In November 2015 I read the moving and captivating Dead Babies and Seaside Towns by Alice Jolly. At the time I had no idea that just over four months later on 17th March 2016 my niece would sadly give birth to a still born full term daughter, Emma Faith. As today would have been Emma’s first birthday, I wanted to mark the occasion with a reminder of Alice’s wonderful book.

You can read my review of Dead Babies and Seaside Towns and my interview with Alice Jolly here.

Now with a brand new cover, Dead Babies and Seaside Towns will be published in paperback by Unbound, an imprint of Penguin, on 23rd March 2017 and is available for pre-order here.

Dead Babies and Seaside Towns

When Alice Jolly’s second child was stillborn and all subsequent attempts to have another baby failed, she began to consider every possible option, no matter how unorthodox.

Shot through with humour and full of hope, Dead Babies and Seaside Towns is an intensely personal account of the search for an alternative way to create a family. As she battles through miscarriage, IVF and failed adoption attempts, Alice finds comfort in the faded charm of Britain’s crumbling seaside towns.

The journey ultimately leads her and her husband to a small town in Minnesota, and to two remarkable women who offer to make the impossible possible.

In this beautifully written book, Alice Jolly describes with a novelist’s skill the events that many others have lived through – even if they may feel compelled to keep them hidden. Her decision not to hide but to share them, without a trace of self-pity, turns Dead Babies and Seaside Towns into a universal story: one that begins in tragedy but ends in joy.

About Alice Jolly

Alice Jolly is a novelist and playwright.

She has published two novels with Simon and Schuster and has been commissioned four times by the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. She has also written for Paines Plough and her work has been performed at The Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden and The Space, East London. Her memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns was published by Unbound in July 2015 and won the Pen/Ackerley Prize. In 2014 one of her short stories won The Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize.

She teaches creative writing on the Mst at Oxford University.

Find out more about Alice on her web site or follow her on Twitter. You can also find her on Facebook.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce a brand new fiction imprint of The American University in Cairo Press, Hoopoe Fiction.

Hoopoe Fiction specialise in stories from the Middle East and as I’ve loved going to Egypt in the past and have lived and worked in New York, I thought I’d share an extract from one of the first books from Hoopoe Fiction that includes both those destinations, Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge by Ezzedine C. Fishere and translated by John Peate. Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge is published by Hoopoe in April 2017 and is available for pre-order here.

Not only do I have an extract, but you can enter to win a paperback copy of Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge at the bottom of this blog post.

About Hoopoe

Hoopoe is an imprint for engaged, open-minded readers hungry for outstanding fction that challenges headlines, re-imagines histories, and celebrates original storytelling. Through elegant paperback and digital editions, Hoopoe champions bold, contemporary writers from across the Middle East alongside some of the finest, groundbreaking authors of earlier generations. On the Hoopoe website, curious and adventurous readers from around the world will fnd new writing, interviews, and criticism from our authors, translators, and editors.

As well as visiting Hoopoe’s website, you can follow them on Twitter and find them on Facebook and Instagram.

Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge

On the eve of Salma’s twenty-first birthday, scattered friends and family converge on New York for a celebration organized by Darwish, her obstinate grandfather. Each guest’s journey to this fated gathering takes on an unexpected significance, as they find themselves revisiting the choices they have made in life, and rethinking their relationships with one another and the country in which they live.

Traveling seamlessly between Egypt and the United States, Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge is a story about how we construct and shift our identities, and about a family’s search for home.

An Extract from Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge

He realized he wouldn’t leave much behind. He would die like everyone else did. Those who really loved him would remember him fondly; the rest would remember him the way they wanted. This didn’t matter to him. Darwish was seventy years old, and it actually felt like a blessing to know how much time he had left. It was a chance to put his affairs in order, with his own two hands, and to do what he had forgotten or been too lazy to do. From that time onward, he wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to. He would flatter no one. He would spend no time on people he didn’t like. He wouldn’t make compromises or long-term plans. There was no long term anymore. He would do all the things he’d put off. He’d live in his remote log cabin on a lake in the woods or the mountains. He’d read books he’d never had time to pick up before. He’d write the book he’d always wanted to write: on the future of the Arabs. He’d spent his whole life studying Arab history. He had always dreamed of writing about their future, but his natural cautiousness prevented him. Now there was no point in being cautious. He would draft the book proposal and meet with the publisher early next week. Once he was in the cabin, he would begin writing.

Though he had spent five years in London writing up his doctoral thesis, he hadn’t met Jane there, but in Cairo, which surprised their small circle of friends. Jane was tall, slim, shapely, and beautiful, with long chestnut-brown hair, which she would either let hang around her shoulders or pin up with whatever was to hand, normally a pencil. She had come to Cairo for a year to learn Arabic, on some scholarship or another. She grew to love the city in all its chaos and ended up settling there. They gradually got to know each other, and grew closer until they ended up more or less living together in an apartment in Giza, behind the zoo.

Jane was a good-hearted, decent sort of person, but her relationship with Egypt was confused. She told Darwish when they first met how much she loved the Egyptian people’s good-naturedness, and their warmth and humanity. She found something in them that she had felt lacking from her life in Britain. He laughed to himself, being someone who actually loved the cool standoffishness of the British, finding in their respect for privacy something he lamented as sorely missing from Egyptian life. They found themselves in reversed positions, as he criticized she defended Egyptian life and people: “Yes, she is lying. From a legal point of view, she’s lying. But it’s not a real lie”; “This is not a weakness, it’s caution”; “No that’s not nepotism, it’s really just an expression of gratitude”; “It’s absolutely not a class thing; it’s a different view of roles and responsibilities.”

He never accepted any of her excuses, never accepted that different rules applied to Arabs. Arabs were not a corrupt offshoot of the rest of humanity. The same rules and moral standards applied to them as to anyone else in the world. Saying anything else was patronizing trash masquerading as sympathy. To accept a lie from an Arab but no one else meant you saw a fundamental weakness in them that the rest of humankind didn’t suffer from. It was treating them as if they were granted permission to be irrational. He told her this, time and time again. Her indulgence of Egyptians and their shortcomings began to aggravate him. He asked her to read their history to understand why they were just like any other people, and how they had ended up the way they had. She would then see that indulging their faults was not the solution. Treating them like responsible grown-ups was. She tolerated, even revelled in their backwardness. Jane said she didn’t have the time to immerse herself in Arab history like that. Enter Albert Hourani. When he gave her the book, she seemed pleased. She did start reading it, but soon gave up, saying it was boring and that she preferred to learn through mixing with people. But she didn’t learn through mixing with people.

