The Quiet People by Paul Cleave BLOG TOUR @PaulCleave @OrendaBooks #TheQuietPeople #YeahNoir #PerfectCrimeClub #BookReview

 

Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful New Zealand crime writers, happily married and topping bestseller lists worldwide. They have been on the promotional circuit for years, joking that no one knows how to get away with crime like they do. After all, they write about it for a living.

So when their challenging seven-year-old son Zach disappears, the police and the public naturally wonder if they have finally decided to prove what they have been saying all this time… 

Are they trying to show how they can commit the perfect crime?

Electrifying, taut and immaculately plotted, The Quiet People is a chilling, tantalisingly twisted thriller that will keep you gripped and guessing to the last explosive page.

The Quiet People by Paul Cleave is published in paperback on 25 November 2021 by Orenda Books. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this Blog Tour.

I read a lot of crime fiction, lots and lots of it. I can cope with most subjects and I just love to be thrilled. The Quiet People made me feel anxious, not in a bad way, but in a heart stopping, mouth-drying, eager to know more way. It is an incredible read, one that had me turning the pages frantically, and gasping at every single unexpected event that the author throws at us.

I do love a book that features the world of publishing, and this one has two crime authors as the main characters. Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are a crime writing duo whose books are best sellers in their homeland of New Zealand, and across the globe. Cameron and Lisa are also married, they have a small son Zach.

Zach is not the easiest of children. He has regular meltdowns that the couple try to manage as best they can. This particular day has been especially fraught. Cameron took Zach to the fair where he lost sight of him for a short while. In his panic whilst trying to find him, he upset more than one person. It's all documented on phone cameras and film. 

Zach doesn't really settle that night and in the morning he is missing. Gone, vanished from his room. He's threatened to run away many times, but there's a large footprint under his window.

Over the years Cameron and Lisa have made many comments about plotting the perfect crime, about being able to murder someone and get away with it. People remember these things, and the media make much of their previous comments. Soon, not only are they two people desperately worried about their small son, they are also suspects. 

What this author does, and what caused my anxiety is pull the reader in, right at the beginning, with an explosive prologue. The reader is sure that they know exactly what happened to Zach, and it's clever, so very very clever. I was constantly questioning myself, and without that intriguing and compelling prologue the reader would most certainly read this story in a totally different way. 

Please expect the unexpected, also be prepared for a fast paced read that will take you places that you really don't expect. Be prepared for the massive impact on the Murdochs of having enemies, especially one who has access to millions of people via social media. 

This is an exploration of family and the impact of fame, success and challenging behaviour. As the characters develop, so does the reader's opinion of them, and believe me, you will change your mind many times. 

The Quiet People is so very very intense, so dark and utterly compelling. Paul Cleave writes with such power and such force. This is crime fiction at its best and one of my favourite books of this year so far. 

Paul is an award winning author who often divides his time between his home city of
Christchurch, New Zealand, where most of his novels are set, and Europe. 

He’s won the New Zealand Ngaio Marsh Award three times, the Saint-Maur book festival’s crime novel of the year award in France, and has been shortlisted for the Edgar and the Barry in the US and the Ned Kelly in Australia. 

His books have been translated into over twenty languages. He’s thrown his Frisbee in over forty countries, plays tennis badly, golf even worse, and has two cats – which is often two too many. 

Follow Paul on Twitter @PaulCleave, and his website: paulcleave.com

The Last Days of Ellis Island by Gaelle Josse (translated by @NatashaLehrer) BLOG TOUR @WorldEdBooks @RKbookpublicist @RandomTTours #TheLastDaysOfEllisIsland

New York, November 3, 1954. In a few days, the immigration inspection station on Ellis Island will close its doors forever. John Mitchell, an officer of the Bureau of Immigration, is the guardian and last resident of the island. As Mitchell looks back over forty-five years as gatekeeper to America and its promise of a better life, he recalls his brief marriage to beloved wife Liz, and is haunted by memories of a transgression involving Nella, an immigrant from Sardinia. Told in a series of poignant diary entries, this is a story of responsibility, love, fidelity, and remorse. 

The Last Days of Ellis Island by Gaelle Josse is published in paperback by World Editions on 10 December 2020 and is translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer.

My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review for this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour 

I've always been fascinated by immigration; the reasons why people leave their homes to start new lives in places that they may not have visited before. I'm from an Irish background and there's a long, and often brutal history of migration from Ireland and Ellis Island - the gateway to the United States played a huge part in the stories of every person who landed on the shores of America, in the search of a better life.

The Last Days of Ellis Island is a short read at just over two hundred pages, but it is one that has a huge impact on the reader. Gaelle Jose is a poet and that is so abundantly clear in this quite magical story. It's perfectly translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer.

Told in the form of diary entries by John Mitchell, it's an exploration of the mind of a man who isolated himself from people, and from the rest of the US. Mitchell spent his entire working life on Ellis Island, beginning as a lowly clerk and gradually making his way up until he was the man in charge.

Ellis Island is due to close. Immigration procedures have changed over the years, and most probably for the better. There's no more use for the Island and John is the only person left. He's packed up, taken an inventory and now is writing down his innermost thoughts.

John Mitchell is a deep, incredibly complex character and even though the reader only hears from him, and doesn't see the views of other people who may have know him, there's a real feeling of honesty and truth in his words. He certainly doesn't paint himself in the greatest light; recalling sadnesses and regrets over the years. Mitchell is aware that he's behaved badly, he knows that his actions have often shaped the future for other people. He doesn't deny that, however, he doesn't apologise either. He says what he did, and why.

I was entranced by this book and read it in one sitting. Josse captures the absolute terror and fear that the people who arrived at Ellis Island felt. As they are subjected to the twenty-nine questions, knowing that their answers will seal their future, the reader can also feel the anticipation and hope felt, and also the abject despair if their entry is denied. 

John Mitchell makes reference to one particular Italian ship, and its passengers. This particular shipment of people probably had the greatest effect on him, as a person, and as an officer. He did things, and made decisions at this time that are difficult to read and absorb, but add such a depth to this story.

The Last Days of Ellis Island has quite rightly won many awards. Gaelle Josse is an accomplished and talented author. Her story is fiction, but some of her characters did exist. She has taken a place and one man and created a story that outlines the suffering, hope and at times depravity of humankind. 

A story to read and remember by an an author to watch.

Gaelle Josse holds degrees in law, journalism, and clinical psychology. Formerly a poet, she published her first novel, Les Heures silencieuses ('The Quiet Hours'), in 2011.

Josse went on to win several awards, including the Alain Fournier Award in 2013 for Nos vie desaccordees ('Our Out-Of-Tune Lives').

After spending a few years in New Caledonia, she returned to Paris, where she now works and lives.

Josse received the European Union Prize for Literature for The Last Days of Ellis Island, along with the Grand Livre du Mois Literary Prize.

Natasha Lehrer won a Rockower Award for Journalism in 2016, and in 2017 was awarded the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for her translation of Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger.

www.natashalehrer.com

Twitter @NatashaLehrar

The exterior of the Ellis Island immigration inspection station in 1907.

 

Smith Collection/Gado—Getty Images

Heart, Be At Peace by Donal Ryan #HeartBeAtPeace #DonalRyan @DoubledayUK #BookReview

 

Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two...

In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.

But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch…

Told in twenty-one voices, Heart, be at Peace is a heartfelt, lyrical novel that can be read independently, or as a companion to Donal Ryan’s multi-award-winning novel, The Spinning Heart, voted ‘The Irish Book of the Decade’.

Heart, Be At Peace by Donal Ryan is published in hardback on 8 August 2024 by Doubleday. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review. 

It is a very fine, and talented author that can tell the story of a whole town, its history, its present and the hope for its future in just under 200 pages, and in twenty-one different voices. Donal Ryan achieves this. His writing is an absolute joy, his setting is vivid described and the characters are just incredible.

Each and every one of these twenty-one characters is unique, with a different voice, a different style of narrative, with differing views and sometimes completely contrasting thoughts about the same circumstances. 

This is not a linear novel, the reader is hurled back and forwards, from person to person, from era to era, yet the incredible interweaving of each voice works so very well. We may learn something quite vague in one chapter, we may wonder how or why one particular incident is relevant to the story, and then, we hear about that happening again, from a different character and everything just falls into place. 

It is basically the story of a small Irish town and the people who live there. The town is changing, and although there have been tragedies and hard times in the past, it is the dark shadows of a fresh menace that is the focus of this story. 

The story is full of compassion, it is often brutal, sometimes coarse, there are scenes that will make the reader laugh out loud and there are those that tear a small piece away from your heart. This is a raw and totally human look at people, and community and relationships. 

An epic novel, yet a slim volume. This is one of the most beguiling stories, with some of the sharpest, most lyrical writing that I've read in many a year. Highly recommended. 

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. 

The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. 

His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. 

His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. 

Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. 

He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard #TheOtherValley #ScottAlexanderHoward @AtlanticBooks #BookReview

 

For fans of Emily St John Mandel and Kazuo Ishiguro, an exhilarating literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighboured by its own past and future, and a young girl who faces an impossible choice...

A literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future

Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town--except to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.

When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme––who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly see Odile––is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate, yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard was published in hardback on 18 April 2024 by Atlantic Books. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review. 

I adore speculative fiction, I think, if pushed, I'd say it was my favourite genre and this debut from the incredibly talented Scott Alexander Howard is so brilliantly done. It is like nothing I've read before, a mix of beautiful lyrical literary prose with a unique premise that creates questions for the reader. 

Before I go further, I have to let you know that there are no speech marks in this book. I didn't actually notice this when reading, it was only when I went back to find a quote that I realised. I know that some people really dislike a lack of speech marks, that is why I mention it, but honestly, for me, it made no difference at all. 

Sixteen year old Odile Ozanne is the lead character and narrator of this novel. It is her mother's dearest wish that Odile becomes an apprentice in the Conseil, most people who know her think that this is her destiny, that she's the perfect candidate. 

The Conseil is a committe of trained people who give permission for residents to travel to the two neighbouring valleys.  There are three identical communities, in three valleys. Odile's community is in the middle valley. The valley to the east is twenty years in the future, and to the west it is twenty years in the past. It's a forbidden, dangerous journey to travel to another valley, and applications must be made to the Conseil. Applicants must have genuine reasons to travel, and the Conseil must be sure that they will do nothing whilst there to interfere with what has happened, or may happen. 

Odile glances a couple of visitors to her valley. They are easily identifiable as people from the other valley, escorted by guards and wearing masks. Residents are told not to look, but it's too late for Odile. She recognises them, and also then realises that her dear friend Edme is going to die. Odile knows that she can do nothing to stop this, but what a painful place to be in. 

The second part of the book finds an older Odile. She's not in the place that I as a reader expected, although I think it's the place that she feels that she deserves. The contrast between the early Odile and the more mature one is startling, even her surroundings seem darker and more cruel. The people she meets are fickle and unreliable, and yet, she is still so strong willed despite her fragility. 

This is a difficult book to review as the plot is so complex, yet absolutely finely and delicately structured. It is full of moral questions, it is a love story but is not romantic. The reader is shown so many dilemmas, so many questions to answer, so many ways that the story could move forward. There are times that it is so heart-felt and so poignant that it brought a lump to my throat. 

Just phenomenal, unique and quite stunning. Highly recommended

Scott Alexander Howard has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto, where he wrote an award-winning dissertation on literary emotions and the passage of time. 

His articles have appeared in journals such as Philosophical Quarterly and Analysis. 

Upon completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard, he decided to pursue fiction. 

He now lives in Vancouver.

Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop @VicHislop

Week after week, the postcards arrive, addressed to a name Ellie does not know, with no return address, each signed with an initial: A.

With their bright skies, blue seas and alluring images of Greece, these cartes postales brighten her life. After six months, to her disappointment, they cease. But the montage she has created on the wall of her flat has cast a spell. She must see this country for herself.

On the morning Ellie leaves for Athens, a notebook arrives. Its pages tell the story of a man's odyssey through Greece. Moving, surprising and sometimes dark, A's tale unfolds with the discovery not only of a culture but also of a desire to live life to the full once more.

Beloved, bestselling author Victoria Hislop's Cartes Postales from Greece is fiction illustrated with photographs that make this journey around Greece, already alive in the imagination, linger forever in the mind.

Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop is published by Headline Review in hardback, ebook and audiobook on 22 September 2016.

Check out my thoughts on some of her previous novels on Random Things: The Thread (October 2011); The Last Dance & Other Stories (July 2013) and The Sunrise (September 2014).

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of Greece. I fell in love with that beautiful country, and its people twenty years ago and have been lucky enough to visit twice a year ever since. I haven't really gone off the beaten track, sticking to the islands such as Corfu, Crete, Zakynthos, Kos, Rhodes, Ithaka, Kefalonia, Lefkada and Kos. We always travel early in the season, and then later on and as it's usually fairly quiet, we get to know the locals. Our friends in Arillas, in north-west Corfu are almost like family, we've been visiting them for ten years.

During our late-night discussions, usually over countless glasses of village red wine and shots of Metaxa, or Ouzo, but never, never Tsipouru (evil stuff!), we talk about the economy, politics, family, tradition and generally put the world to rights. In Cartes Postales From Greece, Victoria Hislop brings to life those people that I've come to love, with their incredible hospitality and their zest for life. Their anger at what is happening to their country, their despair about the past, are quite perfectly portrayed.

