Hello my bookish friends, it’s Wednesday, hope your all well. I’m so excited for today post, it’s my stop on The Pieces of Ourselves blog tour by Maggie Harcourt. I’m currently reading this book and I will have my review either later this week. I’m loving it. If you remember from last week’s Top 5 Comfort Reads, Maggie’s Theatrical was on the list, so this new book is what I need right now. Today I have a guest post planned as part of my recent new author series, In the Mind of an Author. But before that, here is a little bit more about the book.
The Pieces of Ourselves by Maggie Harcourt Published by Usborne Publishing on April 2, 2020
Genres: Contemporary
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Flora doesn't do people", not since the Incident that led to her leaving school midway through her GCSEs. The Incident that led to her being diagnosed with bipolar II. The Incident that left her in pieces. Until Hal arrives. He's researching a story about a missing World War I soldier, and he wants Flora's help. Flora used to love history before the Incident, but spending so much time with Hal is her worst nightmare. Yet as they begin to piece together the life of the missing soldier, a life of lost love, secrets and lies, Flora finds a piece of herself falling for Hal.
Guest Post – In the Mind of an Author (literally)
Writing a book is a funny business. Sometimes, they arrive in your head as one (mostly) complete idea with a beginning and a middle and an end. Other times… not so much. The Pieces of Ourselves was a “not so much” book. It took a lot of drafts – more than I can ever remember writing for any other book – to pin down this story, which started out as an idea about a girl who worked in a hotel and got bigger and bigger and bigger until it covered a whole lot more. This thing didn’t know when to stop.
When you write, if you’re lucky there’s a point in the process where things start to fit together. A line you put in early on without quite knowing why suddenly becomes a perfect setup for another section, or explains a character’s actions in a way you never expected. It feels like one part writing and one part witchcraft. I have a bad habit of looking for “signs” when I hit this stage, and I think I did it more with this book than any other. Although, weirdly, I really did come across a lot of coincidences in the process: walking into Bath, thinking about a plot point I’d got stuck on, I passed a picture framing shop which had a newly framed regimental banner and placard connected to the Somme leaning against its wall, ready to be collected by its owner. As I’d been thinking about the historical sections of the book, which take place around the Battle of the Somme, that was peculiar. Later, I wanted a book on Wilfred Owen and happened to be passing my local second-hand bookshop: I popped in, and there on the shelf was one copy of a biography collected with some of his poems. When I gave Hal, one of the main characters, a particular car – a slightly unusual one at that – the exact same car drove past me on the street a few days later.
As the book grew, so did the number of coincidences, and it started to feel less like me writing it and more like I was finding it. It was comforting in a way, because that’s exactly what my characters Flora and Hal were doing at the same time: they were discovering a story that needed to be told – just as I thought Flora’s story needed to be told. The problem, however, was that “finding” the story meant there were a lot of false leads and dead ends; things that didn’t quite fit or belong and which needed to be tidied up or cut out… but without which I could never have found the ones that did. It took all those drafts to clear these away – but even though you can’t see them in the finished book, they were a huge part of the journey to reach it.
About Maggie Harcourt
Maggie Harcourt was born and raised in Wales, where she grew up dreaming of summer road trips and telling stories for a living. As well as studying Medieval Literature at UCL, Maggie has variously worked as a PA, a hotel chambermaid and for a French chef before realising her dreams and beginning to write full time.
She now lives just outside Bath, UK, where she can usually be found in a bookshop or somewhere near the river. She guards the secret of her favourite coffee shop jealously, because she has the perfect spot picked out there for people-watching.
The Pieces of Ourselves is very unique, interesting and a very different take that I’m used to with her books. But it’s still amazing. I would highly recommended it. Remember to purchase through Waterstones or you local indie to support authors and bookshops in this time. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the blog tour this week.
