Blog Tour- The Invisible Hand - 20/3/18
Blog Tour
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My Review
5☆ A Time Travelling Shakespearean Adventure Not to be missed!
When I found out that the The Invisible Hand was aimed at children to make Shakespeare more accessible I thought it was a fantastic idea.
I only wish someone had done this for me when I was younger. I might of been more inspired.
The Invisible Hand is a charming story about adventure, time travel, history, friendship, adventures, mystery and a sprinkle of romance.
We meet Sam. Sam is currently at boarding school.
But what is so mysterious is how Sam can travel back in time to gorgeous Scotland and the Macbeth time period.
When Sam starts studying Shakespeare the two come together perfectly.
We also meet Leena.
Leena is from the past and Sam and Leena meet up and have adventures together as they become embroiled in Macbeths story.
Their friendship slowly blossoms Which Is lovely to be a part of.
What I loved most was how easy it was to read The Invisible Hand. Considering Macbeth is a fairly hard book to get into. What James has done was to make it fun and relatable almost fantasy like to help children engage with the story whilst learning.
James has also made it less brutal and not everything is in the book so I would still recommend reading the actual Macbeth book. But this will Definetly help get the jist of the story.
In my personal opinion this book is perfect for 10-13 year olds.
This isn't a fast paced book. But I can't recall the actual books being particularly fast paced.
It's nicely built up as Sam and Leena meet and get embroiled in Macbeths story.
I thoroughly enjoyed this exciting time travelling adventure and I'm looking forward to to reading more in this fabulous series.
I highly recommend this book if you have teenagers looking to discover a charming Shakespearean tale.
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Guest Post
The Invisible Hand
by James Hartley
Today on my Blog I have the pleasure of Sharing with you.....
The Invisible Hand by James Hartley
I would also like to thank Rachel Random Resources for inviting me on the Blog Tour.
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Book Information
The Invisible Hand is about a boy, Sam, who has just started life at a boarding school and finds himself able to travel back in time to medieval Scotland. There he meets a girl, Leana, who can travel to the future, and the two of them become wrapped up in events in Macbeth, the Shakespeare play, and in the daily life of the school. The book is the first part of a series called Shakespeare´s Moon. Each book is set in the same boarding school but focuses on a different Shakespeare play.
Purchase from Amazon UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invisible-Hand-Shakespeares-Moon-Act-ebook/dp/B01N4R541U
Purchase from Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hand-Shakespeares-Moon-Act-ebook/dp/B01N4R541U/🕐📚🕐📚🕐📚🕐📚🕐📚🕐📚🕐📚🕐
My Review
5☆ A Time Travelling Shakespearean Adventure Not to be missed!
When I found out that the The Invisible Hand was aimed at children to make Shakespeare more accessible I thought it was a fantastic idea.
I only wish someone had done this for me when I was younger. I might of been more inspired.
The Invisible Hand is a charming story about adventure, time travel, history, friendship, adventures, mystery and a sprinkle of romance.
We meet Sam. Sam is currently at boarding school.
But what is so mysterious is how Sam can travel back in time to gorgeous Scotland and the Macbeth time period.
When Sam starts studying Shakespeare the two come together perfectly.
We also meet Leena.
Leena is from the past and Sam and Leena meet up and have adventures together as they become embroiled in Macbeths story.
Their friendship slowly blossoms Which Is lovely to be a part of.
What I loved most was how easy it was to read The Invisible Hand. Considering Macbeth is a fairly hard book to get into. What James has done was to make it fun and relatable almost fantasy like to help children engage with the story whilst learning.
James has also made it less brutal and not everything is in the book so I would still recommend reading the actual Macbeth book. But this will Definetly help get the jist of the story.
In my personal opinion this book is perfect for 10-13 year olds.
This isn't a fast paced book. But I can't recall the actual books being particularly fast paced.
It's nicely built up as Sam and Leena meet and get embroiled in Macbeths story.
I thoroughly enjoyed this exciting time travelling adventure and I'm looking forward to to reading more in this fabulous series.
I highly recommend this book if you have teenagers looking to discover a charming Shakespearean tale.
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Guest Post
Adapting Shakespeare for Young Readers
Just the name alone can be enough for adult readers to roll their eyes, let alone younger readers. Shakespeare. He has become something of a fortress, an impregnable castle at the top of a mountain which only certain, privileged people can access and understand. William Shakespeare. The most famous writer in the English language. Still, over four hundred years after his death, one of the most famous people in the world.