In fact, she slid deeper into “idiotic tourist syndrome,” as Darwish diagnosed it. This was an ongoing argument between them, as she believed the real problem was that his way of thinking barred him from recognizing any of the complications unique to Egypt. He would protest that he was born of Egypt’s soil, but he could tell the difference between complications and plain old bad behaviour. In his view, Egyptians needed re-education. Whether it was because of their poverty or ignorance or poor education made no difference to him; the upshot was a deterioration in their moral codes. She would counter that he was the victim of his Western education, which had planted in him this naïve idea that people could be reformed through argument or appeals to conscience. That’s why he fought with everyone all the time: because he preached at them instead of trying to understand them. He would laugh and ask sarcastically whether that was an insult or a compliment, and her face would redden.

About Ezzedine C. Fishere

Ezzedine C. Fishere is an acclaimed Egyptian writer, academic, and diplomat. He has written numerous successful and bestselling novels and he also writes political articles for Arabic, English, and French news outlets. He currently teaches at Dartmouth College in the US, where he lives.

About John Peate

John Peate has studied Arabic in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, and Oman, as well in the UK, and has a PhD in Arabic linguistics. He has translated numerous authors’ works, has been a university teacher and a BBC journalist, and now works for the US Embassy in London as a media analyst.

Giveaway

For your chance to win a paperback copy of Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge click here. Open internationally. Giveaway closes at UK midnight on Wednesday 22nd March 2017. Good luck!

Regualr readers of Linda’s Book Bag know I have an impossibly large TBR but that doesn’t stop me wanting to get my hands on the brand new thriller from Cathy Glass writing as Lisa Stone, The Darkness Within, and I’m delighted to be helping to reveal the cover today.

The Darkness Within will be published in e-book and paperback on 13th July 2017 by Avon Books, an imprint of Harper Collins, and is available for pre-order here.

The Darkness Within

You know your son better than anyone. Don’t you?

When critically ill Jacob Wilson is given a life-saving heart transplant, his parents are relieved that their loving son has been saved.

However, before long, his family are forced to accept that something has changed in Jacob. Their once loving son is slowly being replaced by a violent man whose mood swings leave them terrified – but is it their fault?

Jacob’s girlfriend, Rosie, is convinced the man she loves is suffering from stress. But when his moods turn on her, she begins to doubt herself – and she can only hide the bruises for so long.

When a terrible crime is committed, Jacob’s family are forced to confront their darkest fears. Has the boy they raised become a monster? Or is someone else to blame?

This is a spellbinding crime novel with a dark heart from the worldwide bestseller Cathy Glass, writing as Lisa Stone.

I’m a country girl at heart and so I’m delighted to be part of the paperback launch celebrations for Foxes Unearthed by Lucy Jones. Lucy agreed to answer some of my questions about her writing, about Foxes Unearthed and about her love of nature.

Published in paperback today, 16th March 2017, by Elliott and Thompson, Foxes Unearthed is available for purchase by following the publisher links here.

Foxes Unearthed

As one of the largest predators left in Britain, the fox is captivating: a comfortably familiar figure in our country landscapes; an intriguing flash of bright-eyed wildness in our towns.

Yet no other animal attracts such controversy, has provoked more column inches or been so ambiguously woven into our culture over centuries, perceived variously as a beautiful animal, a cunning rogue, a vicious pest and a worthy foe. As well as being the most ubiquitous of wild animals, it is also the least understood.

In Foxes Unearthed Lucy Jones investigates the truth about foxes in a media landscape that often carries complex agendas. Delving into fact, fiction, folklore and her own family history, Lucy travels the length of Britain to find out first-hand why these animals incite such passionate emotions, revealing our rich and complex relationship with one of our most loved – and most vilified – wild animals. This compelling narrative adds much-needed depth to the debate on foxes, asking what our attitudes towards the red fox say about us and, ultimately, about our relationship with the natural world.

An Interview with Lucy Jones

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Lucy. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your writing. Firstly, please could you tell me a little about yourself?

A pleasure. Thank you for featuring Foxes Unearthed. I’m a writer based in Hampshire. Foxes Unearthed is my first book. I was a journalist at the Daily Telegraph and then NME, writing about music and culture, but over the last few years I’ve started writing more about the environment, wildlife, nature and science, for BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, The Guardian and others. I love words, moths, owls and nudibranchs.

(I didn’t know what nudibranchs were and had to look them up! They look fascinating creatures.)

Please could you tell us a bit about Foxes Unearthed too?

Foxes Unearthed is an investigation into the truth about foxes in Britain and why Vulpes vulpes is so passionately loved and loathed. I delve into fact, fiction, folklore and my own family history to find out what our attitudes towards the red fox say about us. I travelled across the country talking to scientists, farmers, activists, researchers and pest-controllers, and went out with hunt saboteurs and hunters, to see both sides. Personally, I was interested in human attitudes to foxes because I realised at a young age that they could incite strong passion in both directions.

When did you first realise you were going to be a writer?

I wanted to be a writer from the age of around eight and wrote stories, poems and diaries from then on (they are all awful). My father used to say “that’s a very interesting question” to me when I was little, which I loved, and it encouraged me to be be inquisitive and, eventually, choose a career in which I’m paid to ask questions. I got my first job as a journalist at a local paper out of university and then had a couple of other office journalism jobs in The Daily Telegraph and then NME. Even though writing books was always dream, I had low confidence about my writing until recently. I think I only realised when Foxes Unearthed was published last year that it was OK to call myself a writer. Now I feel thrilled and very lucky to say that I write for a living.

Which aspects of your writing do you find easiest and most difficult?

I find conducting and writing up interviews pretty easy, because I’m used to doing them now. I find translating scientific studies for a general audience challenging, because you so want to get it exactly accurate, and have to be so careful because simplifying someone’s research can alter the meaning.

What are your writing routines and where do you do most of your writing?

I am most alert between 7am and midday so I do my writing then. In the afternoons, I conduct less cerebral tasks such as interview transcriptions or emails. For Foxes, I made myself write 1,000 words every morning for 60 days. I typed out a page of Joan Didion’s non-fiction before I started writing because I love her sentences. I have a shed I’m doing up to write in, which is surrounded by a curly willow. I’m going to paint it the colours of the YSL garden in Marrakech. Or I write at a table next to my tortoise looking out at a couple of long-tailed tits, a clutter of starlings and a charm of goldfinches. Or in the library. Cafes don’t work for me; I hate noise when I’m working and can’t bear any music.

Of all the animals available for you to write about, why choose foxes?

Foxes are a flint for emotions and inspire so much debate. People either love foxes, or hate them, and I don’t believe there is another native animal to Britain which so divides people – and has done for years. Also, the fox is an intriguing prism through which you can view human activity through British history, in different stratas and socio-political groups, town and country, rich and poor.

