Sanjida Kay's Blog, page 11

Christmas Book Recommendations

 

My ideal winter holiday involves long walks when the sky is a crisp blue, returning to a roaring fire, for a glass or two of prosecco and a good book. Here are my suggestions for what might make a good holiday read, and what I’m planning to read over Christmas.

 

Do Less, Get More by Sháá Wasmund

You can do anything…but you can’t do everything. At least, not at the same time.

My sister, Sheila, put me onto this book. She runs a company with her husband, and looks after three girls, so she knows a thing or two about time management. This is an excellent book, with down-to-earth tips that really work, helping you figure out how to prune, prioritise, focus, let go of perfection and do more of what you’re passionate about.

 

How Not to be a Boy by Robert Webb

RULES FOR BEING A MAN

Don’t Cry; Love Sport; Play Rough; Drink Beer; Don’t Talk About Feelings 

I’ve recommended this before, but it’s so good and would make a fantastic present for any men in your life. Both a memoir and an analysis of masculinity, the essential argument at its core is that boys are taught not to express emotions apart from socially-acceptable ones for men, such as anger. After years of learning to suppress emotions, many men are unable to detect or even label what emotion it is that they’re feeling. This book made me cry and laugh, sometimes at the same time.

Odd Child Out by Gilly Macmillan

Sometimes it’s hard not to let other people’s misery seep into your own bones.

Like me, Gilly lives in and loves Bristol, where we have set some of our novels. This is a welcome return for DI Jim Clemo and has a grittier, broader feel than her previous thrillers. The story hinges on a friendship between two boys: privileged but terminally-ill Noah Sadler, and Abdi Mahad, a second-generation Somali who has won a scholarship to one of Bristol’s prestigious private schools. After an incident in which one child fell into the canal behind Temple Meads station, one boy cannot speak and the other one won’t. Will DI Clemo find out what really happened that night, before the differences in the teenagers’ class and race threaten to upset the already fragile equilibrium in the city?

Give Me the Child by Mel McGrath

For all the advances we’ve made in understanding the human brain, there’s still no scan for the human soul.

Dr Cat Lupo, child psychologist, is woken when police bring a girl to the house she shares with her daughter, Freya, and husband Tom. Ruby Winters, who is the same age as Freya, turns out to be Tom’s illegitimate daughter, and Ruby’s mother, Lily, has just died. Cat’s work with children showing psychopathic tendencies, and her own pre-pregnancy psychotic episode, make for uncomfortable connections to her new-found situation. Set against the backdrop of a heatwave in London and race riots in Brixton, this is a tense, claustrophobic novel; for fans of Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty.

 

Over the Christmas holidays, I’m hoping to read thrillers, The Dry by Jane Harper, An Act of

Silence by Colette McBeth and I’ve pre-ordered The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn. I’d like to re-read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and on my Christmas wish list is Ballerina Body by Misty Copeland (like I said, on my wish list!).

 

What are you hoping to read over the holidays?

 

 

Win an audio version of The Stolen Child for Christmas!

I love audiobooks. I get them from Audible and I normally listen to them while I’m washing up, doing exercises with weights, or on long car journeys.


 


Audible have created an audio version of The Stolen Child. To celebrate, I’m going to give five copies away.


 


Please like and comment on the relevant post on my Facebook page. The give-away will end on 17 December, just in time for Christmas!


 


What do you like listening to best?

Win a free copy of The Stolen Child for Christmas!

 

Only three weeks to go until Christmas! To celebrate, I’m giving away four signed copies of The Stolen Child – one on my Instagram account, and three from my Facebook page. All you need to do is like and comment on the relevant post. Then, in a week’s time, I’ll pick the winners at random. (If you live outside the UK, I’ll send you an ebook instead).

Good luck!

 

 

 

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Sanjida Kay talks to Holly Seddon about The Stolen Child

I’m delighted to welcome fellow Corvus Books author,  Holly Seddon, to my website for a Q&A with me. She’s the author of Try not to Breathe and Don’t Close Your Eyes, and has asked me some wonderful questions. Over to Holly:

 

HS: Firstly, I have to say upfront that I loved this book. I had been a little nervous

going into it. I used to work for an adoption charity and I’m always very sensitive to how adoption is portrayed. It was a huge relief that I could see straight away how sensitively you had handled the subject, and also how rigorous your research must havebeen.

I also loved your depiction of the constant small battles that make up a day with small children, it was pitch perfect. The drip-drip-drip felt so real I nearly cried!

 

HS: The Stolen Child takes place largely in Ilkey, Yorkshire. The wild moors were the perfect backdrop – and witness – to the drama that unfolds. I know you’re a fan of Emily Bronte but do you have other links with Yorkshire as well? 

SK: Thank you for your kind words, Holly! I loved your second thriller, Don’t Close Your Eyes, (which is out now,  people!). I love the Brontës, especially Wuthering Heights. From the age of eight I lived on either side of Ilkley Moor, where The Stolen Child is set. I spent my childhood rambling across the moor, often by myself, so I grew to know it pretty well. Now every time I go back to Ilkley, I have to run across the moor, and then I really feel like I’m back home!

 

 

HS: You’d obviously researched the realties of modern adoption very thoroughly, how much did your findings surprise you?

SK: As well as reading about adoption, I spoke to one of my friends who’s just adopted a little girl, and I also interviewed an adoption lawyer, who very kindly did some considerable fact-finding on my behalf. What I was most surprised about is that thankfully fewer children are given up for adoption now than in the past, because because there’s less of a stigma against having a baby without being married. Unfortunately, it means that many of the children who are adopted in this country could have been damaged in some way because of addiction or abuse in their biological family.

HS:. Zoe’s challenge to switch between artist and mum, to cram creativity into boxes of time really resonated. Did that come from personal experience? 

SK: I think most parents can empathise with trying to balance life, work and being responsible for little people! It’s like – they’re at school/nursery/with Granny/the childminder – GO!!! But I interviewed an artist, Elaine Jones, who has two small children, to find out how she manages to be a mum and a successful painter. I still don’t understand how she does it!

HS:. Do you paint? The references to products and equipment can be researched of course but the understanding of the process of drawing and painting, the sense for the colours and movement, was so authentic I decided you must be a master painter! 

SK:That’s so kind of you to say so. I used to paint when I was young, but I don’t have time now (see the life/work/parent problem!). I take photographs, as it’s quicker and you can do it on the go, and I go to art galleries when I can. I interviewed Elaine Jones, an artist who’s work I love (and I’m fortunate enough to own two of her fantastic pictures) to try and get a tiny insight into what it’s like to be a painter.

HS: Without giving anything away, the ending pulled the rug from under me! Did you know the ‘twist’ before you started writing? 

SK: That’s good! I hope it surprises other readers too. I did always know what the twist was going to be, but right at the start, when my idea could have fitted on a postcard, I had a brilliant brainstorming session with Sarah Hilary, author of the Detective Marnie Rome series. She gave me the confidence to think of some other twists along the way too.

HS: Bone by Bone and The Stolen Child are set in Bristol and Ilkley, very different places but you show the wildness of both. Is wildlife and especially the countryside important to you? 

SK: I’m obsessed with wildlife and nature! I studied zoology at university and I’m fascinated by animal behaviour and evolution. I try and go hiking as often as I can in proper wild places (well, wild but with a pub at the end of the walk!). In fact, my next novel, My Mother’s Secret, is partly set in the Lake District near Scafell Pike. It’s being printed as we speak!

HS: Is there anywhere in the world that you’d love to set a novel? 

SK: I’d love to set a novel in New Orleans. It seems like such a vibrant mixture of Gothic voodoo, African history, blues music, urban grittiness and swampy bayou, old school charm and grim brutality. I love films like Angel Heart and the first True Detective series, and, of course, New Orleans has an eclectic literary heritage, from James Lee Burke, Anne Rice, Tennessee Williams, Kate Chopin to Poppy Zee Brite. Okay, maybe I’d better call the US tourist board?!

Thank you, Holly, lovely talking to you!

 

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The TV & film rights to The Stolen Child have sold!

 

I’m delighted to announce that Keshet UK have bought the TV and film rights to The Stolen Child. Keshet International are the company behind Prisoners of War, which became Homeland. I loved this series – it’s gripping, intelligent, controversial and current – and if anyone has read The Stolen Child already and is a fan of Homeland, I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s a fantastic fit.

Producer, Catriona McKenzie, says, ‘Sanjida is a brilliant storyteller and this is an exceptionally compelling work. (If I had all the time in the world, I’d have read it cover to cover in one sitting – and was intensely frustrated every time I had to put it down!) In addition to that, I love Sanjida’s characterisation – the dynamics within the marriage, the question of how we relate to our children, the politics of the school yard and the wider community are all really well observed, and instantly recognisable. The setting is fantastic too.’

