When I was asked by Faye Rogers to be part of the celebrations of Stories For Homes (volume 2) and that the book would support Shelter in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy I was delighted to help out.

Stories for Homes (volume 2) was published on 28th September 2017 and is available for purchase here.

Stories for Homes

Published and unpublished writers come together to create an anthology of stories about what ‘home’ means.

55 writers are included in a second charity anthology that brings issues around housing, poverty and crisis to life through the power of storytelling. Volume One of the Stories for Homes Project raised over £3K for housing charity Shelter and raised awareness of housing issues.  Volume Two of the anthology includes stories, poems and flash fiction and again all proceeds will be donated to the charity.

My Review of Stories for Homes

Home can mean something different to every single person.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in this collection of short stories and I certainly found it an eclectic and varied mix of tales.

What I enjoyed most was the ease with which I could pick up the collection and just read one or two pieces to fit into my busy life. I thought the theme of home was so interestingly portrayed, with home being a place in a person’s memory or imagination as in The Sound of the East Dry River by Matt Barnard just as much as a physical place as in Leigh Forbes Coming Home.

I felt that Stories for Homes opened up to me a completely different world to the one I have inhabited all my (seemingly privileged and sheltered) life with immigration, prison, parenthood and so on all explored between its pages. I did feel quite uncomfortable reading some of the stories because they raised issues that I hadn’t given a second thought to before, and I felt quite guilty.

I was struck by the feeling of desperation and loneliness running through many of the pieces and I have to admit to being completely befuddled by Plastic by Santino Prinzi which I found a very unnerving read! My favourite was I Never Wore A Watch by Jacqueline Ward. I feel there must be home upon home with Annie-like characters who have been wrongly categorised and feel themselves outside society. It made me quite emotional to read it.

Many of the stories are written with great variety so that there is accent, dialect and indigenous language in the direct speech or, in some of them, quite a poetic turn of phrase such as in Motherland by Julie Hayman so that I really feel there is something for every reader to enjoy or to contemplate. I heartily recommend Stories for Homes, not just because by purchasing a copy a really good cause will be supported which is enough incentive in itself, but because there are stories to suit all readers between its pages.

About Stories for Homes

You can find out more about the project on the Stories for Homes website and by following Stories for Homes on Twitter @storiesforhomes. You’ll also find Stories for Homes on Facebook and there’s more with these other bloggers:

One of the things I try to do on Linda’s Book Bag is support independent authors and publishers as well as feature the bigger publishing houses. Consequently, I’m thrilled to be showcasing Obliterati Press, a brand new independent publisher, today. Run by Wayne and Nathan, I got them both to tell me more about their new venture.

The very first book from Obliterati, Lord of the Dead by Richard Rippon, will be released on 3rd November 2017 and is available for pre-order here.

Lord of the Dead

A woman’s body has been found on the moors of Northumberland, brutally murdered and dismembered. Northumbria police enlist the help of unconventional psychologist Jon Atherton, a decision complicated by his personal history with lead investigator Detective Sergeant Kate Prejean.

As Christmas approaches and pressure mounts on the force, Prejean and Atherton’s personal lives begin to unravel as they find themselves the focus of media attention, and that of the killer known only as Son Of Geb…

An Interview with Obliterati Press

Hi Nathan and Wayne and welcome to Linda’s Book Bag. Thanks so much for agreeing to tell me a bit about your fabulous new venture Obliterati Press.

I know you’re both writers so would you mind introducing yourselves first please?

Nathan

Nathan: I self-published a collection of short/flash fiction in 2013, and my first novel The World Is (Not) A Cold Dead Place was published by Armley Press in 2015, and had far more success than any of us imagined. The lead character, Gary Lennon, really seemed to strike a nerve with people. My second novel Out Of The City came out in February.

Wayne

Wayne: I also self-published some work before Armley Press accepted my novel Justice is Served for publication in June 2016. I like to write in various genres, but writing modern, contemporary fiction and science fiction are definitely where I feel more comfortable. I feel that with science fiction, in particular, comes a freedom to explore philosophical ideas.

Why Obliterati as a name?

Nathan: As a music obsessive, I always try and shoehorn musical references into just about  everything. One of my favourite bands, Mission Of Burma, released an album called ‘The Obliterati’ in 2006. As well as the album, I loved the title, and always thought I’d want to use it if I ever started my own press.

How did Obliterati Press come into being?

Wayne: Nathan and I first met during the Leeds Big Bookend literary festival in June 2016 for the launch of my novel within Armley Press’s designated panel appearance. The night before the event, the four Armley Press writers (John Lake – one of the partners of Armley Press – Mark Connors, Nathan and myself) went out for a curry. At some point, Nathan and I got talking about our own ideas concerning publishing and as the subsequent months went by it was something we came back to time and again. We both switched between being really taken with the idea, and being quite intimidated by it. After a while, we decided to conduct some serious research as to how we could go about it on a limited budget. We knew that we each had skills that we could bring together to make a functional partnership, whilst each having a similar taste in writing. We work well together, I think. We make a really good team.

You are a publisher ‘for writers by writers’. How would you define your ethos?

Wayne: We believe that a lot of good writers don’t get the attention they deserve or even the opportunity to get the attention they deserve. As writers ourselves, we know the frustrations and expectations of seeking publication. We want to welcome good writers and create a friendly, collaborative experience. We don’t mind taking a work that isn’t 100% polished as long as we recognise something skilful within it. We’ve got other skills that we can bring to the mix, too, and we want to use these in our ideas for promoting work. We want to spend time creating a finished product that our writers love just as much as we do, whilst also trying to stay aware of what readers want from a book.

If would-be authors wanted to submit a manuscript to you, what would they need to do and what advice would you give?

