Having visited Japan in May this year I’m utterly thrilled to be interviewing Lesley Downer about her latest novel set in that country, The Shogun’s Queen. The Shogun’s Queen is published in e-book and hardback today, 3rd November 2016, by Bantam Press, an imprint of Penguin. The Shogun’s Queen is available from all good booksellers including Waterstones and also from Amazon.

I’m also excited to be able to offer a hard backed copy of The Shogun’s Queen to one lucky UK winner who enters the giveaway at the bottom of this blog post.

The Shogun’s Queen

Only one woman can save her world from barbarian invasion but to do so will mean sacrificing everything she holds dear – love, loyalty and maybe life itself . . .

Japan, and the year is 1853. Growing up among the samurai of the Satsuma Clan, in Japan’s deep south, the fiery, beautiful and headstrong Okatsu has – like all the clan’s women – been encouraged to be bold, taught to wield the halberd, and to ride a horse.

But when she is just seventeen, four black ships appear. Bristling with cannon and manned by strangers who to the Japanese eyes are barbarians, their appearance threatens Japan’s very existence. And turns Okatsu’s world upside down.

Chosen by her feudal lord, she has been given a very special role to play. Given a new name – Princess Atsu – and a new destiny, she is the only one who can save the realm. Her journey takes her to Edo Castle, a place so secret that it cannot be marked on any map. There, sequestered in the Women’s Palace – home to three thousand women, and where only one man may enter: the shogun – she seems doomed to live out her days.

But beneath the palace’s immaculate facade, there are whispers of murders and ghosts. It is here that Atsu must complete her mission and discover one last secret – the secret of the man whose fate is irrevocably linked to hers: the shogun himself . . .

An Interview with Lesley Downer

Hi Lesley. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your writing and today’s published book, The Shogun’s Queen, in particular.

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

Hello, Linda. Firstly I would like to thank you for inviting me to post on your blog today. I much appreciate it.

(My pleasure!)

I’ve always written but, as Tom Wolfe said, it’s not enough to have a facility with words. You need to have a subject you’re burning to write about. I found mine in Japan. When I came back I discovered that British people knew very little about this country I’d come to love and I wanted to tell them what it was really all about. That was when I started writing in earnest.

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

I started out as a travel writer and I love to describe. I have to keep reminding myself to keep the descriptions short. The wonderful moment is when the characters take over and I find the story going off in an entirely new and unplanned direction.

Speaking of travel, I’ve recently visited Japan myself and found it a fascinating country. I know you come from a Chinese background so what drew you to Japan for your setting of The Shogun’s Queen?

You’re quite right. My mother was Chinese and my father was Professor of Chinese at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. I grew up surrounded by Chinese books and we had friends whom I called Uncle Lao and Uncle Liu, whom I only realised in my teens were Chinese.

But my father loved all of Asia, not just China. He’d been to Japan and told me about it. In his bookcase he had a book of Hiroshige’s prints of Mount Fuji which always fascinated me. When I got older I became interested in Japanese literature, its art, its theatre, its pottery, its food. Everything seemed to point towards Japan. And when the chance came to go travelling, that was where I chose to go. It was nothing to do with my roots at all.

I ended up living there for five years and fell entirely in love with the place. Partly it just felt like home. I loved the delicacy of the culture, the precision, the beauty, the temples, the shrines, the passionate history and legends that were retold in poetry and the kabuki and Noh theatres and the unfailing gentleness and kindness of the people. I know you understand that fascination, Linda!

(I certainly do. It’s an amazing country. I loved the precise balance of refinement and passion I saw everywhere.)

The Shogun’s Queen is a prequel in your Shogun Quartet. Why did you decide to write a prequel?

I’d come across the story of Atsu and been very moved by it. But it preceded the stories I’d told in my previous novels – The Last Concubine, The Courtesan and the Samurai and The Samurai’s Daughter, which move from 1860s to 1870s Japan. Then I realised that Atsu’s story was the cornerstone. It’s where everything begins.

The Shogun Quartet is set in the watershed years when Japan changed virtually overnight from a feudal country ruled by the shogun, the military overlord, to a modern western one. In my earlier novels I hadn’t mentioned the event that set the whole thing into motion – the arrival of the American Commodore Perry with his Black Ships. That entirely transformed Atsu’s life and she herself played a key role in everything that happened after that. I really wanted to tell her story and take my readers back to that fascinating period when Japan was hovering between old and new. And the more I found out about her the more I realised what an extraordinary woman she must have been.

I’d also become quite obsessed about the Women’s Palace – the shogun’s harem, where three thousand women lived and only one man, the shogun, could enter. Atsu disappeared into the Women’s Palace and I wanted to take my readers deep inside that dark intrigue-filled world.

How did you ensure The Shogun’s Queen had an authentic C19th setting yet was accessible to a C21st reader?

There’s a much bigger gap between Japan and England than between the 19th and 21st centuries. The gulf I had to cross was more between the two cultures than a time gap. I felt my readers could cross that gap.

Having written three books set in nineteenth century Japan I was already completely immersed in it. I lived and breathed it. I’d read wonderful books written by western travellers who went there at that time. It was alive for me, which made it easy to take my readers along with me.

I very much wanted to make The Shogun’s Queen as authentic as possible, to make sure my characters behave as they really would have done. To me historical fiction is time travel, like science fiction. It wouldn’t be believable to go back in time and find people behaving exactly as you do. What’s interesting is when they do something you would never have thought of doing but that’s entirely consistent and believable. I think readers are happy to step into all sorts of different worlds – back in time to the past and across the globe to a country they’ve never visited in reality. I felt if I could bring the place alive in my readers’ minds then they would happily step through the looking glass into the land I’d created for them.

The Shogun’s Queen has a very evocative cover. How did that image come about and what were you hoping to convey (without spoiling the plot please!)?

I love the wistful, sad way the woman on the cover is looking at the castle and away from us.  I thought it conveyed the mood of my story beautifully.

If The Shogun’s Queen became a film, who would you like to play Okatsu? 

Someone beautiful yet feisty, delicate yet strong, and Asian – maybe Ziyi Zhang who played Sayuri in the film of Memoirs of a Geisha.

I know you teach creative writing. How far are you affected in your own writing by this role?

I didn’t study creative writing myself. In my day one just learnt on the job. I feel that at this point I have a great deal of experience to pass on to my students. My main concern would be that creative writing tends to lay down rules whereas I think the best writing transcends the rules.

