The Ghost Bird Book Tour: My review -Wednesday 23 March 2016

Ghostbird

by

Carol Lovekin

Someone needs to be forgiven. Someone needs to forgive.

Nothing hurts like not knowing who you are.

Nobody will tell Cadi anything about her father and her sister. Her mother Violet believes she can only cope with the past by never talking about it. Lili, Cadi’s aunt, is stuck in the middle, bound by a promise she shouldn’t have made. But this summer, Cadi is determined to find out the truth.

In a world of hauntings and magic, in a village where it rains throughout August, as Cadi starts on her search, the secrets and the ghosts begin to wake up. None of the Hopkins women will be able to escape them.

‘Charming, quirky, magical’

Joanne Harris

‘Carol Lovekin’s prose is full of beautifully strange poetry.’

Rebecca Mascull, author of The Visitors and Song of the Sea Maid.

‘Drawing on nature, witchcraft, age-old fairytales and secrets,

Lovekin weaves a powerful, spellbinding tale.’

Judith Kinghorn, author of The Last Summer.

MY REVIEW

Fourteen year old Cadi Hopkins has grown up with her mother Violet and her Aunt Lili who live next door to each other in the village. A tragic accident claimed Cadi’s older sister Dora when she was four. Shortly after this, Violet’s husband Teilo was killed in a car crash. Her mother has never got over the loss of her elder daughter and husband, nor has she coped with the fact that shortly after Teilo’s death she found herself pregnant with Cadi.Her relationship with her daughter is therefore distant and lacking in any emotion. Lili is the one who provides the love and support and Cadi very often takes refuge with her aunt. someone she can talk to. As she grows neither her mother or aunt will tell her the truth about what really happened to her father and sister. Emotionally damaged Violet has chosen to deliberately bury the past and has sworn Lili to secrecy. All Cadi hears besides the whispers in the village is her mother’s constant warning to keep away from the lake. This summer, however, she is determined to discover what happened. Voices and ghostly occurrences together with the return of someone from her mother’s past all become part of her journey to find the truth.

This book has many component parts. First it is mysterious, filled with family secrets. Secondly it is mystical – Cadi’s connection with her dead sister’s spirit – a fledgling owl and the Ghost Bird of the title. And thirdly and perhaps most importantly, it a very human story about the damage we do to ourselves and others through our sometimes misguided beliefs. Happily Cadi’s quest for the truth brings eventual redemption for both the living and the dead.

Beautifully written it pulled me in from the very first page. It would make a great movie.

A magical and emotional read fully deserving of my five star award.

I would like to thank Honno Publishing for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

AUTHOR: Carol Lovekin was born in Warwickshire. She has Irish blood and a Welsh heart, and has lived in mid Wales for 36 years. She has worked as a cleaner, a freelance journalist, a counsellor, a legal secretary and a shop assistant. She began writing with a view to publication in her late fifties has published short stories, reviews and is a prolific letter writer. She has been blogging for over nine years. Ghostbird is her first traditionally published novel.