This book is an absolute gem. Imagine being whisked away to the stunning landscapes of Nepal following the parallel adventures of Daisy in 2020 and her great-great-aunt Violet in the 1930s. It's like taking two epic journeys at once!I loved how adventurous it was. Daisy's solo trek and Violet's historical travels had me hooked from start to finish.Their connection was really heartfelt. The stories of resilience and the family secrets Daisy uncovers are deeply moving and relatable.And the writing's vivid descriptions made me feel like I was right there with them, experiencing every moment.Highly recommended for fans of historical and contemporary fiction alike!

3.5 stars. I was so excited to request the ARC of this book as I have been in an Everest reading kick. To my delight, that was one of the things the author did really well in this book. Her writing on Sherpas and Nepalese culture was beautiful. I also really enjoyed the botany talk. Told in dual timelines starting in 1929 and 2020 we follow two women in the same family trying to find themselves through personal struggle. The only reason I can’t give this a higher rating is that I felt like the 2020 storyline fell flat. We know what happens in the characters past to push her to travel to Nepal, but it was only a brief explanation and her struggles were never fully explained. Without a complete backstory I felt like I couldn’t fully root for her character and was left wanting more in that timeline.

This book follows two timelines in 2020 from Daisy`s POV and 1927 from Daisy`s great -aunt Violet's POV. This was my first novel by this author and I quite enjoyed it -- The descriptions of the areas in Scotland and Nepal, the people and the characters were quite vividly written and helped to keep me equally intrigued with both timelines, I enjoyed the focus on women in botany and the profession of gathering information on plants-- I also enjoyed the adventure of following in Violet's foots steps of Violet`s past to lead to Daisy's future. The authors notes at the end and her dedication to the research and accuracy is to be applauded as she combines well truth with fiction. The parallels between the timelines was well done also-- though memories of 2020 and the intense pandemic years is not looked fondly upon as it is still too close for a comfort to read about for many people but it is a reality of history that we must face.

Thanks to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for this ARC. This is my honest review.

This is the first book I've read from Fiona Valpy but it won't be the last! What a delightful. compelling and overall amazing story this is.
There's a great attention to details providing a strong sense of place and time. You really feel as if you're there, breathing the fresh mountain air and smelling those gorgeous flowers. I must admit it took me a while to get into the story, but a few chapters on and I was hooked. This said, I wasn't entirely convinced I wanted to relive those dreaded early months of the pandemic; in fact I have avoided any published work on the matter ( be it fact or fiction ) so far. Here it somehow is pivotal to the story-line and I found it only marginally disturbing, but I think I would have liked it best if it had been set at a later date.
The characters are inspiring and the research behind them is praiseworthy. They'll stay with me for a long time and having learned they were mentioned in a previous work, I'll go and read it asap!
Great quotes, too! My favourite ( basically the book explained in a few words ) : Journey far, but travel within.
May I recommend watching the documentary that the author shoot while on location researching for the book. So inspiring.
I think this story would make an amazing film.
Thank you to Lake Union, the author and NetGalley for an early copy.
#TheSkyBeneathUs #NetGalley

This was my 7th Fiona Valpy novel and I believe it’s her best yet! Not only was it wonderful to change settings, but it was great to revisit Daisy, whom I’d ‘met’ two books previously, in The Skylark’s Secret.

What a spectacular cover!

The writing between the covers is just as inviting and compelling. Valpy’s story is made so much more immersive because of her ‘boots on the ground’ experience. I loved my armchair visit to Phortse, a remote village in the Himalayas.

Valpy introduces readers to two characters who are at a crossroads, unsure of what to do next. They’ve lost sight of where they were going and who they used to be. Violet Mackenzie-Grant thought she had choices; after all, she was attending the Edinburgh School of Gardening for Women in the 1920s. Unfortunately, she discovers that her level of self-determination is realized by someone else who wields power over her. She ultimately sacrifices her position in society for love and discovers it’s really a plan of salvation.

Violet’s great-granddaughter, Daisy Laverock, is struggling, too, and decides that finding her Auntie Violet (who’d gone missing) would give her life direction. I got swept up in a beautiful story about two people who allowed the wind to change their lives instead of living with regrets. They learned to put one foot in front of the other and reach a place where they could see the sky. In doing so, they left behind the people they’d become and found exhilaration and liberty in re-finding their former selves.