Your husband is also a writer (Arthur I Miller whose website can be found here). How far do you critique one another’s writing or do you avoid sharing what you write at home?

We always read each other’s work – he is always my first reader.  And as a result I know a lot more than you’d imagine about physics and he knows a lot about Japan!

Although you appear obsessed by Japan, where else would you like to set any future novels and why?

I studied Anglo-Saxon at university and love that culture, which is astonishingly rather akin to samurai culture. I’ve also thought of writing my own family history, which is to do with China, or about my father’s travels in South East Asia or my own travels around Asia. But I’m keeping my best idea of all secret at the moment!

(Oh! Sounds intriguing – I hope you’ll come back and tell us all about it when you’re ready!)

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

I’m a language obsessive. I love words and love learning foreign languages. Whenever I go abroad I start trying to learn the language and chattering away to people. I’ve always painted and drawn; I learnt ink painting and calligraphy in Japan. I also used to be a potter. That was actually the very first thing that drew me to Japan.

If you had 15 words to persuade a reader that The Shogun’s Queen should be their next read, what would you say?

It’s the true story of Atsu, beautiful yet feisty, delicate yet strong – a love story that immerses you in kimonos, intrigues and murder.

(And I’ll be reading her story very soon – I can’t wait!)

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

About Lesley Downer

Lesley Downer’s mother was Chinese and her father a professor of Chinese. She ended up almost by accident in Japan and became fascinated by the country and its culture and people. It has been an ongoing love affair.

She is the author of The Shogun Quartet, a series of four historical novels set in Japan, beginning with the best-selling The Last Concubine, shortlisted for Romantic Novel of the Year and translated into thirty languages. The Shogun’s Queen, out in November 2016, is a prequel and the last in the series. Her non-fiction includes Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World and Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha who Seduced the West.

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

There’s more from and about Lesley with these other bloggers too:

For your (UK only sorry) chance to enter to win a hardbacked copy of The Shogun’s Queen, please click here. Entry closes at midnight on 10th November 2016.

I’m delighted to welcome Kate Blackadder to Linda’s Book Bag as Kate’s novel Stella’s Christmas Wish is published today, 3rd November 2016, by Black and White Publishing. Stella’s Christmas Wish is available for purchase here.

To celebrate publication day of Stella’s Christmas Wish, I asked Kate what her three wishes might be!

Stella’s Christmas Wish

One phone call can change everything…

Six days before Christmas, Stella could never have anticipated the impact on her life when the phone rings in her London office.

The phone call is from a friend of the family informing Stella that her grandmother has been hurt in a fall at her home in the Scottish borders and is in hospital. Torn between her responsibilities at work and the need to be with her grandmother she decides she must return to Scotland immediately.

However, on her return to where she grew up, it becomes apparent that her grandmother’s health is not her only concern. Relationships which have lain dormant for years are re-kindled and fresh opportunities present themselves – if she will only dare to take them…

My Christmas Wish

A Guest Post by Kate Blackadder

There’s a (probably) apocryphal story about a radio programme presenter asking three Ambassadors what they wanted for Christmas. One wanted world peace, another wished for an end to famine. The British Ambassador said he’d like a new pair of slippers.

Unfortunately, he was the only one who was likely to find what he wished for at the end of his bed on Christmas morning.

My wish since I was a child was to be a published writer. And eventually Santa – in the shape of various women’s magazines and competition anthologies – granted the wish and wrapped it up in tinsel and other very sparkly stuff. I gave him a big hug and lots of mince pies.

This year though he gets hugs, mince pies, a whole Christmas cake to himself and a massive sack of carrots for Rudolph because my first full-length novel, Stella’s Christmas Wish, set in Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders, is published by Black and White Publishing today, 3 November.

So what’s left to (selfishly) ask Santa for?

1. Talking of slippers … my old sheepskin ones are moulting.
2. Ha, Santa – number 1 was too easy! Number 2 is that Stella’s Christmas Wish attracts readers from all over the world and I am invited to do book tours everywhere I’ve ever wanted to visit – Canada (coast to coast), New Zealand (north to south), and the Faroe Islands, just for starters.
3. Perhaps for these very northerly and very southerly trips one of those huge glamorous (fake) fur hats?

Thank you and Merry Christmas, Kate x

I hope you get your wishes granted Kate!

About Kate Blackadder

Kate Blackadder was born in the Scottish Highlands but now lives in Edinburgh. She has had stories published in The People’s Friend, Woman’s Weekly, The Weekly News, Writers’ Forum, New Writing Scotland and elsewhere. In 2008 she won the Muriel Spark Short Story Prize, judged by Maggie O’Farrell, and she’s been long-listed for the Jane Austen Short Story Award.

Wearing her other ‘hat’ she works two days a week for a museum publishing house, and in her spare time she likes reading, going to the cinema, history, and crying over the television programme Long Lost Family.

You can find out more about Kate by visiting her blog, following her on Twitter and finding her on Facebook.

I’m beside myself with excitement to be interviewing Cesca Major today, as her latest novel The Last Night is published, because Cesca’s book The Silent Hours was one of the best narratives I read last year. You can read my review of The Silent Hours here. The Last Night is published today, 3rd November 2016, by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic books and is available for purchase from all good booksellers including here.

I’m also reviewing The Last Night below.

The Last Night

In a quiet coastal village, Irina spends her days restoring furniture, passing the time in peace and hiding away from the world. A family secret, long held and never discussed, casts a dark shadow and Irina chooses to withdraw into her work. When an antique bureau is sent to her workshop, the owner anonymous, Irina senses a history to the object that makes her uneasy. As Irina begins to investigate the origins of the piece, she unearths the secrets it holds within…

Decades earlier in the 1950s, another young woman kept secrets. Her name was Abigail. Over the course of one summer, she fell in love, and dreamed of the future. But Abigail could not know that a catastrophe loomed, and this event would change the course of many lives for ever…

An Interview with Cesca Major

Cesca, I’m thrilled to interview you on Linda’s Book Bag. Firstly, please could you tell me a little about yourself please?

I’ve been writing for a number of years and The Last Night is my second novel. I live in Pangbourne, Berkshire with my husband and our son. I used to teach History and take the inspiration for my books from real life events. I have always been curious about the characters in history, the normal people that get swept up in extraordinary moments, and I try to bring them to life in my books.

