Mini-reviews: Mind the Gap by Phil Earle and Passing For White by Tanya Landman

I'm almost always excited to receive books for review from Barrington Stoke. Their author list is incredible and they publish such wonderful stories that not only appeal to dyslexic or struggling readers but also to those who just enjoy a good story. Here are two mini-reviews of books by Barrington Stoke that I have recently.

Mind the Gap by Phil Earle

I loved Mind the Gap by Phil Earle. I knew I would, I've loved everything of his that I've read so far.  I was very excited to read this book when it first arrived: I loved the cover art and the premise of the book. However, having lost my own father quite recently, I wasn't sure if it was the best time to dive into this one.

But I feel like I needn't have worried.  Because while this book is about a boy whose father has died it's more about friendship.  Phil Earle wrote this story with such warmth and heart.  Mikey's dad was one of those dads who didn't stay for very long but who left an impression when they were around.  And since he died, Mikey has gone off the rails a little bit.

When Mikey admits to his best mate that he just wants something to remember him by, his friend goes off on this journey across London trying to track down someone who worked with Mikey's dad.  He's looking for a video clip or a photo or anything that Mikey can hold onto and then maybe he'd stop antagonising the local hard-ass and get himself beaten up.

I really loved this story.  It's based on a true story about the man who recorded some 'Mind the Gap' messages on the London Underground and his wife who grieved his passing.  I can definitely relate to this story ... this need to hold onto little things in the people who are gone from our lives.

Passing For White by Tanya Landman

Passing For White by Tanya Landman was just an emotional read for me.  I thought that by reading the synopsis of this book that I knew how it would turn out but the plot description doesn't really take into account how nerve-wracking it is, how tense I felt worrying about Rosa and Benjamin on this absolutely perilous journey.

Rosa and Benjamin are both slaves. It's the Deep South and the year is 1848. Because Rosa's master is also her father, her light skin means that she is often confused for being white. Using this to their advantage, Rosa and Benjamin hatch this plan to escape slavery by having Rosa pose as a white man with Benjamin has her slave and travel a thousand miles north to freedom.

As I said, I found this book to be very emotional. It's amazing how much is packed into one short story.  I felt for Rosa and Benjamin immediately.  Their need for freedom and why they chose to make this escape plan when they did was rather heartbreaking.  The journey itself is fraught with so many near-misses and some really quick thinking on Rosa and Benjamin's parts.

Passing For White is based on a true story, on Ellen Craft who escaped slavery through disguise and who saved herself as well as her husband.  What I found almost as fascinating as the actual journey is what their lives are like (spoiler ahead) after their amazing escape.  I thought Passing For White was a really eye-opening, emotional story and I'm really glad to have read it.

Interview with Catherine Johnson, author of The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo

Today I'm very happy to have the very lovely Catherine Johnson on my blog talking about books historical fiction and diversity and her latest book, The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo, which is publishing 2nd July from Corgi.  I've been looking forward to reading this book for quite some time so I'm really happy both to have already read it but also to have Catherine on the blog too!

To find out more about Catherine Johnson or The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo, do visit the following websites:

Catherine Johnson ... Catherine on Twitter ... The History Girls

Hello and welcome to Fluttering Butterflies! Could you please introduce yourself and your book, The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo.

Hello! I am Catherine Johnson, the woman with the most boring first name/second name combination in children's books. I have been a writing for a long time, (I used to have a career making films and videos but that was a million years ago) and I've written lots of books mostly YA, people might know Sawbones. But I also write for film and TV - including Holby City - and a film called Bullet Boy.  

The Curious Incident of The Lady Caraboo is a story about lies and love and was inspired by the true story of Mary Wilcox, a cobblers daughter from Devon who passed herself off as a Princess from the South Seas.

 It's about as close to a romance as I've ever got. But it's mostly about lies - who we are and who we'd rather be.

What struck me the most about this book is everyone's reactions to Caraboo. Why do you think there was this fascination with cultures and people of colour in a distant way but such a different reaction to the idea of her being a poor local?

Although the village where the story is set, Almondsbury, is not far from Bristol, the idea of a lost Princess was probably the most exciting thing that had happened in living memory. And a major part of why people believed that Caraboo was real was that Mrs Worrall, the local lady of the manor, wanted her to be real. I think, from my reading, that Mrs Worrall was bored out of her mind. She was an intelligent woman, born in America, who loved anthropology but because of the time she had no outlet for her interest.  It must have been a coup for her having such an interesting house guest, being able to invite professors and experts (which the real Mrs Worrall did) and be at the centre of a real cause celebre. 

I do love that this book is about a person of colour set in a historical time period and that Princess Caraboo is proudly on the cover - both of these being representations I don't see very much of. What are your thoughts on the levels of diversity portrayed in YA fiction in recent times? 

I do think there is more diversity now - especially in regards to sexuality - and I think authors and publishers are making an effort, but there is still a long way to go. I would like to see more authors from different backgrounds, not just race but class too, being published and promoted. Of course the books need to be good but I do think this is vital to get a range of different stories out there. But if we are going to get publishers to respond and publish more widely we need readers to read more diversely too! Part of the push for change we've had in recent years has come from readers and bloggers. So lets have more of everything, please and open minds everywhere!

At one point Caraboo says something along the lines of 'and weren't stories more rewarding than life?' What are some of your favourite books and stories? 

