#ThisIsHowWeAreHuman

Sebastian James Murphy is twenty years, six months and two days
old. He loves swimming, fried eggs and Billy Ocean. Sebastian
is autistic. And lonely. Veronica wants her son Sebastian to be
happy, and she wants the world to accept him for who he is. She
is also thinking about paying a professional to give him what he
desperately wants.

Violetta is a high-class escort, who steps out into the night thinking
only of money. Of her nursing degree. Paying for her dad’s care.
Getting through the dark.

When these three lives collide, and intertwine in unexpected ways,
everything changes. For everyone.

Both heartbreaking and heartwarming, This Is How We Are
Human is a powerful, moving and thoughtful drama about a
mother’s love for her son, about getting it wrong when we think
we know what’s best, about the lengths we go to care for family
and to survive.

This is my 3rd Louise Beech Book and this one cements her in my auto-buy author list. I love that she can write so powerfully across genres so you never know what’s coming next!

In this story Sebastian wants nothing more than to meet a woman, and have sex, but he’s autistic which for him makes forming any kind of relationship difficult. His mother just wants him to be happy and thinks the solution is to hire a escort. Violetta has responsibilities to take care of and a nursing qualification to pay for, she is just trying to keep it all together.

I really loved Sebastian’s character, I thought he was a very loveable man with a good sense of right and wrong and he just felt so real to me, as did all the characters! I really felt for his mum as she really was jut trying to do her best but being on her own with no one to talk through raising a child with made her feel so alone. I loved the surprise twist, it was really clever and made me question my own judgements I might have made in that situation.

Reading the authors note I saw that Louise had worked hard to research and make sure that Sebastian’s character was right and that it actually based on a true story!!

Another moving tale from a master story teller who can weave emotion in to anything. Thank you @orendabooks and @randomttours for letting me be part of the blog tour!

Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Brave
was a Guardian Readers’ Choice for 2015. The follow-up, The Mountain in My Shoe
was shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize. Both of her previous books Maria in the
Moon and The Lion Tamer Who Lost were widely reviewed, critically acclaimed
and number-one bestsellers on Kindle. The Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted
for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award in 2019. Her 2019 novel Call Me
Star Girl won Best magazine Book of the Year, and was followed by I Am Dust.

Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice. Louise lives with her husband on the outskirts of Hull, and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012.

#jubilantjune #blogtour