We’re on the Blog Tour for Helga Flatland’s latest, One Last Time.
One Last Time – the blurb
Anne’s life is rushing to an unexpected and untimely end. But her diagnosis of terminal cancer isn’t just a shock for her and for her daughter Sigrid and granddaughter Mia it shines a spotlight onto their fractured and uncomfortable relationships.
On a spur-of-the moment trip to France the three generations of women reveal harboured secrets, long-held frustrations and suppressed desires, and learn humbling and heart-warming lessons about how life should be lived when death is so close.
Blazing the way
She has only gone and done it again. I reviewed A Modern Family over a year ago now and loved Flatland’s grasp of nuance, family tensions and generally reading something from Norway that wasn’t ScandiNoir. Forget just Norwegian fiction, this is contemporary fiction at its finest.
I just wish there had been more! Like how did Sigrid’s son come about? I’m not talking about the birds and the bees but was he an accident? There was a very large age gap between him and Mia. It also would have been nice to see things from a male point of view – just what was Sigrid’s husband thinking during it all? I say this not as criticism but just because I wanted more, to have something I was enjoying so much last longer. As it was the 3 females, particularly Anne and Sigrid, blazed the way through pain, hope and ultimately love. You could sympathise with all of them. You could find all of them a little annoying. They were perfectly flawed yet bloody brilliant.
As well as properly good characters Flatland demonstrated effortlessly how recollections of memories vary. These weren’t over analyzed, just glimpsed at to let you know what you are reading isn’t necessarily gospel. You flit between feeling anger for Sigrid’s difficult childhood, to sympathizing with Anne raising children and dealing with a sick husband. But then again hang on a minute, Anne is no angel. Yeah but she is dying so off we go back to square one again. It was just so perfectly balanced.
In case you didn’t guess I loved it. Whatever’s next from Flatland stick me in front of it as I will read it.
Thanks
My thanks go to Orenda Books via the Random Things Tours for a copy of One Last Time in exchange for an honest review.