 

Keshet have already hired a writer to turn The Stolen Child into a screenplay. Suhayla El-Bushra is currently working on The Arabian Nights for the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh and a screenplay for Film4.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Who do you think should star in a film of The Stolen Child?

 

 

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Taunton Literary Festival

I’m heading to Taunton this Monday 13th for the Taunton Literary Festival. If you can join me, I’ll be at Brendon Books, 6.30pm, in conversation with crime writers, Lionel Ward and Debbie Young.

And if you can’t make it, I do hope you’ll tune in to the Steve Yabsley Show tomorrow on BBC Radio Bristol & BBC Radio Somerset at 12.30!

 

 

 

 

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Five writing tips from four literary events

I’ve just come back from being on panels at three literary festivals and talking to authors published by Silverwood Books. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind mini tour, juggling childcare (Asian Literary Festival combined with dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum), meeting old friends (my chemistry teacher at the Ilkley Literature Festival) and logistics (candles, camping chairs, no toilets!) at Bristol Festival of Literature where I was reading from my thrillers in a cave beneath the city centre!

I thought I’d share with you the five writing tips that I shared with my fellow writers at these events.

 

1. Never give up!  Remember the story about Enid Blyton papering her study walls with rejection letters? It is HARD to get a novel published. It takes determination, perseverance, humility, self-belief and stamina, as well as a hefty dose of luck. Just keep going!

2. Keep going. If you do get a novel published – celebrate for all you’re worth – but don’t think that just because you’re a Published Author, it’s always going to be easy, straight-forward and lead to repeated book deals, champagne at publisher’s parties and that MGM will be beating a path to your door. Each book has to be as good if not better than the one before.

3. Have empathy. For yourself and your long-suffering family, of course, but mainly for your characters, and especially your villain. No one (well, almost no one) thinks they’re doing the wrong thing. We can all justify most of our actions most of the time. So get in your characters’ heads and see the world as they see it, particularly the person who is the antagonist in your plot.

4. Write. Preferably every day. You know those people who tell you they’ve got a novel inside them? Uh huh. I’ve got a violin concerto inside me. I’ve never picked up a violin, but I know it’s in there. Practise. You need at least 10,000 words under your belt before some of them are any good. Remember those overnight successes you read about? Most of them took a decade to be an overnight success.

5. Publicise yourself. Even if you have a book deal with a major, mainstream publisher, your editor will still expect you to do some publicity. Writers are often introverts so if you don’t like, you know, reading your work out loud to complete strangers, networking in bars where you know no one, or shouting about how great you are, do what you can in whatever form is most comfortable for you. Don’t want to organise a book launch? Have a Facebook one instead.

Bonus tip: Keep learning. Talk to other writers, join a writer’s group, do an online masterclass, read books about your craft and read. Just read. Anything and everything.

I love this Tedx Talk by Nathan Filer: How to write an award-winning best-selling first novel (in seven easy steps).

 

 

 

 

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Bone by Bone begins…

My first thriller, Bone by Bone, begins on 26 October…

 

It wasn’t until the train went past that she saw the small body lying in the long grass by the side of the wood.

She couldn’t tell how long she’d been searching for her daughter. It was dusk, but it had seemed darker as she ran through the wood, tripping on hooked tree roots, her feet crunching through crisp, curled ash leaves….

 

 

 

 

…and ends on 9 November. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of Bone by Bone. To enter, please head over to my Facebook page and like and comment on the post about the competition.

 

Good luck!

 

Up-Lit to Grip-Lit: Asian Festival of Literature

I’m excited about this one! I’m joining fellow writers, Vaseem Khan and AA Dhand, to discuss how to write good crime fiction. As I grew up near Bradford, where AA Dhand lives and where Girl Zero is set, I’m intrigued to hear more, and I hope to pick up tips from both of these brilliant authors. Do join us!

Tickets from The Asian Writer.

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Ilkley Literature Festival

I was at Ilkley Literature Festival last week on a panel chaired by Dawn Cameron (left) and with writer and poet, Carmen Marcus. It was particularly poignant for me as, from the age of eight, I lived  on either side of Ilkley Moor, and The Stolen Child is set in Ilkley.

 

I read a couple of extracts from The Stolen Child and we discussed adoption, the themes of race and class in the book, as well as, of course(!) Wuthering Heights.

 

I’ll be doing a number of events over the next couple of months in Bristol and London if you can join me there! And if you have any writing questions for me, I’ll do my best to answer them!