Around the World Blog Tour ~ Guest Author Hazel Gaynor

The Around The World Blog Tour is a partnership between TripFiction and #BookConnectors ~ bloggers and authors, travelling the world, through fiction.

TripFiction was created to make it easy to match a location with a book and help you select good literature that is most pertinent and relevant to your trip. A resource for armchair and actual travellers, it is a unique way of exploring a place through the eyes of an author. We blog, and chat books and travel across Social Media, and love to meet authors and bloggers as we take our literary journey.

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Book Connectors  was created as a place on Facebook for Bloggers, Authors and small Publishers to share their news.We encourage book promotions; information about competitions and giveaways; news of events, including launch events, signings, talks or courses. Talk about new signings, about film deals .... anything really.

Book Connectors is  a friendly group, there are no rules or guidelines - just be polite and respectful to each other. 

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I am delighted to have been paired up with Author Hazel Gaynor for the final stop on this month's tour of Ireland. 

Hazel kindly sent me a signed copy of her book, The Girl Who Came Home. I will discuss that below. There is also an exciting giveaway as well!

A voyage across the ocean becomes the odyssey of a lifetime for a young Irish woman. . . .

Ireland, 1912 . . .

Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Séamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that fateful night again.

Chicago, 1982 . . .

Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about Titanic that she's harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace new direction—and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago.

Inspired by true events, The Girl Who Came Home poignantly blends fact and fiction to explore the Titanic tragedy's impact and its lasting repercussions on survivors and their 

My Thoughts:

Everybody has heard of Titanic, arguably one of the greatest maritime disasters of all time. There has been a lot of books written about it and a lot of films made, such is its importance in history.

I wondered whether another book about it, could bring anything fresh or new to the story but this one does. This book was written upon the centenary of the sinking in 2012. It was actually inspired by real events and real people. It tells the story of fourteen friends and family from Ireland who are wanting to travel to America to start a new life. 

This book has been written beautifully, with a poignancy and an accuracy. The attention to detail, makes life on the ship seem very real. It was a very moving read, as at the beginning you can sense the excitement of those aboard the ship. Little did they know the fate that awaited them a short few days later.

I also enjoyed the elements of the story where Maggie, a survivor tells her story to her Great Granddaughter Grace. A story that Maggie has kept locked up inside her, causing her much pain and sadness. 

Overall the book was truly wonderful, meticulously researched and I really enjoyed reading a different perspective on a disaster that we know so much about. I had little knowledge that so many people from Ireland set out that day for new lives, never to return home. I really recommend this one. I most definitely will be reading this author's other books.

About the Author:

Hazel Gaynor’s 2014 debut THE GIRL WHO CAME HOME – A Novel of the Titanic (HarperCollins) was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and winner of the 2015 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Romance Novel of the Year. Her second novel A MEMORY OF VIOLETS was also a NYT and USA Today bestseller and was selected by WHSmith Travel as one of their ‘Fresh Talent’ titles.

Hazel was chosen by US Library Journal as one of Ten Big Breakout Authors for 2015 and was the recipient of the 2012 Cecil Day Lewis award for Emerging Writers. She also writes a popular guest blog ‘Carry on Writing’ for writing.ie and contributes regular feature articles for the site, interviewing authors such as Philippa Gregory, Sebastian Faulks, Rachel Joyce and Cheryl Strayed, among others.

 Hazel’s third novel, THE GIRL FROM THE SAVOY will be published in the U.S., UK and Ireland in 2016. She has also contributed to WW1 anthology, FALL OF POPPIES – Stories of Love and the Great War, which will be published in March 2016.

Originally from East Yorkshire, Hazel has lived in Ireland for the past fourteen years. She lives in Kildare with her husband and two children and is represented by Michelle Brower of Folio Literary Management, New York. 

Web: http://www.hazelgaynor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hazelgaynorbooks

Twitter: @HazelGaynor

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/hazelgaynor

Many thanks to Hazel for joining me for this stop of the Ireland Tour.

Finally, Hazel has very kindly and very generously provided a unique prize for one lucky winner. UK and Ireland only eligible to enter please. Entries from other places will not be counted. 

Hazel is giving the lucky winner the opportunity to have a signed copy of both of her novels, with some Irish Chocolates as well. I hope that I have tempted you enough above regarding THE GIRL WHO CAME HOME, that you will enter.

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