Rapeseed

by Nancy Freund

Do you trust your own brain? The colors you think you see? Smells that deliver vibrant memories that seem entirely real? Challenging what we know about our senses, Rapeseed features a synesthetic mom from Kansas with cross-wired colors in her letters, numbers, and her turbulent memories. She's been quietly keeping secrets from and with her husband until his job moves the family to England and rocks their carefully constructed history. Desperate to untangle the mixed textures of her past while her teenage son rushes toward a dangerous future with foreign friends and rap music, Carolann Cooper navigates busy London streets and winding English country roads in search of the one thing promising resolution in her own head and back home. A luminous novel from a bright new voice in American fiction.
"A novel of resilience and heart, of teenaged indiscretions and marital discontentment, humor... and boundless compassion." -- Amber Dermont, New York Times bestselling author of The Starboard Sea
"Funny, engaging, and painfully true" -- Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award-winning author of The Shadow Tracer
"A tender and evocative novel about the slippery nature of home and inheritance... Nancy Freund writes with authority and charm." -- Nick Dybek, author of When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man
"A smart, sharply observed debut." -- Steve Himmer, author of The Bee-Loud Glade
"... at times heartbreaking... Rapeseed works to answer the age-old questions of what it means to be a family." -- Myfanwy Collins, author of Echolocation
Praise for Nancy Freund's "Marcus," winner of the 2013 Geneva Fiction "A full and rich and startling story." -- Bret Lott, Oprah book club author of Jewel

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2013

About the author

Nancy Freund is a writer, editor, speaker, prior English teacher, and mentor. Born in New York, raised in Kansas City, and educated in Los Angeles, she was married in England, and today lives in French-speaking Switzerland. She is the author of Foreword Reviews finalist for Book of the Year in General Fiction and Category Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Prize 'Rapeseed,' (Gobreau Press, 2013) 'Global Home Cooking: International Families' Favorite Recipes' which earned the Eric Hoffer Prize Honorable Mention (2014), and 'Mailbox: A Scattershot Novel of Racing, Dares and Danger, Occasional Nakedness, and Faith' (2015), an INDIEFAB finalist for YA Book of the Year, and Writer's Digest Middle-Grade/Young Adult Honorable Mention. Her novel 'Effort of Will' is forthcoming. Her writing has appeared in journals such as The Istanbul Review, Blood Lotus Journal, Offshoots, The Daily Mail, Female First, and The Sirenuse Journal. Her radio interviews have aired on BBC London, World Radio Switzerland, and Talk Radio Europe. In September 2012, Nancy was writer-in-residence for webjournal Necessary Fiction. Her short story 'Marcus' won the Geneva Writers' first fiction prize, selected by American novelist Bret Lott in June, 2013. She co-founded the Lavaux Literary Salon, serving readers, writers and artists representing 11 countries, and she is active in Community Literacy projects for teens and adults. She holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing and an M.Ed. from UCLA.

Reviews

[Nancy Freund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I'm the author, and it took me 10 years to write and publish this novel, so I alternate between thinking it's a 5-star read and less-than- zero. It's got some complicated themes within a pretty easy-to-read, accessible story-line, so I'll just be bold and give it five stars.

[Nancy Freund · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm the author... if anyone's going to give Rapeseed five stars, it better be me!

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story, with some big questions at its center - how do you define yourself? And how does that change in relation to how others define you? Among the challenges characters in the book are facing: physical deformity, adolescence, culture change, pre-marital pregnancy, death, guilt and several others I'm probably forgetting.

I really enjoyed the novel when I was able to see through the rear view mirror how it all fit together. During the book which is a very fast read, there were too many concepts that I wanted to explore in more depth. In particular,I thought synesthesia would play a much larger role than it did, would have liked to see more of the father than we did,and found the neighbors story to not really fit. I wondered how much of this book was workshopped as there was an unevenness in the novel that felt like some sections were more developed than others.

Overall, a good read. Maybe not my favorite, but definitely a good reading experience.

[Gydle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great first book by Nancy Freund. Had a bit of a slow start - not quite sure where we are and what the story threads are, but then it picks up nicely and the pieces start to come together. The experience of being an American expat is really well captured - the confusion, cultural differences, difficulty finding your bearings. This woman is pretty unmoored in her life, and the book is about finding your bearings in a marriage and as a parent as well as in a new country.

