author managed to keep the whole mystery intriguing until the last page. Also, I really liked the ending, it was perfect and worthy of the story. I am sure that many will also enjoy this coming of age historical read with a dark and suspenseful atmosphere, it is certainly one of the most entertaining historical reads I've read in a long while.   

Rating: 5 stars

The next guest for my Historical Fiction Week is Debbie Rix, Bookouture author of The Girl With Emerald Eyes (March, 2015) and Daughters of the Silk Road (April, 2016). Read all about her writing, her novels and her research process in this interview and don't forget to enter the giveaway to win a book bundle from Bookouture:

1) Hello Debbie and welcome to Alba in Bookland. First of all could you tell us a bit about yourself?

I am married to a writer and journalist, and we have a daughter and a son. We live in the countryside with four cats and six chickens. When I’m not working I love to spend time in my garden – it’s something of a passion. I started my professional life at the BBC and was the first newsreader on Breakfast TV. I worked as a presenter/reporter for many years until I had my children. Whilst they were small I moved into production, working mostly for charities helping them to raise money and profile through events. But a common thread throughout was writing. I wrote articles, I was an agony aunt, I had a gardening column for a long time. I wrote my first novel aged about thirty, but I didn’t try very hard to get it published. I don’t think I had enough confidence at that time. But writing is central to my life now.

2) You have recently released your second book, Daughters of the Silk Road, with a dual time frame between modern day London and Venice in the fifteenth century and a Ming vase as the connection between them. What sparkled this idea?

I’ve long had a bit of a passion for blue and white china. I had a little blue and white tea set as a child which I played with endlessly. Then as a teenager I began to collect bits and pieces of English blue and white – plates and bowls and so on. As a young reporter I was lucky enough to visit Japan and Hong Kong. I bought a few more pieces there – especially in Hong Kong which has a great antique district called Hollywood Road. I came home with four large storage jars, which are in my sitting room now. They are not Ming of course, but they do have a bit of age. I did a little research on how Chinese porcelain was made and thought it would make a good core to a novel. I was interested in what might happen if someone inherited an antique – like a vase – but didn’t understand how valuable it was. That seemed like an interesting scenario. It was important to find the ‘right’ vase. I looked in lots of museums and online, until finally I found a blue and white vase with a dragon that snaked around its centre. It was made in 1440 under the reign of Emperor Xuande. It was perfect. The next part of the puzzle was to work out how this piece might have arrived in Europe from China. Whilst researching merchant/explorers of that time, I discovered Niccolo dei Conti – a little known Venetian explorer who spent twenty five years travelling in the Middle and Far East between 1419 and 1444. He wrote his experiences down in a diary on his return and these formed the basis for the first part of my story. His two children Maria and Daniele came back to Venice with him and I was interested in what might have happened to them – as really nothing is known of their lives once they had returned. I decided to ‘follow’ them and with them the fortunes of their family and the Ming vase. The modern character, Miranda, inherits the vase from an aunt, but doesn’t understand how valuable it is, until it disappears from her life. The modern story is a race against time. 

3) You also used a dual time frame for your first novel, The Girl with Emerald Eyes. Why did you chose that?

My first novel had a dual time frame and it was a framework that I enjoyed. I think the modern character helps to connect the reader to the historical story. It also can add a complexity to the novel as a whole, as the two stories have to blend and intermingle, which is always quite an enjoyable challenge. Lastly, it keeps the story fresh as you move from old to new. It’s important not to jump around too much though. I have learnt that. I tried with this novel to let one part of the old story unravel completely before dashing back to the modern story. Hopefully that works – I think it did…

4) Each of your novels is set in times that are not widely well known. How do you research your settings? 