Nathan: Follow us on Twitter @ObliteratiPress and Facebook for a start. We’re not currently open to full-length submissions, but we’ll announce our submission windows via social media. We’re always open to short story and guest blog post submissions, however, in fact we’d welcome both of those.

Your current authors are all male. Do you believe men write the edgier fiction you’re looking for or is that just coincidence?

Nathan: I think that’s pure coincidence. It’s just how things have worked out for us so far. All we care about is the quality of writing. In fact, when we were setting up, we talked about how we would like to give a voice to minority authors. And that includes LGBTQ, gender non-binary and anyone else. But the most important thing will always be the work.

Wayne: Yeah, it is just coincidence at this stage. I don’t believe that any kind of writing is done best by one sex over another. I’d like a good diverse range of authors, but in terms of submissions, it’s just worked out that we’ve had more from men.

You’re quite outspoken in your views – how do you balance saying what you think and running a business?

Nathan: I try to keep my outspokenness mostly to my personal twitter account rather than the Obliterati one, which I run. Anyone who’s read my work or follows my tweets will know I don’t tend to hold back. But we both have very strong views about politics and current affairs, and I think we’d both like Obliterati to be as much a part of the political conversation as we both are personally. I don’t think it’s necessarily damaging to the business side of things, if anything it helps to give us some kind of identity.

Wayne: Social media, although obviously having negative qualities, definitely has a lot of positive things going for it, and I do believe it has helped galvanise political interest in particular. Despite the fact it gives a forum to abusive trolls, it also provides a forum for people to connect and access information. Obliterati Press is ultimately the product of two people who are outspoken and passionate and it would be impossible, I think, for our opinions and the business to stay utterly disconnected.

You write, blog, you run a website, are active on social media and are setting up in the publishing world. How do you allocate roles and keep all the plates spinning?

Nathan: We had a few long chats about before setting up. We quickly realised that each would have different roles. Wayne has far more technical and design skills than me, so he designed and runs the website. He’s also a very good editor, with a very keen eye, so he also takes the lead on that, with input from myself and the writers, and he takes care of the layout of the books.

My initial job was to find us a couple of writers to get us started, and I drew from the wide circle of writers I’ve got to know online over the years to find Richard Rippon and Dave Olner. I also run the social media accounts, as it’s something I enjoy.

Nathan, I know music has played a very big part in your life. Is there anything in the music world that you can translate into usefulness in publishing?

Nathan: I think both the music and publishing industries have become increasingly risk-averse over the years, particularly since the 2008 financial crash. There’s a sense of playing it safe. That’s something we are in part reacting against, so we’ve perhaps learned how not to conduct ourselves. There are great writers and musicians out there who are talented but are being ignored because they don’t guarantee a financial return. Those writers are who we’re looking for. When it comes to writing, I am almost as influenced by music as literature. I think punk rock is the most important artistic movement of the last hundred years at least, and its principles; not playing by the rules, finding your own identity, having no sacred cows, can be applied to all art forms.

Wayne, I know you give some of your royalties to homeless charities. Why do you choose to do this?

I wrote and self-published my book Generation Rent: The Inequalities in the Private Lettings System after a long string of rubbish experiences with landlords and lettings agents. As an ex-paralegal, I was aware of the fact that so many people out there suffer the injustices associated with tenancies and don’t know their legal rights. The book was designed to openly discuss my own numerous disputes with landlords and letting agents, and to contextualise them with the appropriate legal advice. It seemed right to give something back to campaign and advice groups like Shelter, who I’ve used many times in the past, so I decided to donate all the profits of my book to them.

What are you most excited about for Obliterati Press in the next couple of years?

Nathan: There’s something absolutely thrilling about helping someone to get their book out there, when it may not have happened for them otherwise. In some ways it’s even more exciting than getting published myself. There’s a huge responsibility with that, of course, you’re desperate not to fuck it up. But we’ve got two amazing novels from debut writers which absolutely deserve to be read by as wide an audience as possible, and it’s really exciting to be able to help them achieve that. We’ve got a couple of other things in the pipeline, but we’re really on the lookout for talented writers whose work has so far been overlooked.

Wayne: Opening our first submissions window and seeing what we get. There’s a particular excitement you get from reading a manuscript that stands out. And that’s a feeling I’m looking forward to feeling again.

Good luck to you both with Obliterati Press and thanks for being on the blog to tell us more about it.

About Obliterati Press

Obliterati Press is an independent publishing company set up by writers, for writers. You can follow Obliterati on Twitter and find them on Facebook. For more details and to find out when and how to submit manuscripts please visit the Obliterati website.

You know when you meet an author and they are even better in real life than you imagined? More beautiful inside and out? Well Shelley Wilson is EXACTLY like that, so I’m utterly delighted to be supporting the release of her latest book How I Motivated Myself to Succeed. If you don’t know Shelley and would like to meet her vicariously, you can read my interview with her here. 

Whilst I still have some of Shelley’s fiction on my TBR, I have reviewed another of her books, Motivate Me! Weekly Guidance for Happiness and Wellbeing here.

Shelley’s latest book, How I Motivated Myself to Succeed was published on 22^nd September by Hillfield Publishing and is available for purchase in eBook and paperback on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

 How I Motivated Myself to Succeed

If you’ve ever felt like life is passing you by at a startling rate, or you just exist day to day rather than living life to the full, this book will share honest, straightforward, and realistic techniques to help motivate you to make powerful changes.

From setting goals and organising your life, to freeing yourself from fear, Shelley shares the unique story of how she planned, prepared, and executed the year of challenges and life-changing events brought about by her motivational, award-winning blog.

How I Motivated Myself to Succeed is full of practical tips, exercises, and real-life stories of success, including advice on how to trust yourself and celebrate achievements, as well as manage your time and balance your life effectively.

Shelley’s first book, How I Changed My Life in a Year, became a bestseller in self-help and memoir as it struck a nerve with the thousands of women looking to make a difference and be the best they could be.

Dubbed as the sequel-that’s-not-a-sequel, this book can be enjoyed before or after reading How I Changed My Life in a Year.

Why I Choose to Write for the Self-Help Genre

A Guest Post by Shelley Wilson

There has been a substantial rise in sales of self-help titles year on year with additional help from the adult colouring book boom of 2015. In the United States, the self-help industry is worth an estimated $11 billion, and the personal development market is expected to continue growing by approximately 5% each year.

I didn’t know any of this when I trained as an alternative therapist and started my holistic health spa for women. I had no idea that self-help books were so popular even though I had read hundreds over the years. I also didn’t appreciate the supportive community involved in self-help until I published my first book.

For me, it was personal. I survived an emotionally and physically abusive marriage by finding the strength to walk away, taking my three young children with me. Life was bleak for a long time but I never gave up hope. Self-help books became my therapist, the authors my mentors, and eventually, I was able to utilise the things I’d learned and turn my life around.

Training in Reiki healing, reflexology, emotional freedom technique, and meditation began as a journey of self-recovery. Only when I began to heal myself could I help others.

Writing my first self-help book happened by accident. It was based on a series of challenges I set myself in a bid to show my clients that they could be the best they could be. How I Changed My Life in a Year was part self-help and part memoir. It was a very personal story, but this resonated with so many of my readers and the messages I received were beyond anything I could imagine.

“I wanted you to know that I have just finished your book and found it inspiring. I have recently been wanting to change my path and my whole outlook on life. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse it has taken me a very long time to find my own self-worth (I’m 40 now), but through my children, my husband, and counselling I am stronger and better than that. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that your book has inspired me to reach higher and take my next step…so thank you for that.” Name supplied.

“Hi, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for your book ‘How I Changed My Life in a Year.’ I’ve read it in two days flat and have enjoyed every second of it – so much of the book I could personally identify with and although I’ve been through the mill and the upshot now is that I’m in a wheelchair, but I’m doing a degree in English Lit and Creative Writing, and your book has helped me rationalise a lot of my fears. Thank you again.” Name supplied.

I have always believed in walking the walk, and talking the talk. I could never recommend a therapy to my clients if I hadn’t experienced it for myself. How could I convince a lady with anxiety and depression that meditation would be hugely beneficial for her mental health if I didn’t meditate myself? Would a client suffering from M.E ever believe that lying on a couch covered in needles could help balance flagging energy levels unless I could tell them about my own regular acupuncture sessions?

I may have initially stumbled into writing self-help, but now it feels like home to me. Writing books that help inspire and motivate readers by sharing my personal journey is my way of paying it forward. I learned so much from other personal development authors, teachers, and mentors, and keeping this knowledge to myself is just not possible.

I choose to write self-help so that I can continue to support as many people as possible. If I also continue receiving wonderful messages from my readers and knowing that I’m helping women (and men) across the world then I know I picked the right genre.

I’d like to finish with a huge thank you to my lovely friend and host, Linda. Thank you for reading and be sure to check out the other host spots for more inspiration, motivation, and a sprinkle of fun.

Shelley – it’s my absolute privilege and pleasure to host you on Linda’s Book Bag.

If you would like to read more about Shelley’s self-help work then take a look at her new release, How I Motivated Myself to Succeed, out now in paperback and eBook, and packed full of information on self-care, freeing yourself from fear, organising your life, and much more.

About Shelley Wilson

Shelley is a multi-genre author of non-fiction self-help and young adult fantasy fiction. Her latest release, How I Motivated Myself to Succeed is being dubbed as the sequel-that’s-not-a-sequel to her bestselling book, How I Changed My Life in a Year. She writes a personal development blog (www.motivatemenow.co.uk) as well as an author blog (www.shelleywilsonauthor.com) where she shares book reviews, author interviews, and random musings about writing. Shelley was thrilled to win the Most Inspirational Blogger Award at the Bloggers Bash in 2016, and to scoop second place in the same category in 2017. She is a single mum to three teenagers and a black cat, loves pizza, vampires, and The Walking Dead, and has a slight obsession with list writing.

You can find out more about Shelley on her author blog or via her personal development blog. You can also follow Shelley on Twitter @ShelleyWilson72 and find her on Facebook and Instagram.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

It gives me enormous pleasure to welcome Apple Gidley to Linda’s Book Bag today to celebrate the publication of her novel Fireburn. April has written a wonderful post for today’s blog outlining some of her journey to publication that I think will resonate with authors and readers alike. I’m sure, like me, readers will have watched with horror the devastation in the Caribbean recently as a result of the hurricanes. With Fireburn set in the Caribbean and with an historical era explored, there’s no better time to read it.

Fireburn was published yesterday, 1st October 2017, and is available for purchase here.

Fireburn

The Danish-owned island of 1870s Saint Croix vibrates with passion and tension as Anna Clausen, a young Anglo-Danish woman, returns to her childhood home after her mother’s death. Her heart sinks at what she finds on arrival. Her father is ailing and desolate and her beloved plantation, Anna’s Fancy, which has been in the Clausen family for three generations, is in shambles.

The unwelcome lust of one man and forbidden love for another makes Anna’s return to Saint Croix even more turbulent. Despite the decline in the sugar industry she is determined to retain Anna’s Fancy but must first win the trust of her field workers, of Sampson the foreman, and the grudging respect of Emiline the cook and local weed woman.

