#Review of The Pearl Button Girl By Annie Murray Book 1 of #NewSeries #ChildrenOfBirmingham #AnnieMurray @PanMacMillan @chlodavies97 #ThePearlButtonGirl #BlogTour

The Pearl Button Girl
Book 1 of Children of Birmingham
By Annie Murray

The Pearl Button is the latest book by Annie Murray. It’s the first in a new set which follows the Fletcher family in industrialised Birmingham, with all the grit and warmth readers have come to expect. It gives me great pleasure to start off the Pan Macmillan blog tour with a review. Discover the blurb and review below.

Blurb

Annie Murray’s The Pearl Button Girl is book one in the Children of Birmingham series, starting in Victorian Birmingham and following the trials and triumphs of the Fletcher family.

Working at the local pearl button factory, Ada Fletcher is doing her best to make ends meet in trying times.

When tragedy strikes and her siblings are taken to a workhouse orphanage, Ada is saved from a similar fate by her neighbour, Sarah Connell.

But the roof over Ada’s head doesn’t come without a price: the Connells have too many children, not enough money, and Sarah’s reliance on drink means that it isn’t long before Ada needs to escape.

Determined to be more than just a factory girl, Ada embarks on a journey to reunite with her siblings. But in a teeming industrial city, will she be able to find long-lost family as well as a home and life to call her own?

Review

A new family and situations written in true Annie Murray style she still keeps to showing a family’s trials and tribulations of their life. This time it’s in a button factory and no matter how hard Ada Fletcher tries, she still faces such hardship and loses her siblings, Elsie, Dora, John, and Mabs to the workhouse. Her troubles don’t stop there as she embarks trying to find her family and create a new life.

Set in industrialised Birmingham, you get the sense of the hard times which some families came up against. The Fletcher family feels like it was a well researched creation of Victorian times when you aren’t living or working in a grand house. Through the Fletcher family, you’re skilfully shown the other side of society and how grim it could be. There’s also a sense of how people try to help where they can, even when their lives aren’t too much better with their own troubles and strife and that’s rather heart-warming.

There are elements of hope and Ada is such a well-drawn character that you want something good to happen to her.
There’s also warmth in Sarah Connell, but you can see she’s got her own family to juggle, although takes in Ada anyway and tries to accommodate her, you can feel her hardship and the toil it takes on the family as well as Sarah herself. She’s quite a complex character with a busy homelife and one that she is struggling to cope with. which adds interest in her and her home as well.
Sarah brings some compassionate feelings, but ultimately the desire is for Ada to be setting up a new homelife in a safe place and for something to happen so her future turns around for the better.

The Pearl Button Girl won’t disappoint and is sure to delight fans of Annie Murray.
It’s a story I recommend and it’s great getting into the grittiness, hardships and plight of a new family.

A Few Buy Links

Waterstones Amazon Bookshop.org

Find out who else is on the blog tour below, thanks to Chloe Davies at Pan Macmillan for inviting me and sending a copy of the book in exchange of an honest review.
Please note, I am not affiliated to any company.

#Review By Lou of The Guernsey Girls Go To War @AuthorMary @panmacmillan #HistoricalFiction #Saga #TheGuernseyGirlsGoToWar #TheGuernseyGirls #TheGuernseyGirlsTrilogy

The Guernsey Girls Go To War
By Mary Wood

After being enthralled by the first in the trilogy, The Guernsey Girls, today I have the privilege of kicking off the blog tour for the second The Guernsey Girls Go To War, thanks to Pan Macmillan. Pick it up and you may just have to have your tea ready and be prepared to enter Guernsey from your comfiest place and not emerge until the end, with a flawless look at smaller island life in war times that has a fresh perspective. Discover the blurb and my full review below and please join me in wishing the author,
Mary Wood a Happy Publication Day.

Blurb

From the bestselling author of The Jam Factory Girls, comes the second heartfelt installment in Mary Wood’s The Guernsey Girls trilogy.

War separates them, but it cannot dampen their spirits . . .

Spring, 1940. Annie’s new husband Ricky leaves to fight, but she soon discovers battles brewing closer to home. As her sister Janey begins to unravel, only Annie can pick up the pieces – and, with London’s police officers on the front line, she must also step up at work and do her bit for the country.

In Guernsey, Olivia finds herself without her husband and son just as Hitler’s forces invade the island. Trapped and heartbroken, she faces untold horrors as the Germans tighten their hold on the islanders.

How will Annie manage her responsibilities to her family and her country in the thick of the Blitz, while suffering the heartache of not knowing what is happening to her beloved Ricky? And can Olivia survive in Guernsey at the hands of the enemy?

