Archives par étiquette : Mushens Entertainment

THE BIRTH DEBRIEF de Illiyin Morrison

THE BIRTH DEBRIEF
by Illiyin Morrison
Quercus, Summer 2022

Despite being a trained midwife, Illiyin’s own birth experience was traumatic and led her to examine the effects of birth trauma more deeply. She has grown to appreciate the need for greater understanding of what took place during childbirth and why, in order to facilitate healing during the postnatal period. Using her own experience as a midwife and mother Illiyin plans to dispel myths and taboos around pregnancy and give women and birthing people the tools to manage and alleviate the effects of birth trauma. Illiyin will also be giving practical tips and exercises throughout the book to help readers understand and manage any birth related trauma while transitioning into postnatal life – whether it is the first or fifth baby.

Illiyin Morrison now offers a birth debriefing service, facilitating postpartum recovery and care. Illiyin’s Instagram page started in March 2020 to empower and educate women on birthing experiences and recovery, and now has over 17,500 followers. She has always had a passion for empowering women during pregnancy and childbirth and is extremely passionate about birth education. She offers an international Birth Debrief service to women and birthing people from all walks of life. Her debriefs are in such high demand and are fully booked until the end of March 2021.

THE MIXED EXPERIENCE de Natalie & Naomi Evans

In THE MIXED RACE EXPERIENCE, the founders of the anti-racist platform Everyday Racism share their experience of growing up mixed race in Britain, how they continue to process, understand and learn about their identity and use their privilege to advocate for change, as well as addressing the privileges and complexities of being mixed race in Britain today.

THE MIXED RACE EXPERIENCE
by Natalie and Naomi Evans
Square Peg, February 2022
(via Mushens Entertainment)

In the last census, Britain recorded over 1.2 million people who identified as mixed race. 6% of children under the age of 5 identify as mixed race, a higher number than any other Black and ethnic minority group in the country. So, why is it so hard for mixed race people to navigate their identity?
Weaving in real life stories from people in the UK who identify as being mixed race, are in a mixed race relationship or are raising mixed race children, practical advice and research to dispel common myths and stereotypes, this book is for anyone who needs help navigating a world that still struggles to understand mixed race people. From what it’s like to grow up in a majority white area and handling racism in your own family to understanding colourism, navigating mixed race microaggressions and internalised racism, this book is a thought provoking, sensitive, challenging and deeply moving look at identity and belonging.

Natalie Evans is a 31-year-old Events Manager, an anti-racist educator, speaker and writer from Kent. She has managed various festivals and is currently the Events Manager for a new youth festival, which will launch in 2021. Natalie is of Black Jamaican and White British heritage and has experienced racism both overtly and covertly throughout her life. She grew up in white majority town before moving to Brighton in 2015. She has recently moved back to her hometown and reflected on her experiences of racism both growing up and in her workplace. She co-founded Everyday Racism in May 2020 with her sister Naomi, after a video of her confronting two men racially abusing a ticket conductor went viral on twitter.
Naomi Evans is a 37-year-old Head of Drama at a secondary school in the South East of England, an anti-racist educator, speaker and writer. She has been a teacher since completing her PGCE at the London Institute of Education in 2005 and has a wealth of experience in training and leadership within the education system. Naomi is of Black Jamaican and White British heritage and has experienced racism both overtly and covertly throughout her life. She is working to influence change in education to ensure the curriculum is not just taught through a white lens. She is also interested in the representation of parenthood in the UK since becoming a mother herself. She has been married for 10 years and is the mother of two young children.

GURU de Louise O’Neill

GURU
by Louise O’Neill
Transworld UK, August 2022

Samantha Johnson is a forty-year-old, American influencer who runs a wellness empire – Shakti. With an Oscar-winning adaptation of her NYT-bestselling memoir under her belt, a powerful brand as a nononsense motivational speaker, and a booming business which she is about to sell in a multi-milliondollar deal, she has the world at her feet. She’s also launching a new book, CHASTE, in which she talks about her relationship with her sexuality. After writing a viral essay about her teenaged sexual awakening with her (female) best friend, she comes off stage after a sell-out event to some shocking news from her manager. That female best friend, Lisa, is demanding the magazine retract the essay – she never consented to this experience being shared, and what Samantha sees as a powerful erotic moment she sees very differently. She sees it as abuse. Samantha decides to return to the small town she grew up in, to confront Lisa, and convince her to drop the allegations. Once she’s back home, however, Samantha finds herself immediately wrongfooted by Lisa, now married to her high-school sweetheart, and the perfect suburban mom. Forced to confront the past she has whitewashed for years, she finds herself questioning her own memories. For both women have very different versions of how their relationship ended – so whose ‘truth’ is really a lie?

Louise O’Neill grew up in Clonakilty, a small town in West Cork, Ireland. Her first novel, Only Ever Yours, was released in 2014. Her latest novel, After the Silence, was a bestseller in Ireland.

10 SKELTON PLACE de Claire Douglas

An inherited cottage. A body buried in the garden. And a secret spanning three generations.

10 SKELTON PLACE
by Claire Douglas
Penguin UK, August 2021

When Saffy’s beloved grandmother, Rose, goes into a care home Saffy learns that she has inherited her Cotswolds cottage. But as work begins on much-needed renovations, the body of a young woman is uncovered in the garden. Who is she? During Rose’s more lucid moments, she reveals snippets of information that Saffy pieces together. And then another body is discovered. As she delves into Rose’s past, Saffy uncovers dark secrets, calling into question everything she thought she knew about her family.

Claire Douglas has worked as a journalist for fifteen years writing features for women’s magazines and national newspapers, but she’s dreamed of being a novelist since the age of seven. She finally got her wish after winning the Marie Claire Debut Novel Award, with her first novel, The Sisters, which was followed by Local Girl Missing, Last Seen Alive and Do Not Disturb, all Sunday Times bestsellers. She has been a German bestseller twice, with Local Girl Missing spending three months on the Spiegel Bestseller list. She lives in Bath with her husband and two children.

THE WANTED GIRL de Rajasree Variyar

This page-turning reading group novel follows Asha, a young South Indian woman growing up in Australia, frustrated with her mother’s secretiveness about her past. When the family return to South India, Asha is determined to discover what her mother is hiding – but when her investigation leads her to dark secrets, can she come to terms with the truth?

THE WANTED GIRL
by Rajasree Variyar
Orion UK, Spring 2023

Sydney, 2019. Twenty-five-year-old Asha, who has grown up in Australia, knows very little of her mother’s past in India. As far as her Amma is concerned, the past doesn’t matter, it’s their future that counts. But when Asha’s paternal grandfather is taken ill, her beloved father requests that they return to Madurai to see him, and he wants the whole family to go. Asha is fascinated by what her mother is hiding, and determined to discover the truth about her background: knowing all the while that she is also hiding something from her family.
Madurai, 1992. Janani is a young mother trapped in an unhappy marriage, under pressure from her husband and mother-in-law to give birth to a son. Daughters are expensive to raise and rarely survive birth, with families often taking matters into their own hands to ensure this. But Janani has a dream – a dream of escaping her misery, of finding love, and experiencing happiness. And, above all, of protecting her children no matter what.
As Asha delves deeper into the truth, she starts to suspect what her mother has been running from for all these years. But can she forgive her for everything she has hidden?
Similar to A Thousand Splendid Suns in its sweeping depiction of the plight of women, Where the Crawdads Sing, and The Beekeeper of Aleppo.

Born in Bangalore and raised in Sydney, Australia, Rajasree Variyar has been a Londoner for the last five years, where she juggles writing alongside a career in insurance. She received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in 2020. Her manuscript of THE WANTED GIRL was shortlisted for the 2019 Mo Siewcharran/Hachette UK prize. Her short stories have won second prize in the Shooter Literary Magazine short story competition in 2019 and been long-listed for the Brick Lane Bookshop short story competition in 2020.