Spotlight & Giveaway: THE GARNETT GIRLS by Georgina Moore

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Georgina Moore to HJ!

Hi Georgina and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, THE GARNETT GIRLS!

 
Hi there! Thanks for having me.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Garnett Girls is about three very different sisters who all shared the trauma of their father walking out on their family when they were children. Since then, they have grown up in the shadow of their charismatic mother Margo, who has never truly recovered from the love and loss of their father Richard, and who won’t speak of him. We see the impact this loss has had on the women, on their relationships and as a secret is revealed about the past, how the sisters move forward with their emotional damage and with their relationship with their mother. The Garnett Girls asks the question can children ever really be free of the of their parents.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

‘Love makes you do things you never thought you were capable of.’
‘Margo believed that the world was divided between women who looked good with messy buns, and those who did not.’

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I discovered after having written the novel, and after having called it The Garnett Girls, that there is an old long-standing and well-known family of real Garnetts, that goes back generations, living in Seaview on the Isle of Wight, where my novel is set. It gave me a quite a shock when I found out!
• I was walking one day on a sandy beach on the Isle of Wight, and a big family came out of one of the houses on the beach. They were all going sailing together. I could feel the seed of an idea in my mind. As someone born and bred a Londoner, I was fascinated by what it would be like to grow up in such a close community wherever one knew each other. That is when I knew I wanted my novel to be about a family in a small community, and that I wanted to set it on the island.
• I wrote the novel in lockdown when we couldn’t go anywhere or see anyone. I think that is why I set the book on the Isle of Wight, so that through writing, I could visit my happy place and the beaches. I also think that is why there are so many parties in the Garnett Girls—I was living vicariously through them!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

I have several romantic situations going on in The Garnett Girls. The big epic love is Margo and Richard, and in the novel, we have a flashback to when they first met. It is at a literary party and Margo is only sixteen, Richard quite a bit older at twenty-one. It is good old-fashioned sexual chemistry that overwhelms them, and their love of books and poetry. Also, Margo feels like Richard is the first person in her life to really get her, to see her as she wants to be seen. We only see the meeting from Margo’s point of view, but the readers know that Richard is bowled over by Margo’s unique style, the only person wearing dungarees in a sea of tweed!

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

The final scene between Margo and Richard makes me cry every time I read it. It’s the calm after the storm, and it leads the story in a full circle back to the opening scene. It helps the reader understand the big love between Margo and Richard.

‘What happened to your poetry? I always looked for it, searched bookshops. I hoped you’d write something. Something that would make me understand. Why I wasn’t enough…’ Her voice trembled as she remembered those lost years.
His clouded sea-coloured eyes sought hers, and his hand reached for hers. It felt as light as a feather. ‘You were enough. I wasn’t. I couldn’t write after I left you. The words just went, there were never enough words, or never the right ones.’

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I have a first draft of my next novel which is set on a houseboat island. It’s about two families, The Greenwoods and The Stars, the history they share on the island, and the famous history of the island’s hotel, which was mecca and haven for teenage music fans and which as a venue hosted some of the most famous bands in its run-down ballroom.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One finished copy of THE GARNETT GIRLS (U.S. / Canada mailing addresses only)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Do you think it is hard to grow up in the shadow of very charismatic parents?

 
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Excerpt from THE GARNETT GIRLS:

