Blog Tour Book Review & Giveaway: Playground Zero by Sarah Relyea

Playground Zero

by

Sarah Relyea

Publisher: She Writes Press

Publication date: 9th June 2020

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 416

Format Read: eBook

Source: Courtesy of  Stephanie Barko - Literary Publicist

1968. It’s the season of siren songs and loosened bonds—as well as war, campaign slogans, and assassination. When the Rayson family leaves the East Coast for the gathering anarchy of Berkeley, twelve-year-old Alice embraces the moment in a hippie paradise that’s fast becoming a cultural ground zero. As her family and school fade away in a tear gas fog, the 1960s counterculture brings ambiguous freedom. Guided only by a child’s-eye view in a tumultuous era, Alice could become another casualty—or she could come through to her new family, her developing life. But first, she must find her way in a world where the street signs hang backward and there’s a bootleg candy called Orange Sunshine.

Playground Zero is a finely written work of Historical Fiction set in Berkeley, California during the years 1968 – 1971. The story follows Alice Rayson from the age of 10 to 13 years, when she and and her family lived in Berkeley. Alice finds it hard to fit in after moving from Washington, D.C. where she had many friends. Berkeley had a very different culture to Washington, D.C. With her parents, Marian and Tom, concentrating on their own lives and problems they give Alice free reign to make her own decisions and mistakes. With her father’s frequent absences and her mother’s apathy Alice feels she has no one to talk to and confide in.

Sarah Relyea’s look back at the psychedelic 60’s through the eyes of a pre-teen was eye-opening and heart-breaking. She includes details of the political unrest of the time, the Peace and Freedom Movement, civil protests, demonstrations and police confrontations.

Told in multiple points of view the Rayson family were finding their place during a time of great political upheaval for America with the ongoing controversy over the Vietnam war and the protests at the Berkeley Campus of the University of California.

Sarah Relyea’s writing is profound and haunting. With short sentences that flow effortlessly this is a literary style I enjoy reading.

Alice is a child living a lonely life desperately trying to fit in, be accepted, knowing what is right and wrong but lacking the maturity to say no, she tests the limits and runs wild.

Playground Zero is not a book to rush through. It is better to read it slowly, absorb the words and immerse yourself in the characters, their development and capture a picture of Berkeley at a crucial time in history.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Photo credit:Hunter Canning Photography

Born in Washington, D.C., Sarah Relyea left the Berkeley counterculture at age thirteen and processed its effects as a teenager in suburban Los Angeles. She would soon swap California’s psychedelic scene to study English literature at Harvard. Sarah is the author of Playground Zero: A Novel and Outsider Citizens: The Remaking of Postwar Identity in Wright, Beauvoir, and Baldwin. She remains bicoastal, living in Brooklyn and spending time on the Left Coast.

 

Visit the listed blogs to follow the rest of the tour.

Giveaway:

Thanks to Stephanie Barko Literary Publicist I have one eCopy of Playground Zero to give away. This competition is open internationally and closes at Midnight AEST 23rd June 2020.

Entry is via the form below. 

 

This giveaway is now closed and the winner was... SARAHMARY

Mailbox Monday & Life This Week - June 15th

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It now has a permanent home at the Mailbox Monday blog.

Life This Week is a meme created by Denyse Whelan Blogs where bloggers share snaps of what is currently happening in their lives.

Happy Monday!

What has been happening over the last two weeks!

There hasn't been much happening on the home front lately.

We had our first, in almost 3 months, cafe lunch where we could sit at a table and eat.

I've been madly knitting trying to get the jacket I'm knitting for Jay finished before he grows too much bigger. I'm not sure it is going to fit him but it's starting to look quite nice. Photos next time.

The council is building a children's playground at the end of our street. I've been very excited watching it go up. I only wish they had of built it 30 years ago. Although we will still get plenty of use out of it with the grandchildren.

My daughter had a small group of friends over for her birthday and made a gorgeous outdoor picnic. We have had a mixture of sunny, overcast and wet days so far this winter. She was lucky enough to get one of the sunny days.

Books received over the last two weeks:

From the publisher:

The Girl in the Mirror by Rose Carlyle. (Pub date 4th August 2020)
Beautiful twin sisters Iris and Summer are startlingly alike, but beyond what the eye can see lies a darkness that sets them apart. Cynical and insecure, Iris has long been envious of open-hearted Summer's seemingly never-ending good fortune, including her perfect husband, Adam.
Called to Thailand to help sail the family yacht to the Seychelles, Iris nurtures her own secret hopes for what might happen on the journey. But when she unexpectedly finds herself alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean, everything changes.

Now is her chance to take what she's always wanted - the idyllic life she's always coveted. But just how far will she go to get the life she's dreamed about? And how will she make sure no one discovers the truth?

Finding Eadie by Caroline Beecham (Pub date 2nd July 2020)
War and dwindling resources are taking their toll on the staff of Partridge Press. The pressure is on to create new books to distract readers from the grim realities of the war, but Partridge's rising star, Alice Cotton, leaves abruptly and cannot be found.

Alice's secret absence is to birth her child, and although her baby's father remains unnamed, Alice's mother promises to help her raise her tiny granddaughter, Eadie. Instead, she takes a shocking action.

Theo Bloom is employed by the American office of Partridge. When he is tasked with helping the British publisher overcome their challenges, Theo has his own trials to face before he can return to New York to marry his fiancee.

Inspired by real events during the Second World War, Finding Eadie is a story about the triumph of three friendships bound by hope, love, secrets and the belief that books have the power to change lives.

I would love to hear what you received in the mail lately!

