Roses are Blue Blog Tour Wrap-Up

Wow! What an eight days! I’ve been all around the blogosphere chatting about Roses are Blue, reading lovely reviews, being quizzed and generally having fun. Today is the last official day of the tour, and time for me to reflect on the week.

The tour started last Tuesday, when  Karen Tyrell’s reviewed Roses on her blog, describing the book as:

“…a heart-warming story dealing with grief, tragedy, and change.”

She is also offering the chance to win a free copy. All you have to do is read the blog post and comment – but you’d best be quick, because this closes on July 31.

On Wednesday the tour moved on to the Alphabet Soup blog, where Roses are Blue was reviewed by a talented 8 year old reviewer, Matilda. She said:

“I would recommend Roses are Blue to my friends because it’s a change from the other sorts of books we read and it could be a true story.”

There is also a give away of a copy of the book on this site. the instructions on how to enter are nice and clear, and you get to check out Rebecca and my other blog, Poetry Tag and see the fun we have playing with words.

Day three I was off to the Kids Book review site, where there was another lovely review, by Tania McCartney who said:

“The depth of her characters, the emotional responses and fears, the gentle hope, is heart-wrenching in all manner of ways.”

I was also there to chat about poetry in all its forms, with a post titled Poetry is Perfect. I managed to limit myself to just eight reasons that poetry is perfect for children – though I could have gone on for days.

Day four arrived and I was up bright and early to chat with Dale Harcombe about Roses are Blue, which she described as:

” a gem of a book”.

She also asked me about some of the aspects no one else has asked me yet – including the naming of Amber and her friend, who all have names that are colours. You can read what I had to say here.

The weekend was here, but no rest for me – though of course one of the great things about a Blog Tour is that you don’t leave home to do it. SO, while I sat in my pyjamas at home I was also being grilled by the DivaBookNerd about all manner of things including my inspirations, diversity, and work-life balance (hah!). You can read the interview here. While there, I was delighted to find Roses had also been reviewed on the site a few days earlier.

Day six (Sunday) I dropped in to see the lovely Megan at Children’s Books Daily, She asked me ten questions as part of her Book People feature. I talked about my workspace, my routines (double hah!), favourite books and more.  (You can see Megan and I together, on the left, at the launch of Roses in Canberra earlier this year).

Day seven brought tears to my eyes as I read Dimity Powell’s review at the Boomerang Books Blog, where she said:

“Murphy is simply master at massaging sensitive issues into refined, understated yet terrifically moving poetic verse. Her words whisper across the pages with the soft intensity of a mountain breeze.”

Wow. Apparently I’d made Dimity  cry, too, so we had tears together, across the miles.  Dimity also interviewed me, and  got to choose a new name for myself: Aquamarine! If you want to find out more, you’ll have to read the interview.

Yesterday was my final stop but one, and I was delighted to visit the new Australian Children’s Site, where Di Bates wrote a lovely review, saying Roses is:

“…sure to tug at heartstrings.”

I also dropped in to Di’s own blog where I spoke about why and how I write verse novels.

Whew! And so we come to today, where  we are here, wrapping up the week (and a bit) that was, and saying thank you to the awesome ladies who hosted me, and/or my book, and to all the readers who stopped by and read the posts. Part of the purpose for a blog tour is to promote the book – but, to me, it’s also something much more important: a celebration!

S0 thank you for celebrating with me!