It’s a real pleasure today to be helping launch the blog tour and sharing my publication day review of Under One Sky by Zoë Folbigg. Published today (4th March) by Boldwood Books – previously published by Aria Fiction under the title The Distance – it’s now available as an ebook (free via Kindle Unlimited), in paperback, and as an audiobook. Many thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the invitation and support, and to the publishers for my advance reading e-copy (provided via netgalley).
I first discovered Zoë’s lovely writing a couple of years ago with of The Three Loves of Sebastian Cooper – an unforgettable character in Seb, along with the three women in his complicated life. Every emotional note perfectly hit, the book’s whole construction extremely clever, the different threads deliciously tangled – and it was such a cracking story that entirely engaged me from beginning to end (you can read my review again here). I totally missed her four previous novels (this was one of them – thank you Boldwood!), and must apologise that I also missed out on reading her next two, Christmas in New York and Five Days (although they’re both on my kindle, awaiting an opportunity…). But I’m delighted to be back for her latest – such an intriguing premise, and a book I was rather looking forward to…
From bestseller Zoë Folbigg comes this beautiful, romantic tale of finding love in the most unexpected places.
Under the midnight sun of Arctic Norway, Cecilie goes online looking for friends, and stumbles across Hector Herrera. They start chatting and soon realise that they might have just fallen in love. But there’s a problem: Hector lives thousands of miles away in Mexico. And he’s running from a tragic past.
Cecilie’s whole life has been anchored by sticking to what she knows and her job at the cafe in the town in which she grew up. Can she really make a leap of faith for someone she’s never met? And will Hector break free to change the path he’s on?
An unforgettable story about two people, living two very different lives under the same sky, and whether they can cross oceans, seas and fjords to give their love a chance.
Your reaction to this book might depend a little on your expectations. Yes, it really is the “utterly gorgeous romantic read” the publishers promised – but it was never going to be a conventional love story when Hector lives in Mexico and Cecilie in Norway, both living very different lives on opposite sides of the world. Their initial common ground is a love of Depeche Mode, as they “meet” on a fan forum – but their on-line relationship slowly develops into something considerably more.
We learn about their lives through a really innovative but easily followed timeline. Cecilie lives a small life, never having travelled, the mother who she lives with in some luxury a rarely present politician, her father having committed suicide by jumping from the harbour bridge – but she’s quietly quirky and fiercely independent, works different jobs at the library and a few cafes, has a number of close friends and a good relationship with her brother. Generally, she’s very “together”, but there are developments in her life that throw her off kilter, and Hector’s support – albeit at such a distance – becomes increasingly central to her well being.
Hector, now a commercial artist, had a very different upbringing – his care was shared by his grandfather and the local orphanage he still supports. Through his own relationships, he finds it increasingly difficult to distance himself from a former dissolute lifestyle and the involvement of gangs in his everyday life – and his much-needed connection with Cecilie provides a stability that becomes more and more important to him. And that timeline? It swirls, but is always clearly signposted – we’re there for their tentative early contact, through the heartbreak of Hector’s marriage and its aftermath, through their breaks in contact, and into the present day when the possibility of them meeting becomes real.
There is an additional complication to the story’s telling – a third point of view in Kate, a mother of three in England, endeavouring to cope with the suspected infidelity of her husband. We slowly learn that she and Hector have a past – a very distant one, when she helped out in the orphanage as a teen. Her particularly touching story unfolds along a separate track – it was one I rather enjoyed – with all three of their lives converging towards the book’s end.
However unusual the story’s telling or its highly original premise, something the author does incredibly well is to bring her characters to life on the page, to make them sympathetic and real, and to make you believe in the love story that’s slowly building through their on-line exchanges. I particularly loved Cecilie, with the vulnerability and lack of confidence that she conceals behind her less than conventional appearance – the dreadlocks and DMs – and her determination to be always in control, but with a heart that’s open to love and very easily broken. But I really felt for Hector too – so very much to cope with, and so difficult to find a way through it all.
As you might expect if you’ve read her other books, the author’s emotional touch is just perfect throughout – but the other thing she does particularly well is to capture the very different cultures. I suspect there might be those who’d question the authenticity of the Mexican setting, its general seediness and the level of threat and violence – but it certainly felt wholly real to me. And I particularly loved the depiction of Tromso in Norway – on the edge of the Arctic circle, and I could feel the cold in my bones while admiring its icy calm through the quite wonderful descriptions. And I am deliberately avoiding any mention of the book’s ending – but it was every bit as perfect as I wanted it to be, particularly well handled throughout the closing chapters, and not without a few painful stumbles as the final hurdle drew closer.
If you like your romance trope-focused and smoothly told through a rather more simple sequence of events, I’d understand if you might think this book isn’t for you. And yes, it really is very different – but that was what I’d rather expected (perhaps even hoped for…), and I always rather enjoy it when an author steps outside conventions a little and absolutely nails it. I have to say, this was a book I really loved – and the author is most certainly one I’ll be adding to my personal favourites.
About the author
Zoë Folbigg is author of Amazon number-one bestseller The Note, based on the true story of how she met her husband on her daily commute and Amazon Prime’s biggest selling Kindle book of 2018. Zoë has written for magazines and newspapers in the UK and around the world; she wrote a weekly column in Fabulous magazine documenting her year-long round-the-world trip with ‘Train Man’ – and now lives with him, their sons and their cat Margot in Hertfordshire.
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