Tag Archives: Julie Christine Johnson

#BookReview ‘The Crows of Beara’ by @JulieChristineJ #contemporary #romance

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The Crows of Beara by Julie Christine Johnson is a sensitive tale of two lost souls from opposite sides of the world who are in such pain they are unable to recognise a fresh chance for happiness. Annie Crowe, recovering addict and corporate PR specialist, flies from Seattle to Ireland to promote a new copper mine. When she meets Daniel Savage, an artist with a troubled past, both start to hear a mystical Gaelic voice whispering words of poetry. Julie Christine JohnsonThe west coast of Ireland is a bleak, beautiful, empty place. Jobs are thin on the ground so when a new copper mine is announced, the locals are divided: the economy, or nature. Annie arrives, determined to make a success of this last chance to get her career back on track. When she discovers the mine will endanger the nesting site of the Red-Billed Choughs, she must tell lies in the name of PR. She doesn’t expect it to make her acknowledge the lies she has been telling herself; about her failed marriage, her failing career, and her alcoholism.
Annie, flawed but vulnerable, is an easy character to like. Weighed down by her addiction and the knowledge she did shameful things she can’t remember, she moves forward step-by-step. You will her onwards. She soon falls in love with the beauty of Beara and the openness of the community. This causes a professional problem, how can she promote a copper mine which will damage this exquisite nature. As she wrestles with her conscience, she must also resist the temptation to pick up a glass of alcohol. In Annie and Daniel, Johnson has created two wounded characters who are not sorry for themselves, who face up to their pasts and their grief, who try to look forward. This is an uplifting story on so many levels.
As with In Another Life, Johnson’s debut novel, there is something mystical going on in The Crows of Beara. A skeleton of myth and legend underlies the Irish setting and runs throughout the story. The west coast of Ireland is certainly an extra character here; the descriptions of the Beara Peninsula, its mists, its cliffs, its Red-Billed Choughs [the crows of the title] are so beautifully written you will be getting out your hiking boots and googling hotel accommodation.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

And here’s my review of IN ANOTHER LIFE, also by Julie Christine Johnson.

If you like this, try:-
‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd
‘The Little Red Chairs’ by Enda O’Brien
‘Nora Webster’ by Colm Tóibín

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE CROWS OF BEARA by @JulieChristineJ http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Ok via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘In Another Life’ by @JulieChristineJ #contemporary #romance

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In Another Life is the debut novel by Julie Christine Johnson but you’d never know it. She handles her subject matter – Cathar history, Languedoc setting – with confidence and has put together a compelling story of love, history and mystery. Julie Christine JohnsonLisa Carrer returns to France, to the place where her husband was killed in a cycling accident, drawn by the comfort of the place and the proximity of her best friend. She is looking to start anew and finish her research into Cathar history. But a strange experience on her first night in her new house is the first of a trail of events which entwine her own life in the present with people from the past, from the actual time in history she is researching.
The story moves along quickly and kept me turning the pages, told in two strands – present day, and 1208. Originally inspired by a holiday in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, Johnson explains in her ‘Author’s Note’ at the end of the book, that she has draped “layers of fantasy over a scaffolding of fact”. This worked for me, I have a shallow understanding of the historical period and trusted her storytelling.
It is a love story which involves reincarnation, it is not about time travel. Comparisons to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, are misleading. In Another Life reminded me in style of Kate Mosse’s Languedoc trilogy, though the stories are completely different. Both authors clearly love Languedoc and know their Cathar history.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

And here’s my review of THE CROWS OF BEARA, also by Julie Christine Johnson.

If you like this, try:-
‘Ferney’ by James Long
‘The Lives She Left Behind’ by James Long
‘Citadel’ by Kate Mosse

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview IN ANOTHER LIFE by @JulieChristineJ https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-1Rb via @SandraDanby