#BlogTour ‘Daisy’ by J.P Henderson

About the book…

Written in his own words, and guided by a man who collects glasses in a local pub, this is the story of Herod “Rod” Pinkney’s search for Daisy Lamprich, a young woman he first sees on a decade-old episode of the Judge Judy Show, and who he now intends to marry.

When Daisy is located in the coastal city of Huntington Beach, California, he travels there with his good friend and next-door neighbor, Donald, a man who once fought in the tunnels of Cu Chi during the Vietnam War and who now spends most of his time in Herod’s basement. Herod is confident that the outcome will be favorable, but there’s a problem. Will the course of true love ever run smoothly for this unlikely hero?

A funny and touching story of an improbable and heart-warming quest to find true love, Daisy is perfect for fans of The Rosie Project and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

‘Daisy’ will be available from No Exit Press in paperback from September 2020, and ebook from April 23rd.Huge thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things for the blogtour invite and the publishers for my gifted review copy.

It takes a writer with confidence to name a book after a woman who doesn’t appear until approximately half way through it, and the tightly plotted, eccentrically populated ‘Daisy’ shows an author with oodles of skill in this department.

Rod’s start in life, and his very  genesis in fact, is seeded in disappointment as he is very obviously, not his constantly vaunted-and departed-older brother.

Labelled with a moniker which means more to those who hear it than he who wears it, the dice are stacked against the almost oblivious Rod, who takes what would have floored a lesser person, in minutes.

However, the tragedies and circumstances which befall him, mostly through no fault of his own -he feels like a passive observer of his own life in places-create a situation where he can populate his life with people that he actually wants to spend his time with. These inlcude Ric, the bartender at The Landsdowne pub (Rod’s agent) to whom he shows the parts of his book as he writes them. Ric acts as our conduit into the tale, dictating how and when the reader should meet Daisy, the journey up to that point as well as providing literary  criticism without ever showing the evidence to back up his place as ‘agent’.

The use of the masculine narrative really intrigued me-the expectations of fathers upon their sons, the weight of what they have to live up to and the constant feeling of disappointment in those who place such a burden is vividly explored. From the parents who waste no time in parcelling him off to boarding school, sending him to live with relatives-without even telling them he was coming-girlfriends and acquaintences at work all see this man who happily goes with the flow. He doesn’t even use his actual name working in his father’s business, he goes under a pseudonym! Because his own father does not want anyone to know they are related!

He fulfills none of the expectations people place upon him but somehow, unwittingly makes a success of his life by the sheer connections he makes once he become his own man.

Such a charcter would seem frustraing for the reader, constantly facing situations without a murmur until he sees Daisy on Judge Judy and , feeling she has been wrongly short changed, sets out to find her, declare his love and give her her just fiscal reward he feels was denied her.

It’s dryly humorous and reminded me, as I was reading, of the way David Nobbs’ ‘The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin’ makes the reader connect with the central protagonist. You laugh at things which really shouldn’t be funny, find youself connected to a character that in the real world you would get frustrated with and want to shake out of his apparent apathy.

I really enjoyed reading it, and must say, huge apologies for the delayed review-a cumulative effect of bereavement and work in this ‘new normal’ we exist within has left me struggling to read, focus and concentrate. So I very much appreciate the publishers and blog tour organiser Anne’s patience, and again, apologies to the author.

About the author….

Twitter @noexitpress @annecater