Someone Close to Home by Alex Craigie Blog Tour

Today is mine and the final stop on the blog tour, please check out the other stops as we all offer different content.




BLURB for the book

Talented pianist Megan Youngblood has it all – fame, fortune and Gideon.

But Gideon isn’t good enough for Megan’s ambitious, manipulative mother, whose meddling has devastating repercussions for Megan and for those close to her.

Now, trapped inside her own body, she is unable to communicate her needs or fears as she faces institutional neglect in an inadequate care home.

And she faces Annie. Sadistic Annie who has reason to hate her. Damaged Annie who shouldn’t work with vulnerable people.

Just how far will Annie go?

'Someone Close To Home' is a story of love, malice and deadly menace.

Buy Link from AMAZON



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alex Craigie was ten when her first play was performed at school. It was in rhyming couplets and all she can remember about it is that:

it was written in pencil in a book with weights and measures on the back the two heroes were Prince Rupert and his brother (whose name was changed to Sam to facilitate the rhyming process.) as writer, producer and director she ‘bagged’ the part of female lead. When her children were young, she wrote short stories for magazines and since then has fulfilled her ambition to write a novel. Someone Close to Home has won two ‘Chill with a Book’ awards – The Reader’s Award and the Book of the Month Award.

Alex lives in a small village in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and knows that she and her husband are lucky to have their children and grandchildren living nearby. It's often chaotic and noisy but these are her most treasured moments and she savours them - even if she's reduced to an immovable heap after they've gone.

As an independent author, without a big publishing machine behind her, she is very grateful to all the people who have found and bought her first book – and a huge thank you to those who’ve gone out of their way to write a review on Amazon or Goodreads. These reviews make a massive difference to ‘Indies’ and the positive ones encourage other readers to risk buying a copy.

What else can she say? Nothing, really. Writing this personal promotion has been very, very hard and she needs to go away now and lie down in a darkened room, preferably with a big bar of chocolate…

She looks forward to any contact from fellow lovers of books and any honest feedback is very welcome.

For my stop I have my review, enjoy

Someone Close to Home by Alex Craigie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - < 2 days

Pages - 383

Publisher - Ashford Carbonel Publishing

Source - Review copy

Blurb from Goodreads

"The book is brilliant. It reads like a memoir and grips like great fiction should - beautiful characterization"
Viga Boland - Author - No Tears For My Father

Talented pianist Megan Youngblood has it all – fame, fortune and Gideon.

But Gideon isn’t good enough for Megan’s ambitious, manipulative mother, whose meddling has devastating repercussions for Megan and for those close to her.

Now, trapped inside her own body, she is unable to communicate her needs or fears as she faces institutional neglect in an inadequate care home.

And she faces Annie. Sadistic Annie who has reason to hate her. Damaged Annie who shouldn’t work with vulnerable people.

Just how far will Annie go?


My Review


This is one of those books you think about long after you have read the last page, particularly if you have a loved one who is vulnerable or work in any kind of care setting. We open with someone in fear and thinking back to their parents as the chapter closes. The chapters flip between the main characters reminiscing back to their childhood and current situation. We know they are incapacitated but not why, we know they are in fear but not why.

The narration is told in first person, through Megan's recall of her memories and then going through and experiencing her current predicament. There is a lot of the book that makes for very uncomfortable reading, abuse is a strong theme throughout, mental, physical, emotional and coercion. I had to put the book down a few times as the author creates such a powerful visual you are drawn into the horror and terror the character feels. Some of the scenes are claustrophobic, the depravity and cruelty, dare I even say evilness of some human beings to others. I think any reader, regardless of background/family/personal experiences will have emotion evoked, I gasped out loud more than once.

When Craigie takes you back to Megan's younger years you want to read the recent years and when you are in the recent stuff you want to read the younger stuff. She reels you in ties your attention to both timelines, the book has so many layers you are kept on your toes, chapter to chapter - unsure where it is all headed or what darkness will be revealed next. The ugliness of some of the humans in this is repugnant but there is also examples of bravery, goodness, loyalty and love. 4.5/5 for me this time, this was my first dance with this author, it won't be my last!

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