Highlighted quotes:
💜“It’s only when we stop clinging on to the plans we’ve made that we step on to the middle way - the way of the unknown. We call this the sacred path of the warrior.”
💜“Sometimes in the river of life you just have to throw your heart in and dive in after it.”
💜“Life falls apart; and maybe some things can’t be mended, but perhaps they can be reshaped into something even more beautiful.”
💜“I wasn’t playing all the wrong notes. I was playing all the right notes, just no necessarily in the right order.”
💜“Journey far, but travel within.”

I won’t forget this bookish journey! Days later, the setting and people are still fresh in my mind.

I was gifted this copy by Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

This is the kind of book that inspires you to take a moment to write down memorable quotes. Inspiring, in fact, is a good word for the book as a whole. I loved that the main characters, Violet and Daisy were women who prove to be indomitable spirits.
Part of me really didn't want to relive the early days of the pandemic, but the time in which this book takes place comes to feel very. important as the narrative goes on. The book actually tells two parallel stories: one that begins in 1929 and the other that takes place in 2020. I became fond of both first person narrators (one through her journals) because of their struggles and the ways in which their trials and tribulations changed them. I won't spoil the ending but I will say it was a satisfying, believable one.
A small quibble: Sometimes the shift from the past to the present (and vice versa) was confusing, especially once the setting in which they find themselves intersects. I had to stop and think back to what had happened the last time the time shifted. That said, I wouldn't change a thing. This is a very popular genre these days (parallel narratives) because it works!
Thanks to the publisher for providing a digital copy via NetGalley.

Yet another gripping book by Fiona.
The book creatively moves from the 1920's to 2020 when Covid was rife throughout the world.
The description of the landscapes both in Scotland and Himalaya was magical; also the descriptions of the various seeds plus plants.
Great believable characters who through the pages we feel the love, strengths, friendships, communities and determination.
I loved the history content especially about Sherpas and their beliefs around the world's tallest mountain range.

This story is dual time line following Violet in the 1920s and Daisy in 2020, just before the COVID pandemic. Violet is a pioneer, one of the first female gardeners at Edinburgh school of gardeners, and follows her heart to Nepal. Daisy is at a loss, unsure what to do with her life, just divorced from a cheating husband, with twin adult daughters who have flown the nest. Daisy wants to follow in the steps of her great, great, great aunt Violet to Nepal. Along the way she finds more than she could have ever guessed.
I really enjoyed this story, the dual timeline was so interesting with it being different times but in the same places, and how much has changed, but also how much is still the same.

I loved the setting of this book and loved learning about the customs etc . I though overall it’s a good book and enjoyable read
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review book

Sweet story set in Edinburgh 1920's and Kathmandu 2020's. A calm cosy read displaying feminine strength and endurance while discovering family connections.
The beautiful surroundings and botanical inspirations elevate the otherwise rather trivial story.

Thank you Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC.

1927. Violet Mackenzie-Grant is embarking on her dream of studying at the Edinburgh School of Gardening for Women. She doesn’t yet know that it’s a journey that will take her to Kathmandu and beyond, deep into captivating landscapes and cultures that are worlds away from everything and everyone she’s left behind in Scotland.

2020. Daisy Laverock has dreamed of retracing the footsteps of her great-great-aunt Violet ever since discovering her long-lost journals, whose accounts of plant hunting in the 1930s inspired Daisy’s own career. Divorced, and facing an empty nest, Daisy decides to embark on the trip of a lifetime. She arrives in Nepal, ready to start trekking in the shadow of Everest. But fate, and the pandemic, have other plans. Stranded and alone, Daisy must fall back on the kindness of strangers, taking inspiration from Violet’s determination and resilience to keep going in the darkest of times.

The writing in this book is exquisite. Following Violet and Daisy's well-written stories was full of heartache, sadness, and lots of obstacles, but ultimately a lesson in hope. (Ironically, the same can be said of life!) I really loved this gem and look forward to reading more from this author!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced digital reader's copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review!

Look at that cover - I mean, wow. The Sky Beneath Us follows two distantly related women, separated by almost 100 years, as they journey through Nepal. As both women trek through the mountains, they must face their past, their future, and their identity. The author explores historical and modern contexts, bridging two very different worlds together and exposing the unwavering and unchanging aspects of the human condition. The potential with this plot is immense. Fiona Valpy has beautiful diction and her ability to describe nature so vividly is incredibly impressive. It also felt so enlightening to learn about the suffering of the Sherpas, to see inside such a resilient population. There’s a lot that I liked, but also a lot that I didn’t - which can mostly be explained by my dislike of this writing style.