I felt like this, as a young pupil, back in the eighties, when I heard we were going to be reading Macbeth. I was thirteen and remember feeling a mixture of fear and excitement. I can recall staring down at the first page of the play and thinking, “What language is this?” (There are times, reading the plays, or listening or seeing them, when I still think this).
But I had the luck of having a teacher whose own infectious enthusiasm for the play shone through. He unlocked it for us – all of us, the whole class – and how he did it has stuck with me and informed how I went about writing The Invisible Hand.
Although, of course, we studied the play, the text, and Shakespeare and his world, we also thought about the themes of the play. We were asked some fundamental questions: do you believe in prophecies? Magic, black and white? In doing whatever you can to achieve your goals?
Teaching teenagers, these ideas can be transformed into role play situations, or as cues for creative writing. You go to a fortune teller and they tell you how you will be the Head Boy or Girl or captain of a school team and when you go back to school you find you have been promoted, or the old captain has broken their leg. How much would you sacrifice to be famous? Family, friends, school? What lengths would you go to to get what you want – and what lengths are acceptable?
My favourite aspect of Macbeth, by far, was the world of medieval Scotland, with its horrible witches on heaths, soldiers trudging home from battles and grimy castles illuminated by torchlight. This was the world I wanted to explore and take readers to in The Invisible Hand. What would it be like to actually go there, I wondered, to Scotland at that time, to the Macbeths´ castle, to meet them and see them up close?
From there, I thought: what would it be like if a character in the book became part of the play? If there were links between the actual text of the play and things that happened to the characters in their world? The only way to do this, I thought, was to send the characters in and out of the world of Macbeth. After that, the story followed on. It would be time-travel. It would be a love story and an adventure because it had to be.
I came up this:
Children at a modern boarding school would be reading Macbeth as part of their studies and somehow one of the children, a boy called Sam, would be transported back into the world of the play. He would meet someone there – a girl called Leana – and she would also travel back and forth between the two worlds. My hope was to bring the play to life from the inside.
As a final note, the boarding school setting was a personal choice. I grew up in the north of England and went to “normal” schools. When we were young, sometimes my mum or dad would threaten us with boarding school if we were naughty. Years later, my dad got a job overseas and it was decided that we would have to go to boarding school in the south. I also wanted to write about that experience – because, in its own way, the world of the English public school is just as interesting and strange as medieval Scotland!
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Giveaway
Giveaway – Win 5 x Signed copies of The Invisible Hand with special Invisible Hand tactile pens
(Open Internationally)
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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Author Bio
James was born on the Wirral, England, in 1973 on a rainy Thursday. He shares his birthday with Bono, Sid Vicious and two even nastier pieces of work, John Wilkes Booth and Mark David Chapman.
His mother was a hairdresser with her own business and his father worked in a local refinery which pours filth into the sky over the Mersey to this day. They married young and James was their first child. He has two younger brothers and a still-expanding family in the area. As an Everton fan he suffered years of Liverpool success throughout the seventies and was thrilled when his father took a job in Singapore and the family moved lock, stock and two smoking barrels to Asia.
He spent five fine years growing up in the city state before returning to the rain, storms, comprehensive schools and desolate beauty of the Scottish east coast. Later years took he and his family to baking hot Muscat, in Oman, and a Syria that has since been bombed off the surface of the planet.
James studied journalism in London and later travelled through Ireland, France, Germany and India generally having a good time, before finally settling in Madrid, Spain, where he now lives with his wife and two children.
Social Media Links –
His mother was a hairdresser with her own business and his father worked in a local refinery which pours filth into the sky over the Mersey to this day. They married young and James was their first child. He has two younger brothers and a still-expanding family in the area. As an Everton fan he suffered years of Liverpool success throughout the seventies and was thrilled when his father took a job in Singapore and the family moved lock, stock and two smoking barrels to Asia.
He spent five fine years growing up in the city state before returning to the rain, storms, comprehensive schools and desolate beauty of the Scottish east coast. Later years took he and his family to baking hot Muscat, in Oman, and a Syria that has since been bombed off the surface of the planet.
James studied journalism in London and later travelled through Ireland, France, Germany and India generally having a good time, before finally settling in Madrid, Spain, where he now lives with his wife and two children.
Social Media Links –
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jameshartleybks
Website: www.jameshartleybooks.com
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reading and Talking about.....
The Invisible Hand
You can also follow along with the Blog Tour by checking out the Poster Below⬇
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