[Blog Tour] Review - All the Good Things by Clare Fisher

All the Good Things by Clare Fisher
Publisher: Viking
Release date: 1 June 2017
Rating: *****

Back cover blurb: Twenty-one year old Beth is in prison. The thing she did is so bad she doesn't deserve to ever feel good again. But her counsellor, Erika, won't give up on her. She asks Beth to make a list of all the good things in her life. So Beth starts to write down her story, from sharing silences with Foster Dad No. 1, to flirting in the Odeon on Orange Wednesdays, to the very first time she sniffed her baby's head. But at the end of her story, Beth must confront the bad thing. What is the truth hiding behind her crime? And does anyone-even a 100% bad person-deserve a chance to be good?

All the Good Things is one of those books that really makes you stop and consider life.

Bethany Mitchell is only Twenty One but she has done a very bad thing. This bad thing has landed her in a Women's prison.

Bethany is a shadow of her former self - what she needs to do, is think of all the good things in her life. That is according to her counsellor Erika.

Bethany thinks Erika is mad.

But she does open up to Erika...

Slowly as Bethany starts to tell her story, we learn of her tragic upbringing, her desire to fit in, and her desire to be loved, wanted.

That desire to be loved is the one that ultimately leads her tragically to her fate.

Bethany is a prickly character, but her ordeal only made me warm to her more. Her actions in the end when given a choice over doing the right thing or taking the easy way out shows that she isn't all bad, even if she did do a very bad thing...

 

All the Good Things is available from 1 June 2017.

 

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online or all good book shops.

 

Don't forget to follow the rest of the blog tour;

 

 

Thank You to the publishers who sent me an advanced proof copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

 

Review - Flesh and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma

Flesh and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma

Publisher: Viking

Release date: 21 March 2017

Rating: *** and a half

Back cover blurb: Brazilian-born doctor André Cabral is living in London when one day he receives a letter from his home country, which he left nearly thirty years ago. A letter he keeps in his pocket for weeks, but tells no one about. The letter prompts André to remember the days of his youth - torrid afternoons on Ipanema beach with his listless teenage friends, parties in elegant Rio apartments, his after-school job at his father's plastic surgery practice - and, above all, his secret infatuation with the daughter of his family's maid, the intoxicating Luana. Unable to resist the pull of the letter, André embarks on a journey back to Brazil to rediscover his past. 





Flesh and Bone and Water is a curious little novel.

André is a Brazilian born Doctor who has lived in London for many years. He doesn't think much about home, except for the love he lost during his youth.

It is a letter from her that prompts him to revisit his home country and discover all that he left behind.

Flesh and Bone and Water is sort of a coming of age novel, but from an older man's flash back point of view. It is well written and full of teenage angst, sex and desire.

However long hidden family secrets are soon exposed to put André off his stride and are partly the reason for his arrival in London.

The novel moves back and forth between the present day and André's teenage years. Pure happiness never seem to be found in either. It seems like André needs to lay the past to rest before he can move on with his future.

Whether or not he can do this remains to be seen.

Flesh and Bone and Water is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

 

Thank You to the publishers who invited me to view this title via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.