#BlogTour- ‘We Own The Sky’ by Luke Allnutt

Today is my turn on the blogtour for the amazing ‘We Own The Sky’ by Luke Allnutt.

Published by Trapeze books an imprint of Orion and available in eBook,hardback and paperback editions, this is the debut novel for the Prague based journalist and writer.

About The book

Anna and Rob were the perfect couple with their whole lives in front of them. When beautiful baby boy Jack came along, their world seemed complete.
But when tragedy strikes they are faced with an impossible choice. They have one chance to save their child, but at what cost?

The description of the book from the blurb does not, I feel, accurately portray the contents of the book-the story is much bigger than that.

It begins at an almost end point, then flashes back to how Anna and Rob met, before concluding at the same point in time where it started.

Anna and Rob are opposites, she is training to be an accountant and deals in  absolutes and figures whereas Rob is more tech and computer based and is supported financially by Anna as they begin their life together.

They decide to try to have a baby, but the pathway to parenthood is fraught and uncertain for this couple who by this point, you are emotionally invested in.

When they finally have a child, Jack, you are so very happy for them but you know that this is not going to be an easy ride.

And here is why I, as a reader, began to come apart. It became a deeply personal reaction that brought up feelings and situations that we had gone through as a family with our youngest daughter.

Luke Allnutt completely nails the ‘there is something not quite right with our child’ scenes, the disbelief, the overwhelming panic, the physical, visceral reactions to medical staff, the diagnosis, the treatment and , most of all, how to tell the people in their lives.

The Googling of the diagnosis, the parent burying their head in the sand, the one who won’t look at the x rays and scan results,the one who wants to any lengths to make their child better-no matter how dubious the claims to success might be. All of it rings so true that I had to put the book down several times and walk away.

It is a searing portrayal of a family in crisis-well wishers, family and friends, all the people who should be around you yet they are the last people that you want. The only ones who seem to get it are those whose children have gone through the same thing and as Jack gets progressively more unwell, Anna and Rob’s approaches to his illness begin to take different courses.

There is a very fine line between writing an  emotionally exploitative novel about a child as poorly as Jack is and writing like Luke Allnutt does. Jack is not a plot device, he is a child who you find yourself rooting for as you consider, from your position as a parent, would you be a Rob or an Anna in the same situation?

‘We Own The Sky’ is a beautiful, heart wrenching book that has a young couple trying to make sense of the unimaginable, all the soaring highs of being a parent are writ large upon its pages which makes the lows so achingly prescient and painful to read.

It’s honest, it’s brutal and ultimately redemptive, the end, I don’t want to give it away, but the end and its link with the title was just beautiful. I would absolutely encourage anyone reading this review to go and buy or borrow the book from your library and tell others about it , and read to the very last page. It is a book with heart that also grabs your heart and holds it tight.

About the Author

Luke Allnutt grew up in Surrey and has lived and worked in Prague as a journalist since 1998, writing mostly about technology and Eastern European politics.

In 2013, he wrote about his father’s death from a brain tumor in UNSPOKEN, a Kindle Single for Amazon. A keen runner, he is married and has two young boys.

His website is based here http://lukeallnutt.com/

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