No Number Nine by F.J. Campbell

 

No Number Nine by F.J. Campbell.

Published 28th march 2018 by Troubador Publishing.

From the cover of the book:

A novel with a strong female lead character who's flawed but who readers will take to their hearts. A story about grief, family conflicts and first love, with a dramatic background of sport and the Olympics.

What do you do when your amazing, beautiful, beloved sister dies? Hide in your room for two years. Sleep with a very, very wrong man. Leave home and start a new life, lying to everyone you meet including your kind employer, your curious friends and the man you love?

Pip Mitchell's an expert at making seriously bad decisions. But when her past, present and future collide at the Sydney Olympic Games, she's going to have to decide whose side she's on - or she'll lose everyone she loves.

No Number Nine is a coming-of-age story about an 18-year-old girl who has put her life on hold for two years after the death of her sister. Pip leaves her home in England and tries to move forward with her life, taking a job in Germany as an au pair to the von Feldsteins, a family which is full of surprises - and not good ones.

Set in Munich, the story follows Pip for a year as she crashes from one embarrassing, awkward mistake to the next. Finally, as she starts to emerge from her fog of grief, she travels with the von Feldsteins to Sydney where, amid the drama of the 2000 Olympic Games, everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. Can Pip protect herself and the people she loves? Does she have the courage to tell the truth, even if it destroys her?

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Eighteen-year-old Pip Mitchell sets off to Munich to become an au pair to two small German boys, Max and Ferdi - and to try to get her life in order. Still struggling with the loss of her beloved older sister Holly, who died in a freak sporting accident two years ago while playing hockey for Great Britain, the time has come for her to emerge from her cocoon of grief and look to the future.

She finds the von Feldsteins to be full of surprises - not least the presence of two additional older, and very attractive sons Leo and Billy, and the mysterious absence of Mrs von Feldstein - but despite a string of embarrassing blunders, she soon makes herself indispensable to the family, filling the empty space left in the lives of the younger boys by their absent mother, and making friends with the father and older sons. She begins to feel at home in Germany as the fog of her grief starts to lift.

But Pip has secrets that beg to be uncovered. She has opted not to tell the von Feldstein's about her promising sporting past, the loss of her sister, or her unfortunate relationship with the wrong man - a relationship she has been hoping to rekindle by heading to Sydney for a reunion with him once she has saved up enough money.

As the time passes, it becomes ever more difficult to keep her skeletons hidden, especially when she finds herself falling for one of the older von Feldstein sons, despite some of their less welcoming relations, because this is a family obsessed by sport and Leo and Max both play elite hockey for Germany. The Sydney Olympic Games is looming, and with it the inevitable collision between her past, present and future. Does she have the courage to finally come clean and build a future based on truth and real understanding?

No Number Nine is a gripping story that combines a coming of age tale, with a compelling domestic drama, and a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the world of elite sport.

Pip is the central character here and we see everything through her eyes. She is a young woman full of realistic flaws and contradictions, very well written by Campbell, that make her a very sympathetic character. She has been through a lot in her young life and it's no wonder that the way she has coped with her pain is to retreat into herself and look for solace in the wrong place, with the wrong man. Pip has become stuck in a pattern of behaviour that she does not have the maturity or experience to break out of, and her default position of hiding within herself and ignoring the inevitable builds delicious tension into this story as we know the fall out from her half-truths will be explosive.

I don't want to go into too much about what happens here, because Campbell lays everything out so beautifully, it would be a shame to spoil it, but this not not your usual light hearted, young woman torn between lovers tale. Campbell covers a lot of deep and emotional themes in the coming of age and domestic drama parts of this novel - coping with loss; difficult family relationships; childhood trauma; abuse of power; and women's rights are all explored in different aspects of Pip's dealings with both her own and the von Feldstein families. There were times when I felt quite angry about the things we learn in these pages, and there are also many moments that are profoundly sad.

But what really drives this novel along is the pace and excitement drawn from the elite sport component of the story. The thrills and spills, the cutthroat competitiveness, the drive and ambition all come across so clearly, leading us onwards to the showdown at the Sydney Olympics when all the nicely contrived elements crash together in one almighty climax.

I thoroughly enjoyed every part of this story, but I think my absolute favourite thing about it is the way Pip seems so fierce in her beliefs about the freedom of women to make their own choices and be treated fairly, but it is not until she can admit to the truth about how she has been manipulated and taken advantage of herself that she truly finds the courage to become the person she was meant to be. 

This the perfect read to give your emotions a work out and get yourself in the zone for the Tokyo Olympics, so give yourself a treat and get a copy of No Number Nine now!

No Number Nine is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Literally PR for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

F.J. Campbell was born in Lytham and moved around a lot when she was younger, from the North to Kent and then the West Country. After school she was an au [air in Pris and that was the only job she was ever sacked from. FJ went to Manchester University and afterwards lived in London for nine years, Munich for 11 years, Zurich for two years and has now settled in St Albans - no more moving. She is married with two children and still plays hockey in exactly the same way she always has - badly and for fun.

FJ started writing in 2014 and has written three novels: No Number Nine, The Islanders and Enjoy the Silence (the latter both YA novels).