Tag: Harper Perennial

Book Review | “Some Other Town” by Elizabeth Collison

Posted Friday, 6 March, 2015 by jorielov , , , 2 Comments

Ruminations & Impressions Book Review Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Sergey Zolkin.

Acquired Book By:

I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Some Other Town” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary ARC copy of the book direct from the publisher HarperCollins Publishers, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein. Except to say, shortly after I received my copy of “Some Other Town”, the blog tour itself was cancelled quite unexpectedly. I still was quite curious to read this novel, as it held such a curious plot inside it itching for me to discover where it would lead me to venture. Therefore, I picked a new date (originally the 3rd of March) to post my review off-tour. A few technical and life moments interrupting my plans, I’ve finally been able to share my thoughts on the 6th of March! I was thankful Trish @ TLC was able to help me with the book cover, synopsis, and author biography as my tech errors were driving me a bit batty ahead of my review!

Books to take a chance on:

You have to understand, I have a thirst for stories which do not fit within a ‘particular box of genre or literary category of interest’, and thus, this particular novel spoke to me to request! I have previously mentioned a bit about how it is to receive a list of books coming up for review and selection on a blog tour — this beautiful sub-culture of book bloggers who have found a niche within their own individual online world of bookish culture, news, and the geektastically brilliant joy of being wrapped inside the ‘art of discovering’ a new to me author!

I have a penchant for time slips and time travel narratives, but also, the more oblique and abstract of where time, dimension, and the human conscience travel within a narrative arc. The lines by which begin to blur between reality, dreams, and the innermost desires of a human mind to voyage inside as the person within the soul attempts to sort through a few things. This introspective pursuit of alighting within the partitions of ‘time’ where there is a living ‘outside of time yet in-step with the living reality’ which consumes of us all. The kinds of stories where you are broaching into a nether space of original thought and the context of which can either resonate or dispel the appeal of what pulled you into the synopsis.

Ironically or not, as I was sorting out how to begin my review tonight, I had this unexpectedly lovely conversation with a novelist whose ‘this side of cosy hard-boiled’ new release is on the fringes of being promoted in the near future – mind you, I caught up with her on Twitter the very day she purchased her new domain for her newly minted website! Champion, eh? Without deferring to my favourite way to capture these moments encased in the randomness of wicked sweet conversations, you will find the gist of our convo timelined on Twitter itself! If you want to make sure you can catch the rest of our thread, kindly pull up my feeds, and happily follow it along!

It was inside this particular convo, I aligned my thoughts ahead of my ruminations! Because part of my instinctive joy, is remaining on ‘the edge of where fiction has gone and where it can become inventively curious’ to follow! Hence why my dedicated passion continues, after having found Lemongrass Hope at round Mid-Summer in 2014! Others have bewitched me, but this particular one I bring back to your attention, dear heart, due to how ‘time, space, and mind’ were entwined.

Further still, another TLC tour beckoned to me, except this time I was too late on the switch to participate; giving me a fervent desire to seek out The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson at my local library post haste! You can see on the blog tour page what sparked my interest as it is curiously aligned with Some Other Town. In the end, I turnt in a purchase request in order to curb the ‘six months out wait from publication’ to request it through ILL’ing! Confirmation of it being ordered arrived half a day after I left these remarks upon this review prior to posting it live! I cannot even express how giddy it made me feel knowing I’d have my hands on a copy!

Book Review | “Some Other Town” by Elizabeth CollisonSome Other Town

"But here is the strangest part. Now in the mornings when I wake from the dream, for an instant it's as if there are two of me. The one that will rise and go off to work and come home again to Mrs. Eberline. And the one that awakes from the dream of the van and feels something inside of her rising. Quickening, yearning, keening."

Margaret Lydia Benning, twenty-eight and adrift, still lives in the same Midwest town where she went to college. By day, she works at the Project, a nonprofit publisher of children's readers housed in a former sanatorium. There she shares the fourth floor with a squadron of eccentric editors and a resident ghost from the screamers' wing. At night, Margaret returns alone to her small house on Mott Street, with only her strange neighbor, Mrs. Eberline, for company.

Emotionally sleepwalking through the days is no way to lead a life. But then Margaret meets Ben Adams, a visiting professor at the university. Through her deepening relationship with Ben she glimpses a future she had never before imagined, and for the first time she has hope . . . until Ben inexplicably vanishes. In the wake of his disappearance, Margaret sets out to find him. Her journey, a revelatory exploration of the separate worlds that exist inside us and around us, will force her to question everything she believes to be true.

Told through intertwined perspectives, by turns incandescent and haunting, Some Other Town is an unforgettable tale, with a heartbreaking twist, of one woman's awakening to her own possibility.


Places to find the book:

on 24th February, 2015

Pages: 304

Jorie Loves A Story Cuppa Book Love Awards Badge created by Jorie in Canva. Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo.

Published By: Harper Perennial (@HarperPerennial),
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (@HarperCollins)
Available Formats: Trade Paperback, Ebook

Converse via: #SomeOtherTown

About Elizabeth Collison

Elizabeth Collison grew up in the Midwest and now lives in the San Francisco Bay area. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has worked as an editor, graphic artist, and technical writer. This is her first novel.

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Posted Friday, 6 March, 2015 by jorielov in 20th Century, ARC | Galley Copy, Art, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Discussions, Clever Turns of Phrase, Contemporary Romance, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Flashbacks & Recollective Memories, Fly in the Ointment, Ghosts & the Supernatural, Illustration for Books & Publishing, Jorie Loves A Story Cuppa Book Love Awards, Library Love, Literary Fiction, Local Libraries | Research Libraries, Lyrical Quotations, Medical Fiction, Mental Health, Psychiatric Facilities, Singletons & Commitment, Small Towne Fiction, Sociological Behavior, The Seventies, TLC Book Tours, Wordsmiths & Palettes of Sage

Blog Book Tour | “Migratory Animals” by Mary Helen Specht A Literary novel whose pace is uniquely it’s own and whose character is an observation on how we live within the hours we’ve been given.

Posted Wednesday, 11 February, 2015 by jorielov , , , 0 Comments

Ruminations & Impressions Book Review Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Sergey Zolkin.

Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Migratory Animals” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher Harper Perennial via HarperCollins Publishers, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Inspired to Read:

Each time I am given a set of books that are upcoming on a blog tour via TLC, one of the few characteristics I am seeking out of that set of stories is to seek a path to new authors who not only will challenge my mind and my heart as I read their narratives but perhaps they will take me somewhere not yet seen. I love the inertia of the discovery — to dare to seek out a story or an author who will write a story that will leave me wholly enthused by the experience for having sought out their literary work as much as the joy to write about their story will give me a heap of happpiness whilst their story is still fervently attached to my memory.

There are moments where I stumble across a book or an author who has left me quite curious for what I shall find inside their covers. What will I come across once the book is in hand? Once the character is known to me more intimately than a brief appearance in a short synopsis? What will my lasting thoughts be about the journey I took inside the book itself? These were some of my initial hopes and thoughts as I looked over the list of upcoming books for blog tours for Spring 2015.

Migratory Animals simply ‘stood out’ from the pack.

There was something uniquely different about this one.

Hence why I was quite on pins to read it and see where it’s story would lead me to travel. Read More

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Posted Wednesday, 11 February, 2015 by jorielov in 21st Century, ARC | Galley Copy, Blog Tour Host, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Fly in the Ointment, Literary Fiction, Modern Day, Realistic Fiction, TLC Book Tours, Vulgarity in Literature, Women's Fiction