Blog Tour Review: The Things We Learn When We’re Dead

Book Cover-2

Title: The Things We Learn When We’re Dead
Author: Charlie Laidlaw
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Accent Press
Source: Reads & Reels
Release Date: January 26, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

With elements of The Wizard of Oz, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Lovely Bones, The Things We Learn When We’re Dead shows how small decisions can have profound and unintended consequences, and how sometimes we can get a second chance.

On the way home from a dinner party, Lorna Love steps into the path of an oncoming car. When she wakes up she is in what appears to be a hospital – but a hospital in which her nurse looks like a young Sean Connery, she is served wine for supper, and everyone avoids her questions. It soon transpires that she is in Heaven, or on HVN. Because HVN is a lost, dysfunctional spaceship, and God the aging hippy captain. She seems to be there by accident… Or does God have a higher purpose after all?

At first Lorna can remember nothing. As her memories return – some good, some bad – she realises that she has decision to make and that maybe she needs to find a way home.

Review:

I really liked this story. It was a unique sci-fi twist on The Wizard of Oz.

At the beginning of the story, I had no idea what was going to happen. I didn’t understand where Lorna went, but I was so curious to see what would happen. I noticed that there were a lot of things from Lorna’s life appearing around her on the ship, including her pet hamster and actors like Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant.

In the second half of the story, I found there was too much about Lorna’s life on Earth. The story alternated between her life on the ship and her life on Earth, but there was less about the ship in the latter half. I wished there was more about the ship, because it was so unusual. However, by the end of the story, I could see that the end of her life on Earth was important to the story.

I really liked this story. It ended on a cliffhanger, so I would love to see what happens next!

About the Author:

Author Pic.jpg

I was born in Paisley, central Scotland, which wasn’t my fault. That week, Eddie Calvert with Norrie Paramor and his Orchestra were Top of the Pops, with Oh, Mein Papa, as sung by a young German woman remembering her once-famous clown father. That gives a clue to my age, not my musical taste.

I was brought up in the west of Scotland and graduated from the University of Edinburgh. I still have the scroll, but it’s in Latin, so it could say anything.

I then worked briefly as a street actor, baby photographer, puppeteer and restaurant dogsbody before becoming a journalist. I started in Glasgow and ended up in London, covering news, features and politics. I interviewed motorbike ace Barry Sheene, Noel Edmonds threatened me with legal action and, because of a bureaucratic muddle, I was ordered out of Greece.

I then took a year to travel round the world, visiting 19 countries. Highlights included being threatened by a man with a gun in Dubai, being given an armed bodyguard by the PLO in Beirut (not the same person with a gun), and visiting Robert Louis Stevenson’s grave in Samoa. What I did for the rest of the year I can’t quite remember

Surprisingly, I was approached by a government agency to work in intelligence, which just shows how shoddy government recruitment was back then. However, it turned out to be very boring and I don’t like vodka martini.

Craving excitement and adventure, I ended up as a PR consultant, which is the fate of all journalists who haven’t won a Pulitzer Prize, and I’ve still to listen to Oh, Mein Papa.

I am married with two grown-up children and live in central Scotland. And that’s about it.

Tour Schedule:

May 14th

Reads & Reels (Guest Post) http://www.readsandreels.com

The Lit Cottage (Review) http://shellybajwa.wordpress.com/

Valerie’s Musings (Excerpt) http://valeriesmusings76.wordpress.com

Tranquil Dreams (Review) http://klling.wordpress.com

May 15th

Insights into Books (Review) http://insightsintobooks.wordpress.com/

The Cozy Pages (Review) http://thecozypages.wordpress.com/

Touch My Spine Book Reviews (Review) https://touchmyspinebookreviews.com

Midwestern Ladies Who Lit (Excerpt) http://mwladieswholit.wordpress.com/