Jennie Ensor's Blog, page 8
August 31, 2018
My story: what lies behind The Girl in His Eyes
A quick post today with an update on the media interviews I mentioned in previous posts.
As some of you may know, I’ve started on the road to being totally open about the abuse in my childhood that compelled me to write my novel. This I hope may be helpful to others who have experienced sexual abuse, especially from within one’s family or extended family. As I know only too well, it can be very difficult to talk about – I kept quiet for years as a child, for fear of the consequences to my family.
We need to do all we can as a society to end childhood abuse, I think most people would agree. Part of this, I believe, means writing about things that are hard to write about, and saying what we find it hard to say. Now THE GIRL IN HIS EYES is about to be published, I have an opportunity to tell my story, which I’m going to do.
I’m pleased and a little surprised at the media interest, actually. It feels like a healing thing to do this, the final step in a long walk. Well, it would be nice if it is. But I know for sure, I am no longer going to be ashamed of something that was done to me long ago by someone who didn’t care about the impact of his actions.
This weekend (2nd September) an interview with me is due to appear in The Sunday Mirror’s Notebook magazine. It will available online on the day.
Next week I have a BBC local radio interview scheduled. I’ll probably post the details in advance on social media, unless I feel too overwhelmed by then and have gone off to hide in a darkened room.
Anything else happening, I’ll let you know.
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Available to order on Amazon 7 September
Published by Bloodhound Books, 18 September
August 24, 2018
Book Review: Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill @noexitpress
Published: August 2018
Publisher: No Exit Press
Book blurb
[image error]What happens when the sense you’ve made of things stops making sense?
‘Unsettling and bewildering. I was totally hooked’ – Sam Baker, The Pool
Winner of the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Jean Mason has a doppelganger.
She’s never seen her, but others* swear they have.
*others | noun. A peculiar collection of drug addicts, scam artists, philanthropists, philosophers and vagrants – the regulars of Bellevue Square.
Jean lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two kids. The proud owner of a thriving bookstore, she doesn’t rattle easily – not like she used to. But after two of her customers insist they’ve seen her double, Jean decides to investigate. Curiosity grows to obsession and soon Jean’s concerns shift from the identity of the woman, to her very own.
Funny, dark and surprising, Bellevue Square takes readers down the existentialist rabbit hole and asks the question: what happens when the sense you’ve made of things stops making sense?
‘Highly original, beautiful and unsettling. Michael Redhill takes a fascinating premise and turns it into something utterly mesmerising. I adored it’ – Chris Whitaker, author of Tall Oaks and All the Wicked Girls
My thoughts
leaving the reader to ponder just what the heck is going on.
Jean’s character is not quite as fleshed out as I’d have liked, perhaps, and dare I say she came across as a little masculine. Though that could well be me knowing that the author is male.
I enjoyed the humour scattered throughout, and adored the confrontation between Jean and her double’s daughter – so playful and yet a little disturbing too. Later in the book there’s a really sinister scene in which Jean plays an old home movie she’s discovered – but I won’t give anything away. The tension ramps up nicely towards the end, with yet more strangeness and what the hell just happened moments.
Bellevue Square is beautifully strange, in fact I found it at times almost as weird as Haruki Murakami’s novels but without the long digressions – it has a poet’s lightness of touch and enjoyment of language. (Redhill is a poet as well as a playwright and novelist.)
Whatever kind of novel this is, it’s a cracking good read with the mind-jolting twists of a psychological thriller and the slow-gathering unease of a ghost story. (Bellevue Square is part one of a tryptic, ‘Modern Ghosts’.) There’s a disturbing, slightly claustrophobic feel as one is drawn into the none-too-straightforward and increasingly troubled world of the first-person narrator.
Jean is a middle-aged female Torontonian with two young boys and an ex-police chief husband, who one day is gobsmacked to learn that someone who looks exactly like her (except for hair length) is hanging out a few blocks away, in a place called Bellevue Square. (Real up till 2017 when it was demolished, according to the author’s note.) She sets off on a quest to find and confront her mysterious double. As Jean struggles to reconcile two mutually irreconcilable versions of reality, the reader’s mind grapples along with her to make sense of the bizarre place we’ve found ourselves in.
