Welcome back Bookends to our next instalment in our Debut Spotlight series, this time with author Eleanor Shearer who we are sure her debut 'River Sing Me Home' will be a future classic. Drawing on some of her own family history and a huge amount of research, River sing me home is a book about one woman escaping her plantation to search for her five children.

Aswell as finding out about Eleanor's debut journey, we chat about the incredible places and people she visited during her research for the novel, how she wanted to move away from the more traumatic narratives around slavery, why song and music were so integral to this novel and much more. This was such an insightful conversation and we were so thrilled to have the opportunity to chat with Eleanor, please do go buy her book as we promise it's a memorable and moving story that will undoubtedly receive much deserved hype.

To buy River Sing Me Home: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/river-sing-me-home-a-powerful-luminous-and-redemptive-novel-of-a-mother-s-search-for-her-children/9781472291363

To keep up to date with Eleanor's work, follow her @eleanorbshearer on Instagram and Twitter.

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Books spoken about during the episode:

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy
Small Island by Andrea Levy
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
Bird Cloud: A Memoir by Annie Proulx
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
To Shoot Hard Labour: The Life and Times of Samuel Smith by Fernando Carol Smith
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
Lady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler
Clytemnestra by Constanta Casati
The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts by Soraya Palmer
The Revels by Stacey Thomas
28 Questions by Indyana Schneider

Thanks for listening and see you next time!