My Review and Blog Tour of Home by Amanda Berriman

Home - by Amanda Berriman

How fabulous it is to be the penultimate blogger on this blog tour, sharing my thoughts about the awesome new book by Amanda Berriman - entitled Home.
Published on 8th February it's available now.

My Review

Home is where the heart is and in this book the heart belongs to Jesika, who at 4 and ½ has a warm heart as well as a lively and enquiring mind.

Home will inevitably draw comparisons to Room by Emma Donoghue both books being narrated in the unique cadences of a very young child. In this case the narrators voice is that of Jesika who lives with her Mum and baby brother Toby in an apartment where the landlord is a nasty angry man who shouts a lot and comes demanding money.

Jesika is a real sweetheart and I connected with her character easily and smoothly. Throughout my time immersed in this book I was 4 and a half and felt everything this little girl felt. I saw the world through her eyes and lived her life. She has left a little bit of herself in my soul.

Jesika loves Home even though it's just a shabby old flat  with loads of idiosyncrasies, even though when her Mum bathes her she knows the water mustn’t be any higher than the crack in the bath. She has to keep away from the broken window and not stare at the neighbours too much or ever, ever touch the rubbish that accumulates in the communal areas. Oh and Mum keeps telling her not to touch the moles on the wallpaper, though she knows the moles are just black stuff she can draw in. The sanctity of Home is under threat from the nasty landlord and Mum is doing everything she can to keep it safe.

Jesika’s Dad is no longer around, he disappeared back to Poland and Jesika no longer sees Bab-bab which makes her very sad. 

She loves going to pre-school even though she hasn’t yet got a special friend there. Her Mum has lots of friends, or so it seems to Jesika and she loves to go and visit them all, there are Nandini and Emma the ladies in the laundrette, Abe who runs the greengrocers, even the next door neighbour with the teeth, but Mum insists they aren’t real friends, just people who feel sorry for her and she hates accepting, help seeing it as a sign of weakness. 

The whole book is peopled with wonderful individuals each of whose lives a book could have been written.

When Toby’s cough won’t get better we meet Dolphin, Duncan and Para-Ted and the violent lady (who really isn’t violent at all she just wears a purple dress) and Jesikas memories of her beloved Bab-bab who she can never see any more get muddled with memories of an ambulance.

Confused? You won’t be, you really won’t, everything in this book slots neatly into place and this story is perfectly seamless and beautifully constructed and a really wonderful reading experience.

One day though, Jesika makes a real friend at pre-school. Paige is a little girl who always sits alone and Jesika with her caring nature realises the other girl is nervous and befriends her. Paige lives in a big house with a beautiful princess bedroom and loads of toys, with her Mum Tina and Uncle Ryan and at last it would seem that Mum is making some real friends as well as Jesika’s new bff.

As the 2 girls become pals, Paige teaches Jesika some new games Jesika doesn’t quite understand and she also learns about secrets. Everything is confusing to a 4 year old, so she can’t work out when things are secret and when you can shout about them. Everything is contradictory and Jesika just wants to always do her best. Sometimes she gets scared and when she gets really scared she bites people even though she knows it’s very wrong to bite. 

The author clearly knows little children really well. For the time I read this book I was Jesika, I was 4 ½ years old and I understood her every thought and reasoning and it really brought back the massive frustrations of being small and being constantly told what to do but not always why.

Breathtaking in it’s simplicity and heartbreaking in the content, Home is a book for anyone who has ever been 4 and a half! It's a book about friendship and family and secrets.

It will make you think, it will make you laugh and it will make you cry, (well, if you're human that is). 

It sounds cute but don't dismiss it for that reason, Oh no, it’s not all sweetness and light, there are some very unpleasant subjects tackled, and nasty things happen, which when viewed from a childs point of view are even more distressing.

But there is enough brilliant levity to make it a utterly joyful read, which I can recommend unreservedly and which will stay with me for a long time. 

When you read Home, give Jesika a hug from me while you live in her world for a while.

The Blurb:

Jesika is four and a half. 

She lives in a flat with her mother and baby brother and she knows a lot. She knows their flat is high up and the stairs are smelly. She knows she shouldn't draw on the peeling wallpaper or touch the broken window. And she knows she loves her mummy and baby brother Toby. 

