#blogtour Maria In The Moon by Louise Beech @LouiseWriter @OrendaBooks #MariaInTheMoon

My Review:

When I was asked to take part in the blog tour for Maria In The Moon, I literally couldn’t reply fast enough to say YES! Having absolutely loved Louise Beech’s The Mountain in My Shoe (read my review here) I couldn’t wait to read her next book.

Maria in the Moon tells us about Catherine, a lonely thirty something whose home was recently flooded, she works nights in a care home and spends her spare time volunteering at the flood crisis phoneline. Happy to focus on the needs and problems of others she works hard not to think of her own, but it becomes clear that Catherine’s past is quickly catching up on her and that she is going to have to face it.

Maria In The Moon is a book that is slow and steady, yet the storyline is engaging and I couldn’t help but love Catherine and root for her to find her way through her troubles and out the other side. I absolutely loved the relationship that Catherine had with her step mother, it was brilliantly done and added some humour to the story. Catherine’s story was not always easy to read, but it was somehow quite beautiful.

I shouldn’t be surprised really, Louise Beech has an amazing way of writing, her characters are wonderfully written and she is one author that could write a shopping list and I’d still want to read it.

Blurb:

Long ago my beloved Nanny Eve chose my name. Then one day she stopped calling me it. I try now to remember why, but I just can’t.’

Thirty-one-year-old Catherine Hope has a great memory. But she can’t remember everything. She can’t remember her ninth year. She can’t remember when her insomnia started. And she can’t remember why everyone stopped calling her Catherine-Maria. With a promiscuous past, and licking her wounds after a painful breakup, Catherine wonders why she resists anything approaching real love. But when she loses her home to the deluge of 2007 and volunteers at Flood Crisis, a devastating memory emerges … and changes everything. Dark, poignant and deeply moving, Maria in the Moon is an examination of the nature of memory and truth, and the defences we build to protect ourselves, when we can no longer hide…

About The Author:

Louise Beech has always been haunted by the sea. She regularly writes travel pieces for the Hull Daily Mail, where she was a columnist for ten years. Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice and being published in a variety of UK magazines. Louise lives with her husband and children on the outskirts of Hull – the UK’s 2017 City of Culture – and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012. She was also part of the Mums’ Army on Lizzie and Carl’s BBC Radio Humberside Breakfast Show for three years.

Maria In The Moon by Louise Beech is out on Kindle UK now and will be released in paperback on 30th September 2017. You can buy or pre-order now from Amazon UK and  Amazon US .