"Everywhere I stopped strangers talked to me, and many of them told me a story. Their voices poured into the void, filling the silence that you had left.

You will recognise some of the places in the stories, from the postcards.

Who knows if the tales people told me are true or false? I suspect that some of them are complete fabrications, others are exaggerations - but perhaps some of them are real. You can decide."

The story begins with Ellie, and the mysterious postcards that arrive through her letterbox. Addressed to S Ibbotson, and each signed with just an initial - A. Ellie realises that S Ibbotson was the previous occupant of her dreary flat in London, and wonder who A is, and what was their relationship, and why do the messages on the back of the cards sound so sad? The cards are all from Greece. Ellie pins them up in her kitchen, they bring a splash of sunshine into her otherwise dull life.

On the spur of the moment, Ellie decides that she will travel to Greece. She wants to experience the places on the front of the postcard, she's desperate for something more than her boring job, in wintry London. On the morning that she leaves, a notebook is delivered to her flat, she stuffs it into her bag and departs for Athens.

From there, Cartes Postales From Greece becomes the story of 'A', his stories of his travels through Greece, all detailed in the notebook. He recounts how he meets the locals, he re-tells the stories that they share with him. He opens his heart to S Ibbotsen, with honesty and quite painfully at times.

Cartes Postales From Greece is beautifully illustrated with scenes from the places that A visits. Victoria Hislop worked with Greek photographer, Alexandros Kakolyris to create beautiful photographs to go with her words, they are stunning and add so much to this gorgeous story.

The author has  brought together stories from Grecian history and modern-day tales and has created a novel that will delight her readers. Anyone who has been to Greece will recognise these characters, those sunsets, those smells. She does not shy away from the troubles that this country has suffered, now and throughout history, and her words go some way to explain why the Greek people are angry, but also why they continue to love their homeland so much.

Wonderful storytelling. Cartes Postales From Greece evokes such a brilliant sense of place. Rich, vivid and beautifully told.

My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy of Cartes Postales From Greece for review.

Victoria Hislop read English at Oxford, and worked in publishing, PR and as a journalist before becoming a novelist. She is married with two children.

Her first novel, The Island, held the number one slot in the Sunday Times paperback charts for eight consecutive weeks and has sold over two million copies worldwide. Victoria was the Newcomer of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007 and won the Richard & Judy Summer Read competition.Victoria acted as script consultant on the 26-part adaptation of The Island in Greece, which achieved record ratings for Greek television.

Her second novel, The Return, set against the tempestuous backdrop of teh Spanish Civil war was also a Number One bestseller. She returned to Greece for her third novel, The Thread, taking as her backdrop the troubled history of the city of Thessaloniki in a story that spans almost a century, beginning with the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917. Her short story collection, The Last Dance and other Stories, was widely acclaimed.

In 2014, she published The Sunrise, a turbulent family saga set in Cyprus after the Turkish invasion of 1974 which would leave the glamourous resort town of Famagusta a ruin ringed by barbed wire for decades to come.

Her most recent book, Cartes Postales from Greece, an illustrated novel, is published in September 2016

Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Visit her website at www.victoriahislop.com
Find her Author page on Facebook
Follow her on Twitter @VicHislop

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Song Of The Robin by R V Biggs @RVBiggs BLOG TOUR #SongOfTheRobin #RandomThingsTours

The whispered voices and unsettling dreams were puzzling enough, but when the visions began, disquiet crept into Sarah Richards heart.Living a joyless and unfulfilled existence, Sarah’s life, however, is ordered and routine. But one autumn morning she sees a figure waving to her, the figure of a man more ghostly than real.Several times he appears, but is the spectre harmless, or are his intentions malevolent?Disturbed and intrigued, Sarah endeavours to understand the mystery, to identify her unknown stalker.But with each visitation, she becomes ever more bewildered, and as her ordered life begins to unravel, she questions the reality of all that she knows, and with mounting horror, even her own sanity.

Song Of The Robin by R V Biggs was published in paperback in April last year. As part of the #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today.

The muted melody of a popular Christmas song emanated from loudspeakers somewhere nearby and mingled with the loud hum of voices and general background noise. While she waited for Rachel, Sarah busied herself with people watching… a pastime she often enjoyed. Some bought coffee and mince pies or assorted cakes from a nearby coffee shop. Others queued for baked potatoes from a vendor who offered a variety of fillings from an old-fashioned oven on wheels. There was a boutique and a shoe shop close by, packed with younger women looking for pre-Christmas bargains or party dresses.

Sitting on her own, she shivered and pushed her hands into her pockets. She felt as if someone was watching her again and scanned the faces looking for anyone familiar.

This is annoying.

Where was this notion coming from? She was not in the habit of suffering from unwanted emotions, and little happened to her that was unexpected. Nor had she experienced anything out of the ordinary that robbed her of choice or self-control, so she stood up and walked to the balustrade that ran around the balcony of the indoor shopping mall.

Sarah stopped at the rail and peered down onto the ground floor, searching for any familiar face, though the futility of doing so didn’t escape her. It was impossible to be seen by someone who stood on the ground floor, but still she scrutinised everyone.

Without success, Sarah lifted her gaze and shifted her attention to the level where she stood. Amongst the hundreds of people milling around she recognised no one and in frustration turned back to the bench. As she did so, she spotted a stationary figure looking in her direction.

Through the gap between two enclosed glass elevators she saw a man standing immobile amidst the shifting sea of people.

He was looking straight at her.

In an instant, Sarah recognised him as the man who had waved to her earlier, but this time a worried expression softened his features as he began to walk around the balcony heading in her direction.

To her consternation and increasing fear, a second figure appeared behind the man, but this figure was featureless, pure white in colour and did not move. A halo hovered around the shape, a radiance that itself was white but threaded through with shades of purple. The aura spread out several yards and wafted back and forth as if moved by a gentle breeze. Even as she heard her name whispered once more, recognition furrowed her brow. Here was the same figure she had dreamt of, the figure that made her think of an angel. But that was a within a dream. How could she see such a spectacle with her waking eyes? Her whole body shivered as icy fingers played under her skin. Dragging her eyes back towards the man as he moved closer, she could hear him speaking her name as if he were whispering in her ear though he was still at least fifty yards away. Rooted to the spot, Sarah stared at him and with mounting horror noticed he was still visible even when other people walked in front of him. Her whole sense of logic and reality began to crumble as he then walked through a group of shoppers who stood chatting, and all the while the brilliant white glare shimmered in the background.

A sudden light touch brushed Sarah’s arm, and she jumped so much she let out a loud squeal.

She whirled around to a shocked Rachel.

‘Christ, where were you then!’ Rachel hissed, looking around in embarrassment. They were both aware of inquisitive eyes staring at them, but the shopping frenzy soon returned to the masses and no one paid any more attention.

Rachel grabbed her friend by the arm and began walking.

‘C’mon. You need coffee and I need an explanation as to why you’re behaving oddly this morning.’

In her urgency, Rachel pulled her friend back the way they had come and then taking the quickest route out to the street, steered Sarah down an escalator and into the open air.

Sarah was hardly aware of her movements… even though she stumbled several times as Rachel hurried towards Caffé Nero. Instead, her mind focussed on one thought and a thought that confounded her. Just as Sarah turned away when Rachel touched her arm, and despite the puzzling white figure, she half fancied the image of the man had shrunk to the size of a small child. A child?

As they emerged from the shopping centre, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and they walked in silence. Stinging raindrops lashed them in the face as they ran across Victoria Street and around the corner to the coffee shop. Once inside, Rachel spotted an empty table in a quiet corner by the window and made Sarah sit before she wandered off to place their order.

Still wracked with confusion at what had just occurred, Sarah took off her hat and coat and then sat still, hands on her lap, staring unseeing out of the window.

After a few moments her vision drifted back into focus, and to her dismay she saw the man now standing across the street by a newsagent’s shop. This time he was alone and stayed where he was, gazing in her direction.

Sarah dragged her eyes away and lowered her head, fixing her sight on the table in front. Feeling disconnected again as if observing from a distance, she saw herself lean forward, fold her arms as if for protection and, for the first time, felt a faint flutter of panic.

R V Biggs lives in a small ex-mining village near Wolverhampton, England, with his wife Julie, and Mags the black lab. He has four grown up children and six grandchildren.

Walking with the dog is a favorite pastime and much of the story line for his first novel was developed during these lengthy outings.

Robert worked for 35 years in telecommunications but changed career paths to a managerial supporting role within a local Mental Health NHS trust. It was during the period between these roles that the concept for Song of the Robin was born.

Robert is a firm believer that destiny and co-incidence exist hand in hand and this conviction extends to his writing. He has a passion for holistic well-being and after first-hand experience of the potential healing powers of Reiki, a form of energy therapy, took a Reiki level 1 training course to heighten his spiritual awareness. Robert’s experiences in these areas helped conceive the ideas that led to Song of the Robin and its sequel Reunion, novels with central themes of fate, love and the strength of family. His writing however is not fantasy but is set in modern times involving real people living real lives.

Twitter @RVBiggs