With the first novel – ‘The Girl with Emerald Eyes’, I started with some research that my husband had done for a film he was making about the rescue of the Leaning Tower. He also introduced me to the Professor of Medieval History at Pisa University, who told me about the woman who left the money to build the tower. Her name was Berta di Bernardo, and the Professor showed me a copy of her will; it was witnessed by a fascinating group of men – some very well connected, so she was obviously a woman of some influence. But also present at the signing of the will was a master mason named Gerardo di Gerardo who worked on the Tower. I was interested in why he was there. What was their relationship? Unfortunately, very little is known about her – she has been rather overlooked by history. But I knew that I had found my central character. The Professor also explained what life would have been like in twelfth century Pisa. Everyone at that time lived in tall ‘tower houses’ – mostly with just ladders between the floors. But there were one or two larger houses where grander families lived. Many of them have been re-built over the centuries, but you can still see the echo of the original house beneath the later Renaissance façade. I found a lot of fascinating research material at the British Library too and read widely about architectural technique, stone masonry etc. I am also the daughter of two architects, which helped – as I had a solid background of knowledge to draw upon. But you are right in as much as the twelfth century is quite under-researched and written records are quite rare. 

With ‘Daughters of the Silk Road’ I was able to read Niccolo dei Conti’s diary, which is kept at the British Library. I visited museums and studied the manufacture of porcelain – the V & A has a great exhibition. A porcelain expert recommended a wonderful book that I found second hand in the US – which contained beautiful ‘plates’ of the manufacture of porcelain, painted in the 18th century - and these formed the basis of the sections in the book where I describe the long process of how a pot was actually made. I read widely about the merchant classes in 15th – 17th century Venice, Bruges, Antwerp and Amsterdam; fortunately many academics have made a study of that time period as these cities were at the centre of mercantile development. And the internet is a fantastic resource. Many academics have made their studies available on the net and that was hugely useful. And I visited the cities where the book was set of course. It’s vital to see the place where your characters would have lived. To walk where they would have walked, to see the buildings, smell the scents and so on. 

5) Which one did you find the most difficult to recreate in your novels? 

I’m not sure I really found either setting difficult really. I spent a lot of time in Pisa – as my husband was ill in hospital there for several weeks, so I knew the city like the back of my hand, and it’s remarkably unchanged. And I know Venice quite well too – which is also much as it was in the fifteenth century. But of the two, perhaps the second book was the most challenging, as I had to ‘recreate’ four cities in that book and not just one. 

6) Do you think that one of the main aspects of a historical fiction novel is that the reader also learns about the past or that is not as important?

I think it’s definitely part of the attraction for the reader. Of course, you hope you have created a compelling story and interesting characters, but your research and knowledge does also open a door in the readers mind to a subject, or time, or place that they didn’t know about before. But that also applies to contemporary fiction. If you read a good ‘spy thriller’ you learn what it would be like to be a spy…

7) What made you start writing historical fiction? 

Really it was just chance. My husband, as I just mentioned, was taken ill in Pisa whilst making a film about the Tower. I lived there taking care of him, and once he had recovered I realised there was an interesting story there. My own modern heroine – Sam Campbell – also has to rush to Pisa to care for her sick husband. So there was an element of auto-biography there I suppose. But her husband was very different to mine. But it was when I met the Professor of medieval history and he told me about the woman who left the money to build the tower – Berta di Bernardo – that I knew I had found my heroine and it just became a story I had to write. 

8) Which authors have inspired or influenced you as a writer? 

So many, it’s such a hard question to answer… but in no particular order: Olivia Manning, Maggie O’Farrell, Mary Wesley, Graham Greene, Iris Murdoch, Jane Austin, David Lodge, John Le Carre, Robert Harris, John O”Farrell… I could go on and on.

9) And finally, are you working on a new project? 

Yes. I am working on a new historical idea. It really is just an idea at the moment. I have a subject that interests me but am looking for a heroine. And I’m writing a more contemporary story too – which is about one third finished…

Daughters of the Silk Road is out now. You can find out more about Debbie Rix and her books on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DebbieRixAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/debbierix

Webpage: http://www.debbierix.com/

About the book:

Title: Daughters of the Silk Road

Author: Debbie Rix

Published: April 15th 2016 by Bookouture

Amazon | Amazon UK

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to Bookouture, I've got an ebook bundle to giveaway to one lucky winner. The Giveaway is International and the winner will be contacted via email and will have 48h to claim their prize: 

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The first guest in my Historical Fiction Week is the Number One Bestselling Author of The Tea Planter's Wife, Dinah Jefferies. She has recently published her third novel, The Silk Merchant's Daughter (available in paperback July 14th), and today she has stopped by to talk about her books and her love for historical fiction:

1) Hello Dinah and welcome to Alba in Bookland. First of all could you tell us a bit about yourself? 

