Blog tour: Once Upon A Thousand Hills

Welcome to the blog tour for Once Upon A Thousand Hills by Wendy Skorupski!

More about the book…

Naomi Lieberman has flown the nest of her hometown in Liverpool to seek the bright lights of London. Despite having aspirations and a degree in forensic science, Naomi finds herself working as a sales assistant at a sex shop in Soho. This is just one of many shameful secrets she has to hide from her Orthodox Jewish family and childhood sweetheart, Ephraim. Facing up to the disappointing realities of her life Naomi is desperate to find meaning and purpose. On a whim she signs up as a volunteer at a local refugee centre where her path soon crosses with that of John Paul Chambers.

John Paul is head of English at a private college and the manager of the refugee centre. He is arrogant, aloof, and still trying to free himself from the emotional curse of the genocide in Rwanda that orphaned him twenty years earlier. When John Paul interviews the centre’s latest flighty volunteer, neither he nor Naomi has the slightest idea that their lives are about to change forever.

Wendy Skorupski’s debut novel is an unlikely and uplifting love story exploring the depths of human experience and the life-changing moment when two paths cross.

More about the author…

Wendy Skorupski had an international upbringing and now lives in Kraków, Southern Poland, together with her youngest daughter and their mischievous Belgian Malinois. In her youth Wendy wanted to be a concert pianist, as well as a writer, but soon realised that one life was not enough to attain both dreams. Gradually, the writing took over, resulting in a number of novels which she wrote in between bringing up three children and balancing a demanding job in international education. 

In October 2016 Wendy and her family visited Rwanda and sent a tweet to the controversial president, Paul Kagame. When he replied, word soon got out and triggered a plethora of international articles and interviews. This is what ignited the spark for Once Upon a Thousand Hills, which is her first published work.

As a novelist, Wendy feels compelled to reach out and connect with the anonymous reader out there in the world at large – share experiences, touch a chord, make people laugh, cringe, want to read more, join the writer’s inner world and odyssey. She can’t imagine life without plunging herself into the weird and wonderful world of fiction; something that has been part of her life for as long as she can remember.

Wendy frequently travels to London and Liverpool, where various members of her family are scattered. 

My impressions…

When I first read the synopsis, I thought ‘Well, this is something different from anything I’ve read this year!’… and I was 100% correct! I was attracted to the sound of the two main characters – so different from each other – and the unusual backdrops to their story – a Soho sex shop and a refugee centre are not a common combination! I knew romance was going to be on the cards, and it is, but this novel is so much more. Love, yes, but also friendship, family expectations, trauma and all those other nuances that colour our human experience. I was completely absorbed in the world of Naomi and John Paul, to the point where I started to forget that they are fictional characters. That, to me, is the sign of great storytelling and character development.

Three words to describe it. Eclectic. Intriguing. Contemporary.

Do I like the cover? Yes, it’s lovely.

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, this is her first published novel.