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

I got the bug about ten years ago when I wrote my first novel and found I couldn’t stop. It’s an addictive process as you always believe you can learn more and get better so you just keep going. And then you realise you have written a number of novels and I suppose you are then calling yourself a writer!

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

Before I became a teacher I was an actress and a TV presenter. I loved performing and think a background in acting can really help your writing as you can use those skills (blocking a scene, dialogue, how people express themselves) in your books.

(That’s really interesting as many of the writers who’ve featured on Linda’s Book Bag have a similar background. There must be a link between the different creativities.)

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

I try to do a lot of my research face to face. There is nothing better than hearing people’s stories and experiences first hand. I was so lucky to be helped during The Last Night by a wonderful group of people in Lynmouth, Devon. After The Silent Hours it was a relief that all the research was in English not French..!

 

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

For me the most challenging part is the structural edit. You have your story down and then you need to look at it as a whole and see what is there, what is missing and how you are going to fix that. It’s exhilarating but seriously difficult.

(An awful lot of authors tell me the editing process is the most tricky time for them.)

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

Now that I have a son my routines are based around my lovely babysitter and his nap time. I always wrote in short chunks and did a lot of planning and research around these sessions so it works well. I work in a shed in my back garden which is lovely as it is completely private and has an LP player for my Classical Music (nothing with lyrics as I sing along).

I would find it hard to define your genre. It’s contemporary fiction, it’s historical, it’s mystery to some extent and it’s women’s fiction. What is your view of being categorised and do you think it matters where writers are placed? 

A great question, it is so tricky. I think historical fiction can be such a turn off to some people. Particularly if they loathed the subject at school. I often describe my books as ‘Book club’ reads as the aim is you want to discuss them afterwards. It is a very controversial topic!

(I can sympathise with that TBR!)

Both The Silent Hours and The Last Night have very evocative covers. How did the images come about and what were you hoping to convey (without spoiling the plots please!)?

I can’t take any credit for the covers, Anna Morrison is enormously talented and has come up with two gorgeous covers. I wanted the books to have a nostalgic feel and she has completely nailed the brief.

I find your narratives very visual. How do you manage this element of your writing? (Do you visit the places you describe? Use the Internet? Look at photographs etc?)

I do all of the above! I visit places as much as I can, so I made several trips to Devon for The Last Night. I take photographs, read books, see old newspaper clippings and use the Internet too.

When you’re writing, which is more important to you – a depiction of an historical event or the characters involved and why do you say this?

Definitely the characters. I am not writing non-fiction I am simply setting a story about people in another time. It is vital that people want to read their story and no one wants history rammed down their throat.

If you could choose to be a character from either The Silent Hours or The Last Night, who would you be and why?

I think I would choose to be Tristan from The Silent Hours. I loved writing his chapters – he was such a scamp..! In The Last Night I was always rooting for Irina, wishing her well.

Sometimes, as a reader, I find the emotions you convey almost too great to bear. How are you affected when you’re writing?

It can be quite upsetting to write about things that did affect real people. At times in my research I was quite shocked by what I uncovered but I hope I can channel the emotion into the books. I want people to be shocked and care, just because these things happened a long time ago does not mean they weren’t terrible.

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

Based on real events follow Irina as she uncovers the truth about The Last Night.

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

LOTS and I am never close to getting down to the bottom of my TBR pile. I love Book Club reads, really humorous fiction and thrillers. I am always keen to hear book recommendations too. It is so wonderful to fall in love with a new writer and then read their entire back list.

What can we expect next from your writing?

I am extremely excited about the book I am currently working on. I can’t share an enormous amount with you but I am currently researching a fascinating event in New Zealand in the 20th century. Any excuse to travel there..!

Oh, great choice! Thank you so much, Cesca, for your time in answering my questions.

My Review of The Last Night

A body is washed into the rocks and the secrets surrounding it will reverberate across the years.

I don’t think I can write a review of The Last Night. Occasionally there’s a book that so appeals that it is nigh on impossible to find the vocabulary to express how I feel about it and The Last Night is one such book. I absolutely loved it.

The Last Night is similar in style to The Silent Hours, but is also subtly different and the suggestion of the supernatural came as a delightful and brilliantly evoked surprise. I think the way a real event, the flood in 1952 Lynmouth, is taken as a starting point and then a captivating story is built around it is totally fascinating.

Cesca Major writes with a lyricism that hypnotises the reader. The quality of descriptions is incredibly evocative. The iterative image of water is very much a presence and as much a character as any of the people. It’s there in all its manifestations from drizzle to flood, from benevolence to malevolence, and the quality of description means each depiction is pitch perfect. The writing is magnificent. As the book comes to its climax, the style matches it with more complex sentences that reflect perfectly the dynamism of events. It’s so impressive and satisfying to read.

The characterisation was incredible. From the loathesome Larry to the physically and mentally scarred Irina each is vivid and captivating. It was as if I became both Abigail and Irina as I read, and experienced their lives first hand rather than just as a reader. I thought about them both constantly when I wasn’t reading the book.

I loved the way secrets and half truths weave through the narrative and relationships so that there is mystery as well as emotion throughout. There are so many layers in the story that I think The Last Night would reward many, many readings. I know I will be returning to it over and over again. If you haven’t discovered Cesca Major as a writer yet, I urge you to do so.

About Cesca Major

After studying History at Bristol University Cesca Major went on to work as a television presenter for four years on various pre-recorded and live shows. She also taught History for seven years.  Cesca was Runner Up in the 2005 annual Daily Mail Writing Competition and has continued to be successful in prestigious competitions ever since. She has written two novels based on real events. Her debut The Silent Hours was published by Atlantic Books in 2015 and The Last Night is out today, 3rd November 2016.

You can follow Cesca on Twitter and visit her website .

I’m pleased to welcome Catherine M Byrne to Linda’s Book Bag today. Catherine’s latest novel Isa’s Daughter is the fourth in Catherine’s Raumsey Series (all of which can be found here and directly from the publisher here) and today Catherine has kindly agreed to answer some questions about her writing and Isa’s Daughter in particular.

Isa’s Daughter

The Great War is over, and the inhabitants of Raumsey Island struggle to regain their livelihood. Seventeen-year-old Annie Reid is a spirited, ambitious girl, determined not to end up a herring gutter or go into service.

Annie befriends a young schoolteacher, Alexander Garcia, who promises to help her further her education but, after tragedy strikes, Annie pursues a nursing career amidst the political complexity of Glasgow. Garcia dreams of a return to his Spanish roots, but Spain is also in political turmoil.