How do you go about researching detail and ensuring your writing is realistic?

For Foxes Unearthed, I spent weeks in the British Library, poring over newspapers from the 20th century and lots of old texts. To counter all the sedentary research, I wanted to go out in the field, travelling around to interview people, going out with a pest-controller, visiting a huntsman on his farm, sabotaging a hunt. Meeting characters and people and trying to have as much empathy with their situation is always a motive.

Since researching this book, how have your own attitudes towards foxes altered?

I’ve always loved foxes but my research into their behaviour gave me a renewed sense of respect and awe at what is such a successful predator and carnivore. Foxes are brilliant.

To what extent do you think foxes make a good metaphor for humans?

I suppose the most well-known one is the ‘foxy vixen’, the women who can’t be trusted and uses her wiles to trick men. What sexist nonsense! I love Jimi Hendrix’s Foxy Lady but, really, it’s just a way of shaming and vilifying women for their sexuality – and foxes for their alleged craftiness.

I know you’re very interested in nature. How important is nature to our mental health and well-being do you think?

More important than we realise, I believe. As of 2010, more of us live in urban areas than not, and I fear we’re only starting to see how that might affect our mental health. Saying that, some people aren’t affected at all, mentally or emotionally, by nature, and I think that’s interesting, too. I support the calls for a Nature GCSE because I think, for psychological health, nature is essential for so many of us and education and access for the young is key.

You’ve recently had a baby, Evelyn. How has motherhood affected your writing and your view of the world and nature?

Well, she is six months now and I’m starting to get a bit more sleep so hopefully that will make writing easier! I recently wrote a piece about my experience of a 43-hour labour, and I found that very cathartic. I want my daughter to have the opportunity to experience as much joy from nature as I do – and I hope I can use my writing to draw attention to the natural world and environmental issues in some small way.

(Blog readers will find Lucy’s ‘labour’ post here.)

Do you have other interests that give you ideas for writing?

I’m interested in psychology, neuroscience and mental health, having experienced mental illness on and off over the years. I also did a year of training to be a psychotherapist. I’m interested and concerned about climate change. It’s mainly reading but I love documentary films and podcasts, which can often throw up ideas.

The fox on the cover of Foxes Unearthed has an ambiguous expression to me making it appear quite mysterious. How did that image come about and what were you hoping to convey?  

A fantastic designer and illustrator called Nathan Burton was the artist behind the cover, commissioned by the brilliant team at Elliott & Thompson. The objective of the design was for the fox to look quite neutral. I found the reaction to it very interesting, actually. My mother, who’d been brought up in a hunting family, thought the fox looked too benign! Others thought it looked too conniving. Again, it just shows our conflicting attitudes to foxes.

If you hadn’t become an author, what would you have done instead as a creative outlet?

Tough one. Words are really the thing I love so I can’t imagine not using those as my primary material. Maybe a stained glass window artist, I’d have liked to learn that. At the moment, I chill out by making cards for people with a growing collection of rubber stamps. I’ve always liked doing crafts, it switches my mind off for a bit.

When you’re not writing, what do you like to read?

I like American 20th century fiction most of all. Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Pynchon, Hemingway. At the moment I’m reading Tove Jansson’s adult stuff; I love the Moomins. I like Annie Dillard, Jay Griffiths, Rebecca Solnit, Barry Lopez, Robert MacFarlane, Nell Zink and Nan Shepherd. I read only non-fiction for a while but since having my daughter I’ve a thirst for fiction again.

If you had 15 words to persuade a reader that Foxes Unearthed should be their next read, what would you say?

If you love foxes, I hope you’ll like this. If not, it’s also about humans, too.

Thank you so much, Lucy, for your time in answering my questions.

About Lucy Jones

Lucy Jones is a writer and journalist based in Hampshire, England. She previously worked at NME and The Daily Telegraph. Her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, the Guardian,TIME, Newsweek and the New Statesman. She runs the Wildlife Daily blog and is the recipient of the Society of Authors’ Roger Deakin Award for Foxes Unearthed.

You can follow Lucy on Twitter and visit her website. There’s more with these other bloggers too:

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for the children’s book Pilot Jane and the Runaway Plane written by Caroline Baxter and illustrated by Izabela Ciesinska. Not only do I have my review of Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane, but I also have a guest post from Caroline, all about the importance of girl power.

Published by Big Sunshine Books on 8th March 2017, Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane is available for purchase in paperback here.

Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane

Join Pilot Jane, a fun and fearless airline captain, as she travels the world with her best friend Rose, a high-speed passenger jet. Together Jane and Rose have exciting adventures and form a perfect team, delivering their passengers safely to destinations as far afield as Alaska and Australia. But when disaster strikes and Rose falls ill, Jane is paired with ‘lean, mean flying machine’ Mighty Mitch. Can she still get the Queen to her party on time? Featuring a clever and courageous heroine, this action-packed rhyming story celebrates ‘Girl Power’ and shows what you can achieve if you work together. Fasten your seatbelt and get ready for take-off!

Why ‘Girl Power’ is Important

A Guest Post by Caroline Baxter

My new children’s picture book, Pilot Jane and the Runaway Plane, was published recently on International Women’s Day to mark the fact that it celebrates ‘girl power’. The story follows the adventures of Pilot Jane, a clever and courageous airline captain, who travels the world with her best friend Rose, a high-speed passenger jet. And while my aim was, first and foremost, to create a fun and entertaining book for young children, I was also eager to do so with a strong female lead.

Why?

Well, on a personal level, I have a young daughter and I was tired of reading the same old stories about princesses, fairies and witches (brilliantly written, though many are). There seemed to be very few interesting female protagonists, particularly for the preschool age. And while over the years I have even managed to grow fond of Peppa Pig, in mainstream books at least there seemed to be a notable absence of female adventurers, explorers, scientists, doctors, leaders – and girls with something to say.

My feelings were borne out by the statistics. A recent US study of almost 6,000 children’s books, all of which were published between 1900 and 2000, found that male characters far outnumber females. The research showed that males were central characters in 57% of children’s books published each year, but only 31% had female central characters. Similarly, in the same period, books with male animal characters were more than two-and-a-half times as common as those featuring female animals (Gender in 20^th Century Children’s Books, 2011).

Across children’s media, more widely, less than a fifth of female characters were found to hold jobs or have career aspirations.

Some may argue that this doesn’t make a difference in the ‘real’ world. After all, women have come a very long way since International Women’s Day began back in 1911. The choices and opportunities available to us have increased beyond measure. Girls are now outperforming boys at school and, in many countries, including England, this continues at every level of education. We’re also pouring into a number of traditionally male-dominated occupations, such as law, medicine, finance and veterinary science. But there are also serious challenges. As we all know, across the world women are still paid less than men. Even in Britain today, the pay gap is almost 14% for full-time workers. Women are seriously under-represented in a range of professions and an Ofsted study (2011) confirms that girls continue to hold stereotypical views about the types of jobs available to them.