Redhill has a wonderful eye for detail (I loved the descriptions of snow, for example). The settings come to life, especially Bellevue Square and the hotchpotch of characters inhabiting it – notably mental patients, the dispossessed and those on the edge of ‘normal’ life, who Jean gets to know while she searches for her double.
The concepts lurking in the novel challenged my brain at times – and I have a degree in physics! Alternate realities, particle accelerator experiments gone wrong, simulated beings, artificial intelligence, doppelgangers, zombie mind takeovers, intriguing neurological conditions… (I spent a while reading up the one in question on wiki.) Just what is ‘reality’, who is sane and who is mentally ill? Redhill looks at the fallibility of memories and the slipperiness of our constructed identities, asking how we can ever know who we are given the fragility of our minds and our imperfect knowledge of the world. However, he gets on with the story without slowing down the pace unduly,
My husband nabbed my copy after I’d finished – I’d given him plenty of updates as I was reading – I’m looking forward to seeing what he made of it!
I received a copy of this book from the publisher and was only too happy to review it.
August 22, 2018
Book out in 4 weeks!!!
The other day, after returning home from a most enjoyable holiday in France, I had a stab of realisation. My novel will be out in a mere 4 weeks!!! Eek!! My restored sense of inner tranquillity and vague thoughts of ‘Everyone’s on holiday now, you can relax for a while’, were instantly shattered. Cake flavour and hair colour for the launch party are currently being decided on, along with other very important things, such as who to invite.
On a more serious note, I’ve started a rough project plan listing what I should be getting on with, starting with the articles, guest posts and Q&A answers that I need to write (must try really hard not to leave them to the last minute). Then there’s a Twitter chat to prepare for, emails to local bookshops re stocking the paperback, sending the paperback out to journalists and reviewers, etc etc. So much to do in so little time.
Besides all this activity, there’s more happening on the media front. The feature in a Sunday newspaper I mentioned a while back is due to appear on 2nd September – I will provide details of which one closer to the day, so people can grab a copy. I’ll have more exciting news to share soon about another (live!) media thingie scheduled for a couple of weeks from now. This also relates to my experiences that inspired THE GIRL IN HIS EYES – a novel which starts with a young woman’s dilemma over whether to speak out about childhood sexual abuse by her father, when she guesses that he has his eye on a pre-teen girl he’s taking swimming.
In my last post I talked about going public with the ‘real-life story behind the novel’, a big step for sure. I can only hope that doing so might inspire others who have experienced sexual abuse to get help or to speak out, especially where the abuse is within a family environment. This must be one of the most difficult situations, given the complex emotions involved, not least a sense that you are betraying those who you love, or who love and look after you.
Like any other author, I unashamedly have an urge to talk about my upcoming book to as many people as possible. I believe TGHIE is going to speak strongly to many women, especially, including those who have been abused, bullied or oppressed in other ways by men. I hope very much that my book may help a few of them, in however small a way. (Of course sexual abuse victims can be men too, I hasten to add – I’ve known a few such men and have seen the terrible impact it can have.)
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All of this media flurry is exciting, of course – and potentially a little nerve-wracking. Hmm, a live interview with thousands of people listening… I well remember my anxiety two years ago when my first novel launched. Will readers like my book, for one. This time, I’m bracing myself for some far stronger reactions. TGHIE may well divide readers, I have a feeling, in a way that Blind Side didn’t. Some of the novel is from the viewpoint of a child abuser, and the subject matter of child abuse is very challenging one, so the book is certainly not going to be for everyone.
I know for sure that some people won’t be able to cope with reading it, or will have a strong negative reaction, and do understand. I’m relived though that despite a few people who’ve either declined to read or couldn’t finish my book, there’s been some incredibly positive comments by the earliest readers. Here’s a sneak peak of the endorsements to go inside the paperback. I’m thankful and still a little overwhelmed by the response so far. Huge thanks to each of the authors and bloggers who were able to read in advance and comment, including a few who aren’t listed below.
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Despite all the angst-ridden and nailbiting moments that may lie ahead, I’ve vowed to take whatever steps I can to stay relaxed and not to fret about stuff (mindfulness CDs, daily yoga, jogging with the dog). I will do my best to enjoy the ride this book takes me on, wherever it may end up 
July 27, 2018
Sunday paper interview! & The Girl In His Eyes cover reveal
It’s hard to believe, for me as much as anyone else, but I’ve just been interviewed by the magazine of a bestselling Sunday paper on my second book THE GIRL IN HIS EYES, and the real life story that inspired it.
