Happy publication day, Emma Robinson! It may be Halloween, but a visit to Paris is beckoning! I am delighted to be kicking off the blog blitz for ‘One Way Ticket to Paris’ – many thanks to Bookouture for having me, and for the ARC. Here is my review:
When I was a kid and I’d lost something, my dad always said ‘Go back to the place you last had it’. The problem is that what I’ve lost is… me.
Kate loves her family more than anything, but recently she has started to feel invisible. Lying awake at three a.m. as her husband snores, panicking about shopping lists, birthday parties, and the school bake sale…
She finds herself in the kitchen, gulping water, staring at a postcard of the Eiffel Tower from Shannon, her best friend.
Paris, with its red wine, slippery cobbles and curly lamp posts. Where the scent of freshly-baked croissants hangs in the air, and Kate last remembers feeling like herself.
The postcard is a year old. It has just one line on it: When are you coming?
What does TWG think?
Have you ever felt lost? Not lost because you ended up taking the wrong turning on your way back from a day out shopping, but lost because you can’t help feeling as though part of you is missing? A sense of loss like no other – the undervalued, monotonous loss whilst enduring every day life of sewing up your husbands boxers because his purse strings are tighter than the waistband, or the endless meals you need to cook for your children because, after witnessing Tabitha in Year 3 have a melt down due to not realising that chicken nuggets from McDonald’s were in fact REAL chicken, your child’s pallet refuses to swallow the rather popular delicacy of….chicken.
It’s no wonder that, after dealing with said issues on a day to day basis, that someone’s patience ends up snapping. Why can’t the husband don his inner Paul Hollywood for the school bake sale at 11pm at night instead of you? Why can’t the husband make meal after meal that isn’t eaten by the children because their tastebuds changed 5 minutes later? It really is no wonder that Kate felt the need to escape to a place she feels comfortable, happy, and most importantly, herself. Okay she may not have mentioned the trip to her husband, but that’s neither here nor there. Kate just wanted to be happy again, you can’t really fault her for that now can you?
Kate’s journey of self discovery isn’t the only one in this story, her best friend, Shannon, has unintentionally taken giant leaps into unfamiliar territory as she tries to come to terms with her current situation. I must say that, despite not warming to Shannon’s icy personality to begin with, I ended up wanting to give her a great big hug. Kate too, if I’m honest. There is a third main character, Laura, and whilst I am sure that a lot of readers will relate to her thoughts on marriage, childbearing and what not, I personally couldn’t gel with her as I found her to be a character who seemed intent on throwing her teddies out of her pram. Maybe that’s just me, or maybe it was because in comparison to the other two ladies lives, Laura was going to ‘win’ whichever way she looked at it.
I thought that the overall premise of ‘One Way Ticket to Paris’ was very poignant and thought provoking, cementing the fact that if you aren’t happy in yourself, you aren’t happy in life and you can’t be the best of yourself for your family. A simple yet incredibly important task, which I for one don’t take the time to do ‘me’ when I should. We all should. Emma Robinson has done a brilliant job of making that important message shine through her storyline like a beacon, especially as it’s so easy to lose yourself in life, yet it’s so much harder to find yourself again.
I thoroughly enjoyed this heartwarming, thoughtful read where the humour perfectly balanced the emotions within. This is definitely a story written from the heart – I loved it.
About the author.
She also has a blog, Motherhood for Slackers, which takes a humorous look at parenthood, and includes poems such as ‘Dear Teacher’ about her son starting school which has been shared around the world. Emma is an English teacher and lives in Essex with a patient husband and two children who are an endless source of material.
Website: www.motherhoodforslackers.com
Facebook: wwe.facebook.com/motherhoodforslackers
Twitter: @emmarobinsonuk
Instagram: emmarobinsonuk
The Writing Garnet 