Letterbox – PA Davies
Today I am honoured and pleased
to be able to participate in the blog tour for Letterbox by P A Davies. The blog tour coincides with the anniversary
of the IRA bombing in Manchester and my stop is actually on the day the bombing
occurred. My thanks go to the author P A Davies along with Caroline Vincent of CarolineBookBit for allowing me to
participate in this tour and I would like to convey my thanks for the honour of
allowing me to hold my stop on the very day.
Letterbox is strong, powerful, emotive. A
harrowing novel about the 1996 Manchester IRA bombing – what a haunting tale
and heartbreaking insight into the lives of those, responsible for the bombings
and of those, who by their very being had no choice but to be implicated in it…
their lives will never be the same…
About the Book
At approximately 09.00 hrs on the 15th June
1996, an unassuming white lorry was parked on Corporation Street in the city
centre of Manchester, England; It contained over 3000 pounds of high explosive.
At 11.15 hrs the same day, Manchester witnessed
the detonation of the largest device on the British mainland since the Second
World War … The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the attack.
Based around actual events, LETTERBOX tells the
story of Liam Connor, an ordinary boy brought up in Manchester by a seemingly
ordinary family. He goes to the local
school, loves football and has a best friend called Sean … an ordinary life.
Unbeknown to Liam, his father, Michael Connor,
harbours a dark historic secret and follows a life less ordinary … as a furtive
yet high ranking soldier within the IRA.
As a result of extraordinary circumstances,
Liam’s innocent and carefree world is shattered when he is exposed to the truth
about his family’s heritage and then learns about the tragic death of his
father at the hands of the SAS.
Consumed with both hate and the need to seek
retribution, Liam is taken to Ireland where he is intensively trained to become
a highly skilled and efficient soldier within the Irish Republican Army … He is
16 years old.
Some years later, following the drug-induced
death of his beloved sister, Liam is given the opportunity to exact his revenge
on those he believed should truly be blamed for the tragedies in his life … The
British Government.
Thus, on the 15th June 1996, it was Liam’s
responsibility to drive the bomb-laden lorry into the unsuspecting city of
Manchester and let the voice of the IRA be clearly heard …
And listened to…
Review
As described above, Letterbox is
centred around the 1996 Manchester IRA bomb.
The day the bomb went off in what
I class as my home town of Manchester having worked in the city for a number of
years and still work in the city to this day, as well as having and still
socialising in the city, is a day I will never forget, even more so as I was
planning on going into Manchester that day and for some reason I now can’t
remember didn’t end up going in. (Maybe
that was fate or maybe one of my guardian angels was looking down on me that
day). During my commute to and from my
current place of work, means that I am on a tram that bypasses the site of
where the bomb was detonated and whilst reading this book on my daily commute
was able to vividly remember the carnage that was left on that eventful day
that unfortunately made history.
Before moving on to my thoughts
about the book, I must confess to feeling ashamed to say that this book as been
in my never ending TBR (to be read) pile since 16 June 2014 (a record number of
4 years and strangely enough the day after one of the anniversary’s), and I am
afraid that without Caroline offering me the chance to participate in this tour
may have lay there for a further few years, and I would never have realised
what a FANTASTIC book this was.
The books is a tale of that
eventful day, the years leading up to it and a few days after and through this
book we learn what made the character Liam O’Connor do what he did.
We meet Liam as he moves into his
new home and meets what becomes his best friend Sean. We follow the lives of Liam who is a
seemingly innocent child going about his everyday life of school, girls and
hanging around with this best friend, unaware what is happening behind closed doors
and what his extended family are involved in.
We learn the fiction based tale
of how Liam became a member of the IRA and what the events were that led up to
that fateful day on 15 June 1996 when a bomb was planted in the city centre of Manchester
and how things transpired from there, how Liam ended up being in the centre
that day and the things that he was compelled to do as well.
To go into too much detail about
the story would to me give away the things that the author is trying to portray
and the feelings that have gone into writing what to me is a book that brought back
so many memories of what happened and yet the city of Manchester is strong and resilient
and built itself back up as it has done again recently.
P A Davies has written a gripping
fiction based novel with a some aspects of the truth in it and no doubt had to
do a lot of research to understand the effects of the day that was etched in history
22 years ago today.
I sure that many of you will remember the carnage that occurred on
that eventful day and of how Manchester has rebuilt itself since that day. I have also recently been into the city to
take some further pictures when I went to pay my respects to the most recent
atrocity that occurred on 22 May 2017.
The above pictures show the post box on the newly regenerated
Corporation Street outside the Marks and Spencer that is now there, my daughter
reading the plaque that was placed on the post box and the wording of the plaque
which reads
“The postbox remained standing almost undamaged on June 15 1996 when
this area was devasted by a bomb. The
box was removed during the rebuilding of the city centre and was returned to
its original site on November 22nd 1999”. 
About the Author
P.A. Davies grew up in Manchester, UK, a place
he has lived in and around all his life – he loves Manchester and is proud to
be part of the multi-cultural, modern city that houses two Premiership football
teams and is the birthplace of many a famous band, such as Oasis, the Stone
Roses, Take That and Simply Red.
For most of his life, he dabbled with writing
various pieces, from poems to short fictional stories just for fun. However,
following advice from a good friend he decided to have a go at writing a novel.
Thus, his first novel ‘Letterbox’ was conceived, a fictional take on the
infamous IRA bombing of Manchester in 1996. It took him over a year to complete
but while doing so, he found it to be one of the most satisfying and
interesting paths he had ever followed. It comes as no surprise that the
writing bug now became firmly embedded within him.
The above photograph is P.A. Davies at his favourite writing space: Costa Coffee Café (wish I knew which one, I might be inclined to stalk him to find out if he’s going to write another book based in Manchester) 😊
P.A. Davies’ second book was published in May
2013, ‘George: A Gentleman of the Road’,
a true story about one of Manchester’s homeless. His third novel, ‘The Good in Mister Philips’, is an
erotic novel (arguably set to rival Fifty Shades…!) and his fourth, ‘Nobody Heard Me Cry’ (Dec. 2015) is
again a fact-based tale, this time of Manchester’s darker side. The thriller ‘Absolution’ (Oct. 2017) is his fifth
novel. Currently, P.A. Davies is writing his sixth novel, titled ‘I, Muslim.’
To label P.A. Davies’ writings would be
difficult because his works diverse from thrillers to touching novels to
true-to-life tales embedded in a captivating story for the author is an
imaginative and versatile storyteller.
Social Media Links
To buy P A Davies other books including Letterbox,
click on the
links below:
Check out the rest of the blog
tour with these fabulous blogs:
My thanks to P A Davies for allowing me the opportunity to partake in this blog
tour to remember that eventful day, and also Caroline @ CarolineBookBit for
my spot on the blog tour.
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