About the book…
But Delph’s protective bubble bursts when Roche moves in with her estranged nan, Moon. Feeling on the outside of the bond between her fierce-yet-flaky tarot-reading mother and volatile martial-arts-champion daughter, Delph begins questioning her own freedom. And when Roche’s snooping into her grandmother’s past unearths a familial line of downtrodden women; a worrying pattern emerges. Has keeping small and safe truly been Delph’s choice all these years.
Buy Links:
About the author…
Eva's love song to libraries, I Am Not Your Tituba forms part of Kit De Waal’s Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers. Her words have featured in Marie Claire, Grazia, Elle and The Big Issue, also penning the new foreword for the international bestselling author Jackie Collins Goddess of Vengeance.
Eva lives in Essex with her husband, children and dog.
Contact Links:
Twitter: @Evakinder
My thoughts…
In Bloom is a moving tribute to women across the generations. It is told from the perspectives of three generations of women from the same family - grandmother Moon, daughter Delph and grand-daughter Roche. Three seemingly very different women on the face of it with us the reader getting a fly on the wall insight into their lives as the chapters slip back and forth between the present and the past when Moon was a young girl, before Delph was born - but each more alike than any of them realise.
As the layers were stripped back it was as clear as day that the three women had more in common than they cared to see themselves and as their tales were told I genuinely felt my emotions swaying back and forth, with every emotion the polar opposite heartbreak, sadness, pain, joy, happiness and delight. In Bloom is the perfect title as this story traverses much hurt, pain and many, many secrets that we as a reader are told throughout from each of the three narratives.
Eva Verde has definitely perfected the art of giving an insight into the lives of each of the three women through her carefully chosen words, saying just enough to paint a vivid outline of a picture leaving the reader to join the dots and finish painting the picture themselves, leaving much to the readers imagination, images of each of them, their environments and emotions are firmly imprinted on my mind, the images going through multiple iterations throughout the story - from dull, washed out greys and pastels right through to the most vibrant colours giving relevance to the most perfect title of In Bloom.
Delph moving into her nan Moon’s home seemed reasonable, she wasn’t happy living at home at home with her mum and where else would you go but to your grand-mother’s. Moon however, isn’t your typical grandmother she exists in a house, she does not live in a home. She’s eclectic and very different and is keeping her past and secrets, buried beneath the very fabric of the clutter and dirt she lives in. Roche is inquisitive and before she knows it uncovers family secrets that Moon has tried hard to bury - as a reader I swung backwards and forwards in my thoughts silently giving advice to all three of them, often wondering how they could ever be related. Each of them so very alike stubborn, strong, determined with a fierce loyalty and love for each other - they just didn’t voice it. Such is the complicated and painful past - that when it’s uncovered causes more hurt and anguish than any of them realise before eventually their strength and fierce loyalty to each other shine through.
This is a story that I could see several different endings and my emotions were shaken throughout. I just loved this book so much and as a reader felt privileged to travel with them on their separate journeys to the same destination.
Follow the tour:
