This book is raw and powerful. It is a slow burn. It is beautifully written. Many of the characters are unlikeable. It is a phenomenal book.

Blue Hour is an incredible, powerful and moving novel. It is told from two perspectives - Kitty and her daughter Eleanor. Both have had difficult times and struggles. Kitty as a young woman during the war helping soldiers and her daughter growing up in the home of a traumatised man. Then later marrying a man with his own issues and PTSD. It really explores mental health and domestic abuse so sensitively. There is a sense from the beginning of this novel that all is not quite as it seems for Eleanor as she flees her marital home with her young daughter and the tension emanates from the page the further into the story you go. I couldn't put this book down though, it felt like I was heading for heartbreak but I couldn't look away for a second. I read this book all in one go and I have continued to think about it ever since finishing it. This was one of my favourite reads from last year and I can't wait to see what Sarah Schmidt writes next. I highly recommend this one!

Blue Hour

Sarah Schmidt

I loved See What I have done so when the invite for the Blue Hour Book Tour arrived I was delighted to sign up.

This wasn’t an easy book to read, dealing as it does with all of the trauma that war visits on human beings. It is also a dark and harrowing story of domestic abuse. But it’s also a very human and sensual story and Schmidt evokes tastes and smells and sounds like no other writer I’ve come across. The imagery conjured up by the use of tongues and fingers throughout the story was interesting and quite unique.

While it is often a harrowing and upsetting read, Blue Hour is a very beautifully written, deeply moving and well told story.

Thanks to Netgalley and Tinder Press for the opportunity to read and review this title.

OK, I don't think I was quite ready for the emotional juggernaut that this book is! It's a testament to the powerful writing how much it gets to you. The story is told by Kitty and her daughter, Eleanor. Both women experience hard and traumatic lives, influenced by the awfulness of war and the aftermath on soldiers. Often hard to read about but you really do care for the characters and go on the journey with them.

A read that left me heart-sore and pondering, it will stay with me for a while.

Gosh this was an emotional and difficult read. This book will definitely stay with me. Such a powerful exploration into trauma and grief. I enjoyed the dual narrative of Kitty and Eleanor as it was fantastic for character development and helped me understand both characters better. So haunting yet beautiful.

Beautifully written, encapsulating the drama and intricacies of living with a partner struggling with combat PTSD.

The story is powerful, the wounds it leaves are raw and it evokes so many emotions. It resonated so much with me, as my partner battles combat PTSD and its one hell of a bumpy ride living with him.

The characters are well developed, credible and the story is told through both a mother and her daughters eyes as they both battle to pull their husbands from the powerful grips of war.

Trigger warnings of trauma, rape, mental health, grief and loss.

Many thanks to Random Things Tours for my tour spot.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was a beautifully-written, utterly heartbreaking novel. The author is so talented at placing the reader into the story of two women, a mother and daughter, and their traumatic, disturbing marriages. The novel delves into very difficult topics and is uncomfortable at times.

I’ll state upfront that Blue Hour is a challenging read, but purely because Sarah Schmidt is able to vividly create a family where disappointment, tragedy and violence are everyday.

We meet Eleanor as she flees her home with her infant daughter, constantly alert for the sight of headlights following her. She’s headed to her place of childhood safety and, as she drives, she examines her life with her mother, Kitty.

When we meet Kitty, she is young, about to start her life as a nurse and away from her overtly religious parents, but is a life full of excitement and adventure on the cards for Kitty?

As we read, we discover that, while Eleanor and Kitty have a combative relationship, there are many parallels between their lives. Eleanor has set out in life determined not to become like her mother, but in her marriage to a man adversely affected by the Vietnam war, she has become exactly like her mother whose husband suffered periods of poor mental health due to his service in WW2.

There should definitely be content warnings on the sections dealing with PTSD and domestic violence, as they really pull no punches, but having said this, it is a must-read as, while the male characters and their trauma come to the fore, the women and their much quieter trauma are there, simmering in the background.

My overall view of this book was that it brilliantly conveys the good and the bad in each of the characters. Kitty is quite likeable in some ways, but is an absolute tyrant in others. Although she has gone through things to make her this way, she does have to face up to the fact that it is mainly her own decisions that have put her where she is. Similarly, Eleanor’s life is guided by her need to make her mother love her – it’s not until too late that she realises that the decisions she has made because of this have set her life on an inevitable path.

It’s been hard to review this book as it’s something that really has to be experienced – there’s a sickening feeling towards the end at some of the reveals that you just can’t know unless you read it. It’s definitely a book that you should go back and read more than once, as what is revealed will give you a whole new impression of the book.

As I said, it’s a complex and challenging read, but all the more rewarding for that.

* spoiler alert ** Thank you to NetGalley, Sarah Schmidt and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Blue hour is a raw and heartbreaking story about generational trauma. The POV’s switch between Kitty and her daughter Eleanor. Both women experience extremely traumatic events, of which are described in graphic detail, so I would check trigger warnings for anyone wanting to read this.
It’s written in a beautifully painful way, I felt connected to both women, and the ending absolutely broke me. It’s going to take me a long time to process this book, but I absolutely loved it!

TW: child death, sexual assault, rape, PTSD, suicide attempt, murder, child abuse, domestic abuse, rape, war, medical trauma & grief

Blue Hour is a tense, visceral and compelling portrait of the complex relationship between mothers and daughters. We follow Eleanor as she and her daughter, Amy, drive to the blue mountain which is a place of childhood enchantment and refuge. Working hard not only to escape her husband but also in a desperate attempt to defy the legacy and weight of the trauma that reaches down through generations. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

A haunting, moving novel, but not for the faint of heart.

Blue Hour moves between the lives of Eleanor and her mother Kitty. In the present day, Eleanor straps her infant daughter, Amy, into the back of her car, as she makes the decision to finally leave her husband Leon and a marriage in ruins since his return from Vietnam.

As Eleanor and Amy travel away from home, Eleanor begins to revisit the past and her fractured relationship with her mother, Kitty. Kitty who has had her own marriage struggles with a husband, George, who returned from war a different man than when he left.

This novel was brought to my attention after I read a review by Simon Savidge where he described reading it as a “thrilling and chilling experience”. Having read The Paper Palace based on another one of his recommendations, I trusted his opinion. And once again, he did not steer me wrong.

Please be aware, this is a tough read. Detailing the mental and physical affect of war on both the soldiers who serve and their wives at home, it makes for at times disturbing reading. The trauma and desperation suffered by the women in this novel as they try to support their partners when they come back almost unrecognisable leaves you full of unease. There’s a feeling of almost claustrophobia to the novel, with these women trapped in these relationships, and lives, ones that they fear they will never escape.

The novel also explores motherhood and grief, and how unhappiness can pass down through generations. It’s desperately sad to read a mother struggle to bond with her own child. And the confusion a child feels as a result of miscommunication, inadvertently caused within a family by a parent or parents unable to communicate their feelings in a healthy way.

But Blue Hour is so beautifully written that I couldn’t put it down, no matter how hard the subject matter became, which is a testament to the author. A mountain plays quite a significant role in the story and Schmidt’s nature writing is beautiful. I could have read her descriptions of the shape of a crow for fifteen pages. A heart-wrenching and powerful read.

Blue Hour by Sarah Schmidt is published on 7 July 2022, by Headline and Tinder Press. Thanks to them, NetGalley and the author for my advance copy. This is, as always, an honest review.

This is an incredible dark, moving and heartwrenchingly tragic novel about relationships and trauma. How, despite our intentions to love deeply, grief and trauma can be so destructive that it not only wounds us but those around us. The contrasts between the trauma experienced by the male characters and the female characters was fascinating, yet a the characters no matter what choices they made are unable to move on from the PTSD that blights their families. Many of the characters are not likeable but their journeys are complex and Schmidt writes superbly. This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

I was very impressed, perfectly structured and so moving. A beautifully written and moving story. Clever, thought-provoking, evocative. A touching and beautiful novel.

Blue hour focuses on Eleanor, a young woman trying to escape at dawn with her infant daughter, from an abusive marriage. Whilst driving to a place of comfortable for her, the book explores her life growing up, particularly her relationship with her parents. We learn that life has never really been easy for Eleanor and the impact this has had on her. It's easy to make judgements about the characters initially, but the author helps you to unravel how significant life events have shaped their existence. I really enjoyed the moving between the past and present as we learnt more about how Eleanor got where she was today.

This was an interesting read that I enjoyed. It was well written with a good storyline and well developed characters that were both relatable and interesting and engaged me the whole way through. An enjoyable read.

Rounding up to 3 stars

I'm disappointed to admit, I didn't like this as much as I hoped.
It had so e interesting characters, and their relationships with each other were often not quite the norm.
I just didn't connect with any of them beyond brief moments.
Wrong book, wrong person, wrong day I think .