#BlogTour ‘Mine’ by Clare Empson

About the book…

‘Who am I? Why am I here? Why did my mother give me away?’

On the surface, Luke and his girlfriend Hannah seem to have a perfect life. He’s an A&R man, she’s an arts correspondent and they are devoted to their new-born son Samuel.

But beneath the gloss Luke has always felt like an outsider. So when he finds his birth mother Alice, the instant connection with her is a little like falling in love.

When Hannah goes back to work, Luke asks Alice to look after their son. But Alice – fuelled with grief from when her baby was taken from her 27 years ago – starts to fall in love with Samuel. And Luke won’t settle for his mother pushing him aside once again…

Massive thanks to Tracy Fenton and the team at Orion for the blogtour invite and my gifted ebook copy of ‘Mine’, which is out now!

Clare Empson hit the ground running with her bestselling debut, ‘Him’, and now she is back, once again, to give readers sleepless nights, as they ponder what they have just read, and eagerly turn page after page to find out what happens next.

This story is beautifully balanced-on the one hand, is the adopted Luke, birth name Charlie, a grown man and father, who has never quite moved on from the disconnect he feels as an adopted child. His new role in being a partner to Hannah and father to Samuel, has meant a massive upheaval in his emotions and his need to create a secure bedrock for his son . Part of this has him searching for his birth mother, a fact he keeps secret from his adoptive mother.

Luke’s tale is alternated between the ‘Then’ of his birth mother Alice, an art school student with dreams and ambitions at a time when you could act upon them, hired to create album art for an upcoming band. It is supposed that Luke’s father is famous artist Richard -or Rick- but as Alice’s story unravels, you become less certain of the facts as they have been told to Luke, and begin to feel the ground beneath you wobble, as it does for Luke.

The genius of this book is in it’s quiet, almost simplistic story telling nature, it is so cleverly constructed that you don’t even realise how much it has sucked you into these people’s lives until you have to get up and turn out a light, feed yourself or the pets because you have been reading all day and suddenly it’s nighttime. The complex nature of parenthood, the notion that children ‘belong’ to you and are beholden to you to make successes of their lives, is explored through all the intertwining relationships. There is Alice, with her cold mother and alcoholic father. Jacob, the talented musician and his violent grandfather. Luke with his adoptive parents, sent off to boarding school. Christina, Luke’s adoptive mother and the child she was unable to have versus the one that society deemed her fit to raise.

And in the midst of this emotional whirlpool is not only the mystery surrounding Luke’s paternity, there is the relationship between Alice and Samuel. With Hannah going back to work, she seems the obvious solution to their child care needs;after all, Samuel loves her and they can all get to know each other better as time passes. What no one has accounted for, however, is the unwelcome guest at the table-jealousy.

Is Luke Charlie if he lets his birth mother become a mother to him as a grown up? Where does his sense of identity lie? How does that change his relationship to his own son and adopted mother? Without an undercurrent of character development, each of these people would have felt like tropes, but Clare writes so well from the point of view of both male, and female, characters, that you feel you are getting an insight into a very real set of people.

With your heart in your mouth , you are completely engrossed in what happens, a very human, very real story with no obvious good vs bad characters and a complex situation which does not gloss over how challenging it is to be a parent. The affirmation of love in contrast to the disdain, or outright hatred that some of these adults exhibit towards their progeny is so well realised.

A thriller,yes, a mystery and a character study, this book suspends your belief and takes you outside of yourself as you let Clare’s characters in. She treats all of them with a sense of realness that belies the ‘this is the villain’, ‘this is the good guy’ writing which could so easily create stereotypes of maternal/paternal abandonment. Clever, moving and just so engagin, I thoroughly recommend this 5 star read. And a bit of a lie down after finishing to catch your breath, And then go and buy ‘Him’ because really, Clare is a rising star of fiction writing and you are going to want to add her to your list of favourite writers.

About the author…

Links-https://www.clareempson.com/

https://www.compulsivereaders.com/