My feelings about the first half of this book are very different from those of the second half. For the first half, I feel like the back and forth between 2020 and the letters from the late 1920s created a false sense of understanding and depth. There’s little character development and the content is just large blocks of play-by-play narration of the two women moving through their days or months. Thoughts are explained almost too literally and unnaturally, leaving little to the reader’s imagination. There’s just so much fluff. It was extremely hard for me to get through this part of the book because of how bored I became reading about where they walked, the color of the flowers and sky, what the food tasted like, etc. Setting the scene in this novel just took way too long and reading action after action became exhausting.

I think it comes down to my dislike of this kind of writing, which is characterized by heavily detailed narration and scene descriptions. In the second half of the novel, the pace picked up and it was much easier for me to get through. It kept my attention with the promises of families reuniting and discovering, serenity in Phortse, and plot development. The prose takes a sharp turn to readable and airy in this half. The story unravels in a cozy, mild way - not void of its heart-wrenching moments. Depictions of nature are kept reasonably brief and are immensely breathtaking. At points, I felt like I was there, breathing in the thin, fresh air, surrounded by the flowers of my dreams.

It’s hard for me to reconcile my feelings about this book. I have issues with some of the writing, but there’s heart and wisdom to it that I appreciate. I think this novel is perfect for those that love an atmospheric read, drenched in details and the awe of nature.

Edit: I forgot to mention how much I thoroughly appreciate the author’s dedication to research and accurate portrayals. Reading the “Author’s Notes” at the end of the novel only cemented my respect for her ability to tell fiction rooted in truth.

The Sky Beneath Us by Fiona Valpy is a captivating tale that spans decades and continents, weaving together the stories of two remarkable women connected by courage, resilience, and the spirit of adventure. Set against the backdrop of Scotland and the high-altitude Khumbu valley of Nepal, the novel follows Violet Mackenzie-Grant, a Scottish botanist embarking on a journey of self-discovery in 1927, and her great-great-niece, Daisy Laverock, who retraces her ancestor's footsteps decades later. As Daisy navigates the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, she finds solace and inspiration in Violet's journals, uncovering long-held secrets and forging her own path forward. With vivid descriptions, poignant themes, and richly drawn characters, The Sky Beneath Us is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of hope.

A dual timeline between Violet in the 1920s and Daisy in the 2020s, and their journeys to Nepal and discovering themselves.

This book took me some time to get in to it but eventually I did become very invested in both timeline’s story and their characters.
To be honest I’m not sure if I’m read to COVID stories yet, although I understand the symbolism of it in this book.
I loved the primary location in this book, it was definitely not your typical home base for a story.

Well Fiona Valpy has done it again,another beautiful story that draws you in right from the beginning. The back and forth from the different time eras is well done and the you can’t help but love the characters. I always look forward to her books.

This book really has the potential to be something great. I love the back and forth between Daisy and Violet (using the journal entries). However, what I didn't like at all was how Daisy's timeline takes place during COVID. While yes this was a huge change in our current time, I felt like it seriously pulled away from how beautiful this story could have been if this was let's say 2021 for Daisy.

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for my E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the eARC.
What a beautiful book, I absolutely loved it!
The two main characters, Violet (in the 1920's) and Daisy (2020 -2023) both went to Tibet. Daisy wanted to walk in the footsteps of her ancestor and find out what happened to her.
The story is heartwarming throughout with a wonderful ending. The Scottish and Nepalese scenes were so interesting, featuring many anecdotes of plants, flowers and their importance in our world. The lives and kindness of the Sherpas were also moving parts of this story ... so lovely.
A must read, highly recommended.

A beautiful story of the unique and fascinating intersection of Scotland and Napal. I especially enjoyed the actual facts included in this book - laws of Napal, customs of the Nepali, real facts about hiking Everest and the Himalaya. All incorporated into a lovely, realistic story.

Realistically, you can’t go wrong with a Fiona Valpy book. I don’t think I’ve read one of hers that I feel was not up to par!
A duel timeline read that follows Violet, a determined young woman in the 1920s who defies societal norms to pursue her passion for botany, ultimately finding herself in Nepal, where she builds a new life with the Sherpa people. The second timeline is some decades later which follows Daisy, Violet’s great-great niece, who as a result of the pandemic finds her stranded in Nepal, where she learns to live amongst the locals just like Violet, did.
A really engaging read with an absolutely stunning cover!