#BlogTour ‘The Authenticity Project’ by Clare Pooley

About the book…

Julian Jessop is tired of hiding the deep loneliness he feels. So he begins The Authenticity Project – a small green notebook containing the truth about his life.

Leaving the notebook on a table in his friendly neighbourhood café, Julian never expects Monica, the owner, to track him down after finding it. Or that she’ll be inspired to write down her own story.

Little do they realize that such small acts of honesty hold the power to impact all those who discover the notebook and change their lives completely.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things and publishers Transworld for my blogtour invite and gifted ebook review copy of ‘The Authenticity Project’ which is out now in ebook and hardcover editions.

This is absolutely, hands down, the book you need right now. It will reaffirm your faith in humanity, make you cry and laugh in equal measures, and have you hugging your family just a little bit closer.

If it is escapist fiction you are looking for, this has it all-struggles, triumph and complex, involving characters who are remarkable in their ordinariness and struggles. And it all begins with a lined exercise book…

The way that lives cross, intersect and impact upon each other is beautifully conveyed-you have Julian, who at the start originates the Authenticity Project as a way of reaching out. He is tired of being alone and tired of fighting his neighbours and developers who are desperate to snatch away his home. They don’t understand that this is his last bastion against a society that would have him neatly tidied away as old, irrelevant-he used to be a well reknowned artist-and not contributing to society. The only way he can make an impact is by giving up. So he writes in this little book, leaves it in ‘Monica’s‘ , a cafe he frequents and hopes it will help someone else who randomly picks it up in their attempt to honestly assess their life.

And in the cafe, Monica picks it up. A high flying lawyer who wanted a quieter, more menaingful life, she has opened this cafe with the idea of it being a centre for the community in mind, less like the ten a penny high street branches which are all interchangeable. As she searches for authenticity in her life, and as she writes in the book she realises that her inner self which is desperate to have a baby has been squashed for too long.

She searches out Julian, using the details recorded in the book, at the same time as passing it on to Hazard a man addicted to a lifestyle which is killing him. He finds no joy in life, even though he technically ‘has it all’. From there the book leaps to Riley, a free spirited gardener who is looking for meaning and roots,Mrs Wu whose sense of self is being challenged, and Alice , a mother whose online life has no reflection in her real life struggles and feelings.

Is it somehow easier to connect to a stranger who has no emotional investment in you or your life? How quickly can a stranger become a friend? And does being authentic have a huge impact on you and those around you, for better or worse?

A teeny bit of suspension of belief is needed to accept all that fits together so neatly,in this book, the characters all intersect very neatly, even when they get off to less than auspicious starts. But if that is your biggest gripe then it is a very very small one. If you can overlook how 6 New Yorkers manage to get together so frequently in a coffee shop despite allegedely working full time, then you can overlook that. Whether this would work in real life is unknown, but I love the concept and execution of ‘The Authenticity Project’ and look forward to seeing it adapted on the tv!

About the author…

Clare Pooley graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge and spent twenty years in the heady world of advertising.

When Clare realised that she was drinking way too much, she quit, and started a blog called Mummy was a Secret Drinker, which became a memoir – The Sober Diaries.

The Authenticity Project, Clare’s first novel, was inspired by her experience of telling the truth about her life.

Links-https://girlandtonic.co.uk/clare-pooley-the-sober-diaries/

Twitter @cpooleywriter @TransworldBooks @annecater