Publication Date: Out now!!!
Formats: Hardback & Ebook
Price: Hb £16.99/ Ebook £9.99
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
I would like to say a huge thank you to Random Things Tours (Anne Cater) for organising such a wonderful and lovely book’s tour. I would also like to say a huge thank you to Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read and review a digital copy of this intriguing book. I would like to say a huge thank you to the creative talent, Eva Rice, for creating such a genuine, moving and heartwarming tale, that touches on grief and mental health and how the little things can break into our life and open our eyes to the world and though some people have gone it’s ok to move on and live your life. Intrigued? Let’s head over to the blurb and find out a bit more.
It’s 1990, the Happy Mondays are in the charts, a 15 year-old called Kate Moss is on the cover of the Face magazine, and Julia Roberts wears thigh boots for the poster for a new movie called Pretty Woman.
February Kingdom is nineteen years old when she is knocked sideways by family tragedy. Then one evening in May she finds an escaped canary in her kitchen and it sparks a glimmer of hope in her. With the help of the bird called Yellow, Feb starts to feel her way out of her own private darkness, just as her aunt embarks on a passionate and all-consuming affair with a married American drama teacher.
This is one that’s a fairly gentle read, but at the same time will hit you with it’s emotional impact. We have a girl going through grief and struggling to find any joy or meaning to face the day and live her life after a hugely tragic and shocking event. Until one day she finds an escaped canary in the house, mainly the kitchen, and that’s when her life starts surge back with colour. February feels incredibly fragile and yet is also stubbornly persistent in following where this canary came from and why it’s at their house and at this time?… which is a good thing as it forces her to look at herself and where she is in relation to others and also shines a light on the people who are trying to love her and make her feel better.
Whilst she is battling her demons (so to speak) her aunt is also coming out of her shell and exploring a rather dramatic affair with a drama teacher, this puts a whole new level of tension and stress on the relationship between them, though it should affect February in a bad way, but due to how she’s starting to come back to the present and finding that she does have the strength to do things that a few weeks ago would leave her breathless and weak, that marriages and relationships are not always static they can be flexible but also breakable.
I quite enjoyed this novel and found it quite moving at certain points in the story. It’s one that touches you and makes you empathise with the characters through what they are experiencing, I also loved reminiscing on the 90s nostalgia which made me think of where I would be during the action of the novel. I would recommend this lovely book to anyone.
Ratings: 4 🌟s with a large ☕️ and a large 🍰
Author’s Blurb:
Eva Rice has written 5 novels and is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets- a post-war coming-of-age story that was runner-up in the 2006 Richard and Judy Book of the Year. A 10th anniversary edition of the novel was published in 2015 with a foreword by Miranda Hart. The Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets is currently being developed by Fudge Park (creators of The Inbetweeners) and Moonage Pictures (Pursuit of Love) as a major new TV series. Eva has toured with bands since her early twenties. She has written the music and lyrics for Harriet a musical based on an early Jilly Cooper novel due to open in 2023. She has a geek-like fascination with pop music, and her party trick is recalling chart positions.
I hope you have enjoyed this little review of a moving and heartwarming book about grief, mental health and the power of little things that can make big changes in your life. If you are looking for a copy for yourself, you can find this in Waterstones, any independent and of course on Amazon. I will leave you now to say Happy Reading and see you soon!!!
Zoe's Book Nook 
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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