There are so many! One of my all time favourites is Susan Price's Sterkarm Handshake which is historical and science fictiony and brilliant. Also Holes by Louis Sachar, which is utterly brilliantly plotted and it never gets tired.  Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is a big favourite and also Pao by Kerry Young, a book set in Jamaica in the first half of the Twentieth Century. But the one  that just breaks my heart every time I read it is The Long Song by Andrea Levy. That book is absolutely brilliant, tour de force of point of view as well as a view of history we hardly ever see. There are about a million other books too.....

Mary Wilcox and Princess Caraboo are based on actual events in history! Can you share with us any other incredibly fascinating lesser-known, real-life historical women? 

Women and minorities are always hidden in history. The poorer and less powerful - and women of colour are always at the  bottom of the heap - rarely have their stories told, but there are some and plenty of lives ripe for folding into stories. Here are a few;

Nanny of the Maroons, a real folk hero. She lived in the early 17th century and was kidnapped into slavery as a child in Ghana and bought to Jamaica. She endured terrible and inhumane treatment and ran away into the hills, where she organised free settlements of runaway slaves in the mountains and carried out raids on the British. The town that bears her name still exists.

Adelaide Hall, an American born singer, who was part of the Harlem renaissance who lived the greater part of her life in the UK. In 1941 she was the highest paid entertainer in Britain. I almost wrote a novel based in wartime Soho, she'd have definitely have had a walk on in that...

One last thing. Where I used to live in Hackney was a big old house, long since divided into flats. This was the Ayahs home, a home for Indian nannies employed by British families on the long voyage back from India but then abandoned in London without any money and unable to get home. This went on well into the 20th century. It's really worth finding out more just about where you live...

In fact, historical YA isn't something that I know a great deal about, do you have any recommendations or suggestions? 

YES! Lots. I belong to a brilliant joint blog called the History Girls which features writers like Celia Rees (Witch Child, Pirates!), Mary Hoffman (David, Stravaganza) Penny Dolan (A Boy Called Mouse) Tanya Landman (Apache, Buffalo Soldier) and Lydia Syson (Liberty's Fire, A World Between Us) - there are many more on there too. Another one I would recommend is Jamila Gavin's classic Coram Boy or any of Mary Hooper's work - Newes From The Dead, The House of The Magician, Poppy. Every one of those books is utterly brilliant.

I kind of love the fact that Mary creates Princess Caraboo into a person that she'd like to be and makes her own sort of Princess Rules. What would at the top of your own list of Princess rules?

Princess rules! What a great idea... 

1. Everyone to have their own pony and/or swimming pool although not a pony in a swimming pool....

2. I would like my own dedicated wool shop just like the new one in Stoke Newington High Street. I am a demon knitter. I used to have a stall in Portobello market when I was a student.

3.

All libraries to have extended opening hours and all the books I want in whenever I visit.

4. Plenty of custard. I am partial to custard.

There are so many lying liars in your book! Do you have any favourite literary liars?

Lies make stories -and I love a good unreliable narrator like Cadence in E. Lockhart's We Were Liars too. But I'm going to recommend an absolutely stunning non fiction book here stuffed full of the most professional liars of the 19th and twentieth century. I love stories of Con men and grifters - The Sting is a brilliant film, do watch it - and that film was based on a really fascinating book - a non fiction academic study by a linguist in 20th century America who was studying criminal slang. That sounds dry but the book really isn't. David Maurer, the author, interviewed all of the con men of the late 19th and early 20th century for his book, The Big Con, and it is totally absorbing.

And finally, The Curious Tale of Lady Caraboo was one of my most anticipated UKYA reads in 2015. What are you most looking forward to reading? 

That's so blush making! I hope it didn't disappoint.... I am a big fan of Sarra Manning's books, YA and adult. I think she's doing a historical next, set in  WW2, and I cannot wait. And I am looking forward to the next Malorie Blackman. Now she's retired from laureating I do hope she'll have plenty of writing time to finish the sequel to Boys Don't Cry...

REVIEW: The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo by Catherine Johnson

I'd really been looking forward to reading The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo by Catherine Johnson for awhile now.  So I was very happy to get a copy sent to me and jumped in straight away.

And I really liked this story.  It's based on a true story of an actual young woman called Mary Willcox who managed to convince a wealthy family that she was a princess from the South Seas and that makes this story even more fascinating to me.  I know that Catherine Johnson did change some aspects of the story but I still think the original basis of what happened to Mary Willcox to be incredibly interesting.  As is this book! I really didn't know what was going to happen throughout the story and I was really intrigued from the moment I started reading.

The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo has sort of a harrowing beginning. As we see poor Mary Willcox in bad shape and she is further attacked by some men and in that moment she decides that things will be different from now on.  And that's what happens.

She pretends to be this different person, this princess from Java. And it becomes quite an elaborate lie that is spun as Caraboo manages to convince this local wealthy family, the Worralls,  that she is in fact royalty and they take her in for several months. An entire language is created as well as a religion and a style of dress and mannerisms that Caraboo creates herself. At times both Caraboo (and surely the reader!) are sort of preparing for this lie to be caught out and for Caraboo to be sent packing ... but things carry on for a very surprising length of time.

I really liked the character of Caraboo that Mary Willcox pretends that she is.  Caraboo becomes this fierce warrior princess who hunts and climbs and does what she likes. It really felt like she had decided not to be held back by her gender or her (lack of) wealth and just decided to become this person she and society had never allowed her to become until one day when she just makes that decision and a transformation happens.

