Today I am so pleased to take part in the Blog Tour for The Second Cup by Sarah Marie Greye. Thank you, Rachel @rararesources and Sarah @SarahMarieGraye for asking me to participate.
The Second Cup
Would your life unravel if someone you knew committed suicide? Theirs did.
Faye’s heart still belongs to her first love, Jack. She knows he might have moved on, but when she decides to track him down, nothing prepares her for the news that he’s taken his own life.
With the fragility of life staring them in the face, Abbie finds herself questioning her marriage, and Faye her friendship with Ethan. And poor Olivia is questioning everything – including why Jack’s death has hit Beth the hardest. Is she about to take her own life too?
My Review
My favourite passage:-
“It takes me a few seconds to register that Olivia has come in and is holding out a mug of steaming liquid towards me. “Tea,” she says when I don’t take the mug from her. My arms seem too heavy to lift to take the cup from her. I half shrug my shoulders. In response, she holds the mug to my lips, tipping it gently so that I can take sips. Before I taste it, I can tell from the faint sweet, almost floral fragrance that it is the perfect brew.”
When Jack’s friends learn of his death through suicide it affects them all differently.
It is rare that an author can articulate the type of pain inflicted through the act of suicide. In The Second Cup , Sarah Marie Graye does this, not through one voice, but four.
I found the characters a little difficult to differentiate at first, due to the changing narratives and timescales. However, this is not to the detriment of the writer’s beautiful prose.
I enjoyed the tea references, they offered a dash of comfort within a tragic storyline.
A marvelous debut by Sarah Marie Graye.
Thank you to @rararesources for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Author Bio:
Sarah Marie Graye was born in Manchester, United Kingdom, in 1975, to English Catholic parents. One of five daughters, to the outside world Sarah Marie’s childhood followed a relatively typical Manchester upbringing… until aged 9, when she was diagnosed with depression.
It’s a diagnosis that has stayed with Sarah Marie over three decades, and something she believes has coloured every life decision.
Now in her early 40s, and with an MA Creative Writing from London South Bank University (where she was the vice-chancellor’s scholarship holder), Sarah Marie has published her debut novel – about family, friendships and mental health.
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