Tag Archives: family secrets

#Secrets ‘Beneath an Indian Sky’ by @RenitaDSilva #family #mystery

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Women’s ambition, women’s capability to lie and manipulate, and women’s ability to love, cherish and recover. Beneath an Indian Sky by Renita D’Silva is the cautionary tale of Sita and Mary and how their lives, from childhood to old age, are entwined in India. It is a symmetrical story, but the permutations of its angles and consequences are not clear until the end. Be patient, relax into the story, because the ending is worth it. Renita D’Silva

1925, India. Sita’s parents despair of her acting like a girl so, to encourage more restrained behavior, they arrange for her to become friends with Mary. Mary’s parents encourage individuality, freedom and learning, but Mary secretly envies the rules and ordered life of Sita’s home. And so the two girls become friends. Until in 1926 something happens which splits them apart.

This is a tale of opposites; two little girls who, despite being different, become friends. What happens when they grow up turns into a darker more difficult story about friendship, honesty, betrayal, loss, anguish and regret. Renita D’Silva takes you to another world, India pre- and post-partition, with all its scents, colours, flavours, wealth and poverty. She is a magical writer of the setting into which she lays an emotional story of the twists and turns of women’s treachery and ability to heal.

The girls are born into an India where women must defer to their husbands and sons, where endless wealth and dirt-grovelling poverty exist side-by-side; where women do not always support each other and mistakes are not forgotten. Behind the story is a ‘be careful what you wish for’ moral that applies to both girls. Intertwined with their story is the modern one of Priya, a documentary film-maker, who lives in London and is unable to have a child.

I really enjoyed this book, read quickly over a weekend. Be warned, secrets have a way of being found out.
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Try these other books by Renita d’Silva:-
A Mother’s Secret
The Orphan’s Gift

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lost Ancestor’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin 
‘The Carer’ by Deborah Moggach 
‘Ignoring Gravity’ by Sandra Danby 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY by @RenitaDSilva #bookreview https://wp.me/paZ3MX-fc via #AdoptionStoriesBlog

#BookReview ‘The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon’ by Sarah Steele #identity #familysecrets

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If you’re looking for a little escapism, a trip to the Riviera of the Sixties, then The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon by Sarah Steele is for you. A family mystery spanning two generations is unravelled by Flo, Nancy Moon’s great-niece, who treads in her aunt’s footsteps across Europe following the clues. It all starts with a photograph. Sarah Steele

Told in two timelines, it is Nancy’s story that came alive for me and I would have been happy if the book had focussed solely on Nancy. Brimming with nostalgia for life in the 1960s, the Riviera, Paris, Nice, Venice, Capri, Steele tells of Nancy’s trip as companion to Pea, a teenage girl sidelined by her distracted artist father and disinterested step-mother. It is clear Nancy is running from something and, though this is billed as a historical romance, it is essentially a tale of grief and moving on.

Clearing her grandmother’s house after her death, Flo finds a photograph of her grandma Peggy and three friends. One is a complete stranger. The next discovery is a cache of dressmaking envelopes. Each is dated and inside are cut-out dress pieces and other momentoes left by Great-Aunt Nancy, photographs, postcards and oddments. Flo has never heard of Nancy Moon. Why was she never spoken of? Flo, grieving not only for the death of Peggy but for the break-up of her marriage and the loss of a baby, decides to follow Nancy’s trail across Europe.

The motif of dressmaking patterns is underlined by Steele’s beautiful descriptions of Sixties dresses, swimsuits and fabrics. We see Nancy wearing the original version of the home-made garment, and then Flo following in her footsteps wearing a contemporary version of the same outfit. At the beginning there are so many characters introduced that it’s disorientating. It took me a while to unravel them until halfway through when I realised I simply wanted to read Nancy’s story.

So, an intriguing story idea weakened by the sudden switching of narrator and timeline intended to introduce mystery. The simple addition of chapter headings with the year and location would help. In truth I figured out the mystery very early on. How much stronger this would be as a single viewpoint, traditional historical narrative without the coincidences and neat solutions of Flo’s storyline.

I was pleased I stuck with the story, despite the slow beginning. There is plenty to admire in the writing and the locations are beautiful, a real piece of escapism for armchair travellers.
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If you like this, try:-
‘The Carer’ by Deborah Moggach 
‘The Orange Lilies’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin 
‘Deadly Descent’ by Charlotte Hinger

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE MISSING PIECES OF NANCY MOON by Sarah Steele #bookreview https://wp.me/paZ3MX-iq via #AdoptionStoriesBlog

True #identity story… @GeorginaLawton #mixedrace

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The story of Georgina Lawton is not one of adoption, so much as identity. Racial identity. Georgina looks mixed race though her family is white. After years of brushing the truth aside, her father’s death prompted her to ask questions. Adoptees will identify with her descriptions of anger, isolation, denial and confusion.