Review

The Guernsey Girls Go To War is a welcome second book in the Guernsey Girls trilogy. Annie is coming into her own and showing strength of character to do her bit for her country and the world in the allied powers. She also has a lot to deal with personally, as does Olivia.
The writing throws readers into the midst of war and what it was like to be the members of the family left at home, whilst the men went out to war. It feels realistic and its easy to sympathise and empathise in a way that becomes thought-provoking. It makes you wonder how, in 2024, people would cope if the situation should arise again, after so many decades of relative peace.
The book shows the strength and courage of the women in such uncertain times, but not in a bullish way, it’s a kind, heart-warming book as they try to manage the best they can, even through the heart-breaking times.
As a reader, its all palpable and that’s due to the talent of Mary Wood’s fabulous writing skills. What also makes this interesting, is the setting, being Guernsey and seeing the war from a smaller island perspective, rather than the mainland. It gives it a fresh feel and seeing the characters develop in this second book has created more intrigue and a feeling of being trapped on an island, which brings a more closed-in, darker atmosphere in some ways, but also a stronger feeling of friendship in many others.
I am certainly looking forward to the third in this trilogy, that I am highly recommending.

#Review By Lou of Homecoming Of The Chocolate Girls By Annie Murray @AnnieMurray085 @chlodavies97 @panmacmillan #HomecomingForTheChocolateGirls #FamilySaga

Homecoming for the Chocolate Girls
By Annie Murray

Annie Murray has written over 30 books and several series to date. I am delighted to write a review of the last in the Chocolate Girls Trilogy, set in the and around the Quaker Cadbury factory.
Thanks to Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy of the book.

Blurb

1946: The war might be over, but for the Gilby family there are still battles to be fought at home . . .

For Birmingham and the Gilby family the war years have been a time of great change. With husband Len having left her for another woman, Ann Gilby is finally free to follow her heart. While the neighbours may be scandalized by having a divorcee in their midst, Ann is determined to rise above the local gossip and make a happy home with her former sweetheart, the father of Ann’s youngest child.

Daughters Joy and Sheila are lucky enough to have their menfolk back home, but Joy’s husband has returned a broken man from his experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. And Sheila’s husband is finding his wartime adventures and travels have made Birmingham feel small by comparison.

Then there’s Ann’s youngest child, Martin, who is still coming to terms with learning who his real father is, as well as having secrets of his own . . .

Homecoming for the Chocolate Girls is the heartfelt and dramatic conclusion to this gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . .

Review

Homecoming for the Chocolate Girls concludes the twisty family saga. 1946 sees the Gilby family have to deal with the aftermath of world war 2 and it isn’t plain-sailing as life is changing again. Husbands have returned from the war to try to settle into civilian, family life now the battle is won, but there are internal battles that now need to be fought. Mentally, the men are badly wounded and are breaking. Life isn’t as it was for them or the families involved.
This makes it a compelling, realistic story that feels well researched and thought about. You can see, in a changing landscape of peace, social attitudes are changing and how damaged those at war truly are after they return, when peace in their minds doesn’t mirror that of the physical world around them.

There’s also Martin, who’s story is fascinating. He has secrets that unfold and his own adventure of discovery as comes to terms with who his father is.
There are scandals afoot!

All in all, it’s a highly engaging story that unfolds the changing world in the immediate aftermath of the second world war.

#AuthorInterview by Lou with Candi Miller about her book Salt & Honey, Africa, Culture, Charity and more… @Gobblesbooks

Author Interview
With Candi Miller

Interview conducted by Louise (Lou)

Let’s welcome Candi Miller to Bookmarks and Stages. Recently I interviewed her about her writing, her books, what readers will get from them, her travels to Africa, a little known group of people and a charity. Her answers are fascinating!
You will also see links to where you can find out more about her/follow her at the end of the Q&A. First, let’s find out about her book – Salt & Honey.

Blurb

Koba is a bushgirl, a hunter-gatherer from an ancient living culture.
She’s a survivor.

She escapes death from white hunters when her family are murdered; she fends for herself in a hostile land.

Now she’s in the greatest danger she’s ever faced: she’s falling for a white boy in Apartheid South Africa, where love across racial divides is brutally punished.

Book 1 of this fast-paced saga introduces a unique character into romance-writing, offering readers a fascinating glimpse into a forgotten way of life and into recent black history.

Without further ado, onto the Q&A to discover more…

Who or what inspired you to write books and to travel?

Koba, a (fictional) kick-ass orphan inspired me to write novels. She’s a unique character – an indigenous girl who’s abducted, who survives by using her hunter-gatherer skills, who breaks taboos, argues with ancestral spirits, gains healing power and who knows she risks everything if she stays with the boy she is falling in love with.

