A spellbinding tale of love, strength and sacrifice from the Sunday Times bestselling author. Based on the gorgeous island of Malta in WWII, this is a story about the power of fate, and how sometimes, in order to find yourself – and to find love – you must first lose everything else. . .
Fate has brought them together. Will time tear them apart?
2025
Named after a star, war correspondent Maia knows how to find the brightest stories – the tales of survival and strength – hidden amongst the dark realities of combat.
Now, travelling to Malta to visit her estranged father, with one more chance to build a relationship with her last remaining relative, she’s here to find her own story: never having found somewhere – or someone – she can call home, she’s desperate for answers that might show her where she truly belongs.
But when she arrives on the beautiful Mediterranean island, she realises her long-lost family is full of more secrets than she could possibly have imagined. . .
1942
Maia wakes up to find herself on an island under siege, a city in ruins – and knows she must have been sent here for a reason.
Who has she been sent to save? Or is it Maia herself that needs saving? And just when she’s finally found what she’s been seeking . . . will time separate them forever?
I'm delighted to be hosting the blog tour for Never Tear Us Apart by Rowan Coleman today. Many thanks to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours and Hodder & Stoughton for inviting me and for my advance digital copy of the novel.
Never Tear Us Apart is published by Hodder & Stoughton, purchasing links can be found here.
It's been several years since I visited Malta but I was effortlessly swept back there with the beautifully evocative Never Tear Us Apart. The sense of place is impeccable throughout and readers are also reminded of the hardships endured by the islanders, whose collective courage and fortitude during the Second World War earned Malta the George Cross. This dual timeline novel comes with an intriguing twist and Rowan Coleman's clever use of time travel will appeal to even those who are reluctant to read speculative fiction.
Maia is first introduced in 2025 when she is visiting Malta with her father but it quickly becomes apparent that their relationship has long been a strained one. Maia understandably resents the way her father has let her down time and again but is still prepared to risk further heartbreak in the hope that at eighty-eight, he is finally ready to make amends. However, a heated discussion leading to a near-tragedy while they are driving results in Maia growing closer to her cousin, Kathryn who takes her to one of Malta's ancient temples and it's here that everything changes. It's not surprising that Maia's first thoughts when she is drawn into a mysterious void before finding herself amongst people sheltering from a bombing aren't that she has somehow ended up in 1942. As a war correspondent she assumes she is experiencing flashbacks to a previous ordeal. The truth though, is much stranger and changes everything she ever thought she knew and wanted.
The chapters set in 1942 are, unsurprisingly, the most engaging; seeing how Maia adjusts to wartime life on an island under siege is fascinating, especially as she soon begins to form relationships with the people there. Rowan Coleman empathetically captures the raw poignancy of love affairs conducted in the face of constant risk as bombing raids endanger all, particularly the pilots stationed on the island. Maia strikes up a bond with a Canadian pilot, Danny Beauchamp but as she finds herself inexplicably travelling back and forth across time, she has to confront the repercussions of her actions in the past while burdened with the terrible weight of historical knowledge. Can she prevent the tragedies she learns will happen without affecting the outcome of Malta's war?
With the support of Kathryn in the present day and her friends in the past, she tries to make sense of what is happening to her, but as close as she and Kathryn become, she is emotionally drawn to 1942. However, the inherent paradoxes of time travel ensure it is never obvious whether she will find the happiness and need to belong she is so obviously searching for. The characterisation throughout Never Tear Us Apart is excellent and although this is Maia's story, the bravery, guilt, loss and hope experienced by others brings further resonance to this touching, thought-provoking novel. From the open-minded acceptance of those presented with a strange new reality in 2025, to the sacrifice and courage of their wartime counterparts, the strength of women is a particularly important theme throughout the book.
Never Tear Us Apart is a richly imaginative, compelling tale exploring love, family and belonging; I thought it was wonderful and highly recommend it.
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Thanks for the blog tour support x
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