Your child is missing - presumed dead.' Hours after receiving the phone call that every mother dreads, Alida Salter flies to India to search for her backpacker daughter. The discovery of disturbing collages in Mia's hotel makes Alida suspect a connection between the disaster that fractured their relationship thirteen years ago, and Mia's recent, mysterious disappearance. Mia is no ordinary girl. Growing up with the sensory condition synaesthesia - where she sees the world in a kaleidoscope of shapes, colours and smells - she has gone through life with the vivid imagination of an artist, but for years she has shouldered an overwhelming burden of guilt. It has been a difficult relationship, but now comes the toughest test of all...Alida must find the courage to trust her maternal instincts, or lose her daughter forever.
Breathing in Colour
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Book Description
An emotional and gripping story set in India, about a synaesthesiac girl and the fractured relationship she has with her mother
About the Author
Clare Jay's short stories and poetry have won prizes and appeared in anthologies. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and tutors the subject at university level. She has led 'Dreaming into writing' workshops at international conferences and has lived in five European countries and travelled extensively in South-East Asia. BREATHING IN COLOUR is her first novel.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This very impressive debut novel is written in very vivid (and yes, colourful) language and I think it was an inspired idea to set the book in India, as the vibrant sights, sounds and smells of that country are beautifully portrayed through the characters' enhanced senses.
The 'disaster' which caused a rift between Mia and Alida is hinted at throughout the early part of the book, with the tension building up nicely to the final chapters when we find out what happened and why mother and daughter have been so estranged from one another ever since. As Alida desperately follows the clues to her daughter's disappearance, she comes to realise what she needs to do to bring Mia back, both physically and emotionally.
Synaesthesia is a fascinating and very rich subject for a novel. I read Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall a couple of years ago and, while I enjoyed that book very much for other reasons, it didn't really explain synaesthesia to me or give me much of an idea of what people with the condition experience. I felt that Clare Jay has done a lot more research for Breathing in Colour, and really brought the subject to life for me through her characters' dreams and perceptions.
The 'disaster' which caused a rift between Mia and Alida is hinted at throughout the early part of the book, with the tension building up nicely to the final chapters when we find out what happened and why mother and daughter have been so estranged from one another ever since. As Alida desperately follows the clues to her daughter's disappearance, she comes to realise what she needs to do to bring Mia back, both physically and emotionally.
Synaesthesia is a fascinating and very rich subject for a novel. I read Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall a couple of years ago and, while I enjoyed that book very much for other reasons, it didn't really explain synaesthesia to me or give me much of an idea of what people with the condition experience. I felt that Clare Jay has done a lot more research for Breathing in Colour, and really brought the subject to life for me through her characters' dreams and perceptions.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Breathing in Colour is the story of Alida Salter and her 18 year old daughter Mia. They have a very troubled relationship following a tragedy some 12 years earlier for which Alida has always, deep down, blamed the 6 year old Mia. When Alida receives a phone call from a hotel in India where Mia has been staying, informing her that her daughter is missing, she sets out on a journey to find her daughter that consumes the whole of the book.
The reader is led along the journey with Alida, and experiences the rich sense of sounds, places, people and experiences that take place during her search. The character of Mia suffers from synaesthesia, a neurological sensory condition, and I felt that Clare Jay described Mia's feelings very well to the lay reader. As we are led towards the conclusion of the story, the reader is desperate to find out whether Alida manages to find Mia through a selection of highly complicated and vague clues, and whether Alida can learn to forgive Mia and regain a long lost relationship with her child.
An excellent story of being a mother, being a daughter, love, forgiveness and India.
The reader is led along the journey with Alida, and experiences the rich sense of sounds, places, people and experiences that take place during her search. The character of Mia suffers from synaesthesia, a neurological sensory condition, and I felt that Clare Jay described Mia's feelings very well to the lay reader. As we are led towards the conclusion of the story, the reader is desperate to find out whether Alida manages to find Mia through a selection of highly complicated and vague clues, and whether Alida can learn to forgive Mia and regain a long lost relationship with her child.