Annie’s love for the teacher remains through the years, but will love overcome the barriers and prejudice of race, religion, beliefs and distance?

An Interview with Catherine M Byrne

Hello Catherine. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your writing and Isa’s Daughter in particular.

Firstly, please could you tell readers a little about yourself?

I was born on the Island of Stroma, and was brought up hearing stories from my parents and grandparents about the island life of a different generation. An interest in geology, history and my strong ties to the island have influenced the choice of genre for my first series.

I have had some success as a landscape artist and I worked as a glass engraver with Caithness Glass until I left to become administrator for my husband’s two businesses. I always wanted to write, however.

Since first attending the AGM of the Scottish Association of Writers in 1999, I have won several prizes, commendations and have been short-listed both for short stories and chapters of my novel. In 2009, I won second prize in the general novel category for Follow The Dove.

My main ambition was to write novels and since the death of my husband in 2005, I have retired in order to write full time.

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

When I was at school, maybe aged about eight, my teacher asked us if we had any little poem in a book at home that we could recite for the Christmas Treat.  I found one, and I also wrote one. The teacher very kindly said they were both very good, ‘but you can only have one,’ she said. No surprise that she did not choose the one written by me.  Since I also loved to draw, I began to draw comic strips and wrote stories to go with them. In my teens, I wrote song lyrics and rhyming poems, so I guess the urge was always there.

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

An artist. I’ve sold many of my landscapes. I haven’t been painting much since I started writing seriously.

How do you carry out the research for your novels?

Internet, reading, visiting the places I write about (where possible) and speaking to historians.

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

I love writing descriptions. I see the place in my mind’s eye, I transport myself there, ask myself what am I feeling, what am I smelling, who is walking around me? I also like writing dialogue. I become my character, get into the conversation, become angry, sad, happy as the scene dictates.  The most difficult aspect is marketing. I find it very difficult to put myself out there. My fan base is steadily growing, and I sell a lot of books locally, but I need to get further afield.

I met some tourists from America recently who bought a box of my books to take home with them. Can’t imagine the weight of their luggage.

(I think an awful lot of writers will empathise with that marketing dilemma Catherine!)

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

Since I now live alone, my computer is in the corner of my dining room. I write as the muse dictates. I do try to write a bit every day, sometimes just one sentence, but I’m thinking about my story most of the time.

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

Apart from what I read for research, I read most genres. Right now I’m into psychological thrillers or murder mysteries. I do like to read factual books as well. Sometimes I just want something beautiful.

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

I enjoy travel, gardening, my computer and walking the dogs. Ideas come to me while walking in the countryside or along the beach. My contemporary novella, Song for an Eagle, was prompted by a photograph of my granddaughter and an eagle.

Why did you choose the Orkney’s and Spain as your settings for Isa’s Daughter?

I chose Orkney as I was born on the island of Stroma myself, although Stroma is not technically one of the Orkney islands, it has close connections.The character of Isa Reid features strongly in the first book of the series, Follow the Dove, and she is very loosely based on a real person. The Spanish Armada was shipwrecked off the north coast of Scotland, so the story goes, and many of the sailors survived to settle and live there. So you could say we do have Spanish blood in our veins!

(How romantic!)

You explore big themes such as love and lust, truth and deceit, family relationships and the place of women in society in Isa’s Daughter. How far did you plan for these and how far did they arise naturally out of your writing?

All my novels explore love, lust, truth and deceit, and family relationships. I think they arise naturally from human nature. The place of women in society arose from Annie’s spirit and the period in which the novel is set. I wrote about the world through Annie’s eyes, and the things she encountered.

I know you are marketing Isa’s Daughter yourself. What advice would you give to others who are self-publishing and trying to get their book noticed? 

It’s difficult to get your book notice when marketing yourself. Social media is a great tool. Apart from that I give talks to women’s groups, set up a stall at fayres and offer my books to several outlets on a sale or return basis. Although it’s very slow, if your book is good, word of mouth is one of the best ways to get your book noticed.

What plans do you have next for your writing?

When I finished Isa’s Daughter, I felt almost bereft. So much so, that I immediately started another in the saga of the same family. However, I am also working on a psychological thriller, my favourite genre.

Which of your characters would you most like to be and why?

I think I’d be Isa. She’s strong and feisty. Of course she’s not featured so much in my new novel as it’s all about her daughter, Annie.

If one of your books  became a film, which would you choose and why?

It would have to be the first, Follow the Dove. That would leave the way open for the others.

(Ha ha – good point!)

How important do you think social media is to authors in today’s society?

It appears to be very important in getting your name out there. For someone like myself who doesn’t do much else in the way of marketing, it’s a must.

If you had 15 words to persuade a reader that a Catherine M Byrne book should be their next read, what would you say?

A good read that’ll turn out to be a lot different to what you expect.

Is there anything else you would have liked to be asked?

Where am I going next? Well I miss my characters so much I’m staying with them. Number five in the series will take us up to and through the second world war. Let me say that each book is stand alone. But, hey, in between times, I’m working on another novella, a psychological thriller.

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

And thank you for allow me to.

Pleasure!

About Catherine M Byrne

You can find out more about Catherine and her books by visiting her website, finding her on Facebook and by following her on Twitter.

I’m delighted to welcome Leslie Tate to Linda’s Book Bag today. Leslie is introducing Blue, the second in his Lavender Blues: Three Shades of Love, trilogy. Blue is  published today, 1st November 2016, and is available for purchase directly from Leslie by clicking here and from your local Amazon site.

Purple

Purple, the first book in the Lavender Blues: Three Shades of Love trilogy is available here.

Purple is a coming-of-age novel, a portrait of modern love and a family saga. Set in the North of England, it follows the story of shy ingénue Matthew Lavender living through the wildness of the 60s and his grandmother Mary, born into a traditional working-class family. Both are innocents who have to learn more about long-term love and commitment, earning their independence through a series of revealing and closely-observed relationships.

Heaven’s Rage

Leslie also has a wonderful collection of lyrical essays, Heaven’s Rage, coming out on December 1st 2016.  You can message him from his website if you want more details, but I have been lucky enough to review part of that collection below. Heaven’s Rage is an imaginative autobiography. Reporting on feelings people don’t usually own up to, Leslie Tate explores addiction, cross-dressing and the hidden sides of families. Writing lyrically, he brings together stories of bullying, childhood dreams, thwarted creativity and late-life illness, discovering at their core the transformative power of words to rewire the brain and reconnect with life. A Robin Red breast in a Cage / Puts all Heaven in a Rage – William Blake.