Even more worryingly, girls are losing confidence in their abilities early on. Recent research has shown that, by the time they are just six years old, girls start to see themselves as less innately talented than boys (BBC news article 27 January 2017 – Girls lose faith in their own talents by the age of six).

Clearly some things need to change . . .

So what does ‘girl power’ mean? To me, it means girls and women supporting, celebrating and empowering each other. It means promoting inspiring messages for young girls and a wide range of positive role models. It means instilling in them, as well as boys, real faith in their own abilities through the books they read, the movies they watch and the images they see. Among her many talents, Pilot Jane, for example, can surf, speak Chinese and practise tai chi, as well as, of course, being a (very young!) airline captain. And together, Jane and Rose are “an awesome pair” who pride themselves on their ability to deliver their passengers safely to destinations worldwide, whatever the weather. No man – or plane for that matter – could stand in the way of Pilot Jane!

Of course, these types of changes cannot happen overnight. But fortunately there are already some brilliant resources out there. I’d recommend Almighty Girl as a good starting point for anyone who wants to look for books, toys and movies intended to empower girls. As their website rightly states, “Girls do not have to be relegated to the role of sidekick or damsel in distress; they can be the leaders, the heroes, the champions that save the day, find the cure, and go on the adventure”.

Women already occupy so many of these roles in real life. Surely reflecting that in the books that we read to our young children, and the range of characters that we show them, should be the easy bit?

Is girl power important today? Absolutely.

To borrow a phrase from Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh, girls “You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

So, Pilot Jane and the Runaway Plane was published on 8 March 2017, International Women’s Day. Thank you for hosting me on Linda’s Book Bag!

(My pleasure Caroline.)

My Review of Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane

Pilot Jane flies a pink plane called Rose and they have many adventures together, but when Rose is ill, a new plane Mitch thinks he can outwit Jane.

I have one tiny criticism of this lovely book that I’m going to get out of the way first. I have a personal aversion to random font sizes in children’s books for emphasis because when we’re teaching children to write we want them to be consistent. That said, in Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane different font sizes are used to emphasise events or proper nouns and they introduce more difficult vocabulary so they could be used as teaching or discussion points with children when reading the book together.

Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane is a brilliant children’s book. The rhymes are flowing and not contrived so that there is a natural rhythm to the narrative. The places Jane and Rose visit are exciting and exotic, from Australia to China, introducing children to others and their countries.

The illustrations are absolutely glorious with such vibrant and attractive pictures that I can imagine parents, teachers and children discussing them for a long time after the story has been read.

But the best aspect of Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane is the fabulous themes. Jane is promoted as a strong female and she is not at all fazed when Mitch tries to outwit her. He too learns a lesson about not judging people by appearances or gender that is important for children to learn and he changes for the better as a result. The concept of responsibility and not letting down other people is clear, as is the understanding that there is a world of possibility and opportunity to explore. These are worthy themes, with the potential to be stuffy, but they are presented in a lively and engaging way so that Pilot Jane and The Runaway Plane is a real joy.

About Caroline Baxter

Caroline Baxter lives in Oxford with her husband and two young children. From an early age she always had her nose in a book – and now does so for a living!

Caroline grew up in South Wales and, after graduating with a BA in English Literature from Cardiff University, held a variety of management roles at UK universities including, most recently, at the University of Oxford. The Bear Cub Bakers, her first book, was written while on maternity leave with her daughter. Her second book, Pilot Jane and the Runaway Plane, was published recently on International Women’s Day (8 March 2017). Caroline loves travelling, yoga, baking (and eating) cake, dogs, days out and snuggling up with a good story.

You can find out more about Caroline through Big Sun Books on Facebook, Twitter and the Big Sun Book website.

About Izabela Ciesinska

From her earliest days in the crib, Izabela spent most of her time looking at pictures and then attempting to draw them. As a child she absorbed every picture book she could get her hands on. She read them all, drew them all, and she smelled all the pages.

Soon enough she discovered the amazing world of animation. She even tried to animate her own scenes only to discover that tracing 24 frames per second was easier seen than done. Eventually her ambitions evolved into film and illustration, and many broken pencils and torn up pictures later, she went on to illustrate over 50 picture books, as well as direct her first short film, “NEDE”, which premiered at the 2010 Montreal World Film Festival. Currently Izzi is working on a number of illustration projects alongside some film projects in development.

You can follow Izabela on Twitter, find her on Facebook and visit her website.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for Parallel Lines by Steven Savile with something slightly different today. In honour of Parallel Lines I have a character profile of Margot Moore who features in the book.

Published by Titan on 14th March 2017, Parallel Lines is available for purchase in e-book and paperback here and from Amazon.

Parallel Lines

How far would you go to provide for your child?

Adam Shaw is dying, and knows he’ll leave his disabled son with nothing. His solution? Rob a bank. It’s no surprise that things go wrong. What is surprising is that when another customer is accidentally shot, no one in the bank is in a hurry to hand Adam over to the police. There’s the manager who’s desperate to avoid an audit, the security guard with a serious grudge, and the woman who knows exactly how bad the victim really was…

Eight people, twelve hours, one chance to cover up a murder. But it’s not just the police they have to fool. When many lives intersect, the results can be explosive.

Margot Moore

A Guest Post by Steven Savile

Margot Moore lost her husband last year. She thought she knew him. She didn’t. 

Margot Moore

Margot Moore had a secret. She was in love with a man she had never met, and almost certainly never would. The fact that she was in love was only the half of it. Who the object of her affections was and how he’d come into her life, that was the really interesting part. That was the part that made it a secret worth keeping.

He was her guardian angel.

He was her reason for getting up in the morning.

For a while it had been dark, really dark; then he had come into her life like some kind of caped superhero. He called himself Nero, but that wasn’t his real name. She didn’t know what his real name was.

Margot would be sixty-three on her next birthday, making her the oldest of the bank’s staff by almost a decade, and old enough to know better when it came to matters of the heart. But sometimes it was just a case of the heart wanting what the heart wanted however ridiculous that desire was.

