Blog Tour: Darling Blue by Tracy Rees
Tracy Rees is a firm favourite author of mine (here you can find my reviews of her wonderful Amy Snow and Florence Grace), so I was delighted to be asked to be a part of the blog tour for her latest novel Darling Blue.
Blue lives a charmed life. From her family's townhouse in Richmond, she lives the life of luxury and couldn't want for anything - well, on the surface at least.
Then on the night of her twenty-first birthday her father makes a startling toast: he will give his daughter's hand to whichever man can capture her heart best in the form of a love letter. But Blue has other ideas and, unwilling to play at her father's bewildering games, she sets out on her own path to find her own destiny...
1920s fiction has always appealed to me. It's a lively and glamorous era, a time of freedom and excess, of colour and excitement, and Tracy captures the essence of it perfectly.
The focus of this novel is, of course, Ishbel 'Blue' Camberwell, but through the narrative we also follow the stories of two other women - Delphine Foley, a woman on the run from an abusive husband who finds refuge with the Camberwells, and Blue's stepmother Midge who is carrying secrets and worries of her own. All three women are very different but I found their stories equally engaging. Blue herself comes across as a moral and caring person, but she's also very assertive and certainly knows her own mind. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her!
As in Tracy's other novels, Darling Blue boasts secondary characters aplenty, but they all have fully fleshed personalities and I grew attached to a great number of them. Kenneth, Blue's father, I loved from the start - just like every other woman who has crossed his path I was instantly charmed by him. In fact Blue's entire family are just lovely, which makes for a refreshing change in fiction these days. There's a real warmth to them all, and their home, Ryan's Castle, becomes a character in itself - a solid family home, a place of safety and respite from the outside world.
The novel begins on Blue's 21st birthday, when a drunken announcement from her father sets the male population of Richmond vying for her hand through the art of letter writing. But this is only part of the story. Themes of love and loss, of family and friendship are all explored and examined over the course of the novel. At over 500 pages this is a fairly hefty read, but one well worth taking your time over and fully immersing yourself in. It's gently compelling, and I'll admit that I was sad to leave Blue and the rest of the gang when I reached the end!
Be sure to follow the Blog Tour for more content on this wonderful book!
Then on the night of her twenty-first birthday her father makes a startling toast: he will give his daughter's hand to whichever man can capture her heart best in the form of a love letter. But Blue has other ideas and, unwilling to play at her father's bewildering games, she sets out on her own path to find her own destiny...
1920s fiction has always appealed to me. It's a lively and glamorous era, a time of freedom and excess, of colour and excitement, and Tracy captures the essence of it perfectly.
The focus of this novel is, of course, Ishbel 'Blue' Camberwell, but through the narrative we also follow the stories of two other women - Delphine Foley, a woman on the run from an abusive husband who finds refuge with the Camberwells, and Blue's stepmother Midge who is carrying secrets and worries of her own. All three women are very different but I found their stories equally engaging. Blue herself comes across as a moral and caring person, but she's also very assertive and certainly knows her own mind. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her!
As in Tracy's other novels, Darling Blue boasts secondary characters aplenty, but they all have fully fleshed personalities and I grew attached to a great number of them. Kenneth, Blue's father, I loved from the start - just like every other woman who has crossed his path I was instantly charmed by him. In fact Blue's entire family are just lovely, which makes for a refreshing change in fiction these days. There's a real warmth to them all, and their home, Ryan's Castle, becomes a character in itself - a solid family home, a place of safety and respite from the outside world.
The novel begins on Blue's 21st birthday, when a drunken announcement from her father sets the male population of Richmond vying for her hand through the art of letter writing. But this is only part of the story. Themes of love and loss, of family and friendship are all explored and examined over the course of the novel. At over 500 pages this is a fairly hefty read, but one well worth taking your time over and fully immersing yourself in. It's gently compelling, and I'll admit that I was sad to leave Blue and the rest of the gang when I reached the end!
Be sure to follow the Blog Tour for more content on this wonderful book!
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