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

I am thrilled, delighted and honoured to host the exclusive cover reveal for Louise Beech's third novel; Maria In The Moon here on Random Things today.  Maria In The Moon will be published by Orenda Books in September.

I'm a huge fan of Louise Beech and read and reviewed her previous books here on Random Things: How To Be Brave (September 2015) and The Mountain In My Shoe (September 2016).

Maria In The Moon by Louise Beech
Published by Orenda Books ~ September 2017

A few words from the author:

I’m so excited to share with Anne the cover for my third novel, Maria in the Moon. In many ways, this is my favourite cover of all so far. It jumped out at me when I first saw it; the gorgeous starry backdrop, the beautiful Catherine-Maria as a half-moon, and the water swirling below. I hope you like it too. It will be released in September 2017.

So here is the blurb for Maria in the Moon

‘Long ago my beloved Nanny Eve chose my name. Then one day she stopped using 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 devastating deluge of 2007 and volunteers at

Flood Crisis, a horrifying memory emerges …and changes everything.

Dark, poignant and deeply moving, Maria in the Moon is an examination of the nature of memory, of truth, and of the defences we all build to protect ourselves, when reality is too disturbing to contemplate…

  

And here’s a little more about the inspiration behind the book...

Maria in the Moon has a special place in my heart. It was the first novel I wrote, back in 2007, just after we were flooded and I watched as our home was destroyed and many of our belongings ruined. To a backdrop of hammering and rebuilding, in a tiny rented house that I hated, on a makeshift metal trolley on wheels, I typed my first manuscript. It was a labour of love in which I dealt with all the losses.

The story was inspired not only by my flood experience - and how I’d felt violated seeing our house under three feet of muddy, sewage-filled water - but by my time as a Samaritan volunteer. Manning the busy phones to a thousand lonely, sad, and often desperate callers was one of the most difficult but rewarding things I’ve ever done. A world of stories. So, naturally, as a teller of stories, they haunted me long after.

Catherine-Maria – as she was called until she reached ten – came strongly to me as the novel’s lead character right from the start. She’s my most feisty female, and possibly the lead I’ve most identified with so far. I loved the theme of water yet again pouring into my work, this time flushing out the truth. Catherine has lost the greatest thing we can ever lose – part of her memory. And finding it will be a greater challenge than losing her home, dealing with a broken relationship, and helping others at Flood Crisis.

Wow! Doesn't this sound wonderful?  I'm very very excited about Maria In The Moon, I can't wait to read it!

Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Brave was a Guardian Reader's Choice for 2015. She regularly writes travel pieces for the Hull Daily Mail, where 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 is also part of the Mums' Army on Lizzie and Carl's BBC Radio Humberside Breakfast Show.
The Mountain in My Shoe was longlisted for the 2016 Not The Booker Prize.

Follow her on Twitter @LouiseWriter

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