K.M. Grant's Blog, page 6

13 days to go

Mr. Drigg stroked the cat. Her life contained no pianofortes, no daughters, no Annie, no Cantabile. ‘Just at this moment, I envy you,’ he said …

finding your fingers

If you’re wondering what to give up for the New Year, don’t. Give your fingers a treat and take up the piano. Really. You can. If you stick at it, by Jan 1st 2015, you’ll be able to play something that pleases. Aim high. The piano’s a big instrument. It can absorb all your joys, furies, pleasures and pains, and adds a bit of lift to the days – sometimes weeks – that plod. Plodding with Bach and Chopin is much better than plodding without.

Happy New Year!

16 days to go

‘… men saw Alathea and wanted her, as men eating eggs want salt.’

special delivery

Today is the day authors dream of. It’s the day copies of Sedition, in all its Virago beauty, were delivered by a courier who, though he couldn’t possibly have known what was in the parcel, presented a fittingly cheery countenance. He escaped without an embrace, which was lucky for him.

Now I wait, twitchy and nervous, for UK publication day: 16th January. I’m twitchy for myself, of course. It’s a moment, a book publication. I’m twitchy for my Sedition girls. They’ve been mine for so long, and now they’ll also be yours. Please, if you can, treat them kindly – if I’ve made a mess, it’s not their fault.

I’ve put my books on the piano. Seems a fitting place.

pre-publication …

“This novel Sedition is a wicked, delicious romp through eighteenth century London, written with the telling wink of an author whose affection for Tom Jones and Tartuffe sparkles throughout. I stayed up far too late devouring this rollicking tale of sex, intrigue, marriage, revenge, and the sordid side of the pianoforte. Bach’s wig must be curling in his grave.

–Katherine Howe, New York Times Bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and The House of Velvet and Glass

“A brilliant and alluring troublemaker incites her coterie of young women to rebellion, and a comic–but ultimately deadly–game ensues. Katharine Grant has written a provocative story of seduction and romance, lust and violence. Sedition is a tale of 19th-century female insurrection, set to a tune of Bach piano inventions, con brio.” –Kate Manning, Author of MY NOTORIOUS LIFE

‘A fast paced, sexy, historical read about the intriguing tutor/student relationship…Grants girls are vividly described: funny, witty, melancholy, rowdy, elegant and kick-ass’. Marie Claire, review

“This novel Sedition is a wicked, delicious romp through ...

“This novel Sedition is a wicked, delicious romp through eighteenth century London, written with the telling wink of an author whose affection for Tom Jones and Tartuffesparkles throughout. I stayed up far too late devouring this rollicking tale of sex, intrigue, marriage, revenge, and the sordid side of the pianoforte …

–Katherine Howe,New York Times Bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and The House of Velvet and Glass

welcome

It’s a strange time, a limbo time, waiting for a book to come out. All the work is done. I imagine my Sedition girls a little like the stone statues at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Do you remember? They were frozen by the White Queen, and their blood began to flow again only after Aslan had breathed on them. Virago will breathe on my girls on 16th January, and they’ll regain colour and begin to move.

By the way, for those following my Goldberg marathon, here’s the latest. I didn’t give up at all once my girls had done their stuff. I carried on, and now can play the aria, variations 1 to 10 inclusive, and variation 30. Though Bach might plug his fingers in his ears, I feel some sense of achievement. And I’m not done yet.

a toe in the water

How am I getting on with my learning of the Goldberg? Here’s how:

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/oceanic-f...

it’s a deal

Well, dear reader(s), my Goldberg book has grown wings. In rather a thrilling week, Virago have bought it. Publication date summer 2014. What a great joy to write that sentence. The book has outstripped my own learning of the variations (aria and nine to date) , but I hope to reach variation 16 by publication date. I’ve no idea what Bach would make of Sedition but I hope you like it when it comes out. Onwards and upwards! I’m going out to lunch.

The year of playing the piano: oddly enough, I’m still alive

Blogs are strange things. I sometimes wonder why I write one, so then I don’t write it, then I feel guilty: I can hear Nanny saying ‘don’t start things you aren’t going to finish’. But a blog is never finished, and to be frank, there are very few personal blogs which are of interest to anybody apart from the writer and some not even to the writer. Unless you’re a celebrity, of course. I’m not a celebrity. Enough blog philosophy. To matters important to me: I’m still learning the Goldberg; I’m still writing; I’m still alive. ‘Nuff said, perhaps until tomorrow, perhaps for a decade.