They all thought she was so together, so ordinary. They had no idea what was going on inside her, or how it felt to have lost everything that mattered during six hellish months that had started out with confidence that together they’d beat it, that had become niggling arguments where she kept saying to Johnny she wished he’d put up more of a fight, that he’d just act like he wanted to live even though they both knew the non-Hodgkin lymphoma was eating him alive. It was already too late at that point. It had started out as an aching shoulder months before, then a raspy cough that he just couldn’t shift, and even the week before they got the news that his liver and spleen were riddled with aggressive tumors, Johnny Joe Moore had been given the all clear from the oncologist as they searched for the root cause of his symptoms. The CT scan only covered the area around his throat down to his armpits and thyroid, ruling out lymphoma. She’d tortured herself for months wondering if those lost days might have been the death of her husband, cursing a health-care system that valued saving a few dollars on a scan over saving a man’s life. Thinking like that was a killer. It led down very dark paths in the lonely hours of the night. For a month she hadn’t washed the sheets because they smelled of him. For two more months she hadn’t moved his sweater off the balustrade at the top of the staircase because that was where he always kept his sweaters and every time she walked past it she ran her fingers over the wool. It was the closest she came to prayer.

Everyone around her said the right things, asked the right questions and worried about her, but that didn’t help because they weren’t her; they weren’t inside her head living with that new-found emptiness. And instead of getting easier with time it just got harder. That was a truth no one ever talked about. At the start she’d just been numb trying to deal with all of the paperwork and red tape involved in closing out a man’s life; then there had been those long days of firsts: the first time she’d been to the farmer’s market without him, the first time she’d watched his favorite show without him, the first day she’d not gone to the mailbox to collect his newspaper, the first time she’d gone to bed alone, all of those little things that had been so much a part of their life together that had suddenly become little landmarks to the man she’d lost. That was so much worse than the finality of the registrar and the death certificate with the word “pneumonia” going down as the official cause of death.

Coming out on the other side of the firsts didn’t make living any easier. She’d been clinging to the notion that it would. All she could do was put on her bravest face and there was a limit to how long that particular trick would last—which was how she’d wound up taking the call from Nero that saved her life.

It was a culmination of so many small and seemingly unimportant events that led her up to the roof that night, the cold winds that earned the city its name blowing hard. She wasn’t dressed for killing herself. It was a crazy thing to think, but she remembered that moment vividly, even now. The flat roof of the apartment building was six stories from the ground. Standing on the edge, looking down, the drop was dizzying. There wasn’t a star in the sky. They didn’t get many stars, even on clear nights, because of the constant glow of the city. She missed the stars. She’d grown up with them there every night, and just like with her Johnny, taken for granted that they’d always be there. She wrapped her arms around herself, not looking down. She could hear the low engine rumble of a plane coming in to land at O’Hare. She didn’t want that to be the last thing she heard in this life, so she waited. It wouldn’t be long before the dawn chorus broke out. Dying to a soundtrack of birdsong wasn’t such a bad thing, was it? She could wait for that.

About Steven Savile

Steven Savile has written for Doctor Who, Torchwood, Primeval, Stargate, Warhammer, Slaine, Fireborn, Pathfinder and other popular game and comic worlds. His novels have been published in a dozen languages to date, including the Italian bestseller L’eridita. He won the International Media Association of Tie-In Writers award for his Primeval novel, Shadow of the Jaguar, published by Titan, in 2010, and the inaugural Lifeboat to the Stars Award for the novel Tau Ceti co-written with Kevin J Anderson.

You can follow Steven on Twitter and find him on Facebook.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

Slightly differently on Linda’s Book Bag today I’m interviewing two authors, Sarah Sugery and Emma Vestrheim who write collaboratively and have just released A Presence of Absence.

A Presence of Absence is available for purchase in e-book and paperback from your local Amazon site.

A Presence of Absence

The Odense Series is a new Nordic Noir/Brit Crime series that blends humanist stories and family drama with gritty crime in the central Danish city Odense.

British detective Simon Weller escapes the fallout from the recent suicide of his Danish wife, Vibeke and heads out to her home city of Odense. But once there he is paired up with a local detective, Jonas, who is also about to hit rock bottom in his home life and they must overcome their differences and personal problems to try and catch one of the worst serial killers Odense has seen in many years.

The case takes them back into past decades as history starts catching up with some of the local inhabitants.

When Simon realises that his wife’s suicide may not be all it seems and her name appears in the case, his integrity within the case is compromised, how far will he go to find out the truth of Vibeke’s past and hide it from his already troubled police partner?

Back home in London Simon’s family are struggling with their own web of lies and deceit and the family is falling apart.

With one family hiding a dark secret, the whole case is just about to reach breaking point.

An Interview with Sarah Surgey and Emma Vestrheim

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag ladies. Without spoiling the plot, please could you tell us a bit about A Presence of Absence?

Sarah: A Presence of Absence is the first book in The Odense Series. It is a crime novel but also deals quite openly with grief and the fallout within families from this.

A British detective is struggling to deal with the suicide of his Danish wife, Vibeke. He heads back to her birth town of Odense (also the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen) where he finds himself being partnered up with a local detective, Jonas, to try and track down a killer on the loose there.

Alongside the crime we find out about the demons in each detectives lives, how two suicides, decades apart are linked.

London and Odense are two cities united by grief, lies and revenge.

This book really focuses quite highly on our characters development and blends Nordic Noir with Brit Crime.

You’re writing collaboratively. How does that work on a practical level?

Sarah: It actually works out well for us. I live in the UK and fit my writing around having 4 daughters, so quite often my writing times are early in the morning or later on at night. Emma fits hers around her magazine and work so slots it in between days off. This allows us to both write and then send to each other to look over. We email every day i think and usually a few times a day, we skype and manage to meet up when possible as although Emma is Australian she now lives in Norway, so not as far!

Emma: It was also good when I was living in Australia and Sarah was in the UK, so I could write during my day and then Sarah would write during hers! The book was being worked on 24/7.

When did you first realise you were going to be writers?

Sarah: Always. I’ve always written, but alongside everything else it wasn’t until you start having your work published that you realise you can actually give yourself that title.

Emma: I’ve been writing short stories since I was a kid, but have spent most of my time writing scripts. I’ve always been more interested in telling stories on screen, and it’s been a real learning process writing a novel.

What are your writing routines and where do you do most of your writing?

Sarah: I have four daughters so anywhere and everywhere, quiet time for me to sit down and write uninterrupted is not always a luxury I am offered!

Emma: When I worked full time in an office I’d use my lunch break (and sometimes when I was supposed to be working) writing, but now that I am self employed I try to allocate one day a week to the novel. Though for the blog tour it’s been almost every day.

Which aspects of your writing do you find easiest and most difficult?

Sarah: For me the creative writing and descriptions are the easiest, it just seems to flow from my hands as I write because it is always playing out in my mind.

Emma: I’d say I’m better at dialogue as I’ve been taught how to write scripts. I’m not the best at explaining emotions, settings, and objects in full detail, but Sarah is incredible at it!

If you hadn’t become authors, what would you have done instead as a creative outlet?

