#BlogTour ‘The Impossible Truths Of Love’ by Hannah Beckerman

About the book…

From bestselling author Hannah Beckerman comes a moving story about memory, secrets, and what it really means to feel that you’re one of the family.

When Nell’s father makes a deathbed declaration that hints at a long-held secret, it reignites feelings of isolation that have plagued her for years. Her suspicions about the family’s past only deepen when her mother, Annie, who is losing her memories to dementia, starts making cryptic comments of her own.

Thirty-five years earlier, Annie’s life was upended by a series of traumas—one shock after another that she buried deep in her heart. The decisions she made at the time were motivated by love, but she knew even then that nobody could ever understand—let alone forgive—what she did.

As the two women’s stories unravel, a generation apart, Nell finally discovers the devastating truth about her mother’s past, and her own.

In this beautifully observed and emotionally powerful story of identity, memory and the nature of family, Hannah Beckerman asks: To what lengths would you go to protect the ones you love?

Hugest of thanks to Kealey and Rhiannon at FMcM for inviting on the blog tour, for Hannah Beckerman’s third novel, ‘The Impossible Truths Of Love’ which is out from Lake Union Publishing in audiobook, e-book and paperback formats.

And it is publication day! And I have to admit, I was NOT ready for this book. I should have known that this book would destroy me, at the same time as renewing my faith in humanity, having read Hannah’s last novel, ‘If Only I Could Tell You’, but no, I was not. This book turns you inside out and leaves you raw, tear stained, and desolate at the effects of hidden secrets and deceptions undertaken in the name of love.

Nell is one of 3 sisters, the youngest and most academic(in the respect that her older siblings, Claire and Laura, do what could be considered front line work as carers and shop workers, whilst Nell works on genetic codes) and when the book opens, she is begging for more time to spend with her dying father. At the same time, her mother has recently been diagnosed with dementia, and it is rapidly progressing in conjunction with her father’s decline due to bowel cancer.

Her 6  month old relationship with A and E consultant, Josh, feels like it is going to last, and she is tentatively nervous about the next step, meeting the parents.

Whilst Nell narrates the present, the now,  Annie and Bill, her parents, describe the past, the then. 

As they eagerly await the birth of the unexpected third child, your assumptions are that it is Nell. So when Annie gives birth a boy, you get a horrible sense of foreboding. This is echoed in the present, by the way that oldest sister, Claire, treats Nell so differently from Laura.

And when her father makes one, last, sentence which makes very little sense to Nell, the sense of dislocation that she has is compounded by the loss of her beloved father.

Shock piles on shock as the ground beneath her shifts on its plates, destabilising everything she held to be true-her mother has been saying random, and bizarre things which , in the context of her father’s last words, take on a new meaning.

As she explores her past, having her entire identity challenged, you have the other side of the story, how Nell grew up with Annie and Bill, and also where things went tragically wrong. They dovetail beautifully and drive the story forward, when you leave Nell you want to get back to her, and vice versa when it’s an Annie and Bill chapter. It takes a writer of rare talent to make you care so much ,and invest in the outcome of characters,, and Hannah does it beautifully.

The best thing, in this readers opinion, is to take this book, surrender yourself to it, enjoy each and every page, and allow your feelings to react to what is going on. Have a good cry , because, honestly, you will, and find yourself again in the redemptive arc of familial love. Family is so much more than genetics and hereditary traits, love that you feel for those you choose to let into your inner circle is so wonderful.

About the author…

Hannah Beckerman is an author, journalist, event chair and broadcaster. In the UK she writes for The Observer, The FT Weekend Magazine and The Sunday Express, and is a book critic on BBC Radio 2. She regularly chairs at literary events and panels across the UK and has judged numerous book prizes including the Costa Book Awards.

Before becoming a writer, Hannah was a TV and film producer, spending fifteen years producing and commissioning documentaries about the Arts, History and Science both in the UK and the US.

She lives in London with her husband and daughter.

Links-http://www.hannahbeckerman.com/

Twitter @hannahbeckerman @FMcM @LUAuthors