Blog tour: Twelve Months and a Day

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Welcome to the blog tour for Twelve Months and a Day by Louisa Young!

More about the book…

Rasmus and Jay, Róisín and Nico – two beautiful, ordinary love stories, cut short by death. Jay and Nico don’t even believe in ghosts, yet they seem to be… still here. Still in love with Rasmus and Roísín. And maddeningly powerless.

Both are incapable of leaving the living alone: Jay plays matchmaker, convinced that Rasmus and Róisín can heal each other; Nico, plagued by jealousy, doesn’t agree.

Rasmus and Róisín are just trying to navigate their newly widowed lives.

But all four of them are thinking the same thing: what is love, after death? What is it for? And what are we to dowith it?

More about the author…

Louisa Young is a writer and songwriter whose twelve novels include the award-winning ‘My Dear I Wanted to Tell You’ trilogy. She’s half of the children’s author Zizou Corder (with her daughter Isabel Adomakoh Young), and half of the band Birds of Britain (with Alex Mackenzie). She’s a Londoner, a former journalist, a singer, a feminist, a reader, and ‘a masterly storyteller’ –  The Washington Post.

My impressions…

Ok, we all know that I have a thing for books that break my heart. I merely had to read the synopsis to know with certainty that this novel would make me suffer, and I would love it for it! My prediction came true.

One of my favourite quotes by Jeanette Winterson is ‘Why is the measure of love loss?’. These words give me goosebumps every time I remember them, and they immediately came to mind as I was reading Twelve Months and a Day.

This novel is stunningly beautiful. I wasn’t sure that I would entirely appreciate the supernatural element, but it felt so natural to learn how Jay and Nico felt on the other side of life. Grief is almost a fifth character here, but it comes hand in hand with hope and, while I cried more times than I’d like to admit, I ended the novel with a tentative smile.

Three words to describe it. Heart-breaking. Hopeful. Gentle.

Do I like the cover? Yes, it’s beautiful. So delicate, just like the way the author approaches a very difficult subject.

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, this was my first dip into what I suspect is an incredible oeuvre.

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