Blog Archives

Fear of flying?

28/8/2021

Pigs will fly before I board a plane again. It’s not that I’m anxious, it’s that - even before the pandemic - long-distance travel no longer felt worth the effort.

Diana, the narrator of my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, wasn’t afraid of being airborne either. So why did I send her on a Fear of Flying course? Because, while not averse to flying in a literal sense, she was grounded by inhibition. Fear of intimacy, fear of sex, fear of revealing her true self. When she wouldn’t fly out to Cairo to visit Simon, her friends assumed she was phobic, and clubbed together to pay for her cure.

10 Comments

Fun and fabulous: The Gods of Love by Nicola Mostyn

24/8/2021

7 Comments

Frida is a successful divorce lawyer in her late twenties, whose main ambition is to become more successful still. But her life is turned inside out when a planned meeting with the world’s most influential conglomerate goes awry. To be fair, the Oracle did warn her, but Frida’s accustomed to giving weirdos short shrift. He had to try, however, since, as this feisty heroine and lifelong cynic is soon to discover, she is the descendant of the god Eros, and the only one who can save the world.

7 Comments

Reading Women in Translation Sept 2020 to Aug 2021

14/8/2021

12 Comments

August is women in translation month, a time when readers prioritise books by women in translation - yes, it does what it says on the tin! - and I share the qualifying books I’ve read over the last twelve months. My twelve are down on recent years - two years ago I read twenty-four! - but, with six languages represented (French, Georgian, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish) and six publishers (Atlantic, Bloomsbury, Europa Editions, Granta, Peirene Press and Portobello Books), I’m doing okay in terms of reading diverse.

12 Comments

Letting the light in #flashfiction

10/8/2021

6 Comments

I did consider composing a couple of pretentious paragraphs about how publishing a novel is like opening a door on your psyche. Will people connect with what they find there? Will they even cross the threshold to have a look?

Then I thought, what the hell. Other stuff on my to-do list seems more urgent. More tempting. So, let’s go straight to my 99-word story in response to the prompt open door.

6 Comments

Elder care: Red Crosses, As We Are Now, The Girls from Alexandria & At the Jerusalem

4/8/2021

4 Comments

Let me tell you about these four novels featuring older women looking back at their lives, and forward, some with dread, to what’s left of it. The first is a translated novel set in Belarus. The second and fourth are set in care homes around the middle of the twentieth century. The third is a contemporary novel set in a London hospital with flashbacks to a glittery Alexandria. All illustrate the vulnerability of old age, but also the strength and spirit of the central characters.