Blog tour: The Attic Child

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Welcome to the blog tour for The Attic Child by Lola Jaye!

More about the book…

1907: Twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of his time locked in an attic room of a large house by the sea. Taken from his homeland and treated as an unpaid servant, he dreams of his family in Africa even if, as the years pass, he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name...

Decades later, Lowra, a young orphan girl born into wealth and privilege, will find herself banished to the same attic. Lying under the floorboards of the room is an old porcelain doll, an unusual beaded claw necklace and, most curiously, a sentence etched on the wall behind an old cupboard, written in an unidentifiable language. Artefacts that will offer her a strange kind of comfort, and lead her to believe that she was not the first child to be imprisoned there...

More about the author…

Lola Jaye is an author and registered psychotherapist. She was born and raised in London and has lived in Nigeria and the United States. She has a degree in Psychology and a Masters in Psychotherapy and Counselling. She has contributed to the sequel to the bestseller Lean In, penned by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and has also written for the Huffington Post, CNN, Essence, HuffPost and the BBC.

She is a member of the Black Writers’ Guild and the author of five previous novels. The Attic Child is her first epic historical novel.

My impressions…

Was it a page-turner? As you might know if you’ve been following my reviews for some time, I do love a dual narrative, especially when the author is able to create a very clear sense of time and place. This is most definitely the case here, and it adds to the fascinating – if difficult – journey that leads to uncovering the connection between the two lead characters.

Did the book meet my expectations? I knew at first glace that this would be a powerful and heart-breaking story to read. It was. It is also an important story to tell though, and I would not hesitate to recommend it.

Three words to describe it. Epic. Powerful. Emotive.

Do I like the cover? The cover is stunning and is what first attracted me to this book. Clearly, not just a pretty cover though.

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, not yet. But I’ve already been browsing her past output…

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