Fireburn tells of the horrors of a little-known, bloody period of Caribbean history. Anna weathers personal heartache as she challenges the conventions of the day, the hostility of the predominantly male landowners and survives the worker rebellion of 1878, 30 years after Emancipation.

Rich in description, Fireburn is a well-researched novel that shines a light on a historic period in Saint Croix that has received little attention in literature until now.

Finding The Right Story

A Guest Post by April Gidley

I have been posing for a number of years as ‘a writer’ – that’s what I put on those inquisitive government forms. And yet, had it not been for a supportive spouse I doubt I would have been able to afford a garret apartment anywhere, let alone in Paris, New York or London. Isn’t that where writers and artists flee to find themselves?

The impetus to take on that presumptive moniker came after I gave a closing key-note speech at the 2010 Families in Global Transition conference, www.figt.org. The topic was my itinerant life – 26 relocations through 12 countries. As I glowed in the after-speech aura of goodwill I took in the refrain, ‘you should write the stories down’. And so, Expat Life Slice By Slice was born. A memoir of countries and cultures from the cradle to not quite the grave.

I had been advised that no publisher would look at me if I did not have a credible platform and so I started a blog, wrote the occasional travel or expatriate article, and tried to hone my skills. Each professional edit improved my writing. I started to read a number of ‘how-to’ books but finished only one, Stephen King’s On Writing.

Summertime Publishing took the manuscript on and in April 2012, Slice By Slice was launched. It was comforting to know I already had an audience – those about to experience expatriate life, those who were in expat land and old lags like me who knew nothing else. People were eager for true confessions of how not to do things, and a few guidelines on good practices.

Yesterday marked the release of Fireburn, my debut novel set in the 1870s Danish West Indies – now the US Virgin Islands. And whilst OC Publishing, has been equally patient both with the editing and the publishing process, my stomach has not benefited from the relative sangfroid of the first experience.

And I have been wondering why.

Fireburn is not my first actual novel, and whilst the Beta readers of that first manuscript were encouraging, I knew it was not worthy of publication. I still believe the kernel is good and one day I might go back to it. But I learnt a lot writing it – about plot, character, dialogue and voice, and that I had the discipline to write a full length book.

I just had to find the right story.

Then in 2013 I was at a ceremony on the beautiful Caribbean island of St Croix, celebrating the transfer of the Danish West Indies to a US possession in 1917, for the sum of 25 million dollars in gold coin. Much was being made of the centennial four years hence. Sitting under the marquee, the trade winds ruffling programmes and straw hats, my mind started to wander. What, I wondered, had it been like in the lead up to the purchase?

The seed was sown and three of the main characters danced in. Each would give their own perspective of the same event – the transfer of power between two countries. I started the research the next day, and very quickly became aware of ‘Fireburn’, also known as The Great Trashing. My focus changed and Fireburn became the event around which my characters coalesced. And I added a fourth.

That research has been fascinating. People, far more knowledgeable than I, have been generous with their help and suggestions. I like my characters, though one I hold in deep and vitriolic loathing. And yet, and yet, the collywobbles are still here.

My bottle of wine analysis is that Fireburn, the book, is a story based on an actual event around which fictitious lives revolve. They despair, they fear, they hate, they love and they all come from my imagination.

That is what is terrifying me. Will people like my story? My make believe.

Every writer wants their story to be read, to be talked about, to be liked. We all dread the bad reviews, though recognise we will all get one, or two, or more, at some stage. That is why I am a million little fragments waiting to explode in a shower of shattered dreams if the pundits damn me and my book.

I comfort myself with an old Bantu proverb told to me during an attempted coup d’etat by a wise Ghanaian man I knew in Equatorial Guinea. He said, ‘smooth seas do not make skilful sailors’.

And so while the jury is out, I have put my blinkers on and have started the sequel – Transfer of the Crown. I am writing under the assumption that I can only improve with each attempt.  

Isn’t that all we can hope for?

(It is indeed Apple. And I wish you every success with Fireburn.)

 About Apple Gidley

Apple Gidley, an Anglo-Australian author, whose life has been spent absorbing countries and cultures, considers herself a global nomad. She currently divides her time between Houston, Texas and St Croix, in the US Virgin Islands.

She has moved 26 times, and has called twelve countries home (Nigeria, England, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Papua New Guinea, The Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Scotland, USA, Equatorial Guinea), and her experiences are described in her first book, Expat Life Slice by Slice.

Her roles have been varied – from magazine editor to intercultural trainer, from interior designer to Her Britannic Majesty’s Honorary Consul. Now writing full time, Apple evocatively portrays peoples and places with empathy and humour, whether writing travel articles, blogs, short stories or full-length fiction.

You can find out more about Apple on her website and by finding her on Facebook or following her on Twitter @ExpatApple.

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for Carol Lovekin’s second novel after Ghostbird, Snow Sisters. Carol has always been very supportive of Linda’s Book Bag, despite the fact that Ghostbird, her first novel, is STILL sitting on my TBR pile, and I’m delighted to feature her here today. As I’m married to a Welsh man it makes it even more special that Honno is a Welsh publisher too!

Snow Sisters was published by Honno on 21st September 2017 and is available for purchase here.

Snow Sisters

Two sisters, their grandmother’s old house and Angharad… the girl who cannot leave.

Meredith discovers a dusty sewing box in a disused attic. Once open the box releases the ghost of Angharad, a Victorian child-woman with a horrific secret she must share. Angharad slowly reveals her story to Meredith who fails to convince her more pragmatic sister of the visitations, until Verity sees Angharad for herself on the eve of an unseasonal April snowstorm.

Forced by her flighty mother to abandon Gull House for London, Meredith struggles to settle, still haunted by Angharad and her little red flannel hearts. This time, Verity is not sure she will be able to save her…

My Review of Snow Sisters

Gull House holds secrets and an attraction that those who live there cannot leave behind.