To write her I had to find her. That meant travelling to one of the most remote regions in Africa, the Kalahari desert.

In brief, what are your books about and where will they lead readers to?

My books are about loss and love, about racial discrimination and defiance, about growing up as the only one of your kind in a hostile world. Readers’ hearts will race when they find themselves in bush where grass grows high enough to hide lion, where rogue elephant crush cars, and a brutal regime punishes interracial sex.

I hope the books will lead readers to an interest in a little-known (outside of anthropology) culture, whose people are the descendants of the first people of the world. (Yes, really! Koba’s group, the San or Bushmen, have the oldest known genetic signature, according to the latest studies. It’s millennia older than even the most ancient cultures we traditionally study at school.) Imagine all the things they have to teach us!

You say you want to give something back to people. How do you personally do this and what does that phrase giving back mean to you?

My decades of research into San culture have taught me many things: – about gender-equality, conservation, storytelling and shamanism, and most of all, about generosity. The San give freely of their wisdom to any who ask. It seems right to put income earned from novels inspired by them, towards the self-stated needs (reading-writing literacy) of these remarkable people.

You met the Ju|’hoan people in a remote part of Africa, how did that come about and what was it like meeting them in the knowledge of you being amongst the last band of southern African hunter-gatherers?

Though I’d grown up in Africa and lived through the painful Apartheid years, I was resident in the UK when Koba’s story tapped me on the shoulder whispering: ‘Tell people; it’s important.’ Using the family savings (bless my long-suffering spouse) I set off on a sometimes-scary research trip into the semi-desert dodging raging veld fires and charging bull elephant.

The semi-nomadic San were difficult to find in a vast wilderness area with no roads, let alone signposts. (Actually there was one; warning of elephant. Should have heeded it.) One hot day, under a baobab tree, there a small band of Bushmen sat. I didn’t want to intrude so heart thumping I drove on and made camp elsewhere. Eventually they came over. They wore a mix of western and traditional clothes but still lived in grass huts and carried bows and arrows. In time, they mooted the idea of me being their guinea pig for an eco-tourism idea they had. I leapt at the chance. They took me tracking, showed me how to harvest bushfood and how to use fire sticks. Best of all, they let me sit in on their folktale telling sessions around the camp fire at night. And so, I met people who were to become central to my life.

You are known for helping the Nyae Naye Village School(s) with a Feeding Scheme. How was this set up and how does it help the school community?

While doing fieldwork in the Kalahari desert, I realised that getting to school is very difficult:- no transport; long, long walks; elephants, snakes and occasional lion. Parents prefer their children to stay over in hostels. But the hostels have insufficient food.

I started the Village Schools Feeding scheme in 2017, raising money by organising various events in the UK. With my co-founder, I then delivered the food to the remote schools. Today the scheme is incorporated into a development fund that is replacing the tented schools with brick buildings and providing food and toiletries for boarders. Progress has been made, but consequently, school attendance is up, so more money is needed.

What [How] do you personally help the charity [now]?

I am self-publishing my novels (production costs for the ebook and audiobook coming from the beleaguered family savings again!) so maximum profit goes towards helping these children become reading-writing literate. What their elders call “paper people”. I hope to see the day one of these Village school children writes a novel.

How and where can people assist the charity, if they would like to?

That would be greatly appreciated. First option, please pre-order the ebook here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CBHG8ZWH or the buy the audiobook here….(link tbc)

I will donate my royalties to the Ju|’hoansi Development Fund to be used in their school food supplementation programme. By my calculation, (a guess – Amazon is not transparent) every book sold will give a child 2 meals for two days. So please consider gifting a book to a friend too, if you think they’ll enjoy reading it.

Secondly, readers can make a direct donation via this link: https://kbfus.networkforgood.com/projects/54313-j-kbfus-funds-ju-hoansi-development-fund-na You can read about the good work of this fund here: https://www.villageschoolsnamibia.com/news/

Finally, if any readers of this blog can help with marketing opportunities, please let me know. I want to build a buzz for these books so I can sell more and feed those Kalahari kids.

What will you be doing next?

Aha! That’s up to the readers of these books. If there is enough interest in what happens to Koba next, I’ll write book 3. (This was always meant to be a series, but when my traditional publisher went under, just months after the launch of Book 2, Kalahari Passage, all marketing effort ceased and the books slid into obscurity. I never got to finish the trilogy. I’d love to.) Koba and her family have been in my head and my heart all this while.

9. Where can people find, follow you and buy your novels?

Salt & Honey for Kindle is available for pre-order now at a special launch price. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CBHG8ZWH

The audiobook launches soon on Spotify, Audible and other platforms.

