Lately I seem to be reading the delicious kind of books I can’t resist reviewing here. This morning I finished reading Maria In The Moon by Louise Beech & the review has pretty much written itself.

Catherine-Maria Hope is a woman with many faces. A face reflected in a cracked mirror creating a myriad versions: Catherine, Katrina, Pure Mary, Catherine-Maria: a woman on the edge, in a ripped red dress, circling her past (& the locked up memory of her ninth year) like an inebriated woman on a dodgy night out. Catherine has been on a few of those. Her memory is pretty good for such occasions & she has the art of self-sabotage honed to within an inch of its life. It is only the year she was nine she can’t remember.

From the beginning, this new book from the immaculate Louise Beech (How To Be Brave, The Mountain In My Shoe) has a far darker edge. The air of expectancy is freighted with an undercurrent of something unpleasant & deeply disturbing. Catherine’s voice is fierce & weighted with words she can only half recall. (‘It’s not love unless it hurts…’)

While her house is being renovated following the devastating floods in Hull of 2007, Catherine, a veteran of Crisis Call volunteering, starts work on a phone line dedicated to supporting flood victims. The lives of the other volunteers & the callers soon become entwined with hers. And her relationship with her mother, their alienation from one another, lies at the heart of the story. A heavy secret, which neither of them remembers, has insinuated itself over the years until there seems to be no hope of reconciliation. What the author does so imaginatively, so perceptively, is examine this relationship & find a way for Catherine & her mother to ‘choose the best words.’ (Even in the debris of their mutual antipathy there is humour. Catherine’s mother has a way of dealing with her daughter’s foul language which is genuinely funny.)

Flawed & feisty, Catherine Hope makes it impossible not to care. Her emotions are cloaked & at the same time, movingly raw. We are witnesses to her first person narrative & it is our privilege. As the hints nudge at her memory, they alert us too and yet when it comes, the shock of the final twist is a knock-out blow which will leave you reeling.

As someone who worked for years as a Samaritan volunteer, I must commend Louise Beech on her faithful portrayal of this kind of counselling. It’s spot on. Maria In The Moon is spot on in so many ways. It’s a psychological thriller and a sideways love-story. It is impossible not to love Catherine-Maria Hope. In the moon or feet on the ground, being sick in a sink or dancing in a red dress in the rain, she will catch you unawares. After you turn the last page you will still sense her, & the echo of yet another woman’s story: a story of loss & courage & hope.

My blog, my rules. A million stars to enhance the moon.

My sincere thanks to Karen Sullivan at Orenda Books for the ARC.

Maria In The Moon will be published on 30 September. It is available for pre-order here.

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

It isn’t my habit to regularly post book reviews. I’m a writer not a book blogger. Every now & then a special book comes my way & it becomes a pleasure to share my thoughts about it here.

Not Thomas, by Sara Gethin is such a book.

Unquestionably, unless you are made of stone, this book will make you cry. It will snag the edge of your heart, lodge in your throat & reduce you to tears. It’s a dark story with a paradoxically light centre which is one of its myriad graces. The story of the little boy who is ‘Not Thomas’ – if only the lady would listen – is by turn heart-rending & ultimately hopeful.

Tomos’ plight is shocking & in our so-called civilized society, no child should have to deal with the things this brave little five-year-old endures. As the story opens, Tomos is hiding, because that’s what his young, damaged, vulnerable mother has told him to do. The lady is coming & he knows not to open the door. As it unfolds, other, more sinister people come & still, Tomos tries not to open the door.

He is a neglected child (surely the worst kind of abuse since it is so easily remedied) & his predicament is shameful. And yet, in spite of her apparent deafness to her child’s plight, we can’t help but sympathise with Tomas’ mother, the way we give thanks for Miss – who does listen.

The beauty of this book lies in the gorgeous, deceptively simple prose. Told from the viewpoint of Tomos, Sara Gethin perfectly describes him – describes him telling the reader who he is, how he feels, what he fears. She does so in language which is both childlike & never childish. It possesses a naive maturity which draws you in. I read it in one sitting, unable to set it aside, mesmerised by the poignancy & tragedy of Tomos’ young life, the lyrical prose & the hope which held me rapt – like my now & then actual caught breath – to the end.

The author exposes the frailties of a social services system which is sometimes less than fit for purpose without ever apportioning blame. She is without rancour, pragmatic & honest in her fictional assessment & thus she reveals the limitless humanity of the book. Hers & ours, which is the reason why, when we read this book, we weep.

Not Thomas is a book which must surely win prizes.

It is available directly from the publisher, Honno or Amazon & selected bookshops.

You can read more about Sara & her writing here.