I really don’t want to review Snow Sisters by Carol Lovekin as I know I have too inadequate a vocabulary to do it justice. I found Snow Sisters absolutely mesmerising. There’s an ethereal quality to the writing that is beautiful, poetic and heartbreaking. The different layers of mystery as past and present mingle are so wonderfully constructed that reading Snow Sisters is like having a magical spell woven about you so that all time and place diminishes and you find yourself completely transported to Gull House.

Carol Lovekin explores the complex relationships between women, between sisters and between families in a way that is intimate, soulful and brutally honest. At times I found reading Snow Sisters almost too much to bear because Carol Lovekin conveys love and hate, loyalty and betrayal with almost visceral emotion and with a passion that invades the soul. At the same time, however, there’s also a fleeting purity to some of the moments so that they reflect the transient nature of the snow in the title.

I thought the characterisation was outstanding. Although Allegra needs empathy I hated the way she behaved. I wanted to shake her. My heart broke for Meredith as she dealt with Anghared. Even Gull House is as much a character as the people with its magical woods and blue garden.

I loved everything about Snow Sisters: its Welshness, its characters, its setting and its themes. I found the writing exquisite and when I’d finished it I felt as if a snowflake crystal will be forever lodged in my heart to remember it by.

I cannot praise Snow Sisters highly enough. My life has been enriched by this wonderful, enchanting book and I urge you to let it into your life too.

About Carol Lovekin

Carol is a writer, feminist and flâneuse. Her home is in beautiful West Wales, a place whose legends and landscape inform her writing. She writes contemporary fiction threaded with elements of magic.

Ghostbird, her first novel, was released on 17th March 2016. The book was chosen as Waterstones Wales and Welsh Independent Bookshops ‘Book Of The Month’ for April 2016. It was longlisted for the Guardian ‘Not the Booker’ prize 2016 and nominated for the Guardian Readers’ Book of the Year 2016. Snow Sisters is her second book.

You can follow Carol on Twitter @carollovekin, visit her website and find her on Facebook.

You can follow the blog tour too:

Many regular readers of Linda’s Book Bag know I have delusions about becoming a writer of fiction. And I am writing! But I only have one protagonist to deal with. When I heard that Ewa Dodd had three in her novel The Walls Came Down, I had to ask her onto the blog to tell me more.

The Walls Came Down is published by Aurora Metro today, 1 October 2017, and is available for purchase here.

The Walls Came Down

The Walls Came Down tells the story of a young boy who goes missing during a workers’ strike in 1980s Communist Poland, unravelling a chain of events which will touch people across decades and continents.

Joanna, a young journalist in Warsaw, is still looking for her brother, who’s been missing for over twenty years.

Matty, a high-flying London city financier is struggling with relationship problems and unexplained panic attacks.

And in Chicago, an old man is slowly dying in a nursing home, losing his battle with liver cancer.

What connects them? As the mystery begins to unravel, the world of the three protagonists is turned upside down…

A novel of three sides

A Guest Post by Ewa Dodd

Joanna

We meet Joanna for the first time in 1988 in Warsaw, when she is four years old. She discovers that her twin brother Adam has gone missing in the crowds during a protest that they have both attended with their mother. At first, she firmly believes that he will come home, but days, weeks and months pass and there is no news of him.

Whilst her mother slowly falls apart, Joanna is doubly-determined to continue searching for Adam, no matter what.  She works closely with the police, helping them to identify new leads, and when the case is closed, she finds her own solution to ensuring that her brother’s story continues to be publicised in the media.

Joanna shares many of the traits of determined and successful young women that I know, but she has additional, almost super-human resolve to continue pursuing what she believes, whilst everything implies that she should give up.

Matty

Matty is a young city slicker, set on a route to becoming a successful investment banker with a six figure salary and a mansion in one of the posher suburbs of London. On the surface he has everything, and is envied by most of his friends. But there’s something that gnaws away at his subconscious, never allowing him to fully relax into his success.

An unusual news story about a plane crash in Russia spirals off a chain of events, which leads Matty to question who he is and where he has come from. He questions his adoptive mother about his real family, but gets very little information, so he decides to conduct some research of his own.

Matty was a complex character to create, as he is so multi-dimensional. Superficially, he is cocky, confident and not always likeable. But on another level, he is burdened with a deep anxiety about having lost his true identity. When writing his sections, I based his narrative on the experiences of people who have lost their memory and the heart-wrenching emotions associated with slowly regaining these.

Tom

We first meet Tom when he gets a diagnosis of liver cancer by his doctor, having noticed some worrying symptoms, including huge weight loss. Tom has recently retired from forty years of hard labour, and the unfairness of the situation hits him with full force. Lacking any immediate family to look after him, he goes to nursing home, to live out the last months of his life amongst other people suffering from terminal illnesses.

Whilst at the home, Tom befriends a fellow patient, Dustin, and one of the nurses, Clara, in whom he eventually confides. He tells them that he had a family whom he abandoned when he was a young father, and slowly the pieces of the puzzle that binds the three protagonists, fall into place.

I found Tom’s character very difficult to bring to life, as I’d never previously written from the point of view of somebody both male and of a very different age to my own. What was most challenging was convincingly conveying the pain, fear and devastation that come with the diagnosis of a terminal illness, and here, I am deeply indebted to a number of brilliant and talented people who were brave enough to write about their experiences of exactly this, including the wonderful Kate Gross.

About Ewa Dodd

The daughter of a bookseller, Ewa Dodd has been writing since she was young – starting small with short self-illustrated books for children. More recently, she has delved into novel-writing, and is particularly interested in literature based in Poland, where her family is from. The Walls Came Down is her first published novel, for which she was shortlisted for the Virginia Prize for Fiction.