Thank you so much for inviting me. Well I live in Gloucestershire now with my husband and Norfolk terrier, and close to family, but I do love popping down to London to see my publishers. I was born in the East and only moved to England when I was nine, and my early experience influences the books I now write. I enjoy travel and have really loved going to Sri Lanka, Vietnam and India to research my books.

2) You have recently released your third book, The Silk Merchant's Daughter, which is about a "métisse" and her struggles with identity and belonging in French Indochina in 1952. What sparked this idea? 

My late mother-in law was born in India of a mixed race mother and her tales provided the seed from which this novel and The Tea Planter’s Wife grew. 

3) You were born in Malaysia, where your debut novel was set, and have lived in several countries and lived quite an eventful life since then. How do your own personal experiences influence your writing? 

While I am not mixed race, I certainly felt like I didn’t belong when we first came to live in England. So the issues of identity and belonging are within me. I lost my son when he was fourteen, so the knowledge and understanding of that awful experience also informs much of my writing. I’m sure personal experience usually influences a writer, one way or another. For me it is the deeper experiences of my life that influence the novels, so living in Andalusia for five years has not touched my writing. At least, not yet.

4) Each of your novels is set in a different country in a different time. How do you research your settings? 

Firstly I read about the country’s history so that I can choose a time period that will work for the kind of story I want to write. Then I read travel books and eventually memoirs if I can lay my hands on any. When I’ve done all that I visit the country. To research The Silk Merchant’s Daughter I went to modern day Hanoi which is vastly different to Hanoi in in 1952, so I sought out old photographs while I was there and found books I’d never have uncovered in England and they helped me re-create the period.

5) Which one did you find the most difficult to recreate in your novels?

None of them were difficult because I love conjuring up the past and imagining a setting as it once was. It’s the plotting that’s difficult. And it’s not just the setting that matters, it’s the mind-set of the period too and the way people would have been with one another. You have to take so much into account.

6) Your second novel, The Tea Planter's Wife, was picked by Richard & Judy for their autumn book club 2015 and became a huge success. What did that mean for you? 

When the book became a Sunday Times Number 1, it meant I got very very busy and had to learn how to say no. But more than that it was a truly thrilling time and that sort of success gives you the confidence and impetus to go on. No matter how many novels you’ve already written, it’s still a very up and down business and books don’t get born without a fair old amount of anguish.

7) What made you start writing historical fiction? 

It was all to do with the story that I wanted to use for The Separation, my first book. I decided that the heart of the book would be a mother’s search for her lost children and that would be more exciting if it took place at a time of war, and with no mobile phones! As I’d known Malaysia when it was still known as Malaya, and when it was in a declared state of Emergency, I chose that.

8) What do you think makes a historical fiction novel stand out?

That’s hard. What makes any book stand out? I suppose with historical fiction the period detail must be truly authentic, but really the human stories I write could take place at any time and are universal. So the characters still have to resonate with a modern audience. Reading is an act of empathy and you either empathise with certain characters or you don’t. The period gives you the chance to be more original or unique than if the books were contemporary.

9) Could you recommend us a novel that has stayed with you?

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. When I read her books I feel as if I’m inside the characters’ heads. I think that’s important and it’s what I attempt to.

10) And finally, are you working on a new project? 

Always! That’s a writer’s life. As one book is published you’re finishing off the early drafts of the next. The book I’m working on now, my fourth, is set in India and will be published in 2017. I’ve been asked to speak at the Galle Literature festival in Sri Lanka next January which is so exciting and very handy because I’m going back to Ceylon for book five and I can’t wait.

About the book: