Interview & Giveaway
Join us for this tour from Aug 18 to Sep 14, 2022!
Book Details:
Book Title: Call My Name: A Novel by Jenni Ogden
Category: Adult Fiction (18 +), 384 pages
Genre: Literary/Women’s/Bookclub Fiction
Publisher: Sea Dragon Press
Release date: April 2020
Formats Available for Review: print (USA only), ebook (MOBI FILE
(FOR KINDLE), EPUB, PDF, NetGalley download), audiobook (Findaway
download, NetGalley download)
Tour dates: Aug 18 to Sep 14, 2022
Content Rating: PG-13 + M: Has childbirth/abortion/adoption/surrogacy themes, the brief description of a rape in the past by a Japanese guard of a prisoner in a POW camp in Sumatra in WWII (not explicit but of course disturbing and violent). A mention of cannabis smoking when characters are young, mild in-context use of f-word and other expletives.
What They’re Saying
Praise from Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife & When the Stars Go Dark:
“An emotionally piercing and absorbing account of turbulent female friendship over time, Call My Name is also a keen meditation on the powerful pull of connection and belonging—the places and people that shape and change us, forever calling us home.”
“Jenni Ogden’s done it again—given us a beautifully crafted novel filled with the complexities, mysteries and joys of human connection within a family and between sisters, lovers and friends. Filled with authenticity, compassion and grace, Call My Name will find its way deep into your heart and soul, and stay with you long after the last page has been turned.” — Sally Cole-Misch, Award-winning author of The Best Part of Us
“Vivid setting, dynamic plot, and likable characters come together beautifully to deliver an emotionally compelling tale of friendship, love, loss, and forgiveness. Call My Name is a fantastic read.” — Jodi Wright, Award-winning author of How to Grow an Addict & Eat and Get Gas.
“This is a love story … of couples, of friends, of families. A page turning saga that is fresh in its story, yet provides the warmth of an old-fashioned classic.” — Romalyn Tilghman, Award-winning author of To the Stars with Difficulties, 2018 Kansas Notable Book of the Year
ABOUT THE BOOK
Two women, bound together by opposite personalities, friendship, love and family—until motherhood rips them apart.
From Jenni Ogden, author of bestselling novel A Drop in the Ocean (Gold Nautilus Award for Fiction) comes a compelling family saga set in the Australian Tropics and spanning the 1960s to 1990s.
Her mother dead from a drug overdose, thirteen-year-old Olivia is rescued by Cathie Tulloch, her mother’s friend throughout the years they were held captive in Japanese prison camps in Sumatra in WWII. Welcomed into the Tulloch’s remote family home in the Australian tropics, introverted Olivia is claimed by dramatic, generous, controlling Cassandra Tulloch as her sister and best friend. Moving to the UK at 18, Olivia finds her independence, and partner Ben. But in 1970, after five years away, she is homesick, and ready to fulfill her long-held dream: to make a family of her own. In Brisbane she and Ben share a hippie lifestyle with Cassandra and husband, Sebastian. But while earth-mother Cassandra effortlessly produces beautiful babies, for Olivia, becoming a mother is hard. Even harder is discovering the truth about her own mother. And when the unimaginable happens, destroying the friendship with Cassandra that has been her bedrock for so long, Olivia tells herself that she doesn’t deserve a family, nor a place to call home.
The story follows Olivia Newman, who is raised by her mother’s best friend Cathie Tulloch and Cathie’s husband. As Olivia nears her dreams of a career in publishing, she finds she’s pregnant. Unmarried and confused since her relationship is so new, she turns to her foster sister, Cassandra. Their growing relationship, of which there are many ups and downs, pretty much sums up this incredible book.
Ogden ties the characters together in a way that feels believable and brings about lots of emotions. At times the love and pain Olivia and Cassandra feel seem almost tangible. And for that matter, I was completely drawn in by all the secondary characters.
It’s not light reading that caused me to go away feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. It felt like an honest glimpse into life. But at the same time, a great element of love wound through this story.
My Concerns
For some, this might represent life just a little bit too much. It covers topics such as abortion, mother and daughter relationships, adoption, death, surrogacy, and more. At one point I considered that the story might have a political agenda, and if that was the case it wasn’t going to work for me. If you, like me, give that a thought, you can quickly dismiss it. It was a story. I felt no underlying threads of an ulterior motive.
As I mentioned, this covers lots of topics, and everything has an element of reality attached. For some, it won’t be the light-and-airy beach read you are looking for. It’s deeper, yet so captivating.
I took a long time to think about this before writing my review. I hate to hype a book up since it’s almost impossible to live up to preconceived notions. But this story brought these characters to life and I loved it.
I will definitely have this author on my radar.
My thanks to iRead Book Tours and the author for a copy of the book and the ability to post my thoughts, whatever those might be.
Meet the Author and Interview
Jenni Ogden and her husband live off-grid on spectacular Great Barrier Island, 100 kms off the coast of New Zealand, a perfect place to write and for grandchildren to spend their holidays. Winters are often spent in Far North Tropical Queensland, close to Killara, the fictional home in Call My Name, her third novel.
Her debut novel published in 2016, A Drop in the Ocean, was an Amazon bestseller and won multiple awards including the 2016 Gold Nautilus Award for Fiction, Large Publisher.
Her second novel, The Moon is Missing, was published in 2020 and is set on London, New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and Great Barrier Island, NZ.
Jenni, who holds a PhD in Clinical Neuropsychology and was awarded the Distinguished Career Award by the International Neuropsychological Society in 2015, is well-known for her books featuring her patients’ moving stories: Fractured Minds: A Case-Study Approach to Clinical Neuropsychology, and Trouble In Mind: Stories from a Neuropsychologist’s Casebook.
Interview
Q: What inspired you to write a book about friendship between two couples?
Well one of the inspirations was the song of the seventies “You’ve Got a Friend” which became a sort of theme song for the close friendship of my four central characters. To me this is so important; to have friends that even when the skies grow dark and full of clouds will come when you need them.
Q: How did you do research for your book?
So far all three of my novels have been set in locations I know well and love, so that is a major plus! I am probably obssesive about getting historical details right; for example in ‘Call My Name’ the facts about the abortion laws in the UK, even the exact date of London Times article reporting the feminist march that my fictional character, Olivia, took part in, in 1968! For these facts Google is the go-to, but I also read widely around the issues. I love the research aspects of writing a believable story.
Q: If you could put yourself as a character in your book, who would you be?
Aunt Cathy because she is the sort of person I would love to be. So encompassing, so positive, so non-judgemental.
Q: Do you have another profession besides writing?
Before I ‘retired’ early so I could try my hand at writing novels, I was a clincal neuropsychologist and wrote non-fiction books about my amazing patients and their families. Because I wrote case studies (similar to those of Oliver Sacks), although they were non-fiction they were still good practice for future fiction writing.
Q: What is your next project?
The novel I am revising now is much more akin to my debut novel ‘A Drop in the Ocean’ than ‘Call My Name’ as it is gentle and located on a beach with a fringing coral reef in a remote area of Western Australia. The non-human stars are not sea turtles as in ‘A Drop in the Ocean’ but Sea Dragons. Watch David Attenborough’s Youtube video of them dancing. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MKkr_1Kqcw) My central human characters are an 18-year-old ballet dancer and an eleven-year-old aboriginal boy. It is perhaps a little like ‘When the Crawdads Sing’. My ‘working’ title is ’Dancing With Dragons’.
Q: Do you ever get writer’s block? What helps you overcome it?
I don’t think I get writer’s block. Every now and then I get out of the habit of writing, perhaps for example if I have been on holiday, and then it can be hard to start again. So to get back into it I read from the start of the novel I have been writing and then I find I can get back into the swing of it. If I can’t then maybe I should be writing something else; perhaps this is the wrong book for me, or at least the wrong book for me at this time.
Q: What do your family members think about your novels?
I think they are proud of me… but they love to tease me about passages in the novels. When I was writing my first novel, my daughter said, “I hope there is no sex in it!”
“Well, there might be some mild appropriate sex; why would that worry you?” (She is a mother of three, and an avid reader of bookclub fiction herself).
“Because you’re MY MOTHER!”
My other daughter says nice things about my books but did say that it was very strange reading a novel written by her mother.
Another amusing anecdote: My brother-in-law, a retired English literature professor, was walking through the small Welsh village where he lives when a car screamed to a stop, and an elderly woman he vaguely recognised but didn’t know, stuck her head out the window and said “I’m reading your sister-in-law’s latest novel and it’s totally awesome!”
For posts on all sorts of things, go to my Psychology Today blog: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/trouble-in-mind-0
And do sign up to my occasional e-newsletter: http://www.jenniogden.com/newsletter.htm
Connect with the Author: website ~ facebook ~ twitter ~ instagram ~ pinterest ~ goodreads
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CALL MY NAME: A Novel Book Tour Giveaway
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