As well as being incredibly interested and invested in Caraboo's character and how she gets on, I was also really fascinated to see the changes within this family that Caraboo is staying with and the different reactions they all have to Caraboo's intrusion into their lives. There is Mrs Worrall, who seems to relish the attention as well as the fact that she is at the centre of a scientific investigation and has scientists of the day from phrenologists to electricity experts, coming into her house and that she is able to participate in something larger than her in her every day life.

And then there are the Worrall children: flighty Cassandra and skeptical Fred who in turns befriend and question Caraboo's sincerity and actions. Cassandra and Fred really shouldn't be likeable characters. They are both overly privileged and entitled and yet still, I found myself warming to both characters a great deal.  I liked that Cassandra and Caraboo formed this friendship and that Fred seemed to struggle with his relationships with women after a comment made to him by a prostitute. I also loved the juxtaposition of Cassandra's love affair with that of the reluctant growing of feelings that happens for Caraboo.

I thought Lady Caraboo's story was an incredibly fascinating story. It felt like a story of choices and love and about being the person who most want to be. I loved this glimpse into a POC historical figure and time period and I was swept away by the circumstances of Caraboo's life. Really enjoyed this one!

Interview with Lydia Syson, author of Liberty's Fire

I'm incredibly pleased to be sharing with you today an interview with Lydia Syson, the author of three historical YA novels including Liberty's Fire which will be published this week. I hope you have already read my Author Spotlight earlier this week and my review of Liberty's Fire yesterday. I think this is a really wonderful novel, one that I highly recommend. Which is why I was very happy to pick Lydia's brain about some of the characters and story line of her new novel. I hope you enjoy!

Hello and welcome to Fluttering Butterflies! Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little something about your new book, Liberty's Fire? 

Thank you so much for having me!  I’m Lydia Syson, and I mainly write historical fiction. Passion combined with politics have become a bit of trademark for me, and my latest book is definitely no exception. It’s set in Paris in 1871, nearly forty years after the revolution in Les Mis, and the barricades are rising again.

You're no stranger to multiple POVs but Liberty's Fire has 4 perspectives! How do you juggle each of their stories and voices? And did you have a favourite? 

Actually, when I started writing the book I felt that it needed a strong, omniscient narrator – something you associate more with nineteenth-century fiction than current YA (think Victor Hugo and Dickens) –  and something very different from A World Between Us and That Burning Summer.  I was planning to focus on Anatole and Zéphyrine, a violinist and a working-class artificial flower-maker, destitute since the death of her grandmother.  That didn't quite work out. I became so interested in Jules and Marie that I knew they had to have an equal share of the story.  Gay characters in historical fiction are very rare, and after visiting the cemetery of Père Lachaise where the last battle of the Commune was fought, and seeing Oscar Wilde’s grave, I couldn't get that phrase ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ out of my head.  And I could also see that Marie, a soprano at Anatole’s opera house, needed to be shown in all her complexity, because her situation was just as interesting and difficult as that of the other three. Being a woman of any class was pretty tough in nineteenth-century Paris. 

Fine-tuning the juggling of their interwoven stories and voices was something that happened in the rewrites. It tends to be quite instinctive for me. I’m not good at mapping complicated plots and story arcs, and always set my characters’ stories against a real, historical chronology.  I did find it hard not to make them sound too English! And although that omniscient narrative voice I’d started with gradually retreated, I think it stayed with me just enough to hold the other four perspectives together thought the whole novel.  As for my favourite, I think it’s Jules.  Who is yours?

My favourite is also Jules. Not only because I loved everything about his photography techniques but because I loved his relationship with Anatole so much. It felt very emotional and heart-breaking throughout.

Jules, Anatole and Marie each have pretty creative outlets with photography and music. Why these hobbies and are they passions you share? I found the descriptions of Jules' photography in particular to be fascinating! 

Almost as soon as I started researching the Commune, I realised photography and music had to be central to the plot, for lots of different reasons.  I was really struck by the operatic and theatrical imagery in so many accounts of the events of 1871: witnesses on both sides often compared the city to a stage. I wanted to get that sense of drama and spectacle into Liberty’s Fire. 

I wouldn't call myself an ‘opera buff’ but I’ve always loved going when I can. (By the way, if you book ahead and have a head for heights, you can still get seats at the Royal Opera House for less than the price of a West End cinema ticket!  Cheaper than football!) Some of my absolute favourite operas are set in Paris, and were written in the 19th century. La Traviata, Manon and La Bohème all have me in tears, and were very much on my mind when I was writing. The figure of the fallen woman is ever present in those operas, and the redemptive power of love is another huge theme.

Under the Paris Commune, concerts – classical and otherwise – were not just a way of raising money for widows and orphans, but part of praiseworthy efforts to open the arts up to everybody. Communards didn't want music to be elitist. As soon as I read about the concerts held in the Tuileries Palace, I knew I had to include them. The Palace stood next to the Louvre and had recently been occupied by the Empress but was then thrown open to the people of Paris. I won’t give away what happened to it…

As for photography, it was – as you say – a particularly fascinating time in the development of the art, and raises all kinds of questions about representation and interpretation and truth.  (This next bit might need a ***spoiler alert***?!)  In the aftermath of the destruction of the Commune photographs were used as criminal evidence for the first time in history, but also as propaganda, to turn people against the ideals of the Communards. One photographer even faked execution scenes using photomontages, which look crude today but were as convincing at the time as photoshopping is now.  Eventually the authorities banned these images because they continued to be so divisive at a time when France was trying to forget the Commune had ever happened.  

