16th Sep 2019 – White Tulip Candles

PUBLISHERS BLURB

Outer London, September 2016, and neighbouring eight-year-olds have homework: prepare a traditional story to perform with their families at a school festival. But Nathan’s father thinks his son would be better off doing sums; Sky’s mother’s enthusiasm is as fleeting as her bank balance, and there’s a threatening shadow hanging over poor Alka’s family. Only Mandeep’s fragile grandmother and new girl Xoriyo really understand the magical powers of storytelling. As national events and individual challenges jostle for the adults’ attention, can these two bring everyone together to ensure the show will go on?

MY REVIEW

The Magic Carpet is set in a London school, where young children of 8 years old are turning fairy tales into a school performance.

They have been told they can make any changes they like and include anyone they want to.

So we follow the children to their homes and meet their families…..all from different backgrounds and it’s really a beautiful way of hearing all these stories. The different cultures, religions and languages and how they managed to make their lives in London.

There are grandparents, single parents, good and bad marriages and some sadness as there’s not always a happy ending….

A lovely diverse group of children and adults and not forgetting the difficult job the teachers do with almost limitless patience.

The final performances the children have created are thoughtful and show how the young really hold the power to change the world and our perceptions of it. Moving and thought provoking.

Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour and for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book. This is my honest, unbiased review.

You can buy a copy here

https://amzn.to/2NgfAbQ

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jessica Norrie was born in London and studied French Literature and Education at Sussex and Sheffield. She taught English, French and Spanish abroad and in the UK in settings ranging from nursery to university. She has two adult children and divides her time between London and Malvern, Worcestershire.

She has also worked as a freelance translator, published occasional journalism and a French textbook, and blogs at https://jessicanorrie.wordpress.com

Jessica sings soprano with any choir that will have her, and has been trying to master the piano since childhood but it’s not her forte.

She left teaching in 2016. The Infinity Pool was her first novel, drawing on encounters while travelling. Her second novel The Magic Carpet is inspired by working with families and their children. The third is bubbling away nicely and should emerge from her cauldron next year.

The Magic Carpet is available at https://tinyurl.com/y2gk2g7q

The Infinity Pool is available at getBook.at/TheInfinityPool

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/wordsandfictions/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jessica_

PUBLISHERS BLURB

Alice works for Jaffle Tech incorporated, the world’s biggest technology company and the creator of the Jaffle Port, the brain implant that gives users direct access to global communications, social networks and every knowledge source on the planet.

Alice is on Jaffle Standard, the free service offered to all people. All she has to do in return is let Jaffle use a bit of her brain’s processing power. Maybe it’s being used to control satellites. Maybe it’s being used to further space exploration. Maybe it’s helping control self-driving cars on the freeway. Her brain is helping Jaffle help the world. And Jaffle are only using the bits of her brain she doesn’t need…

But when a kind deed goes wrong, Alice gains unauthorised access to her entire brain and discovers what she has been missing out on her entire life: music, art, laughter, love…

Now that she has discovered what her mind is truly capable of, how long will the company bosses let her keep it?

7DB1BC75-9B48-4CB0-AF5D-80B6119387DC

MY REVIEW

Oh my, where do I start…..?

Alice works for Jaffle Inc, they developed a brain port that gives everyone access to information, eliminated the dementia epidemic and blindness. In return you agree to Jaffle using the unused part of the brain for data processing, everything from traffic to terrorists….

There are many levels of Jaffle, from Jaffle Lite, cleaners and janitors to Jaffle Freedom where you have access to your full brain…..all at a cost!

Everyone is bland, doing their job and living a life of structure and beans….

But then Alice helps Rufus Jaffle with a brain virus issue and as a result she ends up with his memories, and access to her brain……oh and a blue whale.

She then notices colours, smells and taste…..she starts to laugh for the first time….she also experiences anger and emotions for the first time.

With the building supervisor, Herberg she finds out about a new upgrade due which will reduce people to basic drones…….Can they stop the upgrade? How can the blue whale help?

Alice is a great character, wild and wacky and a reformed lover of bacon. Hattie is just brilliant and as for wiggler, never underestimate a pig.

This is full of humour, the whale with a tail is hilarious, it’s a clever tale of large corporations making decisions that affect human lives with little respect or consideration, just for power and greed. At times slightly bizarre but this science fiction tale is an immensely enjoyable read.

Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour and for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book. This is my honest, unbiased review.

you can buy a copy here

https://amzn.to/2QbWaqP