As those of you who read my last blog post will know, I decided to go public about sexual abuse in my childhood – it feels like the right time to share this, with current climate, and I really hope it might inspire a few others to speak out too, especially about abuse from within the family. We collectively seem so uncomfortable discussing this topic, whereas the more people are able to talk about it the better, it seems to me. Then, who knows, fewer children might suffer in silence, unable to find the courage to tell the truth.
Also, I’ve already been asked what inspired the book quite a few times – and I’m sure that now it’s about to be published, more will be asking the same thing. It feels important to be open about this now, given the years as a child I kept quiet about what was happening to me.
It’s a big decision though, as husband and friends and fellow authors/bloggers have pointed out. Once one makes something public, it can’t be withdrawn. Newspapers have been known to distort and sensationalise facts, and can I be sure they won’t do this with my story? I can’t be sure, but I hope they won’t. Sunglasses and a new hairstyle may need to be found once it’s published, possibly. Which is not for another month, I’ve been told, so plenty of time to get nervous.
Actually, I’ve been surprised at how interest there has been in my story. It’s exciting, but also slightly terrifying, the idea that a small chunk of the nation may soon open their Sunday paper and start reading about events in my life that I’ve previously shared only with close friends and therapists, in the main.
I felt rather tense before the interview. This is a totally new thing for me, having always been on the other side of interviews, asking the questions not being asked. I’d prepared all my notes, water and so forth only for a two hour delay, during which I hurriedly ate something and collected the dog from his de-furring session. But it all went OK in the end. I hope. Better get back to the reporter now, and add a few things I forgot to say 
July 16, 2018
THE GIRL IN HIS EYES – It’s all happening!
My novel, 19 years in the making if you include all the years I put it aside, is soon to emerge into the world. THE GIRL IN HIS EYES, a dark psychological drama with echoes of Lolita, is two months away from publication. (These echoes may be quite distant, and are of course highly dependent on the reader.)
[image error]It’s a hectic, exciting and nerve-jangling time right now, with so many things to think about and attend to. I’ve started a project plan for the months ahead but haven’t had much time to update it. I’ve arranged venues for the launch party, designed an invite and have started sending it out. After around 50 attempts I’ve finalised the blurb, with the help of the Bloodhound team and author Natalie Fergie, who made some excellent last-minute suggestions. The tagline is ready (Could you face your worst fears?) The cover came back the other week (can’t share it yet), I’ve finished the copy edit and the proofs have just come in for me to make any final changes.
How might people react to a novel containing child abuse?
After all this time, ‘final changes’ is both music to my ears and – well, disconcerting. It’s time to let my baby go… Did I take out all those pesky song –lyrics? Is there some dreadful hole in the plot that no one has spotted yet? And most of all, can I really let a novel out into the world with scenes depicting lapdancing clubs and child sexual abuse, one which is written partly from the POV of a child abuser?
First review
With a little trepidation, this week I sent off the first advance copies to reviewers. Yesterday I had the first review back and nearly fainted with shock and relief at her reaction (also, I was sitting on a Northern line tube train in 30 degree heat at the time which didn’t help). However, I’m aware that I’ve ventured into risky territory and the book’s subject matter is likely to disturb some readers. I’ve added a trigger warning into my letter asking for reviews – now I’m wondering if I should put one in the actual book!
The book’s inspiration – deciding how much to share
As some of my own experiences inspired the novel (it is most definitely a novel and not however real life), I’ve spent considerable time thinking about whether to go public with this, and to what extent. Do I want to reveal the ‘real-life story behind the book’ to the media, or people’s blogs? Would that be too much of an intrusion into my privacy – or is it time to let go, as it were, of the darker events in my past?
Strangely, thinking about what I want to say about the real-life events which inspired this book seems to mirror with the dilemma faced by my central character Laura, who must decide whether she has the courage to expose her father in order to save ‘the girl’ in his eyes.
At the moment, I’m not sure how much my decision – to be open about everything, pretty much – is going to impact on my life. I’ve already told lots of friends and a fair few others about the abuse I received in my childhood, but I’ve not mentioned anything in public. In fact, this is the first time I’ve even referred to it in a public space, which is another milestone reached, I guess. This could have unforeseen consequences, who knows. But it feels like the right time to share, given the climate of women – and men, of course – speaking up about their abusers (and the various types of sexual predators out there).