I’m no more a photographer than I am a musician, but I love working with images when I’m writing, and it’s an art form I hugely admire.  And in fact just this week, for the first time in my life, some photographs I took have been published in book called Wild Swimming Walks (http://www.wildswimming.co.uk/wild-swimming-walks-south-east/) full of brilliant recommendations for places in southern England where you can enjoy river-, lake, pond- and sea-swimming.  

The Spanish Civil War, World War II, now France in 1871. What is about these historical time periods that inspire you or grab your attention? 

They’re all times when people were fighting for their ideals and the stakes were very high. They are also epoques that have been heavily mythologised and/or romanticised. The distortions of Cold War historiography have meant that they are all ripe for re-evaluation, so there’s lots of interesting new material being produced by historians which most people will never come across, and, without being heavy about it, I love finding ways of conveying that kind of stuff to readers through stories that bring ideas alive, but don’t feel remotely like hard work to read.    

Tell me about Paris! Did you visit for research purposes? Did that play a part in setting your book there? Do you have a favourite Paris location? 

The idea of the Commune and what happened to it, and the significance of the event – for example for International Brigaders in the Spanish Civil War – meant the book had to be set in Paris, but of course I was also very excited to have a wonderful excuse to spend some time there. I was incredibly lucky in getting a grant from the Arts Council which not only allowed me to spend a lot of time in libraries in this country, but also to make two trips to Paris, where I stayed with an extremely helpful old school friend.  My first ever experience of being alone abroad was in Paris, where I did a couple of amazing French exchanges in Paris in my teens, staying with a wonderful family who took me everywhere and showed me all sorts of things and fed me delicious food – and I used to go to Paris quite regularly in my twenties to visit friends, so I thought I knew the city reasonably well, for a casual visitor. But in the last year, my eyes have really been opened. I hope reading Liberty’s Fire will have the same effect on readers.  As for locations, the museum at St Denis was a great new discovery, I have rather fallen in love with the 9th arrondisement which I didn't know well, and I’d urge everyone who goes to Paris to wander in the arcades or ‘passages’ where Anatole first met Jules.  

You've written about politics previously in A World Between Us and again in Liberty's Fire. What do you think modern readers can take from the ways in which politics has shaped history and what views, if any, do you have about the upcoming election? 

A lot! If nothing else, an understanding of how hard the struggle for democratic rights across the world has been, and how fragile these rights – and the right to protest - remain. In Britain, the right to vote was connected with property ownership and women didn't have voting equality with men until 1928. Eighteen-year-olds have only been voting since 1969. I know I’m getting old but that doesn't seem that long ago to me!  

I can’t deny that it’s horribly easy to be cynical and disillusioned about politics in this country, specially for young people, who face really tough times right now in terms of housing, employment and education. I desperately hope that reading about the past will help bring back idealism and passion into politics today. I’m constantly moved and inspired by the risks people have taken over the centuries in their efforts to make the world a fairer and more equal place. I’d love to hear more young people talking about politics, and enthused by the idea by making an informed choice – informed by the past as well as the present. If you get yourself to a polling station, you can play your part in shaping the future. Voting for the first time should be really exciting and I’m really hoping that the last minute campaign to get more young people and women and people from all kinds of minority groups to register – the recent change to the system made this necessary – will have had an impact. 

A World Between Us begins during a world recession, when immigrants were scapegoated and far-right views became so acceptable that, during the 1935 Jubilee celebrations, people lining the streets greeted the royal parade with a fascist salute.  How far away are Nigel Farage and UKIP from Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts, who supported Hitler and Franco and Mussolini? 

Liberty’s Fire tells the story of the Paris Commune, a revolution of working people partly triggered by the enormous gulf between rich and poor in 19th century Paris. In this country the child poverty crisis gets worse each year yet there are more sterling billionaires living in London than any other city in the world.  We need to talk about these things, and how and why we arrived here. Inequality is bad for everyone, and the young suffer most.  How have we let globalisation and multinational power take over from the internationalist ideals of both the Commune and the Spanish Civil War anti-fascist volunteers?

So, yes, I've got a lot of views about the upcoming election - so nailbitingly close – more than we've got room for here! I’d say that it’s more important than ever to engage with politics, but there are lots of ways of doing this, and it doesn't have to be party politics.  And even if you can’t support one party’s policies 100% (which is hard), imagine the alternative might be, and vote (or argue if you’re too young!) against that.  

I'm only a recent convert to reading YA historical fiction. Do you have any further recommendations for me and other sometimes-reluctant historical fiction readers? 

Two wonderful anthologies came out last year, which offer a chance to dip into a great range of historical writers and see who and what takes your fancy: Daughters of Time from The History Girls (a group blog - http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk  - which I've joined relatively recently, and another good place to get ideas) and War Girls, which are all stories of women and girls set during WW1. I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Wein, and I think Code Name Verity will be a classic – I defy anyone not to find it gripping.  

But I think the most important thing is to experiment widely, and plunge right in without worrying too much about when a book is set or whether it might be just like school. Historical fiction encompasses love stories, thrillers, detective fiction, fantasy, ghost stories, war, and often a combination, so it depends what you’re in the mood for. Surprise yourself! 

And finally, Liberty's Fire was definitely one of my most highly anticipated reads of 2015. Which book(s) (UKYA or otherwise!) would be on your list?  

Thank you!  That’s wonderful to hear.  A long list… There’s so much great YA also coming out just this Thursday, including Keren David’s This is Not a Love Story (I loved seeing Jewish North London teenage life in a novel for the first time when I read early drafts of this), Liz Kessler’s Read me like a book, Lucy Coats’ Cleo, and while I’m encouraging others to step out of the boundaries of their favourite genre I should do the same and read more fantastical books, I must say I’m really intrigued by Frances Hardinge The Lie Tree - Kent, islands, 19th century, rumour – it’s ticking all the right boxes for me. As a mother of identical if not conjoined twins and a fan of The Weight of Water I can’t help looking forward to Sarah Crossan’s One.  Nigel MacDowell is a wonderful writer tackling a time and place close to my heart in The House of Mountfathom.  I’m already feeling autumn is too long to wait for this and also Catherine Johnson’s sequel to the fabulous Sawbones, which takes our characters to Paris and into the fray of the first French Revolution.

On the adult side, I want to read the new Toni Morrison, God Help the Child.   I read all her early work but have got very behind in the last few years. I loved Skippy Dies and think I won’t be able to resist The Mark and the Void. There’s a new Pat Barker: Noonday. And I’m planning to read Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan novels in Sardinia this summer, ready for the publication of the 4th book in September.  As for non-fiction, there’s a new interpretation of the Holocaust by Timothy Snyder and I’m not sure when Kate Summerscale’s new book is out but I hope it’s soon.  But I’m also looking forward to some surprises myself.

Thank you so much, Lydia, for these wonderful answers!  

Liberty's Fire by Lydia Syson will be published by Hot Key Books on the 7th of May! Do look out for it.

REVIEW: Liberty's Fire by Lydia Syson

Liberty's Fire by Lydia Syson is another really fascinating, exciting and emotional story by one of my favourite recent authors. It's set in another historical time period that I knew nothing about and yet as I was reading this story, I was swept away into the lives of these four main characters and I found myself hugely emotionally invested in their lives and this Paris of 1871 that was under such tumult.

Knowing nothing about the Commune of Paris, I knew absolutely nothing about what would happen but the build-up to that last 100 pages quickly grew as I was reading the story. Everything is gearing up towards something massive and knowing very little about the actual historical events meant that I was both on the edge of my seat and also hugely surprised by the turn of events that occurred.

One of the major reasons that I love Lydia Syson's stories so much is because it really felt like this revolution in Paris was brought to life for me and it has been the same with her previous two books as well. These characters, their relationships to each other, the way in which everything happens: it all felt so real to me and I was definitely invested in each of the four characters' well-being.  I felt like I understood them as people and while sometimes at the start of the story I felt shaky about the state of events politically in this story, by the end, I felt like I got it.

Liberty's Fire tells us the story of what happens between March and May 1871 in Paris during a time of political upheaval when a new socialist political party called the Commune came into power.  This story is told from four perspectives and through these perspectives the reader is able to see these events in a much broader way.

The first main character, Zephyrine, is a teenage girl who has been looking after her poorly grandmother who passes away just as the Commune is taking over.  Being all alone in Paris, Zephyrine worries about how she will feed herself and pay off her grandmother's bills.  But she is soon swept away in the politics of this new party and becomes very passionate about the Commune's ideals of sharing the wealth and providing better social care and education for everyone.  

There is also Anatole and Jules, friends and roommates. Anatole, a violinist, meets and falls in love with Zephryine and becomes just as quickly wrapped up in her as with her politics. But Anatole's friends, Jules, a wealthy American photographer, and Marie, an opera singer worried about her brother, don't share this same enthusiasm.

Zephyrine's experiences both with working with the Commune and also in her relationships with Jules and Anatole show off a great many things about what it was like for poor women in this time period. There is a great deal about the treatment of women here and also about the conditions of poor people which is a deep contrast to the ways in which Jules lives. I think Zephyrine's reaction to Jules' and Anatole's cat, Minou, is a great example of this. Jules is very well-off and is able to provide for Anatole and a pet during a time when the divide between working class and the wealthy is extreme.

I really loved each of these characters and throughout the story I really got a sense for who they are and for what is important to each of them.  I loved seeing the passion that each of these characters feels: Zephryine for this new radical movement. Jules for his photography and also Anatole. Anatole and his passion for music and Zephryine. Marie and her singing but also the welfare of her brother.  When things kick off it is very interesting to see where these characters end up and to see where their passions and ideals lead them.

I really loved this book. It was shocking and fascinating and just hugely emotional.  I found every detail of this book to be really interesting: the importance of the photographs, the fear and uncertainty of women who have been raised to a higher political power, the ending. This book was such a rollercoaster ride of emotions for me and I highly recommend that you read it!

Author Spotight: Lydia Syson

I would like to regularly shine a light on some amazing UKYA authors!

Today I would very much like to shine a spotlight on one of my favourite recent UKYA authors, Lydia Syson.  Lydia is the author of three amazing YA historical books, A World Between Us, That Burning Summer and newly-published Liberty's Fire which I will be discussing today.