You can pre-order Heaven’s Rage here.

And Then There Was Blue

A Guest Post by Leslie Tate

Blue, the second in the Lavender Blues trilogy, was based on my experiences in the 80s as a member of a feminist-led collective – but shaped and adapted to fit the logic of fiction. The words and the characters were my main guide, taking me to places I hadn’t expected. The themes were feminism, marriage and open relationships, but only as they developed in their own sweet way. What I had to establish was the ebb and flow of feelings as an authentic experience, and this meant that the beginning was seminal. Like the first few bars in a symphony, the opening paragraph signposted the key, tempo and mood.

So what did I hear at the start?

Blue begins with a quiet, observational figure – with moments of unease and the word ‘enough’ running through the mind of my protagonist, Richard Lavender. By contrast, my second subject, his wife Vanessa, sails in noisily with a messy exchange with her children and her close friend Ruth. Then the narrative voice kicks in, taking us back through the first ten years of Richard and Vanessa’s relationship. The emerging pattern is: intro – smooth exposition – back to theme, using the word ‘enough’ as leitmotif.

With Blue I’d already decided that I wanted to explore a different type of beginning from my first novel. In Purple the reader is transported by the first sentence back to the 60s. With Blue the process is more close-up and gradual, showing Richard and Vanessa living in the 90s – flashing back to the 80s – with less overview. So it’s a controlled outing, a walk in the park if you like, with enough time to look around. The reader is taken into the lives of the warring couple through pacing and changes in voice. And because I wanted to fully explore the action, each incident has an element of arrest, a tableau-like dimension, as it extends itself, stretching time and space. Of course I also had to move the story on. So I repeatedly rewrote the start to each chapter, searching for shortcuts, ways of jumping through time and space without sounding false. And in that search I found that a ‘go for it’ mind-set helped. Anything was possible as long as I wrote with freedom and didn’t get too hemmed in by ‘writing school’ conventions. So my story moved according to feel, switching between characters out there in the world doing surprising things and the dispassionate study of a couple beneath the microscope.

To write Blue I needed a strong, flexible authorial voice. Rereading my first attempts I identified a register – a combination of formal and informal, in third person, dipping in and out of my two main characters’ heads – so my first draft was composed around a series of variations on that style. But when I revisited the story later, new expressive registers appeared. For instance a new beginning, with Richard’s cousin Matthew, the main character in Purple and now a professor, lecturing about relationships. His voice was witty and erudite, offering indirect comments on Vanessa and Richard’s marital struggles. It added an element of humour and a connection between the books. Other styles appeared, helping to vary the narrative, including articles, dialogues and programme notes for an exhibition. What I’d put together by the end was a collection of voices, all bearing on the same question: will Vanessa and Richard manage to save their relationship?

To do my subject justice I needed to include a consciousness-raising meeting and a counselling session, contrasting them with romantic getaways – which called for a switch between irony and poetic prose. With the counselling I had to ‘pack it in’, foreshortening hours of talk into a few concentrated exchanges before moving on to practical, slightly wacky exercises. A counselling scene could be very static, so I squeezed several sessions into one, making it possible for Richard and Vanessa to achieve tangible progress. As an author I often overlay the actual with the generic, striking a balance between the documentary and the imaginary. The process, as Susan Sontag says, makes the writer: ‘Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.’

In the world I’d belonged to, the feminist-led group had set out to overturn monogamy, but jealousy got the better of us. So in the book the open relationships have similar problems, but not before Richard and his ‘secondary partner’ Ginny have a wild love affair. Their romance is told largely in terms of crazy night walks in forgotten parts of the city. The normal rules don’t apply in the darkness of the park or the abandoned railway line, but the relationship does follow the well-established pattern that romantic love can be a fleeting thing.

So Blue tells a quasi-historical tale, but in the form of a satirical-romantic-adventure. It covers that time in life when couples struggle to ‘stay alive’ against the pressures of jobs and bringing up children. It’s also an investigation into modern love.

In the words of my blurb: ‘Blue tells the story of Richard and Vanessa Lavender, who join a 90s feminist collective sharing childcare, political activism and open relationships. Boosted by their ‘wider network’ they take secondary partners, throw parties and observe the dance of relationships amongst their friends. But finding a balance between power and restraint, and handling shared love, proves difficult…’

My Review of Cross-Dressing from Heaven’s Rage

How Leslie began cross-dressing and the impact on his life is explored in this essay.

My goodness this is such good writing. What Leslie Tate does is lay himself emotionally open and honest in a manner that cannot fail to touch the heart of the reader in his autobiographical writing.

If I’m honest, I’m not usually especially interested in autobiographical writing, but Leslie Tate has inspired me to read more if it is to be of this quality. Heaven’s Rage and the chapter I read, Cross-Dressing, is raw, beautifully written and utterly compelling reading. When I’d finished reading Cross-Dressing I wanted to reach out my arms to Leslie Tate and hold him close.

Anyone who has struggled with their sexual and personal identity will find so much that resonates here and for those of us who have always been conventional, Leslie Tate illustrates what others have had to contend with. That’s not to say that this is a sympathy requesting piece. Far from it. It is a true, moving and fascinating account of how Leslie began cross-dressing and how he was viewed, and viewed himself, as a result. It explores the way the media treats those who appear other, the way society expects certain norms for acceptance and how hard so many of us find it to be easy in our own skin.

What I enjoyed most about this piece was the eloquence of the writing. Leslie Tate has a beautiful turn of phrase that conveys perfectly the emotions of the moment. He presented me with concepts that had never really reached my consciousness and made me think in a manner I found hugely skilful.

No matter what your own personal viewpoint and perspective, Cross-Dressing cannot fail to move and impress the reader. It’s magnificent.

About Leslie Tate

Leslie wrote his Lavender Blues trilogy while attending a University of East Anglia Creative Writing Course. He is a novelist, poet and teacher, with an MA in Creative Writing, whose stories are driven by language and character. Leslie admires Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Carol Shields, Marilynne Robinson and Michael Ondaatje.

He runs mixed-arts shows, a poetry reading group and a comedy club, and has led writing workshops at universities, libraries and festivals. He uses music and art as part of his performances which offer surprising insights into prose and how authors ‘reread the world’. He often performs with his wife, author Sue Hampton. Calling themselves ‘Authors in Love’, they live together in Hertfordshire.