Sarah: I have really got into photography, my father is a professional photographer and i think it’s laid dormant in my blood. I am most active on Instagram because I think with all the writing I do, it’s nice to just put a photo on to speak a thousand words.

Emma: I spend most of my time working on a Nordic film journal, Cinema Scandinavia, so that’s my main job. However, I am currently working on a script for a feature film, which is based heavily on my childhood. Film will always be my first love and I hope one day to see A Presence of Absence on the screen.

You’re self- publishing A Presence of Absence with an ambition to take on the world of BritCrime and Nordic Noir by combining the two genres. How have you set about achieving this goal?

Sarah: We are both used to working at our computers as freelance writers and know that the process doesn’t end there. When you write something, as good as it is, it can just sit there unnoticed unless you put it out there, market, contact people and use social media. Through these forums we want to spread the word that we have created a slight twist on what is out there at present! blending the two together works because they both rely on a certain gritty undertone that people are fascinated by.

Emma: I was heavily inspired by Nordic film and television. When I was writing the book, I wanted to be sure I could picture it as a television series on the same level as The Killing and The Bridge. Those television series were so popular in the UK that it made sense we blend the two worlds.

You’re funding A Presence of Absence through Indiegogo. Can you explain a bit more about that please?

Sarah: As with self-publishing there are of course, costs. So crowd funding is a great way to cover these whilst being open and honest with the pledgers how this money will be spent. But, crowdfunding isn’t just about making money to publish your work and you may very well not reach your target, it is also an important way to again promote your book, speak to people and market. We chose Indiegogo because this has an art/creative fan base.

Emma: When you’re self publishing a book, it’s all about finding the right method of getting it promoted. We wanted to try everything and see what stuck, basically. We tried Indiegogo and had some success with it, but we’ve found that the bloggers have been so inviting and it feels like we are achieving more through a blog tour.

I know you’re interested in reliance in the face of adversity. How have you incorporated this theme into your writing?

Sarah: This theme is threaded through the book. People often ask why we write crime, are we interested in gory murders, well no, it’s more for us the interest with how us as humans deal with death, fear and extreme adversity. So the reactions of friends and family and behavioural changes is just as important in our books as the crime which sets off these events.

Odense is the setting for your fiction. Why here particularly?

Sarah: We knew that we wanted to have a British Detective travel to Denmark so we could incorporate Nordic Noir and Brit Crime. We felt Copenhagen was a bit too obvious so looked further afield, when we came to Odense, birthplace of hans Christian Andersen, it just felt right. Emma actually visited there in the beginning a got a feel for the city, so we have made the stories geographical locations as true to life as possible.

Emma: Odense is a fascinating city. Whenever you see a Nordic Noir setting, it’s either a capital city or it’s far away from society. We knew having either of those stories would be slightly cliche, so we chose Odense as something in between. It’s surrounded by farms, but is also the third-largest city in Denmark. It’s so brown and dull like a major city, but in the narrow alleys are old wooden houses that reflect on its history. It’s a beautiful place and needs more attention.

There are some pretty weighty themes in A Presence of Absence such as grief, combating personal demons and cultural identity. How far did those elements arise naturally as you wrote and how far were they consciously selected to be themes?

Sarah: These actually arose naturally as we went on through the book. Of course we right not to order and don’t know what each other has written to begin with, so when we started putting it together we could see that we had both incorporated these heavier themes and that felt and sounded right.

Emma: I think we knew early on that we didn’t just want to write about gruesome murders and crazy killers. Neither of us are particularly interested in that aspect; we prefer looking at the person behind these crimes. Also with many detectives they are beaten down by life, have issues with their family and so on. In a way, we gave Simon a more legitimate reason to be so miserable. Using grief as a central element was a way to bring out the complex human character.

A Presence of Absence is the first in what is set to be a new series. What can we expect next?

Sarah: Our next book The Enlightened is the second in the series and follows on from where we left off with the characters, but of course a lot of the first book is their introductions, back history and development which doesn’t need to be added in as much detail in the second. So, it’s grittier and darker whilst still keeping in touch with the characters journeys and woes. We see our detectives head up to Norway after a young girl’s body is discovered in a burnt out church in Odense and the clues point up to the most northern point. There are some good twists in this book already and we focus quite heavily on Norse Mythology because of course, Odense used to be called Odin.

London is still reeling from the fall out whilst lies are starting to untangle there.

It’s not finished but we feel really excited by book two already.

Emma: I’m very excited to be writing about Norway for the second book. I visited Trondheim last November and did some location scouting, and just loved the atmosphere. During that time of the year it’s snowing and the sun barely goes above the horizon, yet the city itself is just so magical. I really want to combine this northern setting with elements of Norse mythology, which I’ve been reading a lot of lately; in particular, Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda. I love Norwegian history and culture so it’s exciting to be incorporating it into our story.

How do you go about researching detail and ensuring your books are realistic?

Sarah: Like I said, Emma visited Odense, I am from london originally and most of my family are, I also have danish family who I am close to so could explore the differences between our two cultures. For the police procedures and terms we had to do quite a bit of internet searching!

Emma: Besides visiting Odense, I really spent a lot of time studying how Scandinavians act. Since I’ve been living in Norway I’ve heard Scandinavians speak English as a second language and have gotten used to the way they behave in conversation with English speakers. They are very direct, sometimes use odd word choices, and so on. I wanted to make sure that we had these elements in our book.

When you’re not writing, what do you like to read?

Sarah: Crime novels, it’s been in my blood since a teen as that is what my mum has always read!

Emma: I’m not the biggest reader; I am a huge fan of Jo Nesbø and also love the Harry Potter series. At the moment I’m reading Lion and Jasper Jones – I’ve always been more interested in Australian fiction than fiction from other areas.

Do you have other interests that give you ideas for writing?

Emma: I work a lot in film, and most of my time is spent either watching movies or interviewing people about their movies. I always look to what film does as a medium and how people treat their works and take inspiration from that.

A Presence of Absence has quite a stark cover suggestive of Nordic Noir to me. How did that image come about and what were you hoping to convey (without spoiling the plot please!)?

Sarah: A good friend of ours Mike Godwin (see here) is a super talented artist and kindly offered to sketch our covers for us. We literally said the words Nordic Noir, crime and Danish barn and he came up with the most amazing cover.

If you could choose to be a character from A Presence of Absence, who would you be and why?

Sarah: Sanne. Our British detectives daughter. Her struggles highlight how strong a character she is. She has to try and be mum to her two whilst dealing with being a grieving daughter. Her character really evolves and changes as we go along and we have big plans for her in book two.

Emma: As with most literary characters, they have such complicated lives! I’m not sure I could deal with that much drama.

