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Release date: September 30, 2017

Publisher: Orenda Books

Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

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… 

I’m honored and delighted to be hosting one of the stops on the blog tour for Maria in the Moon today!

Review:

Every once in awhile a special type of book comes along and gets well and truly under my skin, it takes ahold of me, consumes me even and Maria in the Moon was that rare beauty of a book. Louise Beech is an astoundingly gifted writer, reading one of her books is a true honor. 

I think the blurb for this book is absolutely perfect, it gets your attention yet it doesn’t give so much away that you totally know what to expect. The mystery of Catherine’s ninth year intrigued me enough to want to read it but I had no idea the true haunting, harrowing beauty this book would reveal. Catherine was such a fascinatingly complex woman, she’s exquisitely well drawn. She’s damaged and broken but she’s achingly raw and wholly relatable, I adored her and really cared about her, I was wholeheartedly invested in her story. Her time volunteering at the flood crisis hotline was my favorite part, it was heartbreaking and provided so much insight into her true character. 

This is such a unique read and one that’s hard to classify into just one standard genre, my friend Chelsea at The Suspense is Thrilling Me said Louise Beech novels are their own genre and I couldn’t agree more. There’s a little bit of everything, a mystery, some love, a hint of magical realism and most importantly, a plot that any human could relate to. Beech is one of the greats, no other author can bring out emotions in me like she can. 

Overall rating: 5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy. 

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.