I’m off for a brief trip westwards for a breather, then it’s back to checking the proofs…
Note: Pictures for this blog post have been a challenge, given the cover is still under wraps.
Your experiences
If anyone has had a similar dilemma about whether to make public their book’s inspiration, you’re welcome to share here – or thoughts about anything in this post.
June 28, 2018
This month I’m reading…
Welcome to the first in my monthly(ish) thoughts on the books I’ve read lately and would recommend – some recently published, others less so. These days I’m reading lots of psychological suspense along with a generous dash of crime, ‘book club’ and literary fiction.
Everything is Lies by Helen Callaghan
Published February 2018 by Penguin Random House
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‘No one is who they say they are.’
Though a little odd where it is, the first sentence of Everything Is Lies is a good indication of what’s to come. As the story unfolds I kept wondering which of the characters were not who they seemed – I guessed wrong, I admit.
This is Helen Callaghan’s second novel (her first was Dear Amy). The novel is narrated in the first person, mainly by Sophia an overworked young architect whose job has taken over her life, who’s distanced herself from the demands of her elderly parents. Then a phone call from her mother changes everything – Sophia realises she’s made the worst mistake of her life by hanging up on her mother the night that her mother is found dead and her father in a coma.
Sophia proceeds to uncover the mystery of why her parents were apparently attacked in their Suffolk garden – is there a killer on the loose or could her mother really have killed herself as the police seem to think? As she digs deeper, she’s shocked to find notebooks written by her mother detailing her past involvement in a cult… These first-person accounts form part of the novel.
Sophia is easy to relate to, the characters are well drawn, the plot is taut and fast moving, the writing is precise and vivid. Everything Is Lies is an involving, emotional story centred on the Sophia’s search for her ‘real’ mother – highlighting the gulf between who she thought her mother was and who she now appears to be – alongside a suspenseful plot involving a sinister cult. I much enjoyed the story-within-a-story of how the cult leader lured Sophia’s mother, then a young student at Oxford. This is intertwined with the present-day story of how Sophia tries to work out what happened to her parents.
Well worth a read if you like crime or suspense novels. There’s quite a twist at the end, too. Thanks to the publisher for my copy, from Netgalley.
The Other Mother by J.A. Baker
Published December 2017 by Bloodhound Books
[image error]Like the other novels I’ve reviewed here, The Other Mother keeps wrongfooting the reader. In the opening, two girls are left alone with a baby, whose screams are so painful to listen to that one of them does something to shut him up… The baby is later found dead and one of the girls has been prosecuted in court, we infer from chapter headings ‘Child A’ and ‘Child B’). Years later, in the present, a tormented woman takes refuge from the world, afraid to tell her daughter about the terrible things that happened when she was a child…
I read this psychological thriller with increasing urgency after a slightly difficult beginning while I tried to work out who the characters were and how they all fitted together. Once I’d sorted it out though, I found the novel reeling me in and my anxiety levels increasing, especially during the climactic scene. My assumptions were shaken in a twist towards the end. The characters are not all likeable but they felt authentic, and the ending provides a satisfying resolution.
He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly
Published April 2017 by Hodder & Stoughton
[image error] It’s easy to see why so many readers have so enjoyed this book, tagged ‘the must-read bestselling suspense novel of the year’ – the subject matter of differing male/female perspectives in sexual assault allegations is highly topical, and the author keeps one guessing as to who is telling the truth and who is hiding what sinister things. I found it totally engrossing.
The central character Laura is at a festival with her boyfriend Kit (an eclipse chaser) during a solar eclipse, where she witnesses the rape of a young woman – or does she? As the key witness in the ensuing rape trial and a committed feminist, she immediately takes the side of the woman she perceives as the victim. In her desire to see justice done, she’s is tempted to change the truth just a little bit. Her boyfriend, however, sees things rather differently…
The structure of the novel is inspired, split as it is into sections named after the stages of a total solar eclipse (First Contact, etc). The plot shifts back and forth in time quite a lot around two crucial past events, the festival incident and the trial, and in the present an eclipse viewing cruise. Switches in narrator between Laura and Kit cleverly develop the story and at times gobsmacked me, just when I thought I had it all worked out. Great editing, too.