If A Presence of Absence became a film, who would you like to play Simon Weller and why would you choose them?

Emma: That is hard! Maybe Hugh Laurie? Someone super British and brooding.

If you had 15 words to persuade a reader that A Presence of Absence should be their next read, what would you say?

Emma: It’s refreshing crime fiction that will take you between two countries.

Thank you so much for your time in answering my questions.

About Sarah Surgey

Sarah Surgey is a 36 year old British feature writer for various magazines. She lives in the UK with her husband and 4 daughters.

She has had an interest in all things Nordic for many years and has written about many genres within this subject for publication. Although British, she has Danish family and enjoys exploring Denmark and its culture whenever the opportunity arrives.

Sarah was brought up with crime books and inevitably has always had crime story scenarios going around inside her head. After interviewing many famous authors for different magazines within the Nordic literary circle and always knowing the answer to her question of “why did you start writing?” she felt now was her time to get her stories out there, for people to read!

About Emma Vestrheim

Emma Vestrheim is the owner and editor-in-chief of Cinema Scandinavia, a Nordic film and television journal that analyses popular Nordic titles. Part of her work includes working with directors, actors and filmmakers, and her numerous interviews with the biggest names in Nordic film and television have given her a privileged access to what makes Nordic narratives so successful. Cinema Scandinavia publishes bimonthly and is available in major Nordic film libraries.

You can find out more about the Odense series on Facebook and the website. You can follow the series on Twitter and follow Emma on Instagram here and Sarah here.

There’s more with these other bloggers:

I’m really excited to be helping to reveal The Sister’s Secret by Penny Kline today. The Sister’s Secret will be published by Accent Press on 26th October 2017 and is available for pre-order here.

The Sister’s Secret

Can you really trust her?

Erin is devastated when her pregnant sister Claudia is left brain dead from a tragic accident. When Claudia’s boyfriend Ollie wants to switch off her life support, a desperate Erin finds herself fighting to give the baby a chance.

As she starts to uncover things Claudia never shared with her, Erin turns to the people closest to her sister. But why is everyone refusing to talk about her? And just where has Ollie run off to?

Yearning for her sister, Erin grows close to Claudia’s friend Jon. She refuses to get involved with another married man. But soon, this is the least of her worries.

The more people Erin meets, the less she can trust. And now, her life is in danger too …

About Penny Kline

Penny Kline writes the crime series featuring psychologist Anna McColl, beginning with Dying to Help. She has worked as a psychotherapist, and before that, as a teacher. Penny has two children and five grandchildren, three of whom are triplets.

You can follow Penny on Twitter and find her on Facebook.

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for From The Shadows by Neil White. From The Shadows is the first book in Neil’s brand new series to feature Dan Grant and Jayne Brett. As an ex-teacher I was interested to see that Neil had an unconventional educational route to his present career and writing so to commemorate From The Shadows I asked him to write a letter to his 19 year old self. Luckily he agreed to do so!

From The Shadows was published by Bonnier Zaffre on 9th March and is available for purchase here.

From The Shadows

He hides in the shadows, watching, waiting, until the time is right . . .

Mary Kendricks, a smart, pretty, twenty-four-year-old teacher, has been brutally murdered and Robert Carter is accused of killing her.

When defence lawyer, Dan Grant inherits Carter’s case only weeks before the trial starts, everyone expects him just to babysit it, but Dan’s not that kind of lawyer. He’ll follow the evidence – wherever it takes him.

But as Dan and his investigator Jayne Brett look into the case, they discover that there is more to it than meets the eye. In order to do their jobs they need to push the limits of the system, even if it means putting themselves in danger.

Together they will get to the truth – whatever the cost . . .

A Letter to the Past

A Guest Post by Neil White

Dear Neil,

I’m writing to you from the future.

I know it’s not easy being nineteen and uncertain of where your life is heading, but let’s look at how you got there. Yeah, I’ll start with the brickbats, because it’s the mess you created.

School was fun, or so you thought, but you never spotted when it was supposed to become about work. Doing well in tests and exams is great fun when you’re small, but didn’t you notice that the workload got harder? That your friends stopped going out as much?

I get that the town you were living in, Bridlington, doesn’t offer much hope in the eighties, that industry was light and offered mainly summer work, but hadn’t you noticed that other people were looking beyond the town boundaries?

So there you are, living in your bedsit in your small seaside town that you’d called home since you were twelve. How do you think that is going to work out, as you spend all day either playing records or tinkering with your Lambretta, even though your mechanical skills aren’t good? You tell yourself that you’re not giving into “the man”, that you’re staying somehow pure by not succumbing to the nine-to-five, sticking your middle finger up to Thatcher by refusing to bend for the bosses.

Is that really how you see it? When I peer into your life, I see someone who doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from but is prepared to blow all his dole money on a weekend binge of booze and fags, all the while dodging the TV detector van, knowing which cupboard the monochrome monstrosity will be thrown into, before cadging and scraping his way to the next dole cheque.

Go away, I say, leave the town. But where to, you say.

That’s the problem, Neil. You look for the reasons why you can’t rather than the ways in which you can. You read books on France and listens to tales of young men who travelled overseas to pick grapes or work in resorts in Greece. You could set off but you don’t. Instead, you spend your time dreaming, losing yourself in music and books.

Why not try to capture your dreams instead?

Do you remember the old typewriter you found in your bedsit when you first moved in, and how you typed out random things, the delight at seeing your thoughts in print, as if it somehow made them more real? Explore that more. You could write. Other people do.

I could look back and say not to worry, it all works out. You’ll end up as a lawyer and a writer, and you can spend your middle-age patting yourself on the back, but is that really what you want? Didn’t you always see more adventure in your life?

You’ve got a lot of fun ahead though. You’ll spend too much money on that Lambretta. You’ll buy a Vespa and spend weekends on seaside scooter rallies, but be careful. You’ll get up to things that could derail your legal career if found out, because you’ve got to have a clean record to be a lawyer. Nothing too bad, just the scrapes you get into when things get a little too wild. I’m not going to explain them here, of course, this letter might get discovered, but just keep an eye out. When you see the blue helmets, play nice.

You’ll learn a few lessons along the way too.

Take that chip off your shoulder, for a start. You’re not some kind of working class hero, Thatcher’s victim. That feeling will fall away. You’ll go to university and meet people of all backgrounds, and you’ll realise straight away that we’re all just the same. All we want to do is have a little fun and find a way of paying the bills.

How will it turn out for you? I can’t say, because I’m at my end of the journey but it’s the one that I took.

What if you follow my advice and make more of your life? I don’t mean materially, but spiritually. See the world, meet great people. I got lucky and made a few choices that worked out okay. It might work out even better for you.

