Blog Tour: Extract from In Bloom by Matthew Crow

Today it's my chance to bring you an exclusive extract from In Bloom by Matthew Crow as part of his blog tour.  The chapter chosen is a pivotal moment in the book when Francis first meets Amber so hope you enjoy...

Chapter Five

Amber arrived on the fourth day, and from then on everything changed for me. 

Paul had been sick for two nights in a row. It was like a conspiracy. Throughout the day he would just sit quietly, wincing whenever he moved and the tube he’d had inserted in his nose snagged on his nostril. Then at night it sounded like a pack of rabid dogs had taken up residence in his bed. Marc kept coming in to help him, but all night I could hear retching and the sound of liquids being sloshed about. Every once in a while it would seem like he’d settled. Then, just as I could feel myself nodding back to sleep, it would start again. 

‘You’re all right. See it up, lad,’ I could hear Marc whisper as Paul groaned some more. 

‘Sleep is vital to recovery,’ I told Mum. ‘If I can’t sleep then the whole thing is pointless. Can’t I get a private room? I think I’d handle this much better on my own.’ 

‘Nice to see your old spirit’s intact,’ Grandma said, chewing on one of the grapes she had brought for me, which she had monopolised and didn’t seem to be in the mood to share. 

‘Fiona sent you this,’ Chris said, pulling out a copy of FHM. She’d Sellotaped a photograph of herself, giving two thumbs up, on to the model’s face. ‘She says she’ll come and visit you as soon as she’s back from her shoot in Milan.’

‘I think she could be a model,’ I said. 

‘You don’t say?’ 

Guest Book Review: Matthew Crow - In Bloom

Reviewed by Janine Cobain

Francis Wootton's first memory is of Kurt Cobain's death, and there have since been other hardships much closer to home.

At fifteen years old he already knows all about loss and rejection - and to top it all off he has a permanently broke big brother, a grandma with selective memory (and very selective social graces) and a mum who's at best an acquired taste. Would-be poet, possible intellectual, and definitely wasted in Tyne and Wear, Francis has grown used to figuring life out on his own. 

Lower Fifth is supposed to be his time, the start of an endless horizon towards whatever-comes-next. But when he is diagnosed with leukaemia that wide-open future suddenly narrows, and a whole new world of worry presents itself. 

There's the horror of being held back a year at school, the threat of imminent baldness, having to locate his best shirt in case a visiting princess or pop-star fancies him for a photo-op . . . But he hadn't reckoned on meeting Amber - fierce, tough, one-of-a-kind Amber - and finding a reason to tackle it all - the good, the bad, and everything in between - head on. 

In Bloom is a bright, funny, painful, and refreshing novel about wanting the very best from life, even when life shows you how very bad it can be. It is a novel about how to live.

Amazon links: Hardback or Kindle