The main character is synesthetic, and the play with color and feelings, the way that emotions take on color and sound, is very interesting. I also liked the writing style - it's not easy to succeed in keeping a story moving when it's told from three different points of view - but Nancy does it brilliantly and it never gets bogged down. I had no trouble keeping my interest level up - I wanted to find out what heppened to her teenage son, and how it worked out when her husband finally learned the "truth" of Chip's parentage.

The only reason I give it four instead of five stars, is that I found the anger of her husband's reaction to her revelation a little bit over the top - and it seemed like he recovered from it too fast at the end and everything wrapped up just a tad too neatly. A few times I also thought her teenage son was a little too good to be true, and thus not as sympathetic as I think she'd like him to be - I have two of them and they were nowhere near that verbally mature at 14.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literary fiction is not my thing. I go for more fast-paced paranormal YA. But I think it's a good thing to stretch my brain cells every once in a while and read something out-of-the-ordinary for me. And every once in a while I'm glad I did. Rapeseed made me glad to have read out of my comfort zone.

I give this book five stars because the writing was seriously stellar. The story wasn't perfect. I did have some issues with the characters and motivations and some threads I didn't really understand. But the writing carried me past that. There were so many moments when I stopped after reading a sentence and just shook my head at how well it was wrought. The dialogue, too, at times was witty and funny and dynamic. As a writer myself, this is the kind of word-crafting I fully admire. I will for sure check out other books Nancy Freund writes.

[Patricia Vroman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost a 4 rating. Anyone who visits or stays a while in the UK will appreciate the quite major differences between British speech and customs and those of the USA depicted with some humor here. Long-standing secrets and guilt surrounding Chip's birth and bitter memories over a broken piece of pottery are central but somewhat belabored. Chip and Ticia's relationship is appealing, especially as Chip proves more mature than either of his parents. On the whole it's a good book with areas of interest beside the main intrigue within the extended family, like the British neighbor who spent years in Texas and is in touch with Glastonbury mythology, Ticia's psychiatrist aunt who keeps llamas, the double entendre of the title, etc.

[Seetha Chinnappa-Sarwal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nancy Freund's book Rapeseed asks us to travel from the wheat fields of Kansas to the auction houses of England and to begin with I was not sure what to expect - was it just another book about expat life? Indeed, the writing is authentic and amusing in its approach to two countries divided by a common language, but the story covers some dark themes and is really about two generations fighting their demons. I particularly loved the gentle portrayal of characters, especially of Chip, the enlightened adolescent. I was intrigued to learn about the idea of blended senses - synesthesia, a condition experienced by Carolann. This is a perfect backdrop for the story which for me was ultimately about how perspective can alter understanding and how true wisdom is about attitude. Nancy's story like a canvas, slowly revealing light, texture and colour - savour it.

[Mary Albanese · Rating 5 out of 5]

PACKED WITH EMOTIONAL PUNCH!

RAPESEED by Nancy Freund is about a fictional US family on a one year assignment in England. Although I have now lived in England for 16 years and it feels like old hat, their struggles with British ettiquette and simple things (getting a bank account) really resonnated with me. On top of that, there's the outrageous plot with big emotions that just won't quit (think jealous twins), all masterfully delivered just when I was dying to hear the next bit. If you are an expat, want to feel what it might be like living overseas, or someone who just wants a great book you can get lost in, do yourself a favor and read RAPESEED.

Mary Albanese, author of MIDNIGHT SUN, ARCTIC MOON
a READERS FAVORITE finalist

[Bonnie Boyles · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for a debut author and debut press, Gobreau Press. It's been over a week since I read "Rapeseed", and I keep mulling over the family relationships. The colorful theme drew me but Carolann's son added a great benefit to reading this book. I left the book with a new favorite fictional character, Carolann's son. His growth and independent thoughts kept my attention throughout the book.

[J'pkorir Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

highest color mentions in a book, color has not been attached to every possible human sense before.
" sometimes,evidently, rape wasn't black and white and it wasn't varying shades of gray. Sometimes, in very particular circumstances, it turned out, rape was an unbelievable sunshine yellow.."
and if the original title of the book was The Color of Rape, it would have been one STAR down

[Enid L. Lapham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daffodil Yellow

The color of rapeseed flowers in the sun. It tells of promise and hope. Disabilities can be terrible, but only when we allow it. I enjoyed this story of a budding teen and his parents as they mature in a land distant from small town Kansas. Getting out into the broader world grows everyone. Read it and find out for yourself.

[Sophie Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and interesting subjects such as synesthesia and expat life.

[gj indieBRAG · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are proud to announce that RAPESEED by Nancy Freund is a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree. This tells a reader that this book is well worth their time and money!