I went to university but chose a law degree, for no other reason than it sounded interesting. I hadn’t realised back then that it was a one-track journey into a proper grown-up career. And I stayed in the north-west rather than returning to the small seaside town you live in, where the winds blow too harsh in winter, which meant that I bounced around a couple of defence firms before I fluked my way into the prosecution. I was happy there.

I started writing. That must sound weird for you, knowing that if you keep on writing and pushing you might end up with something printed in a proper book, in a proper bookshop. Of course, there won’t be as many around in the future, but it’s still fun to see.

What do I make of your life though? Honestly? A bit of a waste really. I yearn for it sometimes, when a Youtube journey might take me into the old ska classics and I think about buying another Vespa, perhaps one of the vintage ones I always fancied, but those thoughts pass.

Youtube? It’s on the internet, which is where you look at a screen and explore the whole world. It’s crazy but it will change everything. The world will become a smaller place, a more exciting place, sometimes a more frightening place, but there’s plenty to see.

You want my advice? Pack your bag, put your records in storage, and hit the road. Have an adventure. I opted for the shirt and tie, and then the word processor, but that was my own adventure. I don’t know if it’s the best one I could have had, but it’s been a blast so far.

Yours sincerely

Neil

About Neil White

Neil White was born and brought up in West Yorkshire. He left school at sixteen but returned to education in his twenties, when he studied for a law degree. He started writing in 1994 and, despite his huge writing success, is still a criminal lawyer by day and a crime writer by night.

You can follow Neil on Twitter, visit his website and find him on Facebook.

Last year, Rosanna Ley’s Last Dance in Havana was one of my books of the year and you can read my review here. Consequently, I’m delighted to be hosting a guest piece from Rosanna about travel and research to celebrate her latest release, The Little Theatre by the Sea.

The Little Theatre by the Sea was published by Quercus on 9th March 2017 and is available for purchase here.

The Little Theatre by the Sea

Faye has just completed her degree in interior design when she finds herself jobless and boyfriend-less. While debating what to do next she receives a surprise phone call from her old college friend Charlotte who now lives in Sardinia and is married to Italian hotelier, Fabio.

When Charlotte suggests that Faye relocate for a month to house-sit, Faye wonders if a summer break in sunny Sardinia might be the perfect way to recharge her batteries and think about her future. But then Charlotte tells Faye that there’s something more behind the sudden invitation: her friends Marisa and Alessandro are looking for a designer to renovate a crumbling old theatre they own in the scenic village of Deriu. The idea certainly sounds appealing to Faye, but little does she know what she’s letting herself in for if she accepts this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity . . .

Travel and Research

A Guest Post by Rosanna Ley

What comes first: the chicken or the egg? Or in an author’s case, what comes first: the story, the characters or the setting?

For me, the answer varies from book to book. For example, in Return to Mandalay the story I wanted to tell was very specific, inspired by my husband’s family’s experiences in Burma, so that was always going to be the location for the novel. In The Saffron Trail the first seed of the book was saffron so I built the story around a place where saffron is grown and where the other elements of my story (e.g. a hippy trail) could also take place – Morocco was the obvious choice. In Little Theatre by the Sea I just really wanted to write about Sardinia.

Italy is my favourite place to be and to write about and having spent a week in Sardinia a few years ago, I’d acquired a taste for this more rural and unspoilt island. So, my husband/ travelling partner/ photographer (that’s one person) Grey and I decided to travel around the island in our motorhome. This, we reckoned, would enable us to camp by isolated little coves and other delectable places and we would be free to simply go wherever we needed to be in the name of research. But we only had three weeks and there were so many places!

I do a lot of research before I choose a setting. A place has to have an interesting history and culture (although arguably almost everywhere does!) and of course, it has to appeal to me. I have to be inspired by it, be passionate about it and want to write about it. It needs to be the right kind of place for the story I want to write, and it needs to be the kind of place my readers might like too.

With Sardinia, I researched different parts of the island to find a town for my main location, and happily came upon Bosa. This was perfect. It was pretty, it was near a beach, it had a fascinating history… It sounded and looked like my kind of place. And  – since by that point I’d decided that I wanted to write about a theatre – Bosa didn’t have one. (This sounds contradictory, but it would have been tricky. I couldn’t write about any existing theatre – it had to be my fictional theatre.)

Ideally, I like to use a real place for inspiration and then take a few liberties with it so that it fits my story and becomes my own. A bit cheeky, but… I then usually re-name it so as not to upset anyone and so Bosa became Deriu (Casa Deriu was a wonderful museum we came across in the town). Similarly, in The Villa my location inspiration was the village of Scopello (to which I gave its original name of Cetaria.) This technique doesn’t work so well with bigger cities, so in my novels, Mandalay, Barcelona and Havana have retained their true identities…

Research I do for location often begins on the Internet – trawling for information, ideas and historical events to follow up. Then I’ll be reading books (fictional and non-fictional) set there so I can immerse myself in the place more fully, possibly watching films and documentaries set there and finally spending some time there. That’s the best bit! Nothing replaces first-hand for capturing the flavour.

Once I am in situ I will explore, follow up ideas and destinations I’ve researched, attempt to talk to the locals (depending on language barriers!) and glean more information from bookshops, tourist offices, museums or whatever… I will find the ‘places’ where my characters live, work and spend time, and I’ll track their journeys around the town so I know what they will see, hear and experience. As I’m doing this I’ll make notes and my ‘photographer’ will take pictures. It’s quite full on and while I’m doing it I’m sure people watch and wonder what on earth I’m up to. But being so thorough (let’s be positive, I’m not going to call it obsessive) means that when I write up the scene, I can almost re-live the experience – as close as possible anyway. Google Earth doesn’t quite do it for me.

My essential survival kit for going on a research trip would be notebook, pen, map and camera. Oh, yes and walking boots. What else could you possibly need…?

About Rosanna Ley

Rosanna Ley is the bestselling author of novels including Return to Mandalay and The Villa, which sold over 310,000 copies. In February 2015 Return to Mandalay was shortlisted for the RNA Award for the Epic Romantic Novel. She has written numerous articles and short stories for magazines, and her novels have been published in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Norway, Hungary, Portugal, Lithuania, Turkey and the Czech Republic. The Villa is also published by Quercus in the US.

Rosanna has also worked as a creative writing tutor for over 20 years. She has led courses for colleges and universities in England, and runs her own writing retreats in the UK and abroad in Italy and Spain. She has worked with community groups in therapeutic settings and completed an MA in Creative Writing for Personal Development in order to support this. She also runs a manuscript appraisal service to appraise and mentor the work of new writers.  She is married with children and lives in Dorset.

You’ll find Rosanna Ley on Facebook and can follow her on Twitter. You can also visit her website.

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