Thursday, September 11, 2014

CBB Book Promotions Review Tour: Eleanor by Jason Gurley


eleanor


Eleanor

Eleanor by Jason Gurley 
450 pages
Time is a river
1985. The death of Eleanor's twin sister tears her family apart. Her father blames her mother for the accident. When Eleanor's mother looks at her, she sees only the daughter she lost. Their wounded family crumbles under the weight of their shared grief.
1993. Eleanor is fourteen years old when it happens for the first time... when she walks through an ordinary door at school and finds herself in another world. It happens again and again, but it's only a curiosity until that day at the cliffs. The day when Eleanor dives... and something rips her out of time itself.
And on the other side, someone is waiting for her.

My Comments:

Not only is Eleanor a fantastic read, but it grapples successfully with several challenging themes:

1. How the breakdown of a family affects children.
2. The complexities inherent in a woman's decision to have or not have children.
3. And suicide. With Robin Williams recent passing, suicide has received more attention these days. One person commits suicide every 40 seconds.

Kudos to Jason Gurley for tackling these very human issues with such grace.

My Short & Sweet 5-star review:

Told largely through the eyes of a young girl, Eleanor provides a searing gaze into the the tragedies that have struck a family and darkened three generations of mother/daughter relationships. With added elements of time travel and dream worlds, the novel becomes something quite unique. There are so many beautifully written scenes, it was hard to put down. My absolute favorite parts were the Keeper and her shadow and the mystery that surrounds their world. Highly recommend.
About the Author:

Gurley_Jason_3 Jason Gurley is the author of the bestselling novel Greatfall as well as The Man Who Ended the World, the Movement trilogy and Eleanor, a novel thirteen years in the making. His short stories, including The Dark Age, The Caretaker, The Last Rail-Rider and others, appear in his collection Deep Breath Hold Tight: Stories About the End of Everything. He is work has appeared in a number of anthologies, among them David Gatewood's From the Indie Side and Synchronic and John Joseph Adams's Help Fund My Robot Army!!! & Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects. Jason is a designer by trade, and has designed book covers for Amazon Publishing, Subterranean Press, Prime Books and many independent authors, among them bestsellers Hugh Howey, Matthew Mather, Russell Blake, Michael Bunker, Ernie Lindsey and others. Jason lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest.