My grateful thanks to the author Amanda Prowse for an advanced reader copy of The Idea of You in return for an honest review.

It’s no secret to regular readers of Linda’s Book Bag that I love Amanda Prowse’s writing (she’s also a pretty wonderful person too – what other author would send your Mum a signed book to cheer her up?). I have been privileged to interview Amanda here, and to review My Husband’s Wife here, Another Love here and The Food of Love here. Indeed, two of Amanda’s books made it onto my favourite reads of 2016 (see here)!

The Idea of You is published today, 21st March 2017, and is available for purchase in ebook and paperback here.

The Idea of You

With her fortieth birthday approaching, Lucy Carpenter thinks she finally has it all: a wonderful new husband, Jonah, a successful career and the chance of a precious baby of her own. Life couldn’t be more perfect.

But becoming parents proves much harder to achieve than Lucy and Jonah imagined, and when Jonah’s teenage daughter Camille comes to stay with them, she becomes a constant reminder of what Lucy doesn’t have. Jonah’s love and support are unquestioning, but Lucy’s struggles with work and her own failing dreams begin to take their toll. With Camille’s presence straining the bonds of Lucy’s marriage even further, Lucy suddenly feels herself close to losing everything…

This heart-wrenchingly poignant family drama from bestselling author Amanda Prowse asks the question: in today’s hectic world, what does it mean to be a mother?

My Review of The Idea of You

A desperate desire for a baby leads Lucy to reassess her whole life and relationships as miscarriages blight her attempts at creating a family.

Anyone who knows me also knows that I am the least maternal person in the universe so it it testament to the outstanding quality of Amanda Prowse’s writing that I found The Idea of You a heart rending read, and was frequently and deeply moved by the emotions presented. I didn’t always like Lucy, but she had every ounce of my empathy and sympathy as she is such a fabulous, human creation. As I read The Idea of You it felt like looking into the soul of another person and I understood her completely.

And it is not just Lucy who is so realistic. Every character felt real to me. I think I most sympathised with Camille who struggles to adjust to the life her parents have, in effect, created for her.

In essence, the plot is simple, but the themes covered are so naturally presented and so brilliantly woven together that reading The Idea of You is an altogether satisfying experience. I think what I enjoy so much about Amanda Prowse’s writing is that she seems able to convey EXACTLY what any human might think and feel without sentimentality or cloying banality. Her words always reflect the truth in a manner that any reader can identify with. Relationships between parents and children, siblings, partners, friends and workmates alongside themes of marriage, family, trust, hope and despair all combine to afford a fantastic reading experience for any reader in The Idea of You – even those for whom the main topic initially might appear to have no resonance. The exploration of what makes a family in modern society is stunning.

I also loved the element of mystery presented throughout. The first person passages gradually reveal another story that enhances the main narrative and brings greater understanding to the reader. Similarly, I thought the factual aspects of foetal development and the sensitive presentation of the frequently inexplicable reasons for miscarriage would be of comfort to many.

I thought I might find The Idea of You too remote from my own feelings and experiences but as ever with Amanda Prowse, it is a masterclass in emotional writing and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

About Amanda Prowse

Amanda Prowse is an International Bestselling author who has published sixteen novels in dozens of languages. Her recent chart topping No.1 titles What Have I Done?, Perfect Daughter and My Husband’s Wife have sold millions of copies around the world.

Other novels by Amanda Prowse include A Mother’s Story which won the coveted Sainsbury’s eBook of the year Award and Perfect Daughter that was selected as a World Book Night title in 2016. Amanda’s book The Food of Love went straight to No.1 in Literary Fiction when it was launched in the USA and she has been described by the Daily Mail as ‘The Queen of Drama’ for her ability to make the reader feel as if they were actually in the story.

Now published by Lake Union, Amanda Prowse is the most prolific writer of contemporary fiction in the UK today; her titles also score the highest online review approval ratings for several genres.

You can follow Amanda Prowse on Twitter and visit her web site here. You will also find her on Facebook.

All of Amanda Prowse’s wonderful writing is available here.

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for Follow Me Down by Sherri Smith. I love a good thriller so I’m thrilled to be able to share an extract from Follow Me Down with you today.