An excellent story of being a mother, being a daughter, love, forgiveness and India.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Cranberry
Format:Paperback
This is a stunning book. I chose to read it because I had heard that one of the main characters has synaesthesia and I was intrigued as to how this would work in a novel. The result is better than I could have imagined, as Clare Jay goes way beyond explaining this interesting mix-up of senses in the brain. She draws us into the emotional mindset and confusion of someone who is gifted with this condition, and the impact this has on those around her.
At the start, we are catapulted into the world of Alida, mother of Mia, an eighteen year old who has gone missing whilst backpacking. As we follow Alida through the sensory overload that is India, we experience her emotional pain, learn of the mysterious and terrible thing that has split the family and discover about Mia and her synaesthesia from her diary entries, which intersperse her mother's frantic search.
As I read, often late into the night, I couldn't help but compare this book with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, another book that I found compelling reading. Though there are similarities, in that one of the main characters is simultaneously hampered by and talented with an unusual brain condition, Breathing in Colour is a very much more grown-up novel, delving into a flawed emotional relationship between mother and daughter, in breath-taking fashion.
Jay writes exquisitely and intelligently. This is story-telling at its height.
At the start, we are catapulted into the world of Alida, mother of Mia, an eighteen year old who has gone missing whilst backpacking. As we follow Alida through the sensory overload that is India, we experience her emotional pain, learn of the mysterious and terrible thing that has split the family and discover about Mia and her synaesthesia from her diary entries, which intersperse her mother's frantic search.
As I read, often late into the night, I couldn't help but compare this book with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, another book that I found compelling reading. Though there are similarities, in that one of the main characters is simultaneously hampered by and talented with an unusual brain condition, Breathing in Colour is a very much more grown-up novel, delving into a flawed emotional relationship between mother and daughter, in breath-taking fashion.
Jay writes exquisitely and intelligently. This is story-telling at its height.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A GREAT READ
Alida Slater receives a phone call in the middle of the night to say her Daughter has not been seen for some time, and she may be dead, her Daughter is backpacking in India. Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2011 by Ails
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful
This was a gorgeous book to read. The characters were enchanting, even if you're not a parent you will still feel for this mum and the journey she takes. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2010 by J. Kaidas
2.0 out of 5 stars
Like a Cosmopolitan Magazine story
I was so very disappointed reading this book after all the rave reviews I felt I had to leave some feedback. Read more
Published on 1 Jun 2010 by B. KELLY
4.0 out of 5 stars
Did not disappoint
I know someone with this condition and so was intrigued to read this book when a friend recommended it. It did not disappoint. Read more
Published on 5 May 2010 by Rose Wood
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truely breath taking
I honestly can not recomend this enough. Everything jumps of the page and embeds its self into your brain so vividly, its so easy to picture the charecters movements. Read more
Published on 19 April 2010 by Ms. G. Nicholas
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful!!
I bought this book as a recommendation from amazon and read it as soon as i got it. I was not at all disappointed. Read more
Published on 5 April 2010 by V. Mundell
4.0 out of 5 stars
Breathing in Colour by Clare Jay
The book uses fresh and original themes of lucid dreaming and synthasesia to explore a mother and daughter relationship and a terrible event from the past that has divided them. Read more
Published on 19 Jun 2009 by L. A. Parker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spectacular debut novel
I found this book so very hard to put down - I loved the parts on the mother/ daughter relationship and the descriptions of travelling around India, but mostly the mystery of... Read more
Published on 11 May 2009 by Samantha Richards
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stupendous
This is a superb book. I hurt with Alida and I trailed around with her on her journey through India. Read more
Published on 23 Mar 2009 by Mielikki
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning first novel
Stupendous. Simply incredible.
I found one of the book's characters, Mia (a child with synaesthesia), totally intoxicating -- whenever she appeared, it was like peeking... Read more
I found one of the book's characters, Mia (a child with synaesthesia), totally intoxicating -- whenever she appeared, it was like peeking... Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2009 by Robert G. Waggoner
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