Blog Tour stop for this compelling and emotive story,completely heart breaking and yet hugely powerful and original.
#ASongofIsolation #BlogTour #MeToo @MIchaelJMalone1 @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours
"One accusation...A heinous crime...And nothing's ever the same again. "
Synopsis
Film star Amelie Hart is the darling of the silver screen, appearing on the front pages of every newspaper. But at the peak of her fame she throws it all away for a regular guy with an ordinary job. The gossip columns are aghast: what happened to the woman who turned heads wherever she went?
Any hope the furore will die down are crushed when Amelie’s boyfriend Dave is arrested on charges of child sexual abuse.
Dave strongly asserts his innocence, and when Amelie refuses to denounce him, the press furore quickly turns into physical violence, and she has to flee the country.
While Dave is locked up with the most depraved men in the country and Amelie is hiding on the continent, Damaris, the victim at the centre of the story, is also isolated – a child trying to make sense of an adult world…
Breathtakingly brutal, dark and immensely moving, A Song of Isolation looks beneath the magpie glimmer of celebrity to uncover a sinister world dominated by greed and lies, and the unfathomable destruction of innocent lives… in an instant.
PUBLICATION DATE: 17 SEPTEMBER 2020 | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99| ORENDA BOOKS A SONG OF ISOLATION by MICHAEL J. MALONE
My Review
As many of you know I love Orenda Books they really are a class act in publishing so I already knew that this read was going to be good, just how brain melting and emotive it ended up been I was not prepared for!
In this read we meet Amelie Hart an up and coming movie star loved by all, on the brink of real superstardom when she gives it all up for love, she meets Dave just an ordinary man with a normal life and this is what she craves, normality, shocking the celebrity world she settles into her life with her new partner.
But neither of them are prepared for what comes next, Dave is accused of child abuse by their neighbours and with Amelia's fame, the media picks up on the case and its is front page news around the world.
And when Amelie stands by Dave, the media storm grows, how can she support this man? what is she doing? the tide has turned on the once starlet and the growing disdain from the media and the public is mounting, will any of them survive this accusation?
I have to start this review with a trigger warning this story has themes of abuse, child abuse and manipulation but is in no way written for the crass thrills just a well researched and compelling look at what an accusation can do to an individual and how it effects everyone around the accused and the victim from family and friends to co workers and parents.
At the heart of this story is a crime but it is mixed in layers of manipulation, The truth that Amelie and Dave fight for becomes so clouded that you really feel the desperateness of there journey through this injustice they believe they are fighing.
What this story shows is that in the online quick news and celebrity obsessed world we live in we are at times are only shown one side or the side the media or others manipulate and this can be so very misleading, when we see crimes and trials almost held in the media, you can be guilty before you have even set foot in the court room.
This story kept me gripped from beginning to end not just Amelie's and Dave's story but that of the Damaris victim too, I cannot say much more as a spoiler free blog but safe to say I found this story utterly compelling, completely heart breaking and yet hugely powerful.
Author Bio
Michael Malone is a prize-winning poet and author who was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country.
He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings. Blood Tears, his bestselling debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize from the Scottish Association of Writers.
His psychological thriller, A Suitable Lie, was a number-one bestseller, and the critically acclaimed House of Spines, After He Died and In the Absence of Miracles soon followed suit.
A former Regional Sales Manager (Faber & Faber) he has also worked as an IFA and a bookseller. Michael lives in Ayr.
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Thank you to the Publisher and Author for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel and for the opportunity to review these works.
All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.