Book Bingo - Round 6: Themes of Culture #BookBingo2020

Red Dirt Country by Fleur McDonald

This week I have chosen the category 'Themes of Culture.'

The book I have chosen for this category is: Red Dirt Country.

Red Dirt Country is set in the Australian outback and revolves around cattle stealing on a few cattle stations. Dave Burrows becomes involved when the stock squad is called in to investigate.

Fleur McDonald includes themes of culture through the station run by an aboriginal tribe. There is some conflict between the young station manager and the elders as the younger generation want to do things differently than their older relatives. The elders hold to their traditions and superstitions. They do not want police involved, even though their cattle is being stolen, preferring a quiet existence.

You can read my full review HERE

____________________________________________________

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. The second Saturday of each month book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose.

#BookBingo2020 

 

 

Book Review: War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott

War Doctor

by

David Nott

Surgery on the Front line

Publisher: Pan Macmillan 
Imprint: Picador
Publication date: 26th February 2019
Genre: Memoir / Non Fiction
Pages: 320
RRP:  $29.99AUD
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world's most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.

The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal.

Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time has gone on, David Nott began to realize that flying into to a catastrophe - whether war or natural disaster - was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the Foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets.

David Nott has written a compassionate story of his years as a volunteer surgeon working in hospitals around the world in war torn areas in Afghanistan, Sarajevo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Darfur, Yemen and Gaza. Operating in poorly equipped hospitals with the most basic of instruments.

Nott didn’t come from a privileged background. He describes his sometimes harsh and lonely upbringing. He has achieved his accomplishments through hard work and perseverance. There were wins and failures along the way.

It’s hard for a book like this, with David in the centre of some quite political wars, to not be political however he steers clear of taking sides giving the reader facts and eye witness accounts.

David Nott comes across as humble and sensitive. The inhumanity he witnesses has a profound effect on him and he finds it hard to fit back into normal life. Nott explains his need to help people and the pull to be amidst the trouble and constant danger of a war zone, operating while missiles are reigning down and during sudden blackouts. Survival sometimes was just pure luck.

War Doctor is a fascinating and humbling account of a doctor’s life in a war zone. Written with real compassion for all humankind. David Nott is a true humanitarian.

An emotional afterword by David’s wife Eleanor is filled with love and pride.

  My rating 4.5/5           ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Photo credit Goodreads

David Nott is a Welsh consultant surgeon, specializing in general and vascular surgery. He works mainly in London hospitals, but for more than twenty-five years he has also volunteered to work in disaster and war zones. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Birthday Honours and in 2016 he received the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award and the Pride of Britain Award. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters. 

 

Book Review: The Hidden Beach by Karen Swan

The Hidden Beach

by

Karen Swan

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia 
Publication date: 28th April 2020
Genre: Contemporary Fiction / Romance
Pages: 400 
RRP: $32.99AUD
Format read: paperback 
Source: courtesy of the publisher

 In picturesque Stockholm, Bell Everhurst is working as a nanny for the perfect family. Hanna and Max Mogerts are parents to 9 year-old Linus, and 3-year old twins Elise and Tilde. 
One morning, as she’s rushing for the school run, Bell answers the phone – and everything changes. A woman from a clinic asks her to pass on the urgent message that Hanna’s husband is awake.Bell is confused. Max left the house just a few minutes earlier.
But soon the truth comes tumbling out: Hanna’s first husband fell into a coma seven years earlier, following an accident. Now he's awake. And he wants his family back.
As the city empties and everyone relocates for the summer to the beautiful tiny islands of the archipelago, they are all in crisis. Old wounds and new loves cannot exist side by side. Someone has to lose.
Caught in the middle, Bell tries to hold them all together, but she unwittingly becomes part of the problem. Under the midsummer sun, everything hangs in the balance - until a secret finally emerges that will decode all their fates.

Each year I look forward to Karen Swan’s latest offerings with their mysterious plots and evocative locations. More than ever, this year, armchair travel is the way to be taken away and immersed in the beautiful atmosphere of faraway places.

Bell, a 26 year old Britain now living in Stockholm, works as a nanny for the Mogert family – Hanna, Max, 3yo twins Elise & Tilde and 9yo Linus. Bell loved the children and quite often went above and beyond the regular nanny role working overtime. The Mogerts were like the perfect family until the phone call that Hanna’s husband had awoken from a 7 year coma comes. A call that could tear them apart.

Set in the idyllic archipelago islands where the family head for their summer holidays. Karen Swan skillfully depicts the carefree summer lifestyle but there is an underlying ominous feeling as Hanna goes out one night and Bell finds the children asleep, alone in the house.

Through The Hidden Beach Karen Swan explores the theme of family, what makes a family, the loss of family and a parent’s right to see their child. Bell feels the Mogerts are like family, she loves the children. But does she go above her nanny status when thinking there is making bad decisions regarding the children.

I loved that throughout the story we also had a good look at Bell’s personal life, outside her nanny job. Her friends were a fun lot and really cared about her.

Flash backs to earlier years built on the mystery and the twists come on subtley but have no less of an impact when revealed.

At times compelling and at other times heart-wrenching the anticipation and not knowing what was to come makes The Hidden Beach a captivating read.

  My rating 5/5           ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

photo credit: Goodreads

 Karen Swan began her career in fashion journalism before giving it all up to raise her three children and to pursue her ambition of becoming a writer. Her titles include Christmas in the Snow, Christmas at Tiffany's and The Summer Without You. She lives in Sussex and writes her books from a treehouse overlooking the Downs.

  

Click on the links below to read the reviews of other Karen Swan books I've read.
The Christmas Lights
The Christmas Party
The Spanish Promise
The Greek Escape