Julia Sutton's Blog

A Sea of Straw


Review copies of A Sea of Straw are now available to request from NetGalley.com

A Sea of Straw by Julia Sutton is available on NetGalley from today.


A Sea of Straw

My novel: A SEA Of STRAW

has been long-listed for the NOT THE BOOKER prize.

And you can cast your public vote here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

You can vote for two books from the list and leave a very short review for one of them.

Voting closes on Monday 7th August at 23:59pm.

Julia Sutton- Goodreads author.

I just finished reading Venetia Welby's debut - Mother of Darkness.
An outstanding work, which deserves a thorough review. So I shall read through it once more, before attempting to do it justice.

Here's a link to my new Blog:

https://juliasuttonauthor.wordpress.c...

and my first post of yesterday:

https://juliasuttonauthor.wordpress.c...

A Sea of Straw

Countdown to Friday 19th May, when the eBook for A Sea of Straw will be be 99p all week (99cents in USA) - from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

A CONVERSATION WITH JULIA SUTTON ABOUT HER BOOK A SEA OF STRAW

See the full conversation on the Blog at

http://cheynewalk.co/www/

I shall be answering members' questions on this conversation for the duration of the Giveaway- i.e. until the 18th March.

A Sea of Straw
by Julia Sutton (Goodreads Author)
Release date: Oct 25, 2016
Enter for the rare chance to win one of two copies of A SEA OF STRAW signed by author Julia Sutton.

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A short book, but a powerful one, that many of you would read in one day. Even I, as the slowest of readers, could finish it in three. Don't expect the thrill of beautiful, uplifting sentences here; the language is plain. Like the Congregationalist background of the characters: Lucy Barton and her mother.


Lucy, now a writer with grown-up daughters of her own, is remembering her early years as a mother and, especially, an extended stay in a hospital room with a view of the Chrysler building in New York. Unable or unwilling to visit Lucy himself, her first husband called the mother Lucy hadn't seen since leaving home. Home - a bleak field in Illinois, on which Lucy, her sister and her brother, had spent a fearful and socially restricted childhood.

The narrative then focuses on the five days and nights of Lucy's mother's visit to her bedside. Her refusal to sleep, her cat naps, her evasive staring through the window whenever Lucy tried to move the conversation on from silly anecdotes about the neighbours or passing strangers they once knew. So the mother wants the talk to stay within the period of Lucy's life that she was part of, the time when she had the authority. While Lucy longs for her to ask her about her new life in the city, the grandchildren, Lucy's work. The mother's resentment and lack of confidence is palpable. And in the widening gulf between these conflicting needs a picture emerges, awkwardly. A relationship minutely scrutinised with a cool mid-western eye. A woman who, because of circumstance, had to starve her children of her comfort. And a girl who survives regardless and grows to become the woman she wanted to be.

More a portrayal than a story, in which the spaces behind the words count for much more than the words themselves. Spaces that, in the end, reveal a somewhat awkward and rough beauty.



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