Georgina Lawton

Georgina Lawton

Taught not to question her skin colour, Georgina grew up in London with her blue-eyed younger brother, British father and Irish mother. ‘Although I look mixed-race, or black, my whole family is white. And until the man I called Dad died two years ago, I did not know the truth about my existence. Now, age 24, I’m starting to uncover where I come from.’ Growing up, no one spoke about racial politics and Georgina assumed she fitted into the same cultural category as everyone else. ’The word ‘black’ was never uttered in reference to me. And I saw that blackness was an intangible and wholly culture concept that had no relevance to my life. But I always had questions.’
When her father became ill with cancer, he agreed to give a DNA sample. A year later, Georgina found the courage to send it for testing. It came back inconclusive.

Georgina Lawton

Georgina Lawton as a child with her father [photo: Georgina Lawton]

A second test was sent off, this time including her mother’s DNA. She was told there was no chance her father was her own. ‘Rage so strong it scared me coursed through my veins and hurtled towards my mother like a hurricane in our family home as I demanded answers.’ Her mother then admitted to a one-night stand with a black Irishman, her birth father.

Georgina Lawton

Georgina Lawton with her father [photo: Georgina Lawton]

For Georgina, the man who raised her, who she grew up calling Dad, is her father. She realises he must have suspected his wife, Georgina’s mother, of infidelity. ‘But they loved each other dearly and not once did any of us argue about it.’
Read Georgina’s story at The Guardian.
Georgina LawtonGeorgina’s memoir Raceless tells the story of her colour-blind upbringing and how we must strive to ‘build a future in which a mixed family is neither taboo, nor a talking point,’
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If you like this true story, read:-
Samantha Futerman
Jazz Boorman
Angela Patrick

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True #identity story… @GeorginaLawton https://wp.me/paZ3MX-hI via #AdoptionStoriesBlog

#Family #mystery ‘A Mother’s Secret’ by @RenitaDSilva #birthfather

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What a tangled web some families weave. A Mother’s Secret by Renita D’Silva is a fragrant tale of mothers and daughters stretching from England to India. Gaddehalli is a tiny village in Goa but I could smell the spices, hear the wind in the trees, and see the buffaloes in the fields as if I was there. Renita D’Silva

This novel about identity starts with a young girl, Durga, who must stay with her grandmother in Gaddehalli after an accident to her parents. The ruined mansion where she lives, which is avoided by the locals as haunted and full of bad luck, is the centre of this story. The modern-day strand follows Jaya, a young mother in England mourning the loss of her baby son and whose mother Sudha has recently died. Sudha was an emotionally-withdrawn mother, but when Jaya discovers some of her mother’s hidden possessions, including diaries, she pieces together the story of Sudha’s early life. Jaya is looking for the identity of her own father; she finds so much more.

From the beginning, it is a guessing game: how is the story of Durga connected to Kali, Jaya and Sudha? Halfway through, all my ideas of the twist had been proven wrong and I was wondering if the storylines would come together. At times I got the girls confused, but I read the second half of the novel quicker than the first and the twist, when it came, was a big surprise. A clever novel about families and how the important, simple things in life can sometimes be forgotten because of pride, selfishness or shame.
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Try another novel of family secrets by Renita D’Silva… The Orphan’s Gift.

If you like this, try:-
‘Fred’s Funeral’ by Sandy Day
‘Innocent Blood’ by PD James 
‘File Under Fear’ by Geraldine Wall 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
The scents of India: A MOTHER’S SECRET by @RenitaDSilva #birthfather #identity https://wp.me/paZ3MX-f7 via #AdoptionStoriesBlog

#ShortStory ‘Citrine’ by Sandra Danby @SandraDanby #identity #birthfather

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“It was a sturdy bicycle, black, with a wicker basket. Gita hadn’t wobbled on it so badly since she was ten years old, when her mother died and bequeathed it to her.”

Birth father

‘Lady on Bike’ by Mimi Mollica

Inspired by this photograph by Mimi Mollica, my short story ‘Citrine’ is published by ‘A Thousand Word Photos’ which pairs writers and photographs to create distinctive and individual stories, each exactly 1000 words long. The story is then read to stroke patients in London hospitals by actors, working with the charity InteractStroke.

I was given the choice of three photos, I had to choose one. But as soon as I saw Mimi’s photograph, Gita’s story flew into my head. She has such a tired, pensive, anxious look on her face that I knew her cycle journey is about more than going home after a long day at work. She is going towards an answer she has only just realised she’s been waiting all her life to ask. Who is her father?

Read the story in full at A Thousand Word Photos; and here’s more about photographer Mimi Mollica.

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#ShortStory ‘Citrine’ by SandraDanby #identity #birthfather https://wp.me/paZ3MX-8z via #AdoptionStoriesBlog