FRIENDS WE HAVEN’T MET by Kaitlyn S C Hatch @faunawolf @PublishingPush

Friends We Haven’t Met is a contemporary novel set in London around the residents of a block six flats. The book opens with pieces from them all as un-named characters, then as the book evolves we are told their names and more about each of their lives and how they interact as neighbours.

Chelle works in the local supermarket, her partner Darren drinks heavily and has hit her. Namisha lives alone with her baby after her husband walked out, she is depressed and lonely. Hester is an older woman with a son who worries about her. Darcy is from Calgary, Canada and shares her flat with two students. Tim is devastated and heart-broken after a recent relationship break-up and Gian Verdi is forced to downsize and doesn’t want to be in his flat.

I found the opening chapter quite confusing, not knowing which faceless character was talking, but once the author gave us names and small details to attach to those characters the book became easier to read. I enjoyed the little additional bits of information each chapter that dropped into the story line and the ending gave hope for most of them.

 

Book Description

This is a tale of six strangers living in a London apartment building, their lives & struggles unnoticed between them until they begin to intertwine.

A young man grieves, a new mother finds herself abandoned by her husband, a middle-aged menman lives in fear, an elderly woman longs to tell her son the truth, a student from Canada carries around guilt that she tried to run from by moving to London and an aging Italian immigrant feels abandoned after the death of his wife.  Depression, fear, anxiety, loneliness, guilt and grief – all human experiences that can either divide or unite us.

Each chapter is broken into six narratives of the occupants of a single floor of an apartment building in London.  In the first chapter we don’t know the names of any of the characters, just as they don’t know the names of one another, we are only introduced to their personal worlds.

As each narrative continues, the details of the personal trials of each character come to light and the characters begin to reach out to each other in various ways.  Ultimately, even the most cold and distant character is met with compassion.

This book explores how we are interconnected through the characterization of six strangers who, on the surface, think they have an apartment block in common and nothing else.

Find the book here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Meet The Author

Kaitlyn Hatch has been writing since before she could spell. She’s a contributing writer to publication on Medium.com, as well as having kept her own blog since 2008. 

In addition to writing books, Kait keeps a blog, runs a podcast, does graphic design and makes art, which is why she calls herself a creative polymath. 

Originally from Calgary, AB, she lived in the UK for six years where she gained citizenship and a strange amalgamated Canadian-English accent. She can’t say where in the world she’s living now, but ‘home’ is with her wife, Gretchen, and fur-child, Delirium. 

http://www.kaitlynschatch.com

Twitter @faunawolf

 

When They Build The Road You Want While You Wait #Travel #MondayBlogs

Last week I explained how there is much excitement in the Amber household as we plan next summer’s road-trip to Canada

Our plan is to fly to Calgary and over two weeks drive to Vancouver here are some of the highlights we’re looking at for our first couple of days: Calgary Tower , Fort Calgary , there is the famous Calgary Stampede which takes place July 7th – 16th and the  Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology near Drumheller

Meanwhile I’ve realised just how many other road trips we’ve done and I’m sharing them with you.

Last week was the 3000 mile trip to LA and back, all on the back of a packet of crisps, read the post here http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-9r6

This week is about the next trip to the west coast of America.

About a year after our trip to LA hubby and I (pre marriage and no kids) wanted to go back and see more of America, this time we flew into San Francisco and home from LA with a road- trip in between. We’re not huge city fans, so we jumped into our hire car and headed straight over the Golden Gate Bridge northwards, we were pleasantly surprised not to have to pay a toll, finding ourselves amongst rush hour traffic heading the right way out of the city.

First stop was the Napa valley region and a spot of wine tasting, interesting but when you’re driving and then flying home you can’t a) do too much tasting and b) bring too much wine home.

Next we drove almost to the Oregon border to the Redwood National Park , had a picture in front of  the giant “General Sherman” tree, but the park was very snowy and we hadn’t packed much cold weather clothing. Heading back down south we took the coastal road route 1 which hugged the rugged coastline, this was late Spring and there had been some ferocious storms, we’d been driving several hours and long past the last turnoff, when we were stopped by workmen. A landslide had knocked the road out and they were making a new one on the side of a very steep cliff, if we’d like to wait a while we could pass or turn around and go back. We decided to wait while they laid the shingle and graded and rolled it, then they waved us through, hubby asked what I could see down the drop off “absolutely nothing! Keep driving!”

We headed back to San Francisco for a spot of sight-seeing, and nearly got arrested for going down a closed road when we were lost, our saving grace was our accent and the fact hubby’s old style driving licence bamboozled the police officer. Think we went on a Twin Peaks trail, but I was still not speaking to hubby over the near arrest. Forgot about this until just now, I was dying for a pee when we were in the Bay area, found the public rest rooms, queued for ages crossing my legs only to discover non of the toilets had doors on them! I was so desperate by then, I had to forgo caring, assuming I was far enough away from home that I wouldn’t see anyone I knew. Then we headed down towards Bakersfield and the Sequoia National Park we do love our trees!

Passing through LA this time we decided to head to San Diego for a bit of sun, it had been snowy up in the Redwoods, the closer we got to the Mexican border the more security checks there were, we stopped just north of the city and next day went to the San Diego Sea World

A quick trip to Palm Springs, with an interesting drive through a dust storm. (Think we were ticking off nearly every weather condition on this trip) Palm Springs was lovely and warm in the city and then we took a cable car up the mountain to Mt San Jacinto State Park where it was snowing and we really hadn’t dressed appropriately again, at least we had booked dinner by the roaring log fire.

Lastly we high-tailed it back to LA, and fitted in The Universal Studio Hollywood Tour we sat in the Knight Rider car and tried to interact but it couldn’t understand our English accent, really enjoyed the studio tour, seeing characters from the latest Bat Man film at the time and seeing a well used pond feature in The Waltons and may more movies and TV series.

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Next week I take off without the Hubster to Australia.