Thursday 18 February 2016

Book Review - The Glittering Art of Falling Apart by Ilana Fox - Blog Tour

Amazon UK
Title: The Glittering Art of Falling Apart
Author: Ilana Fox
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Orion
Publication Date: 11th February 2016
Rating: 4 Stars


1980s Soho is electric. For Eliza, the heady pull of its nightclubs and free-spirited people leads her into the life she has craved - all glamour, late nights and excitement. But it comes at a heavy cost.

Cassie is fascinated by her family's history and the abandoned Beaufont Hall. Why won't her mother talk about it? Offered the chance to restore Beaufont to its former glory, Cassie jumps at the opportunity to learn more about her past.

Separated by a generation, but linked by a forgotten diary, these two women have more in common than they know . . .

This is a story set between the 60s (to a lesser extent), the 80s and now. It features two very different strands of the same family, and Beaufont Hall is at the centre of the various revelations that come out, once Cassie finds Eliza's diaries. 

Cassie has always felt a pull towards Beaufont Hall, and when her mother Rebecca is saying they really need to sell it, Cassie wants the opportunity to help out with clearing it at the very least, and if at all possible come up with a plan to save the house. While she is looking in the library she comes across Eliza's diaries. 

It is Eliza's story that really draws you in, and instead like in some books, where the diary will be shown to the reader, word for word in the first person for each entry, in this we get the action going to the 1980's, to Soho, and in the third person, get a more rounded overview of her time in Soho, and what she was up to during the period of the diaries being written. 

I can't put my finger on it, but I found myself wishing my way past the current story that was interesting, but to get back to the diaries, as I found out more about Eliza's life. Cassie was the same, as she was finding out lots of information about a part of the family she never knew existed. 

The question of why the family fractured was part of the driving force of this novel. As was the descriptions of  Soho life in the 1980s, in London's slightly seedy underbelly.  

I really enjoyed reading The Glittering Art of Falling Apart, a lot more than I initially thought I would, and found the whole book an interesting and entertaining story, with some great highs and lows. I loved and whole heartedly support Cassie's ideas to save Beaufort Hall and the Hall itself attracted me. There were some wonderful descriptions of the rooms, especially of how they must have looked in their glory days. 

Thank you so much to Elaine Egan at Orion and Netgalley for this review copy. This was my honest opinion. 

It has been an honour and a pleasure to kick off the blog tour for this fabulous book. Please check out the rest of the stops on the tour. 


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