PROLOGUE

Margo let the heavy door slam behind her, her hand lingering on the cold brass of the doorknob. She felt the heat envelop her, the air thick and still with it, no sea breeze to bring relief. There was even a heat haze over the sea, blurring the horizon. Sasha’s small sticky hand slipped out of hers and she was off, taking Sandcove’s steep steps with hops and jumps. “Da!” she kept calling. She was chasing her father, she was always chasing her father. Margo watched as the white-blond curls shot along the sea wall above the beach, the curve of her cheek slathered in sun cream.
Margo shouted “Not near the edge!” hearing the echoes of all the times growing up this had been shouted at her. “Imi, go with her, make sure she’s okay! Your father’s too far away.”
Imogen obediently trailed down the steps, book in hand. She moved slowly, dreamily. Margo noticed how knotted her long hair was, there was a huge bird’s nest at the back. People would think she wasn’t coping if they saw it.
“Quicker than that! She’s already at the walkway.”
Margo felt Rachel lurking beside her, two enormous picnic bags at her feet. Margo looked at her eldest daughter’s face, which always seemed to be set in a scowl these days. She was wiser than she should be at nine, clever and sarcastic. She did not help the atmosphere in the house with her sharp observations.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Didn’t you see? Dad just left, he didn’t take anything for the picnic.”
Margo had seen Richard’s pale legs disappearing over Horestone Point. He’d been holding something, most likely the cooler box. He would already be on the white sand of Priory, a glass in his hand, chatting to whoever was there. On a day like this people would be coming into the bay by boat for barbecues and picnics.
“He couldn’t wait to get away from us.”
Margo wanted to go back alone into the cool and quiet of the house. But she couldn’t leave Richard in charge, she would never be able to leave him in charge. She needed to say something reassuring to Rachel.
“Don’t be silly—he went ahead to get a good spot.”
Margo ignored the world-weary sigh beside her. She picked up the two bags. “You okay to take the rug, darling?” She looked out at the horseshoe of the bay. The light was dazzling, the tide had come right in, leaving only a crescent of beach. “Look, Rach, it’s perfect for swimming.”
Later, on their striped rug, Richard handed her a glass of cold white wine. He was grinning, a ragged straw hat perched on his head, a blob of sun cream on the bridge of his nose. Margo reached up a finger to rub it in and he seized her hand, kissed it. They both leaned back on their arms, watching their girls play in the sea. Imogen was patiently leaping with a squealing Sasha in and out of the waves near the shore. Rachel was swimming along the bay, strong and sure.
“It’d be grand to have a stroke like that.” Richard’s voice was envious; he was a terrible swimmer. Margo had tried to teach him but he was too proud and impatient.
“I don’t want her to go out of sight.”
“Stop worrying so much and drink your wine.”
Margo looked up at the spindly trees leaning at an angle over the beach, sending long shadows at sunset. This beach could feel like it only belonged to her in winter; today they might as well have been by the Mediterranean, with all the smart RIBs and speedboats crowding the water, just a short swim away from the shore. There were bronzed bodies everywhere. One thing she didn’t need to worry about was Richard looking at any other woman; he only ever had eyes for her. She watched as he leaned over and sloppily tipped the last of the bottle into his glass. She knew better than to say anything.
“I’m boiling, shall we have a swim?”
Mostly it was a happy day. It took hours for Richard to get drunk, and before he did he played cricket with his daughters, threw Sasha high up in the air, made them all laugh with his terrible handstands in the sea. Then he slept it off in the shade of the trees. The beach had started to empty while Margo was fully absorbed in building an enormous sand village, with moats and shell houses. Rachel had pushed them all to be ambitious and was still there beside her, adding a turret. Imogen had sloped away to read her book. Sasha was burying her Da’s feet in the sand as he slept. When Margo looked up, the sky was streaked with vivid pink, the tide was far out, and half the sand was in shadow.
“I want a photo of the three of you with this. Come on!”
Obediently Rachel and Imogen knelt beside Sasha, the sand village behind them. Margo noticed their new freckles, their beach hair, the patch of red on Sasha’s dimpled thigh, where she had missed the sun cream.
“Come on girls, big smiles!”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

In this brilliant debut novel full of heart and warmth, three very different sisters—and their free-spirited mother—must grapple with life, responsibilities, and family secrets.

“Gorgeously written and utterly absorbing…a rare and wonderful delight.” — Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author

Love makes you do things you never thought you were capable of…

Forbidden, passionate and all-encompassing, Margo and Richard’s love affair was the stuff of legend—but, ultimately, doomed.

When Richard walked out, Margo locked herself away, leaving her three daughters, Rachel, Imogen, and Sasha, to run wild.

Years later, charismatic Margo entertains lovers and friends in her cottage on the Isle of Wight, refusing to ever speak of Richard and her painful past. But her silence is keeping each of the Garnett girls from finding true happiness.

Rachel is desperate to return to London but is held hostage by responsibility for Sandcove, their beloved but crumbling family home.

Dreamy Imogen feels the pressure to marry her kind, considerate fiancé, even when life is taking an unexpected turn.

And wild, passionate Sasha, trapped between her fractured family and controlling husband, is weighed down by a secret that could shake the family to its core…

The Garnett Girls, the captivating debut novel from Georgina Moore, asks whether children can ever be free of the mistakes of their parents.
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Meet the Author:

Georgina Moore grew up in London and lives on a houseboat on the River Thames with her partner, two children, and Bomber, the Border Terrier. The Garnett Girls is her first novel and is set on the Isle of Wight, where Georgina and her family have a holiday houseboat called Sturdy.
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