Leslie has been shortlisted for the Bridport, Geoff Stevens and Wivenhoe Poetry Prizes.

To find out more about Leslie Tate, visit his website, find him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.  On Leslie’s website you will also find weekly interviews and guest blogs by writers, artists and musicians, as well as Leslie’s own writings.

If, like me, you’ve read all the Sherlock Holmes stories and loved the television series with Benedict Cumberbatch, you might just be needing the latest novel from Stuart Douglas – The Counterfeit Detective. The Counterfeit Detective was published by Titan on 18th October 2016 and is available for purchase in e-book and paperback from all good booksellers, including here.

Today, Stuart looks back to his younger self and writes a letter encouraging himself to be a writer. There’s great advice for all aspiring authors in his words as NaNoWriMo starts today.

The Counterfeit Detective

An anonymous letter brings strange news to Baker Street; there is an impostor Sherlock Holmes at work in New York City, solving cases and taking society by storm. The real Sherlock Holmes wastes no time in crossing the Atlantic to confront the charlatan. But he and Watson find more than they bargained for: the counterfeit Sherlock is missing, his landlady has been horribly murdered, and his clients are refusing to reveal their secrets…

A Letter to 1976

A Guest Post by Stuart Douglas

Dear Stuart,

The bad news first. Everyone who said that drawing maps of imaginary kingdoms and then writing their fictitious histories was never going to earn you a living was right.  You will never get a publishing deal for ‘Captain Douglas in the Land of the Six Headed Xenomorphs‘.

That said, they were wrong when they said that mattered. It doesn’t. Even now, forty years later, I can still remember the joy you – I – felt in completing a story of my own.  Scribbled in the back of last year’s school exercise books, with full colour crayon illustrations (and, usually, a guest appearance by Doctor Who!), those first faltering attempts to create something of your own are something I – you – treasure even now. Publication is one form of validation, but there’s something to be said for just writing what you want, purely for yourself.

But assuming you want more people than just your mum to read your stories, those few pages would still be valuable work.

Because, cliche though it is, the trick to writing is to write. All the time. About anything and everything. Be brash and full of confidence, because no fiction you write can ever be wrong.  Sure, write about wizards and spaceships, because I know you love that stuff (and still will by the time the next millennium comes around), but also write about romances and battles and members of your family, and talking animals and haunted woods and secret alliances. Write about the city and the country, the real and the unreal, the fantastic and the plain ordinary.

And read too. Mustn’t forget that. Read all these things as well, and find writers whose words you love. Because if you don’t love words and the ways other people use them, how can you hope to convince readers to love yours?

Most of all, make writing a pleasure. If it becomes a chore, stop writing and go and do something else instead. That’s maybe the most important thing to remember.

See you in forty years’ time,

Stuart

PS By 2016 we have this thing called the internet which, in terms you’ll understand, is a sort of giant Teletext encyclopaedia which you can access with the press of a single button – only one where most of the content is either wrong or creepy. You’ll definitely want to be switching that off whenever you’re writing. It can be a little bit distracting.

About Stuart Douglas

Stuart Douglas is the author of numerous short stories and novellas, and has edited several anthologies. He set up Obverse Books in 2009, a small press imprint. He contributed a story to Titan’s Encounters of Sherlock Holmes in 2013, and is the Features Editor of the British Fantasy Society journal. He lives in Edinburgh.

You can follow Stuart on Twitter.

Having been involved in the launch of Katerina Diamond’s The Teacher (more of which can be found here) earlier this year, I’m thrilled to be part of the celebrations for The Secret. The Secret was published on 20th October by Avon, an imprint of Harper Collins, and is available for purchase in e-book, paperback and hardback here.

As The Secret is so special, the celebrations are only being revealed gradually! I have an extract for you today and you can find out more by following #AVerySecretBlogTour!

The Secret

Can you keep a secret? Your life depends on it…

When Bridget Reid wakes up in a locked room, terrifying memories come flooding back – of blood, pain, and desperate fear. Her captor knows things she’s never told anyone. How can she escape someone who knows all of her secrets?

As DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles search for Bridget, they uncover a horrifying web of abuse, betrayal and murder right under their noses in Exeter.

And as the past comes back to haunt her, Grey must confront her own demons.Because she knows that it can be those closest to us who hurt us the most…

An Extract from The Secret

A little while later, away from the chaos of her mother’s house, Imogen pulled up outside Plymouth Police Station and looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. She pulled out her mascara and reapplied it.

She walked in and sat at her desk, before pulling out the relevant forms for her report about the dead girl. She looked over at Sam’s desk. He was long gone already, a discoloured apple core lying on top of the crime scene photos. It can’t have been his, she was pretty sure he was allergic to anything that wasn’t processed or dripping in trans-fats. She leaned over and picked up the photos, tossing the core in the bin. Something about apple cores made her feel sick, maybe it was the myriad of tooth marks and the knowledge of all the saliva and forensics that put her off. Since spending a weekend on a forensics seminar she had been put off a lot of things. Apple cores, hotel rooms, the backs of taxis. They were all very evidence heavy, in the form of bodily fluids.

She looked at the images of the girl. As she stared, the phrase ‘There but for the grace of God,’ sprang into her head. She wasn’t a religious person, but she appreciated that particular sentiment. It could have easily been her who was lying face down in her own excrement and vomit. These things happen gradually. You make one bad decision, then another, each one slightly more fucked up and soul destroying than the last. Then bam, before you know it you’re an addict; willing to do absolutely anything to get that next fix. It wasn’t lost on Imogen; if she thought about it she could probably pinpoint the exact moments in her life where she had fought with herself to make the right decision. Where, thanks to God or whoever else was in charge that day, she hadn’t had the overwhelming urge to self-sabotage. She’d had the opportunities, she just knew that there were some decisions you couldn’t come back from. She was grateful, because it was in her DNA to mess up; it was genetic, hereditary. At least that’s what it felt like. Not for the first time, she wondered about her father – what had he been like? Had he too had the same streak as her mother, that awful capacity to self- destruct? She’d never known him. She never would.

About Katerina Diamond

Katerina Diamond writes crime fiction. She lives by the coast in East Kent. Her first crime novel The Teacher was published on March 10th 2016 by Avon Books. Katerina is also interested in TV and Movies, sewing, making things and watching people.

You can visit Katerina’s website find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

There is more with these other bloggers with more to be revealed soon!

