The Photographer's Wife by Nick Alexander

Ebook:  400 pages                                                                                                 
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: October 2014 - Bigfib Books                          
Source: Amazon
First Sentence: Barbara pushes up onto her toes and grasps the windowsill with her small, pale hands. 
Review Quote: Honest, moving, witty and really rather wise -- Time Out. 
My Opinion: I usually read ebooks when I am travelling, much easier to take a Kindle in my luggage! The Photographer's Wife was a perfect choice for my last trip as I did not get much time to read, so a novel that was easy to pick up and put down without loosing the thread was important. The story covers two separate periods but clearly and concisely. The realistic plot unfolds as the tension builds, there was humour and sadness as the two story lines came together and it all began to make sense. I did guess the result of the mystery quite early on as the author gives the reader plenty of hints and for this reason I did get rather annoyed with the plausible characters, who without exception all had flaws and annoying traits. Overall a read that kept my attention and was easy to pick up and enjoy in small bites.  



Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

The Photographer's Wife is an epic tale set in two eras, a tale of the secrets one generation has, rightly or wrongly, chosen to hide from the next.

Barbara – a child of the Blitz – has more secrets than she cares to admit. 

She has protected her children from many of the harsh realities of life and told them little of the poverty of her childhood, nor of the darker side of her marriage to one of Britain's most famous photographers. 

With such an incomplete picture of the past, her youngest, Sophie, has struggled to understand who her parents really are, and in turn, Barbara sometimes worries, to build her own identity. 

When Sophie, decides to organise a vast retrospective exhibition of her adored father's work, old photos are pulled from dusty boxes. But with them tumble stories from the past, stories and secrets that will challenge every aspect of how Sophie sees her parents.



Author Profile

Nick Alexander is the best selling author of ten novels, including The French House and The Case of the Missing Boyfriend. He lives in the southern French Alps with two mogs (Paloma-Paquita & Leon-Pedro), three (nameless) goldfish and a complete set of Almodovar films.

Bio Courtesy of Official Author Website 
Nick Alexander was born in 1964 in the seaside town of Margate, Kent, the fifth child in a family of painters. As a child, he talked constantly and when forbidden to talk (at school, for example), he wrote.
In his mid twenties, he moved to France and started working part-time on his first novel – a task that was initiated (and abandoned) many, many times. Finally, in 2001, he finished a gay fiction title called 50 Reasons to Say Goodbye. A friend at The Times told him he should get it published, which was unexpected to say the least. He hadn’t considered it good enough.

For a few years he tried to find a publisher, but it was a hopeless, thankless, depressing task so he gave up and self published the book with Lulu.com.
To his surprise, it sold well, becoming one of the UK’s best selling gay fiction titles.

By 2010, five novels later, he felt that hehad said all he wanted to in the gay fiction genre, so he decided to write his own take on the Chicklit genre, instead.
Still unable to find a publisher, he self published The Case Of The Missing Boyfriend on Amazon’s then brand-new Kindle platform. The response was truly astounding. The book went to #1 and sold over 300,000 copies, and the sequel, The French House, did even better. I followed these up with two Family Saga titles, The Half-Life of Hannah, and Other Halves.

These days, writing is his full time job, and he alternates between self publishing and working with mainstream publishers who have finally (900,000 sales later) decided to take him a little bit more seriously.


Photographs, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Nick Alexander - Amazon Author Page    Official Author Website  

 Nick Alexander -Twitter

Facebook Profile   Goodreads - Author Profile