You can follow Ewa on Twitter @EwaDodd.

Originally I began Linda’s Book Bag simply to share my thoughts about the books I read. However, I have found that taking part in getting the word out about a new book is just as exciting so I’m delighted today to be participating in bringing the latest DI Donna Davenport book, Shadows, from Jackie McLean to your attention.

Shadows will be published by Thunderpoint on 19th October 2017 and is available for pre-order here.

Shadows

A body washed up on Arbroath beach echoes a previous murder. Now a third woman is missing. For DI Donna and her new team, it’s personal. 

When DI Donna Davenport is called out to investigate a body washed up on Arbroath beach, it looks like a routine murder inquiry. However, it doesn’t take long before it begins to take on a more sinister shape.  There are similarities with a previous murder, and now a woman who is connected with them goes missing.   For Donna, these events become personal, and added to the feeling that she’s being watched, she is convinced that Jonas Evanton has returned to seek his revenge on her for his downfall.  Fearing they may be looking for a serial killer, the trail leads Donna and her new team in an unexpected direction.  Because it’s not a serial killer – it’s worse.

Moving from Dundee to the south coast of Turkey and the Syrian border, this is a fast-paced novel about those who live their lives in the shadows and those who would exploit them.

“Not for the first time, Donna found herself wondering how the hell she had ended up in a situation like this.”

Whilst you’re waiting to read Shadows, you might like to read Toxic, available for purchase here.

Toxic

In the Scottish university city of Dundee, life and all its complications are proceeding much the same as usual.

The recklessly brilliant DI Donna Davenport, struggling to hide a secret from police colleagues and get over the break-up with her partner, is in trouble with her boss for a fiery and inappropriate outburst to the press.

DI Evanton, an old-fashioned, hard-living misogynistic copper has been newly demoted for thumping a suspect, and transferred to Dundee with a final warning ringing in his ears and a reputation that precedes him.

And in the peaceful, rolling Tayside farmland a deadly store of MIC, the toxin that devastated Bhopal, is being illegally stored by a criminal gang smuggling the valuable substance necessary for making cheap pesticides.

An anonymous tip-off starts a desperate search for the MIC that is complicated by the uneasy partnership between Davenport and Evanton and their growing mistrust of each other’s actions.

Compelling and authentic, Toxic is a tense and fast paced crime thriller.

About Jackie McLean

Jackie lives in Glasgow with her partner Allison and their dog Loopy.  She has a varied background, including being a government economist, a political lobbyist, and running a pet shop.  She is in and out of prison a lot (in her current job with social work services). Toxic was her first crime novel, introducing DI Donna Davenport, and was shortlisted in the Yeovil Literary Prize before publication by ThunderPoint Publishing Ltd.  The sequel, Shadows, is about to be published, and she has begun work on the third book in the DI Davenport series (Run).  She runs Get Writing Glasgow, which is a kind of weight watchers for writers, hosted by the Waterstones at Braehead.

You can find out more by following Jackie on Twitter and finding her on Facebook.

I’m just thrilled to be part of the celebrations for Maria In The Moon by Louise Beech on publication day, as Louise is such a lovely person whom I’ve met on several occasions. Here you can read all about an event earlier this year in Nottingham where Louise spoke alongside other inspirational authors. I have also reviewed another of Louise’s wonderful books, How To Be Brave here.

Maria In The Moon is published by Orenda Books today, 30th September 2017, and is available for purchase here.

Maria In The Moon

A stunning, beautifully written dark drama by the critically acclaimed author of How To Be Brave and The Mountain in My Shoe.

Thirty-two-year-old Catherine Hope has a great memory. But she can’t remember everything. She can’t remember her ninth year. She can’t remember when her insomnia started. And she can’t remember why everyone stopped calling her Catherine-Maria.

With a promiscuous past, and licking her wounds after a painful breakup, Catherine wonders why she resists anything approaching real love. But when she loses her home to the devastating deluge of 2007 and volunteers at Flood Crisis, a devastating memory emerges… and changes everything.

Dark, poignant and deeply moving, Maria in the Moon is an examination of the nature of memory and truth, and the defences we build to protect ourselves, when we can no longer hide…

My Review of Maria In The Moon

Catherine Hope volunteers at a flood crisis phone line, but it might be Catherine herself who needs the support more.

I was so apprehensive about reading and reviewing Maria In The Moon, because I was afraid it might not live up to expectations. However, I finished it feeling bereft. I simply didn’t want it to end. In a way there isn’t much of a plot. Catherine, called Katrina for the purposes of the help line, answers some calls and regains some missing memories from her ninth year. But oh my goodness there is emotion, depth and artistry in the writing.

I think it says something about the exquisite skill in Louise Beech’s penmanship that I didn’t much like Catherine and her spiky personality to begin with, but by the end of the novel when I had learnt as much about her as she had learnt about herself, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else but holding her in a comforting hug. The characters in Maria In The Moon are flawed, human and so real that I could imagine bumping into them in the street. I loved that Catherine has the last name Hope as this positivity underpins the awfulness of so many of the events that are revealed, leaving the reader feeling emotionally exhausted but ultimately uplifted by the experience of reading Maria In The Moon.

I thought the conceit of how we write our own life’s narrative was beautifully executed. That we edit our memories in the same way an author edits a story until we have something we can bear to read is handled with mastery by Louise Beech. Indeed, I found the writing accomplished, engaging and terribly moving so that I experienced almost a sense of pain as I read.

Maria In The Moon is a book that thrums with poetic honesty and the truths of life and I loved it.

