FOREWORD REVIEWS INDIES BOOK AWARDS: This is all he asks of you nomination

As part of its mission to discover, review, and share the best books from university and independent publishers, Foreword Reviews is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2020 INDIES Book of the Year Awards.

More than 2,000 entries spread across 55 genres were submitted for consideration. The Finalists were determined by Foreword’s editorial team. Winners are now being decided by teams of librarian and bookseller judges from across the country.

Collective Ink is delighted that This is all he asks of you by Anne Egseth has made the final short list for FOREWORD REVIEWS 2020 INDIES BOOK AWARD.

This Is All He Asks of You is a visionary story about letters never sent, life once flowing and now frozen, and the beauty of human connection.

Spanning Norway, Washington DC and Greece, This Is All He Asks of You is a visionary story about letters never sent, life once flowing and now frozen, swim-flying in golden light and the beauty of human connection. Above all, it is a story about how sad it would be if everything became like everything else.

Anne Egseth studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and has spent her life teaching drama, and devising plays in the UK and her native Norway. Anne now teaches somatic development in San Francisco and Washington DC. She lives by the ocean with her husband and daughter in San Diego, California. This Is All He Asks of You is Anne's debut novel.

Foreword Reviews Magazine on This Is All He Asks of You

Anne Egseth’s captivating epistolary novel This Is All He Asks of You is about growing up and finding light in the darkness.

Luna is Norwegian; when she is twelve, she spends time living with her single mother in the US. The book’s two distinct sections encompass her time in America and her early adulthood in Europe. She narrates both sections—first through letters to the father she never met, and then in journal format.

As a child, Luna exhibits an array of unusual gifts: she can commune with trees and physically see people’s inner lights. Because of her spiritual sensitivity, Luna wants to understand everything about identities and reasons for being. Her joy is tested, though, by her mother’s devastating struggle with cancer.

Through the guidance of Garrick, an elderly neighbor, and through Jacques Lusseyran’s And There Was Light, Luna copes with impending orphan hood and learns about courage, kindness, joy, and individuality, reflecting like a mantra that “it would be so sad if everything in the world became like everything else.”

Luna’s voice is distinctive and strong, and though her writing style changes as she grows, its poetic, ethereal quality ties her work together, from her early inquisitive sensitivity to her later, jaded weariness. Her language is a highlight, packing a great deal of meaning into a limited word count. Each word precise and evocative: “We get flung apart ... and then we have to find our way back, again, and again... to wholeness.” This delicate style balances with spiritual expressions. Much is implied, and the text is resonant for its openness.

This Is All He Asks of You is a stirring metaphysical novel about exploring life, loss, and spirituality.

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