"Pitch-perfect balance between narrative and style"

• ASIN: ‎ B0CC2JR9CP
• Publisher: ‎ FlowingProse/M G da Mota (28 July 2023)
• Language: ‎ English
• Print length: ‎ 485 pages
• Genre: Classic Literary Fiction

The BookViral Review:

A beguiling blend of well-researched historical fact and pure fiction, “Stars Maintain Their Glow” proves a smart and entertaining historical mystery with all the hallmarks of a classic. A novel that’s entirely aware of its genre’s conventions and transcends them as it surpasses the simplistic moralities that inform far too many genre offerings.

It’s a novel that rightly deserves your full attention with da Mota achieving a pitch-perfect balance between narrative and style. This gives us a read that is refreshingly devoid of archetypical characters whilst creating intricate shifts in perspective which are sure to engender much reflection.

With an impeccable eye for detail, da Mota is scrupulous about historical accuracy whilst her plot is taut, compelling and executed with a genuine sense of authenticity. And in the main, this comes from her astute rendering of Maria Eduarda who remains a haunting presence throughout.

A story of three women, three times, three places if their stories show anything, it demonstrates that whilst personal freedom expanded greatly during the decades following the Second World War, it’s the celebrations of small triumphs in an unjust world that ultimately prove most rewarding.

Bringing the stories of Maria, Hertie and ultimately Valeria together is Gerald Neale. A morally bankrupt character who is well nuanced by da Mota and rightly solicits a sense of loathing. Through Gerald, da Mota authentically captures a bygone era in which women were viewed as the prizes in a male game whilst it’s the legacy of his despicable actions that she weaves into something surprisingly moving that holds the reader’s expectations until the very end.

Taking us from wartime Lisbon to war-torn Germany to present-day Sussex, da Mota gives us a raft of arresting empathic supporting characters and plenty of twists along the way but what makes her novel such an affecting read is its warm presentation of the friendship between Valeria and Hertie without getting bogged down in clichéd drama.

Some books become classics simply because they’re from a bygone era, others deserve to be called classics because, in addition to being of literary merit, they tell us something about a bygone era. Reminding us of the resilience of women who dared to dream Stars Maintain Their Glow is certainly one of the latter and is a highly recommended Golden Quill read.