#BlogTour #BookReview How We Remember by J.M. Monaco @jm_monaco2 @RedDoorBooks #HowWeRemember Title: How We Remember

Author: J.M. Monaco

Published by: RedDoor Publishing on Sep. 13, 2018

Genres: General Fiction, Women's Fiction

Pages: 304

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: RedDoor Publishing

Book Rating: 7/10

When Jo returns home following her mother’s death, she is shocked to learn of an unexpected inheritance and her mother’s diary. Jo thought she could put to rest her darker past until an entry implies the messy aftermath of an uncle’s sexual advances towards her when she was fifteen. Like the diary, Jo’s memory of events is full of gaps, but one thing is certain – she will never regain what was lost. What is the full story of what happened between Jo and her uncle?

How We Remember traces the effects of alcoholism, mental illness and abuse on one Irish-Italian-American, working-class family. As Jo’s first-person narrative weaves together past and present stories, she creates a portrait of her family’s life and her own as she faces new decisions amidst the tragic consequences of mismanaged grief.

Full of moments of light and dark, Monaco’s debut novel –set during a week that anyone would dread –provides a mesmeric narrative portraying the pain of grief, the tenuous nature of memory and the earth-shattering effect that the death of the ‘glue’ of a family can cause. How We Remember is an unforgettable novel that tackles issues every reader will be able to relate to on some level.It’ll capture hearts and capture imaginations.


Review:

Sobering, unsettling, and intense!

How We Remember is a hauntingly perceptive novel that takes us into the life of Jo O’Brien, a middle-aged woman struggling to come to grips with the loss of her mother, a past full of secrets and abuse, a debilitating illness, and familial relationships that are strained and fractured.

The prose is somber and raw. The characters are complex, tortured, and damaged. And the heart-wrenching plot uses a reflective past/present style to unravel all the personalities, motivations, and relationships within it.

How We Remember is ultimately a novel about family, life, loss, deception, manipulation, infidelity, abuse, forgiveness, and the long-lasting effects of a dysfunctional childhood. It’s well written, deeply emotional and does an exceptional job of reminding us that everyone that enters our lives impacts, shapes, and defines it.

 

This book is available September 13, 2018.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from the following link.

 

 

Thank you to RedDoor Publishing and J.M. Monaco for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About J.M. Monaco

My writing identity is JM Monaco. Friends here in the UK tell me the surname sounds unique and somewhat exotic. Outside this little island I know this isn’t the case.

I am a fiction writer with a particular soft spot for North American fiction, probably because my formative and university years took place in the USA. While England has been my home for well over twenty years now, there’s something about the birthplace where my extended family and some friends still reside that has a strong pull. If I could, I’d spend solitary blocks of time there in a quiet lake cottage in the northeast pondering my ambiguous relationship with that landscape. I’d write up a tumultuous storm that may eventually take the shape of a draft for a novel or multiple stories, then come back to the UK where I could clean it all up in edits with my husband and children surrounding me with love and endless offers of tea and healthy meals. As this can only happen in fantasy, here in the southwest of England, UK, is where I stay, holed up in a drafty north-facing study/writing room, often gazing out at the rain and rolling my eyes when I hear my daughter shout, ‘What’s for supper tonight?’ Reading, thinking, writing, are all interrupted with the demands of others, the good and bad, life’s routines, a bit of excitement here and there mixed with the mundane. This is where stories are born. Oh, but wouldn’t it be heaven to have that nice little place by the lake.

 

 

 

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