My free newsletter with updates about the launch of book 2, how the feeding fund is progressing, and interviews, news and reviews can be accessed here: https://substack.com/@candimiller?utm_source=user-menu

I’m Candi Miller @Gobblesbooks on Twitter and @candimillerauthor on Insta.

Visit my Facebook author page here https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092417402759

And my website here: https://www.candimiller.co.uk

#Review of Orphanage Girls Come Home By Mary Wood @Authormary @panmacmillan @RandomTTours #TheOrphanageGirlsComeHome

The Orphanage Girls Come Home
By Mary Wood

Orphanage Girls Come Home has friendship amongst dark themes. Find out more in the blurb and what I thought in my review below.

London, 1910
When Amy is chosen to be a part of a programme to resettling displaced children in Canada, her life changes overnight. Her great sadness is having to say goodbye to Ruth and Ellen, the friends who became family to her during the dark days at the orphanage. As she steps on board the ship to Montreal, the promise of a new life lies ahead. But during the long crossing, Amy discovers a terrifying secret.

Canada, 1919
As the decades pass, Amy’s Canadian experience is far from the life she imagined. She always kept Ruth’s address to hand – longing to return to London and reunite with her dear friends. With the world at war, it seems an impossible dream . . .

Review

Life has its challenges for Ruth, she has it tougher than most, even though she then tries to make a new life for herself.
The setting is Bethnal Green in the Edwardian era. The streets are dangerous! She comes across many people when she breaks away from the orphanage, meets some good people, but the police are on the hunt to return her from whence she came, meaning she needs to hide. She knows she needs to try and hold out until she is of a certain age when she can be left alone and all threat of a return to the orphanage has gone. Meanwhile, her friends are on a resettlement programme to start new lives in Montreal and the opportunity isn’t all that’s cracked up to be. You really feel for her, so far away from what she once knew and the friends she had made in Ruth and Ellen.

The Orphanage Girls Come Home isn’t all as sweet and nice as the title sounds. This streets and the orphanage itself has many dark corners within them. The book has some grit in its themes. There’s abuse and more that goes on throughout the book. Throughout the emotional grimness, however there are glimmers of hope as not all people are bad. There are some who care.

Time passes and it is 1919. The First World War is occurring and things change again. This brings a change in thoughts and some focus on Amy, one of Ruth’s friends from decades ago, and her experiences. It brings trepidation and hope that these, one time friends will be reunited. The question is how and when will that be possible and after such a long time, what that would be like, to see someone after such a long time and in a changing world…

Wood paints the scenes vividly and pulls you into the streets and characters lives to enthrall and show strength through different, sometimes harrowing, life circumstances as well as adding warmth, without it being saccharin.

#Review of The Good Time Girls At War By Fiona Ford @Fionajourno @emblabooks #TheGoodTimeGirlsAtWar #HistoricalFiction

The Good Time Girls At War
By Fiona Ford

The Good Time Girls At War captures real spirit and emotion. Find out more in the blurb and then my review.

Blurb

World War Two casts a dark shadow over the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, but the show must go on…

April 1940. Violet Millington, is ready to rediscover the joy of living. As she waltzes into the palais to begin her new life of lifting spirits in war swept London, and leave her family’s sorrow behind her, she soon discovers she is not the only one with something they’re running from.

Violet quickly befriends gutsy American Nancy, the diamond of the dance hall, flame-haired Renee with her enviable foxtrot, and Temperance, who must overcome her bullies to achieve her dreams.

In the face of the Blitz, news of a Palais dance competition keeps the foursome’s spirits up. But as the contest draws near, a devastating chain of events is set in motion with life-changing consequences.

As the Good Time Girls face the music, can the ties of friendship, love and loyalty ensure they survive?

Perfect for fans of Rosie Clarke, Vicki Beeby and Rosie Goodwin.

Review

Sometimes you get a book where you want to do extra digging, for example, for some reason, I saw the blurb and was intrigued to know whether Hammersmith Palais de Danse existed. It turns out it did, but my point is more that some books have that je-ne-sais-quoi quality that just piques the interest and this is one of those. Turns out it had a rich and varied history and this is what is depicted in the book. Fiona Ford is known for doing research and it turns out she doesn’t just do that well, she also manages to turn it into great fiction.

The book not only charts the varied times and challenges of the music hall, but also the highs and lows of her characters as they face uncertain times with war becoming stronger with the blitz now underway. There’s often something poetic in a way when both characters and something inanimate, in this case the Hammersmith Palais de Danse are facing challenges. Ford has captured this very well and in a way that is compelling and that makes you care.

The characters are strong and get on with the job at hand of trying to keep the Hammersmith Palais de Danse going when the men go off to war. There are, however blossoming friendships through the various turbulent times that war brings, both on the world and personally. It’s a moving book to really get stuck into.