Welcome to the blog tour for A Kind of Family by Bonnie Meekums. We’ll have loads of exclusive content and a guest post from the author herself, so be sure to follow along!
A Kind of Family
Publication Date: January 7th, 2020
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Willow River Press
Forty-something Northern UK psychotherapist and university lecturer Rachel longs for a close family when, a year after their parents die her brother decides to cut off all contact. Out of the blue she meets Fran, a petite, attractive and outgoing community artist who disturbs and excites her. Shortly after this Aggie appears, looking like a relic from the 1960s and with a strong working-class London accent. She takes a strong interest in Rachel’s relationship with Fran. But who is she, and why is Rachel the only one that can see and hear her?
When Fran’s mother dies, the two women discover a family secret that impacts on their decision to try for a baby. But there is more shock and heartache to come, a visit to New Zealand for Fran and a tough decision for Rachel to make before she finally finds her own kind of family. This is a story that challenges traditional ideas about what constitutes family. It is also about overcoming grief, and healing the past; about love, loss, and ultimately hope. You won’t want to put it down.
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My Review of A Kind of Family
In the novel, A Kind of Family, Bonnie Meekums delivers a graceful yet heartbreaking tale of love and loss. The title of the tome speaks volumes about what is inside. You will discover that family comes in all different shapes and sizes, even if all the members come from the same family tree.
From the very beginning, we see a family falling apart only to reinvent themselves to find a new kind of family. The wheels of life are always turning and finding new paths. The tale has its lows as well as its highs, and I, as the reader, had no idea what was going to hit me next. Was I going to cry sad tears or happy tears? Those were the only choices. Tears were a given.
I want to say that I fell in love with this book from the first page. There are many kinds of love. Some conventional, some not so much, but in the end, I never felt the relationships were forced. It was written so naturally that I honestly felt that I could feel the love between all the characters. I never felt out of place or embarrassed.
With a happy heart, I am pleased to award A Kind of Family a full 5 out of 5 stars. This sentimental and emotional novel will bring out the best in you. If you want to experience love and loss in a way you have never felt before, I encourage you to read this book.
Excerpt
A cough. Annie cocked her ears in alert preparedness. Rachel was not ‘hearing things’. She looked in the direction of the shadow she had seen earlier, her own pulse assaulting her ears. The cough had seemed to come from the kitchen. Had an intruder got in despite the locked door, or had she somehow forgotten to turn the key? She looked around for something with which she could defend herself if push came to shove. Nothing. She tried to remember the women’s self-defence she had learned in her undergraduate days after a particularly nasty rape on campus. Her brain turned to mush.
Then an older woman appeared on the other side of the door from Rachel’s study into the kitchen, and Rachel’s fear turned to confusion mixed with a fair dose of irritation. It was as if she had come out of nowhere. Rachel could only see the top half of her through the half-glazed door. The old woman’s face looked as if someone had scored deep marks on a dark canvas. Her eyes were like two dark pools that seemed to draw Rachel in despite her wariness. The visitor smiled and raised her eyebrows as if asking to be let in. Sighing, Rachel got up and opened the door as it occurred to her that this must be one of the people who had recently moved into number twenty.
‘Fanks, love. I’m sorry. I must’ve give you such a fright. I don’t mean to. Can I come in?’
Rachel looked beyond the woman to the outer door, which was closed.
She was already in.
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About the Author
Born and brought up in working-class London, Bonnie crossed classes when she went to university in the 1970s, eventually gaining a PhD in arts therapies in the 1990s. In the 1980s she crossed the invisible borders from South to North in England, first living in West Yorkshire and settling eventually in an old mill town near Manchester. A mother, step-mother and grandmother, she also travels annually to New Zealand to be with part of her far-flung family.
Bonnie is well known across the globe within the small professional world of Dance Movement Therapy (DMT). She is sole author of two books on arts therapies, one of which (Dance Movement Therapy, London: Sage, 2002) is on many training course essential reading lists and has sold more than 2,000 copies. She has also published numerous research articles and has been invited to teach in New Zealand, the USA, India, China and many European countries.
Whilst still being active in DMT practice, teaching and supervision, these days Bonnie’s writing focusses on novels and short stories. She also writes a blog about becoming an older woman who rambles (a play on words), to be found at https://mamabonnie.wordpress.com/. Her short creative nonfiction The Story Hunter about how her father influenced her love of stories was featured by the online writing collective Dear Damsels on February 10th 2019. Her debut novel A Kind of Family is published by Between the Lines Publishing in January 2020.
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