She does not know that their landlord is threatening to evict them and that Toby’s cough is going to get much worse. Or that Paige, her new best friend, has a secret that will explode their world.

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#Blogtour and #excerpt of #BeneathTheSkin by Caroline England @CazEngland

Today I'm part of the #blogtour for the newly released debut novel by Caroline England entitled Beneath the skin.

Beneath the Skin is a stunning debut psychological Domestic Noir drama about a life-changing lie.

Caroline England’s, Beneath The Skin is a tense and compelling read, exploring truth, friendships and betrayal.

Description:

No-one remembers your past. But you do.

‘Antonia, Antonia. My name is Antonia.’
It’s been her name for many years. But sometimes, like tonight, she forgets. Antonia has a secret. A secret so dark and so deep that she can barely admit it to herself. Instead, she treats herself to Friday night sessions of self-harm while her husband David is at the pub, and her best friend Sophie is drinking too much wine a few doors down.

Nobody close to her knows the truth about what the teenage Antonia saw all those years ago. No-one, that is, except her mother. But Candy is in a care home now, her mind too addled to remember the truth.

Antonia is safe. Isn’t she? The lies start small. They always do. But when the tightly woven story you’ve told yourself begins to unravel, the truth threatens to come to the surface. And then what’s going to happen?

Sounds fab doesn't it?

Well here's an exclusive extract to whet your appetite:

EXTRACT:

He stands and stares. Is Olivia laughing? He isn’t sure. He hardly recognises her.

‘How would you know?’ she repeats. ‘Tell me, Mike. You’re never here. And even when you are here you’re in some unreach­able place. You don’t notice me, you don’t notice the girls.’

‘That isn’t true.’ He sees his daughters in his mind, dancing to Rihanna. ‘Of course I notice you all. Come on, Olivia, this isn’t like—’

‘When was the last time you gave me a compliment?’ Olivia isn’t laughing, she’s crying, but the soft contours of her pale face are gone. ‘When was the last time you bought me a box of chocolates or some flowers? I had my hair cut last week and you didn’t even notice.’

He gazes at her hair. It’s blonde, elfin short; it suits her petite face and her frame. ‘I did notice. Of course I noticed. It looks lovely. But flowers, chocolates? Come on, Olivia, you don’t do chocolates.’

‘Fuck the chocolates, then. Fuck everything. You just continue to take it for granted that I’m going to be here, the little wife with a smiling face when you come home, your bloody dinner waiting on the table.’

He catches his breath. This is Olivia, calm, capable, witty Olivia; Olivia who takes everything in her stride. She’s never been and will never be ‘the little wife’. She’s clever, opinionated and strong. He stares again, aware that life has shifted, that the world has somehow moved without him noticing.

‘What do I do on a Tuesday, Mike? You never ask me how I am, where I’ve been, what I’ve done. I could be anywhere, with anyone. You’re just so used to me I’ve become invisible.’

‘That isn’t true. Really. You never said,’ he replies quietly.

‘I shouldn’t have to say anything. If you loved me, Mike, you’d see, you’d know.’

She stares at him for a moment, searching his face, her amber eyes wide and sad. ‘What’s the point?’ she mutters, then walks into the kitchen and closes the door.

A wisp of a thought enters Mike’s head, an impulse to turn around and walk out of the door he entered only minutes earlier. But it’s only a thought and only for a moment as his eyes catch the pink fur of Hannah’s favourite slippers. She’s under the stairs, hidden from view, her arms around her knees and her blonde head buried.

‘Is it my fault, Daddy?’

‘Of course it isn’t.’ Mike pulls her to him, his beautiful bag of bones, breathing in the cosy smell of shampoo and baked beans. ‘It’s Daddy’s fault. Don’t worry, I’ll make it all better, I promise,’ he says, hugging his warm living child tightly to his heart, wondering where on earth he should begin.

Intrigued? I know I am. But I'm fortunate enough to have my copy waiting to be read. I love a dark domestic Noir and this promises to be scary and tense.

Join me

Order your own copy now

@AvonBooksUK

  

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