It was with Lydia's first book for young adults that really captured my attention, but I also really love reading Lydia's blog in which her passion for history and politics really shines through. She's also writes for The History Girls which is a fantasy collaborative blog written by historical fiction writers!

Lydia Syson ... Lydia on Twitter ... The History Girls 

A World Between Us 

In 2012, I read Lydia Syson's first book for young adults, A World Between Us, and it was incredible. And for me, utterly surprising. Because previous to reading this book, I really didn't consider myself a fan of historical fiction. There was always something about it that put me off that I couldn't connect to on an emotional level. I think, perhaps, the reason that I agreed to read and review this book had a lot to do with the cover design (designer: Jan Bielecki, I believe!) The whole look of the book from the cover had me intrigued and so I sat down and this book changed how I felt about reading fiction based in a historical time period.  And it just completely changed my mind.

I think what I loved so much about reading this book is that it was so very easy to get swept away into the stories of these three main characters. A World Between Us is set during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and it follows three main characters as they navigate through the horrors of this war. I knew absolutely nothing about the Spanish Civil War prior to reading this story. Nothing. And after finishing this story, I was hugely intrigued and curious to know more. To research more, to uncover more because my interest had been piqued in this incredibly entertaining way. And it didn't feel like I was gaining a bunch of historical knowledge and detail into this time period when I was reading either. Everything felt incredibly natural and seamless. As well as emotional. I was committed to these three characters and their relationships to each other and their happiness and well-being. I needed that.

That Burning Summer

The following year, Hot Key Books published Lydia's second book, That Burning Summer. This time, the story focused on another three characters during the summer of 1940 in rural England during World War II. It centers around a 16 year old girl called Peggy and her brother, Ernest, and about Henryk, a Polish pilot who has crash-landed near to where Peggy lives. Peggy decides to care for Henryk herself in an abandoned church and soon feelings develop between Peggy and Henryk. 

I think what I loved so much about this book is about the exploration of courage. Both in doing what we feel is right as well as the mental courage it takes to do difficult things. It's also about loyalty. I read this book during a very large reading and blogging slump and never did review it but I think I'd like to re-read it at some point. Again, I felt really connected to the characters and their relationship to each other. I also loved the historical detail and the ease in which Lydia Syson tells this story without the historical elements weighing down the narrative. I felt like this was a very interesting and emotional story that had an added bonus of learning something I hadn't known before.

Liberty's Fire

And that brings me to Lydia's third book for adults, Liberty's Fire. Liberty's Fire is being published on the 7th of May by Hot Key Books and I really recommend that you not only pick up this book but also her two previous books as well.  This book is set in Paris in 1871 and it tells the story of a revolution from the perspectives of four different characters. I have a review of this book and an interview with Lydia coming up this week in which I will be writing more and you'll be hearing more about the story and the characters and everything else. Do look out for both of those!  

For now, let me just say that this book was another absolutely fascinating, emotional story rich in detail and told in Lydia's amazing writing style. I feel like I went on a journey with these characters. And everything, from the descriptions of the opera or 19th century photography techniques to the politics of the Communard: everything just drew me in and I couldn't help but be swept away by this story. 

Have you read anything by Lydia Syson? Have I tempted you to read any of these books by her?

Keeping the Home Fires Burning... by Mary Hooper #CountdownYA

Once again, I am very happy to be taking part in multi-blog, multi-author blog tour, Countdown to 7th May, that has been organised by Jim from YA Yeah Yeah. Taking part in this blog tour are bloggers paired with authors who have books being published on the 7th of May. 

I am super thrilled to have been paired up with Mary Hooper, the amazing author of historical novels Poppy and the sequel being published on the 7th of May by Bloomsbury, Poppy in the Field. I absolutely adored Poppy and I'm dying to read more of Poppy's adventures during World War I. Mary Hooper is here today talking about the journey that women like Poppy took during WWI. 

To find out more about Poppy in the Field, or Mary Hooper, please do visit the following websites:

Mary Hooper ... Mary on Facebook ... Mary on Twitter

Keeping the home fires burning...

Women in First World War

by Mary Hooper

In 1914, at the beginning of the Great War, the major role for girls and women was to support and encourage their men-folk as they went off to fight. As the famous song says, they had to keep “the home fires burning”.  A famous poster of the time shows newly recruited soldiers bravely marching away while a woman, her children beside her, gazes into the distance. Women of Britain say “Go!” the poster declares.

As 1914 came to a close, however, the girls and women of Britain decided that it wasn't enough for them to sit quietly at home and wait for things to be resolved, they wanted to wade right in and do their bit. Even those brave and determined women who had been campaigning to get the vote put this ultimate goal to one side to concentrate on helping the war effort.

At first this help was just women forming “comforts groups” to knit balaclavas, scarfs and gloves to be sent to the Front, but soon groups of (mostly well-to-do) women banded together to offer scores of different services (first aid, emergency feeding centres, rest for convalescent officers, and so on). It took a while before the all-male Army establishment would accept women in these new roles: Newly-qualified Edinburgh surgeon Elsie Inglis was told that her help wasn't wanted at the Front, thank you very much, and she should “Go home and sit still.”

As the war continued and more and more men left their jobs to go and fight, ordinary women left their traditional positions as maids, cleaners and mother’s helps and began to prove that they could do most jobs just as well as a man. Once the source of many jokes, it soon became the norm to see female bus-conductors, railway porters, window cleaners and, in 1915, the first policewomen in the streets. Women also took uncongenial and wearying work in munitions factories and taught themselves to drive, thus freeing up more men to go and fight.  