Some psychological thrillers can leave one feeling somewhat empty at the end, but not this one. My emotions and curiosity were engaged by the changing relationships between the central trio of Laura, Kit and the apparent rape victim, who we know at the start both Laura and Kit have lived in fear of for many years, but not why… He Said, She Said underlines how apparently small mistakes can turn out to have huge consequences, and the ethical dilemmas over whether or not we choose reveal the truth. How can we weigh up the different kinds of pain that may be caused to another person, when we decide whether or not to tell them the truth?
The Dry by Jane Harper
First published 2016 by Little, Brown
[image error]Many will by now have read this debut which became a bestseller. The setting of a drought-stricken town in rural Australia is what lifts this crime novel into another zone altogether.
A Melbourne-based financial detective is lured back into his home town to help unofficially investigate the dreadful crime that haunts the community of Kiewarra – the shootings of his childhood friend Luke, Luke’s wife and their young son, which the local police and much of the town believe was a murder-suicide committed by Luke. He sees with fresh eyes his old home and the people he grew up with. His close third person point of view is given all through, with short interludes from time to time from the POV of whichever character has something important going on that we need to know about.
This device I wasn’t totally sure about, I admit. However, I quickly became fully immersed in The Dry and was reluctant to reach the end. It has well portrayed characters, an absorbing plot and often beautiful prose:
‘the huge river was nothing more than a dusty scar on the land’; ‘cockatoos whirled and screamed into the scorching red sky’
The descriptions of a ravaged landscape and community are outstanding, conveying the web of invisible connections, business and personal, between the inhabitants. Everyone is affected by everyone else, it seems, and the past can’t help but seep into the present.
The detective is warned early on: ‘Out here, those badges mean less than they should.’ But he resists the temptation to run away. ‘A family shot dead in a small town like this? I’d say that was something to do with everyone.’
While the pub landlord tries his best to keep order, the reader wonders along with the detective if someone is trying their best to stop the crime being solved.
Bestseller: A Tale of Three Writers by Terry Tyler
Published 2016 by Terry Tyler
[image error] That’s it, then. Any latent fantasies I may have had to steal the work of an unpublished author and lob it onto Amazon as my own in order to make a mint have been quashed by this highly entertaining, thoughtful novella. Even if I happened to have, like the main protagonist, a ripe-for-exploiting manuscript fall into my lap.
In the world of fiction publishing the stakes are high, and for some writers the temptation to take a shortcut to success is a little too much… Three members of the North Norfolk Novelists deal with the ethical dilemmas of being an author in rather different ways, is all I shall reveal. The plot is carefully constructed and has a wonderfully satisfying symmetry. Ms Tyler brings her own authorly expertise into play with this light in tone but surprisingly poignant tale. I admit I had more sympathy for some characters than others, but all came across as real, flawed human beings whose actions one could certainly understand.
Authors in particular will enjoy the numerous references to book publishing and the intricacies of Amazon. Many will I’m sure also identify with the talented-but-hopeless-at-marketing Jan, or the hopeful but lacking in confidence Becky (hopefully not so many with the love-to-hate, success-at-all-costs Eden Taylor!). And what would we do, in their situation? I hope all who read this perfectly served morality tale will take note of what it reminds us – that all the money and fame in the world isn’t worth much if you’ve sold your soul along the way.
June 6, 2018
Q & A with Linda Huber
[image error] [image error] To coincide with the launch of her book The Paradise Trees, my guest this week is author Linda Huber. Since reading Linda’s responses to my questions, I confess to having had a burning desire to buy a house (or a rundown cottage or cabin, more realistically) beside a remote and beautiful lake…
How did you come up with the title of The Paradise Trees? When I started this book it had the working title The Watcher. I liked that because of the questions it threw up – who was watching and why? Who was being watched – and did they know? However, an Amazon check revealed that Watchers abounded in the world of fiction, especially in psychological suspense, so regretfully, I gave up that idea. Part of my book takes place in a wood, and I started to think about this. The watcher in the woods was aiming to send his victims to Paradise… The Paradise Trees hit me one day when I was ironing.
What are settings in the book and do they have any particular significance? The book is set in a trio of fictional villages in Yorkshire (photo below). My uncle and aunt lived in Ilkley and I’d often visited them, so I knew the district quite well. The story needed a peaceful area with little villages and lots of surrounding countryside, woods, of course – but it also had to be within easy travelling distance of a larger town or city where a minor character attends an international conference. Yorkshire and York were perfect. The villages were modelled on a few I’d visited on a Scottish island, and the woods are right outside my flat here in north-east Switzerland – it’s kind of an international setting.
Where do you write? Describe the state of your desk. What is your ideal writing set-up? I’m glad I didn’t have to send a photo of my desk! ‘Organised chaos’ would be a good description, but it works for me. I like to have my notes, pens, markers, post-its, water glass, tissues, memory sticks, specs, diary, sweeties etc etc right there when I’m writing. We moved into this flat three years ago. It’s a hundred yards or so from lovely Lake Constance in the top right-hand corner of Switzerland. Between the lake and my flat is a belt of woodland, so in winter, I can sit at my desk by the window and look out at the lake glinting between tall tree trunks, with Germany a dark smudge on the opposite bank. In summer, I see trees and green only, but that’s beautiful too.
Who are your favourite authors (or favourite books) and did they influence or help to inspire your writing? Back in the day, I devoured Mary Higgins Clark’s books as soon as they came out. I still have them all in paperback, and a couple of the later ones written with her daughter on kindle. Her characters are amazing – real people, the kind you can identify with. And then she puts them into such horrible situations… The thing that struck me most is that her main characters are all strong women. Often there’s a man around in the background, but the women box their way through the books alone. I like that. My all-time favourite is A Cry in the Night. I would love to write like that. Another must-read writer was Ruth Rendell, both as herself and as Barbara Vine. And nowadays there are so many new writers it’s hard to keep track of them all, but I have a small handful whose books always shoot to the top of my TBR list.
What are the best and worst things about being an author? The best thing is having such a flexible day – no office hours! The worst thing is, you have to find the discipline to sit at the computer every day when the sun’s beckoning you out. Then there’s the solitude – that can be the best and the worst thing at different times in the same day.
What will you be working on next? I’m writing another suspense novel, fairly early days with that because my main project at the moment is the third of a series of feel-good novellas under my pen name Melinda Huber. They’re set right here by Lake Constance; so I can walk by my lovely lake every day and call it research…
Book blurb: The Paradise Trees
He had found exactly the right spot in the woods. A little clearing, green and dim, encircled by tall trees. He would bring his lovely Helen here… This time, it was going to be perfect. When Alicia Bryson returns to her childhood home in a tiny Yorkshire village, she finds her estranged father frail and unable to care for himself. Her daughter Jenny is delighted at the prospect of a whole summer playing in the woods at the bottom of the garden, but as soon as Alicia sets foot in Lower Banford, strange and disturbing memories begin to plague her. What happened in her father’s house, all those years ago? But coping with the uncertainty and arranging Bob’s care plan aren’t Alicia’s only problems. Unknown to her, she has a stalker. Someone is watching, waiting, making plans of his own. To him, Alicia and Jenny are his beautiful Helens… and they should be in Paradise.
Author bio
Linda Huber grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, and teaching English in a medieval castle. Currently she teaches one day a week, and writes psychological suspense novels and feel-good novellas with (a lot of) the rest of her time.
Her writing career began in the nineties, when she had over fifty short stories published in women’s magazines. Several years later, she turned to psychological suspense fiction, and her seventh novel, Death Wish, was published by Bloodhound Books in August 2017.
Linda’s latest project is a series of feel-good novellas, set on the banks of Lake Constance and just minutes from her home in north-east Switzerland. She really appreciates having the views enjoyed by her characters right on her own doorstep!
Author & book links
Amazon author page: viewAuthor.at/LindaHuber
The Paradise Trees on Amazon: getbook.at/TPT2
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorlindahuber
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LindaHuber19
Author website: http://lindahuber.net/
May 24, 2018
From dark days to OMG: How I got my 2nd publishing deal
As announced in my April post, my novel THE GIRL IN HIS EYES will be published by Bloodhound Books in September 2018 [image error]The due date, 18 September, is coincidentally the day after my birthday so I’ll have no excuse not to celebrate! Yesterday I handed in my last structural edits and now the copywriter will get to work.
Though I considered offering TGHIE to Unbound, who published my debut novel Blind Side, I knew I didn’t have the energy to go through the crowdfunding stage again
for my second book, not yet anyway. (However I’m not closing the door on publishing with them in the future.)
Getting this offer from Bloodhound has been an exercise in patience, resilience, stubbornness and bloody-mindedness, as my O.H. will testify! I started THE GIRL IN HIS EYES many years ago when I was single and at a crossroads in my life (last century in fact, 1999). It is extra special to me as it was the first novel I managed to see through to the end, after various attempts in my 20s/early 30s.
Support from other writers
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I’ve always had faith in THE GIRL IN HIS EYES, in part due to the wonderful encouragement I’ve received from fellow writers over the years, who have also helped me knock it into shape. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who’s offered advice or support on this novel. I’ve had feedback from many writers from the early 2000s onwards, e.g. members of the novelists’ group which used to meet at a north London library near me and before that my local writer’s circle. Later I had some excellent support/advice from members of an online writing group, including some from the former Authonomy writing community.
In particular I had much help, both practical and emotional, from Hilary Bailey, the prolific and highly regarded novelist who sadly died last year. She was also a kind and generous person who was always willing to help others, and I know she would have been very happy for me. Above and below are a couple of notes I received from her.
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Agent woes
In a fit of enthusiasm, I sent out the second or third draft of the novel (then ‘Shadow Man’) to far too many literary agents before belatedly realising that it wasn’t anything like ready. The characters weren’t developed enough and the plot lacked something crucial. In 2006, after finishing the first draft of another novel, I redrafted the earlier novel and submitted it to more agents, this time with the current title THE GIRL IN HIS EYES. (No, I’m not jumping on ‘The Girl’ bandwagon, this title was suggested around ten years ago by a writer friend – before The Girl on the Train or Gone Girl.)
One agent in particular told me (after a long wait) that she loved the novel but unfortunately she didn’t like the other novel I showed her (an early version of BLIND SIDE, since published with Unbound). So I gritted my teeth, put the manuscript aside and started work on other things, including a third novel (not yet published).
Note: I was planning to include a picture of one of my rejection letters here but I can’t find any – maybe I tore them all up in a strop one day
May 13, 2018
#BookReview of THE NIGHT RAID by Clare Harvey
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Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 14 December 2017
My rating: 5 stars
A while ago I posted on my blog a guest post from Clare Harvey about The Night Raid and its historical elements. The novel is inspired by the real-life Dame Laura Knight, a well-known artist at the time of WWII (see the 17 December 2017 guest post), but many of the incidents described are imagined. So I began reading The Night Raid with interest when I received a copy from the author a few months ago. My review is entirely voluntary I must stress though somewhat delayed owing to my habit of a. reading several books at once, b. a trip to Africa and c. receiving a contract to publish my second novel.
Anyway, back to the book in hand – in short, I found The Night Raid a wonderfully satisfying read. Ms Harvey has succeeded in creating authentic, memorable characters within an engaging story and her writing is stunning. Richly detailed prose stirs the senses and brings the period settings to life – fittingly, much of the description feels like it is through an artist’s eyes.
Artist dame Laura arrives in her home city of Nottingham to paint a gun factory to help bolster civilian morale and ends up painting two of the factory workers, Zelah and Violet. Both work in the factory under their boss, George Handford. The oppressive atmosphere of the factory is powerfully conveyed, becoming an almost malevolent force.
The sound is like an air raid, but contained and syncopated, a rhythmic thud-roar, just at the level where vibrations fill her body and push out thought.
All four point-of-view characters are affected by the war in various ways; they all face dilemmas in the present that arise from their pasts. Zelah, the welfare officer running from the pain of losing her wartime love, is the character I identified with the most.
Once she starts here she’ll become part of the machinery itself, Zelah thinks, a fleshy cog in the factory, not a real person at all.
It is perfect.
I particularly enjoyed the changing relationship Zelah has with fellow worker Violet, a feisty, no-nonsense girl who ‘gets into trouble’ after an impulsive night with an airman. The novel highlights very well society’s even-less-tolerant attitude to unmarried mothers in those days, and the hardships that women suffered as a result. Violet’s quiet desperation after becoming pregnant got me rooting for her; she is practical and tough but also vulnerable.