About Louise Beech

Louise Beech knew from being small that she wanted to write, to create, to make magic.

Her short stories have won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting twice for the Bridport Prize and being published in a variety of UK magazines. Her first play, Afloat, was performed at Hull Truck Theatre in 2012. She also wrote a ten-year newspaper column for the Hull Daily Mail about being a parent, garnering love/hate criticism. Her debut novel, How to be Brave, was a Guardian Readers’ pick for 2015.

When she was fifteen Louise bet her mother ten pounds she’d be published by the time she was thirty. She missed this self-set deadline by two months. Her mother is still waiting for the money.

You can follow Louise on Twitter and visit her website.

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I’m thrilled to have a copy of The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti on my TBR ready to take on holiday soon. Even more exciting is the fact I get to interview Kate all about The Blackbird Season. It’s almost a year to the day since Kate was last on Linda’s Book Bag, celebrating the UK release of The Vanishing Year with a smashing guest post all about why we love crime novels that you can read here.

The Blackbird Season was published by Titan on 26th September 2017 and is available for purchase here.

The Blackbird Season

Where did they come from? Why did they fall?

In a ​quie​t​ town, a thousand dead starlings fall onto a high school field, unleashing a horrifying and unexpected chain of events that will rock the close-knit community. Beloved coach and teacher Nate Winters and his wife, Alecia, are well respected throughout town. That is, until one of the​ ​reporters investigating the bizarre bird phenomenon catches Nate embracing a student, Lucia Hamm. Lucia soon buoys the scandal by claiming that she and Nate are ​having an affair, throwing the town into an uproar and leaving Alecia to wonder if her husband has a second life. And when Lucia suddenly disappears, the police only have one suspect: Nate.

Nate​’​s coworker, Bridget Harris, is determined to prove his innocence. Bridget knows the key to Nate​’​s exoneration and the truth of Lucia​’​s disappearance lie within the walls of the school and in the pages of ​t​h​e missing girl’s journal.

The Blackbird Season is a haunting, psychologically nuanced suspense, filled with Kate Moretti​’​s signature chillingly satisfying twists and turns.

An Interview with Kate Moretti

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag, Kate. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your writing and The Blackbird Season in particular.

Firstly I’d like to know, why do you write?

All different reasons! To entertain myself and others. To figure out something that bothers me: usually a societal phenomenon. To explore something that fascinates me. To create a story, a setting, a character. To create in general.

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

After I wrote my first book! As a kid, I was a voracious reader but writers were far away people, who were maybe very famous and rich and probably lived in castles. Attainable careers were teachers, scientists, nurses, doctors, vets. I believed this until I was 35! When I sold my first novel, I thought maybe it was possible that writers were actually people, too, who maybe lived in regular houses (and sometimes got paid very little) and still had to take out their own garbage.

Without spoiling the plot, please could you tell us a bit about The Blackbird Season?

The Blackbird Season is about a teacher who is accused of an affair with a student who goes missing. It’s told from the POV of the teacher, his wife, his colleague and the student. I loved playing with the line of guilt and innocence here and also the way perception plays such a huge role in the pivotal events of our lives.

Your writing is renowned for its twists and turns. How do you manage your plotting?

I feel like my process varies for each book. In The Vanishing Year, the idea for the book, the first seed of story that I had was the twist at the end. For The Blackbird Season, the characters came to me, almost fully formed. Particularly Nate. He wasn’t based on any one person that I knew, but he felt alive to me. I could envision him and see his decision making process, this sort of clueless and self-absorbed interiority that is both common and somehow covert. The plot changed enormously, in the first initial drafts, Nate and Bridget had an affair. The remnants of that are still there, which is always a funny thing about revisions. You can’t erase it all, almost like it really happened.

Logistically, I’m kind of a mess. I don’t keep track of my plots in spreadsheets and they change a ton over time. I keep a running summary of things that happened “today” meaning the current writing day. Then I record what I think will happen next (it always seems to change). It’s kept as a document in my Scrivener file so I can see the whole plot “at a glance” (if by glance I mean several pages long!). The Blackbird Season was a particular challenge for me because the birds acted like a pivot point between the before and after.

Whilst you write thrillers, there often seems to be an underlying theme of identity in your work. Why is this?

I feel like we become a lot of different people in our lifetime. We are constantly learning and growing and changing and every few years, I have a minor identity crisis. I don’t think I’m alone in this but I also kind of enjoy it. Sometimes that “On this Day” feature will pop up on my Facebook and I hardly recognize the person who wrote a status five years ago. I like that! I’m intrigued by the different ways people handle this inevitable growth. I also think fear drives a lot of terrible decision making and ultimately terrible decision making is the basis for any good suspense novel.

Many people suffer from a fear of birds. Is this something that affects you and why did you choose to feature birds at the start of The Blackbird Season?

I don’t like birds! They’ve always seemed incredibly, terrifyingly smart to me and the way their eyes dart around and their heads twitch is objectively creepy. I’m glad I’m not alone. ALSO. Growing up, my bedroom was in the attic of house surrounded by very tall pine trees. I was nest level hundreds of birds, who, if you don’t know, wake up very early in the morning. I did a lot of cursing at birds on Saturdays in my teen years. However. I did not kill a thousand fictional birds for some kind pathological revenge against a species! I had to use a phenomenon that would bring a reporter and not muck up a human plot (for example, I couldn’t use a secondary murder, it would get to convoluted!). I liked the idea of this Hitchockian backdrop in this depressed community.

Psychological thrillers like The Blackbird Season are incredibly popular amongst readers. Why do you think they appeal to us so much?

I don’t know! They appeal to me too. I like to think that the thin line between a good, moral person and someone we’d usually judge harshly is mostly luck, circumstance and maybe even money. But I’m always amazed by how many people believe they are, truly, superior! For me, that’s the hook, the draw. Seeing myself in someone who is down and out, seeing what decisions I might make differently and how there’s a hairline breadth between our lives. I’ve answered the phone while driving, but I’ve never hit a child. I’ve left a candle burning by mistake, and I’ve never had a fire. I’ve turned my back for a moment, and my child has never been kidnapped. This is luck! Yet, we judge. For me, the attraction to psychological suspense is in that small space: when we, the morally superior, are suddenly thrust into these larger than life experiences.

If you could choose to be a character from The Blackbird Season, who would you be and why?

OH GOD. None of them? Maybe Alecia. I feel like by the end of the novel, she’s coming into her own. She’s accepting her son. She’s unsure about Nate but I have no doubt she’ll stop, figure out her own path, chart accordingly and take no prisoners.

If The Blackbird Season became a film, who would you like to play Nate and Bridget, and why would you choose them? 

I have a Pinterest board for this! https://www.pinterest.com/mac6178/blackbird-season/. I chose Maura Tierney as Bridget, Simon Baker as Nate and Amy Adams as Alecia.

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

Suspense, first and foremost. Some literary fiction — the newest it books of the year, to see what all the fuss is about. Some old classics now and then that I’ve missed. Sometimes a light, funny read (I’m reading The Arrangement by Sarah Dunn right now and have cackled out loud quite a bit!). Anything with solid writing and great characters!

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

It’s Halloween! Why wouldn’t you want to read a book about abandoned mills, a dying town, a thousand dead birds, and a murder?

That’s more than 15 though….

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

About Kate Moretti

Kate Moretti is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Thought I Knew You, Binds That Tie, and While You Were Gone. She worked in the pharmaceutical industry for ten years as a scientist, but now writes full time. She lives in eastern Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

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

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I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for The Woolly Hat Knitting Club by Poppy Dolan today. I have a personal reason for wanting to support this book as you’ll see further down after Poppy’s lovely guest post.

The Woolly Hat Knitting Club was published by Canelo on 25th September 2017 and is available for purchase here.

The Woolly Hat Knitting Club

Finding happiness one stitch at a time

When Dee Blackthorn’s brother, JP, breaks both wrists not only is he in need of a helping hand – or two – but the knitting shop he owns can’t function. Sisterly duties take Dee away from her demanding job and she is unceremoniously fired amidst rumours of inappropriate behaviour. Dee is certain that her hot-shot nemesis, Ben, is behind it all but has no proof.

When Dee bumps into an old friend who is new mum to a premature baby she convinces JP to enlist his knitting pals to make lots of tiny woolly hats. Then Ben turns up denying involvement in Dee’s sacking and she ropes him into helping the knitting cause.
But before long Dee’s good intentions backfire and she risks losing her friends, her family and Ben, who’s turned out to be not so bad after all…

Wool is in my DNA…

A Guest Post by Poppy Dolan

I’ve always loved anything crafty: I was that nerd in the lunchtime cross-stitch club at school and I’m not sorry. Never really being refined enough to class as ‘arty’, I loved any kind of craft that meant I could assemble something that (if you screwed your eyes up in the right way) would look lovely. If you can hot glue gun it or stitch it or turn it into a pom pom, I’m there.

So when knitting suddenly came back into vogue in the noughties, it had my name written all over it! I bought a beginner’s kit to knit a really thick, chunky scarf and away I went. It was slow going and to start with I somehow managed to accidentally double the number of stitches I had on my needle. I still don’t how know. But eventually I had a long, cosy scarf that I proudly gave to my mum. And being my mum and being really kind, she wore it.. From there I’ve knitted all sorts – tea cosies, hats with animal faces, toys and even a draft excluder! I love the challenge of a new pattern and seeing something come to life on my needles. And there is nothing better than when someone sends you a picture of them wearing or using one of your creations.

While I was writing The Woolly Hat Knitting Club, my beloved granny passed away.. She’s in the dedication for the book. In reflecting on all the wonderful things about her – she was a demon Scrabble player, an excellent cook and always looked at the glass half-full – I realised that I get my insatiable crafting appetite from her. She was from a generation where knitting wasn’t so much a hobby as part of your homemaking skills, but she definitely put the fun in knitting! When I was little, she made me a My Little Pony cardigan – the pony even had a long pink wooly mane and tail. It was amazing and I loved it; I’ll never forget it. And even when her eyesight began to fade, she switched to using really fluffy, sparkly yarns so that if she slipped a stitch it wouldn’t matter so much. She was creative and industrious, a truly inspiring woman. And so maybe knitting becoming fashionable again was just the excuse I needed to start down my own woolly path and carry on our crafty family DNA. Now, each time I pick up some yarn to start a new hat or scarf or toy zebra, I spend a minute thinking about my gran and how I think this would make her very happy indeed.

(Your post actually brought a tear to my eye Poppy. It will be our first time without my wonderful Dad for his birthday on 1st October and it was he who taught me to knit as a child over 50 years ago. I think I might need to knit something in his memory.)

About Poppy Dolan

Poppy Dolan is in her mid thirties and lives in Berkshire with her husband. She’s a near-obsessive baker and a keen crafter, so on a typical weekend can be found moving between the haberdashery and kitchenware floors of a department store, adding to her birthday wish list. She has written three novels: The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp, There’s More to Life than Cupcakes and most recently The Bluebell Bunting Society. The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp made it into the Amazon top 100 bestseller chart, so clearly someone other than her mum must have read it. She’s currently working on her fourth novel – it’s about friends, siblings and crafty things – and drinking far too much tea.

You can follow Poppy on Twitter @poppydwriter and find her on Facebook.

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