Follow Me Down is published by Titan on 21st March 2017 and is available for purchase in e-book and paperback here.

Follow Me Down

Mia has built a life for herself far from the small town where she grew up. But she is forced to return home when her brother goes missing. Once the golden boy of the community, Lucas has disappeared the same day as the body of his student is pulled from the river. Unable to reconcile the media’s portrayal of Lucas as a murderer with her own memories of him, Mia is desperate to find another suspect. But if Lucas is innocent, why did he run?

An Extract From Follow Me Down

Wayoata does not have its own airport. The earliest flight landed in Bismarck. I had to drive another three hours northeast to get there. I’d reserved a silver sedan online, but the car rental clerk handed me keys for a candy-red PT Cruiser and tried to up-sell the insurance coverage. I asked for something else, anything else. The color didn’t matter—it could be a beige or black sedan, the kind of car that didn’t draw any attention (negative or positive)—but the clerk just shrugged helplessly.

The drive was claustrophobic, with open fields so lacking in depth and dimension the view could have been a canvas backdrop. The sun lit up the greasy bug spatters on the windshield; they looked like a demented child’s finger painting. After leaving for college, I’d returned once a year for Thanksgiving and would sit in my mother’s room, plate in lap, silently picking away at the pinkish turkey the care home provided. Once Lucas moved back, nearly five years ago, I no longer felt obligated to make an annual visit, telling myself that Mimi now had Lucas to visit her anytime she wanted and that was important to me, that Mimi had someone. Equally important was that the someone wasn’t me.

I knew I was getting close when I saw the same old anti-abortion billboard: a photo of some four-year-old forever stuck in the late nineties with her neon sweater and ribboned hair with abortion kills children scrawled across her. Thirty seconds later, I was passing Wayoata’s welcome sign. wayoata: home of the corn and apple festival produced the usual knot in my throat. Just seeing it made me feel sticky and heavy. Someone had spray-painted an “S” in front of “Corn,” and the smiling cartoon corn below had been given a penis tip shooting three ejaculating dashes onto the heavily lashed apple. It said something about the town that the welcome sign was always in some state of defacement while the antiabortion sign remained unscathed.

Then came the two competing gas stations lit up like casinos. The houses got closer together. Labyrinthine residential streets followed; the backyards offered views of rusted grain elevators, and the roads looped around and back out to Main Street to avoid dead end signs; no one wanted to look out their window and see a dead end. A number of storefront businesses had shut down. Wayoata was too far northeast to have benefited from the state’s Bakken oil boom, and so, like at prom, where one side of the gym was full of ugly girls who wouldn’t put out, all the able-bodied men migrated to the other side, where the getting was good. Faded purple ribbons hung from trees and streetlamps like half-opened gifts.

About Sherri Smith

Sherri Smith has previously written two historical fiction novels for Simon & Schuster UK, The Children of Witches and The Virgin’s Tale. When not writing she spends time with her family, two rescue dogs and restores vintage furniture that would otherwise be destined for the dump. She lives in Winnipeg, Canada where the long, cold winters nurture her dark side. Follow Me Down is her first thriller.

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

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

Regular Linda’s Book Bag readers will know just how much I love Sue Moorcroft and her writing. The Christmas Promise was one of my books of the year in 2016 and you can read my review here.

Having met Sue in real life I’ve also been privileged to host her in interview on the blog and here‘s where you can read that post.

So, it gives me enormous pleasure to be helping to reveal Sue’s latest book Just for the Holidays. Just for the Holidays will be published in e-book and paperback by Avon Books, an imprint of Harper Collins, on 18th May 2017 and is available for pre-order here.

Just for the Holidays

In theory, nothing could be better than a summer spent basking in the French sun. That is, until you add in three teenagers, two love interests, one divorcing couple, and a very unexpected pregnancy.

Admittedly, this isn’t exactly the relaxing holiday Leah Beaumont was hoping for – but it’s the one she’s got. With her sister Michele’s family falling apart at the seams, it’s up to Leah to pick up the pieces and try to hold them all together.

But with a handsome helicopter pilot staying next door, Leah can’t help but think she might have a few distractions of her own to deal with…

A glorious summer read, for you to devour in one sitting – perfect for fans of Katie Fforde, Carole Matthews and Trisha Ashley.

About Sue Moorcroft

Award winning author Sue Moorcroft writes contemporary women’s fiction with occasionally unexpected themes. The Wedding Proposal, Dream a Little Dream and Is This Love? were all nominated for Readers’ Best Romantic Read Awards. Love & Freedom won the Best Romantic Read Award 2011 and Dream a Little Dream was nominated for a RoNA in 2013. Sue’s a Katie Fforde Bursary Award winner, a past vice chair of the RNA and editor of its two anthologies.

The Christmas Promise was a Kindle No.1 Best Seller and held the No.1 slot at Christmas!

Sue also writes short stories, serials, articles, writing ‘how to’ and is a creative writing tutor.

There’s more about Sue via these links:

website, blog, Google+, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Take Five Authors, Facebook and her Facebook author page. You can also follow Sue on Twitter.

When you’ve gone to the same university as an author, what could be better than to help celebrate their latest book? I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for Stronger Than Skin by Stephen May. I asked Stephen to tell me a bit about how he wrote a story that became both a thriller and a love story and thankfully he agreed to do so!

Stronger Than Skin was published on 16th March 2017 by Sandstone Press and is available for purchase in e-book and paperback here.

Stronger Than Skin

Mark Chadwick is cycling home from work, eager to get back to his pregnant wife Katy and two children, when he sees the police calling at his house. He knows exactly why they are there and he knows that the world he has carefully constructed over twenty very deliberately uneventful years is about to fall apart. He could lose everything.

A story of a toxic love gone wrong, with a setting that moves easily between present day London and 1990s Cambridge, Stronger Than Skin is compulsively readable, combining a gripping narrative with a keen eye for the absurdities of the way we live now.

Stronger Than Skin: Accidental Thriller, Accidental Love Story

A Guest Post by Stephen May

All books should be thrillers, shouldn’t they? Of a kind? Even the novels of Brontes. Even those of Jane Austen (Will they get all the daughters married off before penury overtakes them) I’m being a bit facetious, but only a bit. I do believe all decent books need to have some propulsion, some reason to keep turning the pages. ‘But what happens next?’ is the principal motivating question for every reader whether the book in front of them is the Bible or Jilly Cooper’s Riders. I would also argue that most good books should contain love, romance and desire too. It should be as hard and as painful to contemplate a book without these elements as it is to think of a life without them.

Having said that… I never set out to write a thriller. And I never set out to write a love story either. I actually wanted to write a book about growing older in contemporary Britain; a book about that uneasy period between the emphatic end of youth and the creeping numbness of middle age. A book about the time when you might be busy busy busy with the every day (children, work, life partners, aging parents) but a time when, sometimes, in the quiet pause when the wine is poured but before Netflix fires up, you find yourself wondering where your life went. Is this really what you had planned? When did you go from being ‘promising’ to being that tired guy whose face stares back from the mirror? When did all that potential morph into just about getting by and what were you doing while it happened?

I guess I wanted to explore answers to the question posed in that old Talking Heads song: ‘How did I get here? With my beautiful home and my beautiful wife? What is this highway made of?’

So I had a subject but I didn’t really have a story and, as I said at the top of this piece, I like a novel to have a story. Other writers seem to get by without one (Yes, I’m looking at you Donna Tartt) but I think books should have fierce forward motion. A bit of poke.

I wasn’t worried about not having the story however. I knew I’d find it. If you keep showing up for work, then your unconscious (which only listens to the things you do, not the things you say) will help you. If you procrastinate your unconscious will find seductive things for you to waste time on. It will think you want to fritter your time away. Keep writing – trying, failing – to write your novel and your unconscious will lead you to the things that you need. Or to put it another way, to put it Picasso’s way – ‘inspiration exists, but it’s got to find you working.’

So then, eventually, the unconscious led me to pick up a paper I don’t normally read, where I found the seed of the story that would allow me to dramatise the things I was interested in.

In an old copy of The Sun I read of a man who walked into a police station and confessed to a murder that had been filed as an accidental death. He also said that he hadn’t acted alone he named an accomplice – who denied it – and so the police, after some persuasion (all the flipping paperwork) eventually re-opened the case.

It wasn’t the details of the crime that interested me as much as the potential ramifications on the person not confessing. Those involved had led blameless exemplary lives since the crime. They had got away with it. And yet here they were, suddenly up to their necks in it.

So then I was immediately playing the game that all writers play. The game of What if? What if when the police went round to speak to the he took off and went to ground, hiding from the police while also trying to get to persuade their one-time friend to retract the confession? And what if that accomplice was a former lover? What if their affair had ended badly? What if the accusation was the most serious there could be and want if my protagonist was someone fundamentally ill-equipped for life on the run?

And that, in a nutshell, is Stronger Than Skin. (The title comes from the idea that scar tissue is tougher than undamaged skin. That the damage life deals out, makes you more robust – it’s not actually true by the way. In fact unwounded is 70% stronger than that which is scarred)

In each of my novels there are subjects I return to again and again. One is the emotional turmoil of adolescence, another is family life. The latter is often avoided by male novelists. I don’t know why. The conflict, the shifting alliances, the compromises, the small – and sometimes big – betrayals, the secrets, the power struggles. The difficulties and tensions of family life, Every ordinary family has enough drama for a dozen novels. Every family contains as much intrigue as the court of Henry 8^th.

There is no point fighting my attraction to these subjects. As someone said ‘ignore your obsessions at your peril.’ There’s a sense in which you don’t choose your subject, it chooses you. For the same reason all more protagonists have been from small towns because for me, that’s where the UK is. It’s not in the big cities or the rolling countryside. It’s in the small or middling sized towns like Bedford (where I grew up) Colchester (where I went to University) or Burntisland (where my father comes from).

So in my novel we have two strands. We have the story of a working class kid –  trying to adjust to life at Cambridge University in 1990 and he is wondering why life amid the dreaming spires isn’t quite the glittering prize he imagined when he meets an enigmatic, sophisticated charming member of the upper classes who turns his life upside down (and yes, before you ask, I am a fan of Brideshead Revisited) and as they embark on a passionate affair my hero, Mark, gets sucked into events he can’t control and revelations about this time are drip fed through the narrative which is otherwise concerned with his efforts to stay away from the police long enough to contact his former lover and get her to withdraw her police statement.

Balancing these two stories was a bit a high-wire act, and like any circus performer I broke quite a few bones while learning how to manage it, but I think, finally, I nailed it. It took a while. I have the bruises (and yes, the scars) but in the end I hope the book has the propulsion of the best thrillers, the erotic tension of the best love stories and also explores what it means to be experiencing the gradual invisibility what seems to be the fate of the middle-aged. It also allowed me to write about pubs and, in passing, about the absurdities of the life we live now. Most good writing – whether ostensibly a thriller or a love story or a cookbook come to that – is about looking hard at what other people don’t bother to notice. It’s about paying attention.

About Stephen May

Stephen May’s first novel TAG was longlisted for Wales Book of The Year and won the Media Wales Reader’s Prize. His second, Life! Death! Prizes! was shortlisted for the 2012 Costa Novel Award and The Guardian Not The Booker Prize. He also collaborates on performance pieces with theatre-makers, artists, film-makers, musicians and dancers.

You can follow Stephen on Twitter and visit his website.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

A while ago I featured Michael J. Sahno on Linda’s Book Bag with a guest post all about setting that you can read here. Since then Michael has been rebranding Miles of Files and I’m very pleased to welcome him back to explain all about that process and how we can, sometimes wrongly, judge a book by its cover.

Miles of Files is available for purchase in e-book and paperback on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Miles of Files

When Paul Panepinto finds out that his boss is stealing from their Tampa company’s 401(k) plan, he has to make a decision: try to stop the criminal at the risk of losing his own job, or keep his mouth shut and try to live with himself…

How We Judge a Book By Its Cover

A Guest Post by Michael J. Sahno

I launched my first three novels simultaneously on the day I launched my company, Sahno Publishing, via press release. Crazy, right? What can I say? It seemed like a good (marketing) idea at the time.

Because I was starting a company and paying for everything out of my own pocket, I hired an editor to do all three books and a designer for all three as well. It was a lot of money.

These folks worked hard, and I’m not going to complain one bit. The graphic designer not only provided cover designs but also did the book interiors, even helping me with my website layout. For each of the three books, he delivered three designs from which to choose, for a total of nine choices. Fair enough, right?

My wonderful wife assisted with the selection process – she has a natural eye for design – and I was pleased with the outcome: three novels I could present to the world, and an iconic graphic showing them all together.

The only problem was that one of my covers didn’t thrill everyone – the cover for Miles of Files, which I happen to believe is my best novel so far. No one I know personally said anything bad, but when I approached one library, the acquisitions director said, “This cover is really not going to do your book any favors.” Ouch!

Ultimately, that kind of valuable feedback led me to this week’s re-launch. When I won a contest from 99designs for a free book cover design, I immediately thought about that conversation and Miles of Files. Someone had judged my best book by its cover – judged it harshly – and had taken a pass. How many other books suffer the same fate?

Needless to say, I’m thrilled with the new cover. Twenty-four designers competed in this contest, and I received a total of 73 designs. I only hope that people now see the book for what it is even before they open it: a funny, fast-paced thriller.

And in the future, I won’t be so quick to dismiss the notion that even the most discerning readers judge a book by its cover.

About Michael J. Sahno

Michael J. Sahno was born in Bristol, CT. He earned his Bachelor’s from Lynchburg College and his Master’s in English from Binghamton University. Sahno has been a professional writer since 2001. His novels cater to an imaginative audience, particularly those who enjoy literary fiction with a twist of drama and plenty of humor. Sahno is a member of the Florida Writers Association and American Library Association, and the founder of Tampa Literary Authors.

You can follow Michael J. Sahno on Twitter, find him on Facebook and visit his website.

One of the aspect of blogging I really enjoy is finding books that are out of the ordinary, even though I don’t necessarily have time to read them all. I think To The Survivors by Robert Uttaro is probably one such book, sharing as it does the experiences of those who’ve suffered sexual assault. I asked Robert what he thought about the arts as a means to help people heal after traumatic experiences and he shares his thoughts with us below.

To The Survivors is available for purchase through the links here.

To The Survivors

To The Survivors is about one man’s journey as a rape crisis counselor with true stories of sexual violence shared by survivors in their own words. Gently and beautifully constructed, To The Survivors is moving,tender, sharp, and piercingly true all at once.

Readers will encounter uncensored written stories, poems, and interviews from women and men who have experienced rape and sexual assault, plus the advocate-author voice that weaves their experiences together.

The survivors are diverse in age, gender, and ethnicity, yet each gives a similarity raw and heartfelt account of his or her victimisation and recovery. The authenticity and vulnerability with which survivors speak resonates profoundly. But this book is not just for survivors of sexual violence. Robert Uttaro believes anyone can benefit from the words in these pages, rape survivor or not.

The Healing Power of the Arts

A Guest Post by Robert Uttaro

Art is one of the most powerful gifts we can give and receive. Art moves our hearts and souls. It can inspire. It can teach. It can provide peace and comfort. It can make us question…It can help us to heal. It connects people from diverse and similar backgrounds. Art accomplishes so many things at various points throughout life that I cannot capture all of its beauty and purpose. I believe art helps us to communicate with God.

Every person can connect with some form of art. For me, music is the form of art that I connect with the most. I have had a deep love of music and musicians since I was a little kid. I listen to music throughout the day and night, especially when I write, cook, exercise, and even when I pray. If it weren’t for music, my book To the Survivors would have never been completed.

To The Survivors is about my journey as a rape crisis counselor with true stories of men, women, and one transgendered man who have been raped and sexually assaulted. Readers will encounter uncensored written stories, poems, and interviews from survivors in their own words. The survivors are diverse in age, gender, and ethnicity, yet each gives a similarity raw and heartfelt account of his or her victimization and recovery. The authenticity and vulnerability with which survivors speak resonates deeply. But this book is not just for survivors of sexual violence. I believe anyone can benefit from the words in these pages, rape survivor or not.

There are different paths of healing and different forms of expression. Some people would rather speak to share their truths and pain, while others prefer to write fiction or non-fiction. Some prefer to speak. For some, poetry is a profound way to express what may be difficult to express through the spoken word. Jenee is one woman in To the Survivors who shared her poetry and story with me. Her poems “March Fourteenth” and “March Twenty-Eighth” were so powerful to me that I knew I had to begin and end the book with them. I believe Jenee’s poetry allowed her to truly express her thoughts and prayers after such evil.

There is power in our words. One of the insightful aspects of To the Survivors is seeing people open up and speak about horrific crimes for both themselves and for the benefit of others. People can grow and heal; they do not have to be silenced and suffer with shame throughout their lives. I want to share two examples of this. Don is one man who was raped when he was a child. I had never met Don or known his story, but he agreed to come to my apartment and talk with me. He had never shared his story in full to anybody before that morning. His healing process continued to grow after our talk, and over time he began to talk more comfortably about the abuse he endured. Don later began sharing his story to high school and college students.

Jenee is another example of the benefit of sharing in To the Survivors. Jenee, like Don, had never shared her story with anyone. She was willing to share but did not want to use her real name in the book. After re-reading much of the book, it was Shira’s chapter in To the Survivors who inspired Jenee to use her real name. Jenee also began to speak to high school and college students throughout her healing process.

It is not for me to tell people how to live or act, but I do believe in the power of the arts and the power of God. Art is one of the tools we possess to overcome evil on this earth. Anyone out there who is reading this and may be struggling emotionally with anything at all, tap into a form of art you connect with and express yourself any way you choose to. As I write in the B.L.E.S.S. chapter in To the Survivors, “Always remember to take care of yourself no matter what, and never stop doing the things you love that bring peace and joy to your life. Whether it is music, art, exercise, cooking, reading, sports, prayer, nature, or any of the other amazing gifts life has to offer: Embrace them. Do what you love to do, embrace all the beauty that exists within yourself and the world around you, and take care of yourself.”

About Robert Uttaro

Robert Uttaro is in his eighth year of working and volunteering as a rape crisis counselor, public speaker and community educator. Inspired by his undergraduate studies in Criminal Justice, he continues to embrace a life-long commitment to activism and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence. Serving as a counselor, Uttaro supports rape survivors and their significant others through various legal and case management issues. He also facilitates workshops aimed at education, prevention and exposure of the realities of sexual violence. Uttaro is currently touring many universities and high schools throughout Massachusetts.

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

I’m very pleased to welcome Tim Walker, author of Ambrosius: Last of the Romans, to Linda’s Book Bag as I’m fascinated by that era of our history. Tim has kindly agreed to explain a little bit about why he thinks readers like me have that interest.

Ambrosius: Last of the Romans is available for purchase here.

Ambrosius: Last of the Romans

A country shell-shocked by the end of Roman rule lies open to invasion from ruthless barbarians. Cruel tyrant Vortigern has seized control and chosen to employ Saxons in his mercenary army. But who is the master and who the puppet?

Enter Ambrosius Aurelianus, a Roman tribune on a secret mission to Britannia. He is returning to the land where, as a child, he witnessed the murder of his noble father and grew up under the watchful eyes of an adoptive family in the town of Calleva Atrebatum. He is thrown into the politics of the time, as tribal chiefs eye each other with suspicion whilst kept at heel by the high king.

Ambrosius finds that the influence of Rome is fast becoming a distant memory, as Britannia reverts to its Celtic tribal roots. He joins forces with his adoptive brother, Uther Pendragon, and they are guided by their shrewd father, Marcus, as he senses his destiny is to lead the Britons to a more secure future.

Ambrosius: Last of the Romans is an historical fiction novel set in the early Dark Ages, a time of myths and legends that builds to the greatest legend of all – King Arthur and his knights.

Historical Fiction Evokes Primal Fear

A Guest Post by Tim Walker

Fear of invasion is a primal anxiety, etched on our primitive, tribalistic consciousness. It’s about safeguarding precious resources from predatory ‘others’ – peoples unknown to us around whom a narrative of grotesque and fearsome attributes is spun by the leaders of our tribe to prepare us for war.

Sound familiar? Well it should, as it’s practically the history of human development in a nutshell. This notion of repelling invaders is part of the history of the British people; people who have at one time been the invaders themselves. Our island home has meant invading armies have had to brave the storms of the Channel to land and meet hostile locals – from Julius Caesar to the Normans.

But wedged between these two momentous events was one with more profound and far-reaching consequences. I’m talking about the coming of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. We’re still talking their language, so deep-rooted was their influence, and they mapped-out the divisions between England, Wales and Scotland. The coming of Germanic tribes to fight as mercenaries for the Romans and then, following their departure, an early Briton high king, known as Vortigern (although this is deemed by some to be a title akin to ‘over-king’), is not seen as an invasion. They were invited in, saw what they liked, and sent for the friends and families.

This coming of waves of settlers – warrior tribes – from what is modern day Denmark and northern Germany, happened over a period of two hundred years, their numbers building to form formidable armies who in time swept away all Briton tribal resistance. They fought each other and developed kingdoms, claiming the land as their own and defending it from other invaders.

This period in history, known as the Dark Ages, is so called because the light of learning and record-keeping was extinguished by pagan barbarians in an orgy of destruction. Most Roman villas and settlements were plundered, as were the temples and early churches, as some of the wealthier Romano-Britons evacuated to northern Gaul and the ordinary folk remaining fled to the countryside or to old Iron Age hill forts that were once again occupied.

Little detail is known, save for the few surviving, and at times contradictory, records of monks such as Nennius, Gildas and Bede, of what actually happened during a three hundred year period up to the reign of King Alfred at the end of the ninth century. By then, Anglo-Saxon King Alfred was facing a whole new set of invaders – the Vikings.

This is the backdrop to my new historical fiction novel, Ambrosius: Last of the Romans. Ambrosius Aurelianus was the son of a murdered noble and possibly Briton’s first high king, Constantine. Tantalising glimpses are offered in the writings of Gildas, Nennius, Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth, of a high king of the besieged Briton tribes who organised resistance to the westward march of successive waves of Saxon armies. He is the elder brother of Uther Pendragon in one account, who succeeds him and in turn is succeeded by Arthur.

My story is a link between the departure of the Romans from Britannia and the coming of King Arthur, a legendary figure whom devoted archaeologists and historians are still trying to legitimise. It was a time of grim determination to cling onto a crumbling order, whilst faced with a fearsome and ruthless enemy. The Saxon wolf had been invited into the Briton sheep pen, and wool was about to start flying. I’ll leave with this haunting lament from Gildas, written barely one hundred years after these events:

The poor remnants of our nation… that they might not be brought to utter destruction, took arms under the conduct of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a modest man, who of all the Roman nation was then alone in the confusion of this troubled period by chance left alive.

Taken from On the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) by Gildas, c. AD550, translated by J.A. Giles.

About Tim Walker

Tim has been writing fiction since 2013, following a career encompassing journalism, marketing, general management and business ownership.

After school, he worked as a trainee reporter, progressing to writing a music column and reviewing films.

He obtained an honours degree in Communication Studies, majoring in film studies, and added a Post-Graduate Diploma in Marketing two years later in Bristol.

After graduating, he worked for ten years in London in the newspaper publishing industry in market research and advertising sales support.

He followed this with two years as a voluntary worker with Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) in Zambia, working in book publishing development.  Soon after, he set up and managed his own publishing, marketing and management consultancy company.

Tim now lives near Windsor in Berkshire where he blogs and writes creative fiction.

You can visit Tim’s website, find him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

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

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

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

Dead Babies and Seaside Towns

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

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

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

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

About Alice Jolly

Alice Jolly is a novelist and playwright.

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

She teaches creative writing on the Mst at Oxford University.

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

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

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

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

About Hoopoe

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

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

Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge

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

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

An Extract from Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge

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

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

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

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

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

About Ezzedine C. Fishere

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

About John Peate

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

Giveaway

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

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

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

The Darkness Within

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

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

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

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

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

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