#blmonthsprompt

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Bookish question

What's your favourite book by an author local to where you live?

Me and my friends are doing a read local challenge this month so I'm interested in finding out other potentially unknown authors.

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I know it’s nearly halfway through the month but August is read local month! So I’d like to encourage booklr to get into action and do something for it!

I’d like to know more about your favourite local bookshops, any locally published books or any books by local authors. So please post reviews, recommendations, photos or anything really relating to reading locally and tag it #blreadlocalmonth and #blmonthsprompt or even just drop me a message for a chat.

I feel like booklrs been a bit quiet recently and I’ve haven’t felt involved in it for a few years tbh so thats why I’ve decided to do this :)

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Bookish question

All local bookshops seem to have a quirk. What interesting quirks does your local bookshop have?

Leakey's bookshop in Inverness has all the typical charms of a local bookshop; piles upon piles of books, interesting nooks and crannies and a drole owner who seems grumpy at first. My favourite thing about it though, is the wood burner in the middle of the room. It always has a roaring fire in the winter even though it doesn't seem safe surrounded by piles of paper.

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Local Author | Claire Allan who is from Derry, my hometown!

Book | Her Name Was Rose

Synopsis | When Emily lets a stranger step out in front of her, she never imagines that split second will change her life. But after Emily watches a car plough into the young mother – killing her instantly – she finds herself unable to move on. And then she makes a decision she can never take back. Because Rose had everything Emily had ever dreamed of. A beautiful, loving family, a great job and a stunning home. And now Rose’s husband misses his wife, and their son needs a mother. Why couldn’t Emily fill that space? But as Emily is about to discover, no one’s life is perfect … and not everything is as it seems.

Rating | 4/5

Personal thoughts |At first I was cynical of the first person narrative and by the fact that this was Allan’s first venture out of chick lit. In the beginning it had some tropes of chick lit however as the first person narrative developed, an unreliable narrator was used top great effect. As a result you questioned Emily’s state of mind turning Her Name Was Rose into a true psychological thriller. Having it set in Derry personally made it very familiar and I could easily picture the people described. This was a quick and exciting read and I would recommend it. 

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We share too much, you know. All of us. Even those of us who swear we don’t. We let it out in our behaviour. What we like. What we don’t. The pages we follow. The clothes we wear in our pictures. Our inspirational quotes. Our lack of inspirational quotes. The music we share. The things we write when we’re tired. Or emotional. Or drunk. The life we let people see. The life we let ourselves believe. It’s strange how we can convince ourselves our Facebook life is our actual life–because we want it so desperately to be. I did anyway. I found my Facebook life, where things were good and glossed over, very difficult to let go of when it all ended because I knew people–who I had perhaps done my best to make jealous–would enjoy some sort of Schadenfreude when it all went tits up.

Her Name Was Rose - Claire Allan