All My Mothers: The heart-breaking new novel from the author of the Costa-shortlisted debut, THE OTHER HALF OF AUGUSTA HOPE

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I just loved it. Eva (as in forever, not evil, she tells us early on) is searching for something. She knows that something is missing but isn’t entirely sure what. She just knows that she doesn’t belong in her family. This book chronicles her life and her desire to find love and happiness. Eva makes wonderful friends and I loved them all. Perfect from start to finish. Loved the plants opening each section, learning about their medicinal and traditional uses. Thoughtful, sad, hopeful, interesting. I actually cried with happiness at the chapter on the County Fair/Show. Stone by stone, seed by seed, All My Wild Mothers is the story of how sometimes life grows, not in spite of what is broken, but because of it. Je suis quelqu’un qui aime les personnages. S’il y a pas une intrigue de ouf mais des bons personnages développés, I’m all in (ici il y a les deux). J’ai rarement lu des personnages si bien écrit. J’ai presque cru que c’était autobiographique tellement ils m’ont semblés *réels* All My Mothers paints an intimate picture of the complexities of family relationships and cultural identity.

Home [victoriabennett.me]

Ah, isn’t it wonderful when a book crosses your path and it goes into your top reads – ever?! I can safely say this was a deliciously uplifting, perceptive and beguiling novel that kept me entertained throughout. It is sad, too, and there is a really heartfelt story of loss and a search for roots. What can I tell you about this novel, about the pain of searching for truth, about wondering who your parents really are and why you did not grow up with them? Or about growing up in a dysfunctional home, where truth is hidden (or ignored)? Eva’s journey is challenging and complicated. She observes (and experiences) different models of mothering during her quest. This is a novel about life, about belonging, and about mothering. Along the way, Eva meets several women who will have an important influence on her life. Not all are positive.Five years later, and that life feels very different to the future Victoria had imagined. Struggling with complex grief, the demands of being a parent-carer for her young chronically ill son, and the impact of deeper austerity, everything feels broken. All My Mothers (Radio Play): A radio play adaptation of the novel was produced for BBC Radio 4 and released in 2007, starring Bill Nighy as John Marshall and Joanna Lumley as his mother. Eva has suspicions about her family and raises numerous questions and does some investigating throughout. This goes on for a number of years, along the way we meet some lovely characters and families and one or two not so lovely characters. It’s an immersive story, at times it’s joyful and happy but also at times it’s painful. Joanna Glen weaves a uniquely heartening and hopeful story. A story about pain, the solace of words and our search to belong, to a place, to a person. Welcome to the world of the wonderful Augusta Hope' Jess Kidd, author Himself and Things in Jars Lyrical and beautiful and feels like a haven in a cynical world – exactly the book we all need to read right now’ Catherine Simpson, author of One Body: A Retrospective, When I Had A Little Sister and Truestory

All My Mothers: The heart-breaking new novel from the author All My Mothers: The heart-breaking new novel from the author

It's like the author looses steam the second our protagonist lands in Cordoba, which is an absolute let down after almost half the book knowing this will be the beginning of the Actual Quest. Prismatically beautiful in its honesty and telling, this book is a radical act of quiet rebellion. Staking a claim of belonging, loving and nurturing on unsure, uncertain ground - whether that's a life, home or land - and making a bewitching alchemy of it.Esta novela lo tiene todo: un plot interesante, una estructura que agiliza el ritmo de la lectura, personajes que extrañas en el momento que cierras el libro y frases que se quedan contigo. Llegar a la última página me dejó con un vacío gigante (de esos que se tienen cuando se termina algo muy bueno) y con muchísimas ganas de visitar Córdoba algún día. This book was recommended to me by a very good friend of mine and I have to admit I had my prejudices. A novel about various types of mothers? A coming-of-age story about an ordinary Spanish woman? Normally, not my cup of tea. However, this book is painfully beautiful and incomprehensibly undervalued. Let me tell you why⬇️ It felt rushed, and it lost it's punch in the most critical moment. Again, using my spainard card here, the whole bought baby moment could have been So Much More Magnanimous. There was an epidemic of doctors and nurses (nuns) that flat out stole babies from their mothers (single mothers, republicans, poor women, romani women, you get the gist) and gave said babies to rich families under the fascist wing. So yeah, by romanticising nuns who literally took away a baby from a muslim woman (with the very same practice used by fascist, stealing nuns) it doesn't really leave a good taste in my mouth. From a young age, Eva Martinez-Green feels distanced from her mother, not helped by the fact when she is asked to bring in a baby photo to school, she is told by the woman she suspects is not actually her mother her baby photos were stolen. In fact, the earliest photos they have are when she was three and a half years old. Guided by a book they’re reading at school and her newfound friendship with Bridget Blume, Eva begins her quest to understand her beginnings and where she came from. London, 1980s. Though she has a comfortable, privileged life, Eva Martínez-Green is deeply unhappy. The only child of an emotionally absent mother and a physically absent father, Eva has grown up in a cold, unloving house. But Eva is convinced that all is not as it seems. Why are there no baby pictures of her? Why do her parents avoid all questions about her early years?