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for The Devil’s Feast by M.J. Carter. The Devil’s Feast was published by Fig tree, an imprint of Penguin, on 27th October 2016 and is available for purchase in e-book and hardback from all good booksellers including here.

I’m thrilled that M.J. Carter has written a guest post today all about the inequalities of food in the 1840s when The Devil’s Feast is set.

The Devil’s Feast

London, 1842. There has been a mysterious and horrible death at the Reform, London’s newest and grandest gentleman’s club. A death the club is desperate to hush up.

Captain William Avery is persuaded to investigate, and soon discovers a web of rivalries and hatreds, both personal and political, simmering behind the club’s handsome façade – and in particular concerning its resident genius, Alexis Soyer, ‘the Napoleon of food’, a chef whose culinary brilliance is matched only by his talent for self-publicity.

But Avery is distracted. Where is his mentor and partner-in-crime Jeremiah Blake? And what if this first death was only a dress rehearsal for something far more sinister?

Food and Loathing in the 1840s

How its extremes and inequalities make it a great decade to write about

A Guest Post by M. J. Carter

My thrillers are set in the 1840s, the first decade of Queen Victoria’s reign. It’s a decade which I’m fascinated by: a great period of tumultuous change and conflict—and conflict is always great to write about. This was the decade which saw the end of chaotic Georgian England, and the beginning of uptight, rich, triumphalist Victorian England.

Great inventions—railways and telegraph most of all—transformed the country. There seemed to be geniuses inventing extraordinary things all over the place: William Fox Talbot invented photography; Brunel was building bridges and ships, Dickens and the Brontes were writing masterpieces.  Fascinating real-life characters pop up in my research all the time and I can’t wait to put them in my books. At the same time London became the biggest, richest city the world had ever seen—and a place of cowboy ethics.

Wealth poured in but at the same time inequality between rich and poor became an ugly, widening rift. The rich got richer, benefitting from Britain’s position as the world centre of trade and banking, enjoying all the fruits of innovation and wealth: gas lights, hot running water in their homes. The lives of the urban poor were arguably as bad as they’d ever been. Old jobs and trades were dying, new factories provided work but conditions and hours were unregulated and often appalling. As cities were redeveloped, slums and old tenements were cleared, and the poor ended up in ever more crowded, unsanitary conditions where disease and crime were rife. Life expectancy amongst the poor declined. Politicians like young Benjamin Disraeli talked about a country of ‘two nations’. There were race riots, political unrest, foreign émigrés preaching revolution in London, bank crashes, the Irish famine. Sounds familiar? One of things I particularly like about writing about this period is that there are constantly surprising parallels between then and now—and alongside them attitudes and old habits that are jarringly different. So far I’ve written about the Empire, and about the press, in my new book it was food that grabbed me.

Nowhere was inequality in 1840s Britain more visible than in the matter of food, and this has been the inspiration for my latest book, The Devil’s Feast. For the rich and the middle classes, there had never been such a time of plenty. In Covent Garden peaches and pineapples were available year round, imported from abroad or grown in great glasshouses. On Piccadilly, shops displayed bottles of olive oil and anchovies and Crosse and Blackwell began to market bottled relishes. The railways meant a salmon caught in the morning in the Severn could be served in London for dinner. Cookbooks were selling as they never had. Every rich man worth his salt had a French chef.

The greatest of the French chefs was Alexis Soyer, who ran the kitchens at the Reform Club in Pall Mall, where he was at the cutting edge of culinary innovation, using gas ranges for the first time, and producing power and even ice from a steam engine in the basement, and producing new impossible concoctions to stimulate even the most jaded palates. So famous was he and his kitchen than people would pay to take the tour and the newspapers called him ‘the Napoleon of food.’ His cookbooks, The Gastronomic Regulator (he was a bit pretentious) and The Modern Housewife sold hundreds of thousands of copies.  One of his most decadent specialities was a plate of lamb chops and mashed potatoes and mushrooms in sauce. It appeared towards the end of the dinner, then looking closer the eater realised it is was actually sponge cake, cream and meringue, in a peach cream. Heston Blumenthal eat your heart out.

The poor on the other hand, struggled to feed themselves at all: the decade is often known as ‘the Hungry Forties’. A series of bad harvests started it, and failed potato harvests in Ireland led to the terrible famine of 1845-7. Economic downturn depressed wages.  Tory governments made it all worse with a series of measures called the Corn Laws, which kept the price of wheat artificially high and banned cheap foreign imports, to benefit their chief supporters, agricultural landowners.

Alexis Soyer, rather surprisingly, was deeply troubled by the state of the nation’s diet. He tried to bridge the gap between luxury and need. He wrote one of the first cookbooks for the working class, concentrating on cheap ingredients: A Shilling Cookery for the People. It’s actually a brilliant book and has never been out of print.  He completely reinvented the soup kitchen, feeding thousands of the East End poor and then setting up Dublin during the famine, mostly at his own cost. And eventually he went to the Crimean war with Florence Nightingale, where he completely reorganised the provisioning of the British army.

Soyer seemed to me such a great character that I decided I had to put him in my book—another score, I think, for the 1840s.

About M. J. Carter

M. J. Carter is a former journalist and the author of the Blake and Avery series. The first in the series, The Strangler Vine, was shortlisted for the Crime Writer’s Association’s New Blood Dagger Award and longlisted for both the 2015 Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year. The next in the series was The Printer’s Coffin (formerly published as The Infidel Stain).  M. J. Carter is married with two sons and lives in London.

You can follow M. J Carter on Twitter, visit her website and find her on Facebook. There’s more with these other bloggers too:

I’m thrilled to be part of the launch celebrations for The Day She Can’t Forget by Meg Carter. The Day She Can’t Forget was published by Canelo on 24th October 2016 and is available for purchase in e-book by following the publisher links here.

To celebrate publication of The Day She Can’t Forget I have a fabulous guest post from Meg all about the art of writing and how experience isn’t always necessary.

The Day She Can’t Forget

It changed her life. But can she remember everything?

On a cold evening Zeb, a single mum in her thirties, is found wandering aimlessly on a remote road. She is dazed, confused and bloodied.

She doesn’t know where she is, or how she got there. She has travelled far from home and someone has attacked her.

Memory loss means she can trust no-one, and with her assailant unidentified, Zeb is desperate to be reunited with her son Matty, and to ensure their safety.

But what will her search for the truth uncover? Will it bring answers, or more questions? And what if the person she can rely on the least… is herself?

