Blog Tour for A Painter in Penang by Clare Flynn

 

I was please to be asked to join in with this blog tour - gave me a chance to read my first book by this author.

About the book:

Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Barrington hates everything about living in Kenya and longs to return to the island of Penang in British colonial Malaya where she was born. Expulsion from her Nairobi convent school offers a welcome escape – the chance to stay with her parents’ friends, Mary and Reggie Hyde-Underwood on their Penang rubber estate.

But this is 1948 and communist insurgents are embarking on a reign of terror in what becomes the Malayan Emergency. Jasmine unearths a shocking secret as her own life is put in danger. Throughout the turmoil, her one constant is her passion for painting.

What did I think:

I didn't realise when I started reading this book that it wa the 3rd book in a series. If I had had the time I think I might have left this one and started with the first book.

Saying that it does work as a standalone novel - some of the characters are the same but from what I can gather each book centres around a different family member.

The story transports you to a faraway place and in the midst of this current pandemic where you cannot travel very far at all I have to say was very welcome. I know nothing about Penang or it's history.

The main character in this book id 16 year old Jasmine - the painter in the title - she is in school in Kenya but deeply unhappy and wanting to return to Malaya. Her mother arranges for her to return and live with a family friend. But this is 1948 and communist insurgents embark on a reign of terror.

This book is part a history lesson, part coming of age story all set against the backdrop of a tropical paradise being torn apart by civil war.

I will certainly be going back  to read the first two books in the series - The Pearl of Penang and Prisoner From Penang.

About The Author:

Historical novelist Clare Flynn is a former global marketing director and business owner. She now lives in Eastbourne on the south coast of England and most of her time these days is spent writing her novels – when she's not gazing out of her windows at the sea.

Clare is the author of eleven novels and a short story collection. Her books deal with displacement – her characters are wrenched away from their comfortable existences and forced to face new challenges – often in outposts of an empire which largely disappeared after WW2.

Her latest novel, A Painter in Penang, was published on 6th Octoberl 2020. It is set in Malaysia in 1948 during the Malayan Emergency.

Clare's novels often feature places she knows well and she does extensive research to build the period and geographic flavour of her books. A Greater World - 1920s Australia; Kurinji Flowers – pre-Independence India; Letters from a Patchwork Quilt – nineteenth century industrial England and the USA; The Green Ribbons – the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century in rural England, The Chalky Sea - World War II England (and Canada) and its sequels The Alien Corn and The Frozen River - post WW2 Canada. She has also published a collection of short stories - both historical and contemporary, A Fine Pair of Shoes and Other Stories.

To buy your copy - https://amzn.to/3iyTFYD