Violet’s plight is contrasted with Zelah’s restrained approach to life and love. Believing her love life over, she is reluctantly attracted to her boss George Handford (who has a stern reputation but is in fact turns out to be relatively liberal as a boss, letting Zelah set up a creche for women workers). Misunderstandings between Zelah and Mr Handford ramp up the drama, and Laura is forced to examine her marriage to fellow artist Harold, an older man, once the more successful of the pair. Laura’s journey to the discovering the truths of the past is subtly handled. Then there’s a life-changing crisis for all the characters with the (imagined) German attack on the gun factory… (I was startled and a bit upset by the abrupt change in Zelah’s situation and had to skip ahead to see if what I thought happened actually had.)
Be warned this is not a light, feel-good read, though it is an absorbing one. It has serious themes, such as the need to be true to oneself versus the duty to conform to social expectations. Love, loss, the vagaries of fate and circumstance – all are woven into The Night Raid. The war exacts its price on all the novel’s characters. As Zelah observes: The war is a sharpened blade, with love on one side and tragedy on the other, and all of us just balanced on the slim edge in between.
April 24, 2018
Why my next library talk will NOT involve an overhead projector
Having got through my pre-author life without ever having to give a presentation of any kind, I had no idea how to use PowerPoint. In a flurry of earnest optimism, I spent days at my PC sourcing suitable photos, resizing them, messing about with slide layouts, tinkering with bullet points and ensuring that the text perfectly fitted the images. This shit was not so hard after all! I was all set to deliver the most absorbing talk heard in a long while.
[image error]P-Day arrived. I spent the morning fine-tuning my PowerPoint document and the afternoon cursing while trying to fix the spate of errors that appeared when I innocently changed a setting from ‘wide screen’ to ‘normal’. Before I knew it, it was the time to leave the house. I copied the document to my laptop, grabbed my notes and a bottle of water and set off.
I was in library 45 minutes early, just in case. Fifteen minutes before the talk was meant to start, I realised that in my haste I’d forgotten to bring the ten paperbacks I’d ordered especially (IKR). Added to that, I’d been trying unsuccessfully for the past half hour to get the presentation working on my laptop, and then the library’s laptop. Most the images weren’t displayed, leaving text-heavy chunks. (The file was on the large side at 44Mb and hadn’t copied properly to my memory stick, my husband suggested later).
Fortunately those who turned up graciously continued to listen to me despite the mangled, imageless slides showing on the screen (except for the woman in the front row who nodded off for a bit halfway through). Or perhaps most in the audience didn’t even notice the mangled, imageless slides due the library’s blinds (which didn’t close properly) and the abundance of sunshine pouring in, rendering the images almost invisible for the first half of the talk.
[image error]
One of the images that wasn’t displayed (Inspiration)
I did my best to adjust to these unforeseen events but unfortunately forgot to read out the book blurb, which should have been displayed on the first slide. This may have accounted for some of the puzzled faces. Also, I couldn’t read my notes properly because the room was too dark for me to read them and my glasses had vanished, so I had to improvise. Then when it came for me to read an extract from the book, I realised my copy of BLIND SIDE was still in my laptop case on the other side of the library, so I had to jog over to retrieve it.
That night in bed, while replaying the lowlights of the evening and regretting the hours I’d wasting on “****ing PowerPoint”, I recalled my other disastrous attempt at trying to harness technology to communicate visually certain aspects of my book: the BLIND SIDE Settings video!
I’d decided to offer it as a pledge ‘reward’ to a small group of people while crowdfunding the production costs of the book. Lord knows why I ever imagined this would be a good idea. Months later, after countless hours spent amassing photos of the book’s settings and iPhone video clips then learning how to edit them all into a five-minute package complete with voiceover, I stumbled at the final hurdle of transferring the massive file onto You Tube or wherever. Also, by then I was sick of the whole thing and suspected it was so amateurishly made that no-one would ever watch it through to the end, so it would be better to cut my losses and abandon the project. (Apologies, anyone reading this who might have been disappointed not to receive this video.)
Oh yes and I’ve just remembered the ‘live pledging competition night’ I devised and organised while crowdfunding, which involved laptops in a pub hooked up to the internet to show everyone’s % funded! In my head this would be a nailbiting contest – in reality the internet connection fell out halfway through and no-one was sure who’d won.
You live and learn, as they say. So, I’ve made a resolution. No more videos, no more live visual internet thingies and definitely no more PowerPoint presentations. I will stick to writing, talking about writing (with at most a few non-software-dependent props) and occasional blogging.
PS Sorry about the varying text sizes! Need a WordPress guru…