The Art Of Writing

A Guest Post by Meg Carter

The history of journalists who have turned their hand to writing novels is long and proud. But earning a living through factual writing is no guarantee your fiction will be a success. If anything, it can blinker you to the immensity of the task you have set yourself.

I started writing my first novel – The Lies We Tell, which was published last year – after working in journalism for just shy of 20 years. This, and the fact I studied English Literature at London University and have always been a voracious reader made me feel (and I wince now at the thought of it) confident that I could do it.

I soon realised my mistake.

Writing 100,000-plus words isn’t just writing a feature on a much bigger scale. It’s about creating from scratch a credible and compelling world, populating it with characters whose complexities engage and mastering the unfolding of a plot at pace. And while I did eventually get there – and find an agent, have that book published and embark on a second: The Day She Can’t Forget, which was published October 24^th – the journey was long and arduous.

Certainly, there are advantages when as a journalist you write fiction. A working life-time spent observing, analysing an explaining for a start. I’ve always been a collector of stories – at first, factual and issues-based to inform my journalism; latterly, human stories from family, friends and features to trigger fictional ideas about character, plot and motivation. So I had no shortage of ideas and inspiration.

My starting point for The Day She Can’t Forget, for example, was an image I’ve had in my head since hearing a tea-time news report on Radio 4 when I was still living with my parents about a man found wandering along a remote Scottish highland road, coatless and bloodied, unable to recall his name, what had happened to him or why he was there. Other real life stories that fed into my thinking included the case of ‘Canoe Widow’ Anne Darwin and what happened to the former British nanny Louise Woodward.

The dramatic opener is another journalistic conceit and literary equivalent, I guess, of a newspaper headline. Then there’s dialogue. Having interviewed people and recorded answers word for word for years, the voices – and body language – of the characters I create play and re-play like a podcast inside my head.

A career as a journalist also helps you view writing as a task with an understanding of the need for forward momentum and regular self-imposed deadlines. The blank page has never scared me. But there’s a downside to this, even though it might sound like a plus. Because at times, writing the next sequence can almost be too easy. And the danger with this is that the wild horse of an idea you are trying to tame carries you away. What’s critical is to be able to acknowledge the need to develop and practice new, longer-form storytelling skills and this takes a quality not every journalist possess: humility.

Journalists used to quickly turning around short-form pieces of copy can also struggle to stick with a longer format – especially with the constant editing and re-editing required, in particular once an agent and then an editor step in. One friend of mine on hearing I’d completed a further re-drafting of my first novel after finding an agent exclaimed she couldn’t think of anything worse. She works for a news agency, and her preferred approach to writing is research, write, publish then – most importantly: quickly move on.

Even though I am a former magazine editor whose freelance career has also involved editing and re-writing factual copy written by others, editing my own copy has its challenges. While I can be cold and clinical about what’s working and what must change, the input of an agent and editor is invaluable. The process of responding to their feedback inevitably makes the final book all the better – even if you don’t always agree, as they push back with their Whys? and What ifs?

Without doubt, aspects of what it takes to be a journalist – curiosity, observation skills, the ability to explain, to name just three – are invaluable for writing fiction, along with empathy, skin thick enough for negative feedback, perseverance and drive. The good news, however, is that none of these qualities is restricted to any particular type of person or, indeed, members of a single profession.

About Meg Carter

Meg Carter is an author and journalist.

She is the author of The Day She Can’t Forget, published by Canelo on October 24 2106, and The Lies We Tell, published in 2015.

Meg worked as a journalist for twenty years before turning her hand to fiction. Her features have appeared in many newspapers, magazines and online with contributions to titles including You magazine, Independent, Guardian, Financial Times, and Radio Times.

Now based in Bath, she recently relocated from west London with her husband and teenage son.

Meg is on the advisory committee of Women in Journalism and a member of writers collective 26.

The Day She Can’t Forget is Meg’s second novel. She is currently working on her third.

You can find out more about Meg on her website and by following her on Twitter. There’s more with these other bloggers too:

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for The Girls Next Door by Mel Sherratt. The Girls Next Door was published by Bookouture on 27th October 2016 and is available for purchase in e-book here.

The Girls Next Door

One warm spring evening, five teenagers meet in a local park. Only four will come out alive.

Six months after the stabbing of sixteen-year-old Deanna Barker, someone is coming after the teenagers of Stockleigh, as a spate of vicious assaults rocks this small community. Revenge for Deanna? Or something more?

Detective Eden Berrisford is locked into a race against time to catch the twisted individual behind the attacks – but when her own niece, Jess Mountford, goes missing, the case gets personal.

With the kidnapper threatening Jess’s life, can Eden bring back her niece to safety? Or will the people of Stockleigh be forced to mourn another daughter…?

My Review of The Girls Next Door

Katie feels under pressure to be Nathan’s so-called girlfriend, but events on the night she goes to meet him are going to rock her life and that of the whole community.

Good gracious. I know Mel Sharratt writes gritty, fast paced thrillers, but I really wasn’t expecting the break-neck speed of events in The Girls Next Door. Reading this book was somewhat akin to being on an aeroplane in turbulence. I felt jolted and my stomach dropped time after time and just when I though there might be a breather off we went again. The short chapter structure of the book also adds to this effect and although it took me a while to work out who was who with all the quick changes of character and scene to begin with, I soon had a real sense of who everyone was. Indeed I felt the cast of characters was highly realistic and reminded me very much of some people I used to teach in a very deprived area years ago. In fact, the depiction of those living in deprivation, and the various ways with which they deal with their situation, was extremely accurate.

I really enjoyed the interconnectedness of the plot and had to admire Mel Sherratt’s skill in keeping all the various threads so cleanly and clearly defined, whilst simultaneously so well drawn together and linked through the various characters.

What I hadn’t expected alongside the thriller pace was the underpinning theme of mental heath and how we are affected by grief and guilt. I thought Mel Sherratt handled these elements sensitively without detracting from the breakneck plot.

The Girls Next Door is a highly entertaining, fast paced and exciting read and I’m sure this book is going to be a huge hit with crime fans everywhere. I’m really looking forward to reading more about Eden in the future.

About Mel Sherratt

You can find out more on Facebook, by visiting Mel’s website and by following her on Twitter. You’ll find all Mel’s books for purchase here.

You can follow events for The Girls Next Door using the #HelpMe

You will also find more with these other bloggers: