Blog Archives

Loners: Eleanor Oliphant & Upstate

27/2/2018

Two novels featuring women, scarred by life, who have kept themselves slightly aloof. Of the two, Eleanor Oliphant is the most damaged, but small acts of kindness, along with a crush on a self-centred musician, might bring her out of her shell. Upstate is perhaps more realistic in confronting the difficulty of change, even though, when we first meet Vanessa Querry she’s no longer lonely as she’s fallen in love. Eleanor gets the better therapist; but is either of these women completely fine?

6 Comments

Learning to write

23/2/2018

17 Comments

School was a shock. Where did all those children come from? Would I wet myself or brave those dark outdoor loos? As a timid child, and an obedient one, the structure of the classroom seemed easier to manage. And yet.

The teacher stood at the blackboard etching row upon row of noughts and crosses in coloured chalk. We sat at desks, copying the figures into our books with fat wax crayons. This was school? At home, colour meant drawing however the inspiration took me. Already programmed in compliance, I crushed my creativity along with my rage.

17 Comments

People studies: Sight & Consent

19/2/2018

2 Comments

Although these two novels couldn’t be more different in tone – the first a literary exploration of a young mother’s development; the second tricksy thriller – I can’t resist pairing them for the other factors they have in common. Both feature thoughtful, philosophising, unnamed narrators; both take as their subject matter how we explore the inside and outside of other people, and ourselves. Both are ambitious and unusual in their approach; both are the author’s second book and a cracking read.

2 Comments

Hotel on Shadow Lake by Daniela Tully #blogtour

17/2/2018

4 Comments

Germany is newly unified when sixteen-year-old Maya Wiesberg leaves her homeland to spend a year in upstate New York. So reluctant is she to leave her family, she refuses to say a proper goodbye to her beloved grandmother, something she will have cause to regret when her grandmother disappears. Twenty-seven years later, a landslide uncovers Martha Wiesberg’s body on a resort not far from where Maya went to school. Although phobic about flying, Maya decides to travel out to see the spot where her grandmother died. But the Montgomery family who own the resort don’t welcome her enquiries, especially when it turns out Martha was murdered.

4 Comments

Widowers: The Melody & The Haunting of Henry Twist

15/2/2018

4 Comments

I’ve recently read two novels in which a widower has an uncanny encounter with someone from the fringes which, for them at least, feels replete with meaning. Jim Crace’s widower is also mourning the end of his musical career; whereas, twenty years younger, Rebecca F John’s widower is offered a fresh start in caring for his newborn baby daughter.

4 Comments

Every word counts #roughwriters #blogtour

12/2/2018

29 Comments

A couple of months ago I was privileged to attend a meeting of a local writing group in their “invited author” slot. As well as speaking about my own writing and journey to publication, I was asked to set a writing exercise. Given that I’d inadvertently begun both my published novels with a character descending a staircase, it wasn’t difficult to find my prompt, to which the writers responded admirably. But, as a practitioner of the 99-word story, I thought I could give them a little more by modelling writing less.

29 Comments

Spain’s civil wars: Court of Lions & Spanish Crossings

8/2/2018

4 Comments

Two historical novels addressing Spain’s internal conflicts: the first, set in Granada, takes us back 500 years to the last Muslim Court; the second, set mostly in London, begins eighty years ago with the International Brigades and resistance to Franco. Both weave a thread of hope for humanity with a romantic storyline – or two.

4 Comments

“I was all right till I got to the nuns!”

5/2/2018

6 Comments

These words could well have come from Matty, the main character of my WIP, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, but they actually belong to Mr A (as does this photo of nuns picnicking in the Forum in Rome). He knew of my character’s tragedy when he agreed to proofread my latest version in readiness to go to beta readers, but didn’t feel its emotional punch until towards the end. I’d better not give away my story’s secrets, but here’s how – at present – that scene is introduced:

6 Comments

Either side of the Velvet Revolution: Soviet Milk & Spaceman of Bohemia

1/2/2018

2 Comments

1989 brought a transition from communism to democracy across Eastern Europe, with the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, a 600 kilometre joining of hands across Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. These two novels feature a part of that story, one ending, and the other beginning, in 1989 and both, as a bonus, featuring narrators brought up by grandparents partly as a result of political events. Set in Latvia before regime change, Soviet Milk is about the difficulty of living a moral life under totalitarianism. Set in the Czech Republic in the very near future, Spaceman of Bohemia is about how a father’s collaboration impacts on the career and choices of his son.