The number of casualties was unprecedented and a great many volunteer nurses were needed so – after a brief training period – girls like POPPY were given jobs in military hospitals both in this country and in France. Sixteen and seventeen-year-old girls lied about their ages to join up and found themselves in the thick of things: bandaging, packing wounds, de-lousing men who’d been in the trenches, taking round bed-pans and dealing with toes turned black by frostbite. Those young girls, who may not even have spoken to boys their own age before the War started, had to grow up very quickly. During the major battles on French or Belgian soil, so many men needed treatment that the field hospitals were snowed under: lines and lines of injured men on stretchers waited to be seen by doctors, and some of the more qualified nurses found themselves working as surgeons and actually having to amputate smashed-up limbs.

As the War went on, unprecedented numbers of women took on occupations that would have been unimaginable just a few years before. For the first time, girls and women had the freedom to choose what they wanted to do: they could “keep the home fires burning” and be in charge of their own destinies as well.

Poppy in the Field by Mary Hooper is being published by Bloomsbury on the 7th of May! 

REVIEW: Poppy In the Field by Mary Hooper (Poppy, #2) #CountdownYA

I absolutely loved the first book in this duology, Poppy, and was hugely, incredibly excited to find out how the story would end in this fantastic sequel, Poppy in the Field by Mary Hooper! It's being published by Bloomsbury on the 7th of May, and honestly? It's well worth reading.

I think what I loved so much about Poppy and about Poppy in the Field is that Mary Hooper has this fantastic way of weaving in great amounts of historical detail into an interesting narrative without the story feeling in any way educational or bogged down.  Everything flows very naturally and it's all incredibly fascinating.  That's what I felt when I was reading both books. But I also really cared for Poppy and her friends and family. And about the men who she comes across in her job as a voluntary nurse during World War I. Some of these men only come briefly into the story but all of the soldiers ended up having an impact on the story.

And then there's the romance element.  Despite the tag line on this book - 'Heartbreak on the front line' - I think another one of my favourite elements of these two stories is that there is a romantic aspect to the story, but Poppy's own experiences in the war effort, her relationships with the other nurses and telling the stories of women in WWI and of the soldiers' experiences and the different medical advances that take place, for me anyway, are at the forefront of these two books. And there is also a very satisfying and sweet and rather subtle romance as well.

The rest of this review will contain spoilers for the first book in the series, Poppy. If you have not yet read that book, and would like to, perhaps it would be best if you stopped reading now.

Poppy in the Field begins shortly after the dramatic ending of Poppy in which Poppy has found out that her sweetheart, Freddie de Vere, is now engaged to another woman and will be getting married very shortly. Poppy decides very suddenly to put her name down to volunteer as a nurse on the front line in an attempt to get over her broken heart. She knows it will be much more dangerous and difficult working overseas but she feels like this is a necessary change and she likes the idea of being useful during the war.

Unfortunately for Poppy, at the start, things don't go as well as she'd like.  She's assigned to a difficult ward Sister who gives her very little responsibility and the other nurses are unfriendly and stand-offish. Together with her broken heart, Poppy must muddle through.  And I loved seeing how well Poppy picks herself up following adversity.

Just as in the previous book, Poppy finds herself with some other nurse friends and endearing herself to her soldier patients. There are letters to her mother, her brother, the family friend who is supporting Poppy financially as a nurse and letters to Poppy's friend, Matthews. New characters are introduced in the form of American nurses, Dot and Tilly and old faces return such as Doctor Michael Archer.

And throughout we have Poppy Pearson, this strong, capable young woman taking things in her stride and doing the best she can. As I said above, I really love how much historical detail there is in this book without it ever feeling like it's crammed packed with history. It's just happens naturally in Poppy's conversations with those around her and we get a great glimpse of what the war was like in 1916.

I loved Poppy as a character. I loved her courage and tenacity. I loved her friendships and how professional she is as a volunteer nurse. I loved that she was heartbroken but still carried on as usual and eventually moves on. Poppy in the Field was a wonderful conclusion to Poppy's story and I really urge you to read it!

Interview with Sarah Naughton #UKYAExtravaganza

I am hugely excited today to be taking part in the amazing #UKYAExtravaganza blog tour to celebrate the massive author event that is taking part in Birmingham at the end of the month. Emma Pass and Kerry Drewery have done a wonderful job setting up the event and organising this great tour! Thank you so much for letting me take part in this :)

I'm so happy to be paired up with Sarah Naughton as well. She's super lovely and I've had a great time discovering a new author and to read books possibly outside of my normal comfort zone. I thought The Blood List was really great and I was fascinated throughout about the historical time period, the superstitions and the eventual witch hunt that occurs.

I hope you enjoy this interview with Sarah Naughton and if you'd like to know more about Sarah Naughton or her books, The Blood List and The Hanged Man Rises, do visit the following places:

Sarah Naughton on Facebook ... Sarah Naughton ... Sarah on Twitter

Hello and welcome to Fluttering Butterflies! Can you please introduce yourself and tell me a little something about your books?

I've written two books (not including the 300 or so languishing in my bottom drawer): The Hanged Man Rises, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Children's Book award, and The Blood List, both published by Simon and Schuster. They are both concerned with the supernatural, which I’ve always been fascinated by, despite my noisy skepticism (just because I don’t believe in ghosts doesn't mean I’m not scared of them…)


Both of your books are historical thrillers, what compels you to write about these historical time periods?


The idea comes first. With the Hanged Man Rises it was the idea of the possessed policeman and the boy trying to save him from himself. The Victorian era was the obvious setting, because of the huge popularity of spiritualism at that time, and consequent rich vein of subject matter.

The idea for the Blood List came after watching a heart-breaking documentary about the fate of disabled children in the medieval era. In those credulous times parents would become convinced that an ‘imperfect’ child was actually a fairy imposter left in place of their own ‘perfect’ baby. They would set about trying to get the babies switched back by inflicting various tortures on the ‘changeling’. As the plot developed to involve accusations of witchcraft, it made sense to set it during the witch fever of the 17th century.

At the beginning of The Blood List, Barnaby mentions having a great deal of free time. If you had a whole bunch of extra time to yourself, what might you be doing or learning?


I've never been one for extreme sports but since having children I have felt increasingly hobbled by the imperative of keeping them safe and well and, consequently, have begun to have wild fantasies about donning a bandanna and taking up arms in the fight against IS. Or more realistically, becoming a lifeboatwoman. I’d probably just do crosswords.


Both The Hanged Man Rises and The Blood List delve into some dark things. Child murderers and witch hunts. Did you ever have to pull back from writing these darker things?


Nah. I love it. Not gory Darren Shan stuff, which I just find repellent. I love psychological horrors like ‘A Good and Happy Child’ by Justin Evans and ‘Dark Matter’ by Michelle Paver – the latter of which I had to read in a bustling café in broad daylight because it was so effing terrifying. Scary books are a way for children to exercise their need for extreme feelings without putting themselves in genuinely dangerous situations. We have a psychological and probably evolutionary need to scare ourselves pantless. If you've been taught to look for wolves in the darkness you might manage to avoid being eaten.

The Blood List is filled with so much superstition surrounding the identification of changelings and witches to other more everyday things. What were some of the strangest superstitions you came across when researching?

I actually loved researching witchcraft and was even considering joining a coven until a psychic I met while writing The Hanged Man Rises advised against it… We’re all programmed to believe in magic: faith that the sun will rise every morning predates the scientific facts, after all. But with faith comes insecurity and a desire to keep sweet whomever we think might be wheeling the sun out every day, just for us. Even skeptics like myself derive a certain irrational sense of protection from saluting magpies and touching wood. Following my research into 17th century superstitions I keep a hagstone over the threshold of my front door to repel witch ingression and wear a pendant with a silver acorn, whose magical reputation dates back to druid times. I think a very small and primitive part of me actually believes they might do some good. (I drew the line at putting iron nails in my son’s cot).

One of my favourite aspects of The Blood List is the complicated relationships and dynamic between the members of the Nightingale family. Were there any particularly difficult aspects of these relationships for you to write or to get right?


The main characters in the Nightingale Family are based on people I know quite well, so all I did was slot them into the situation and my own familiarity with their characters told me how they would react. The tricky bit was making handsome, spoiled, arrogant Barnaby sympathetic enough at the beginning for people to relate to him and want to read on.

For what it's worth, I think Barnaby's character development throughout The Blood List was really well done! 

I always find it interesting to read about the witch hunts during this period of time. It's a leap, but if a similar campaign were launched in modern times, who do you think would be targeted or be accused of being witches?


Muslims, Jews, Poles, working mothers, people on benefits. The Daily Mail will no doubt decide. The older I get the more I feel those nebulous concepts we have such confidence in, like equality and justice and freedom, are so very fragile. States assassinate their enemies on our shores with no repercussions, our politicians fawn to oppressive dictators, terrorists gleefully massacre children. Perhaps we’ve lived through our golden age of enlightenment, and are slipping back into intolerance and barbarism. Guantanamo Bay seems like an endless Inquisition without even the blessed release of death.



I don't read very much historical YA but I'd love to read more. Can you share any historical YA recommendations with me?

Patrick Ness: he is the man. Diana Wynne Jones and her protégé Neil Gaiman. Suzanne Collins, although she’s hardly undiscovered. Melvin Burgess, Eoin Colfer, Philip Reeve and my teenage favourites: Robert Westall, Judy Blume and SE Hinton.

All excellent suggestions! ...But not many historical YA authors :)

What are your thoughts about the UKYA community?

It’s a wonderfully passionate and vibrant community, and extremely valuable to writers who otherwise get very little publicity. Publishing budgets are entirely devoted to the big names in childrens’ books, like JK Rowling and David Walliams, and without the bloggers some truly wonderful books would have been completely ignored. There doesn’t seem much in the way of reward for all your hard work, but I hope this is just a training ground and that many of you will go on to become authors in your own right.



You'll be appearing at the UKYA Extravaganza in Birmingham this month. Which authors are you most looking forward to meeting?

I always like meeting authors. After I left advertising I thought I’d miss the acerbic wit and quick-mindedness that characterizes a creative department, but it turns out writers are just as funny (just rather more self-deprecating). I’m particularly looking forward to seeing Emma Pass again. We did the Derbyshire Bookbash together a couple of years ago, and since then she has scaled the heady peaks of success. I’m going to ask her to sign my forehead.


A huge thank you for being on Fluttering Butterflies today!

Thanks to you too. See you on the 28th!