Carys Bray's Blog, page 7

Newspaper reviews and other fun stuff

I was
(metaphorically) biting my nails as I awaited press reviews of A
Song for Issy Bradley. They have been trickling in and so far I've been very lucky - people have said some lovely things about the
novel. 



The Guardian described it as ‘A skilful and empathetic dramatisation. The fact that
it deals with such distressing subject matter without falling prey
to sentimentality makes it all

Book Launch

We had a lovely night at Broadhursts bookshop in Southport. Thank you so much to all my lovely friends and family who came to wish me well. Here's a few photos.

The most fortunate creature

Remember that bit in Pride and Prejudice where Jane says, 'I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed... How shall I bear such happiness' ? Well that was me today, wandering around London with the lovely Charlotte Bush, spotting tube posters of my novel and listening to my phone ping as wonderful book bloggers Tweeted about my novel. 

I'm afraid I lack Jane Bennet's goodness,

Things I'm up to

Over the next couple of days I'll be really busy. This evening I'm going to London and while I'm there I'm hoping to see one of the Issy Bradley posters that are up at various underground stations. 

Here's a picture from a friend. How fantastic is that?!





Tomorrow I'll be on Fubar Radio from 11 o'clock with comedian Mark Dolan. Afterwards I'll be recording an interview with Front Row's

Heart in Boots

I discussed being nervous about press coverage in a recent post: 


I'm nervous about reviews and nervous about interviews on live radio, but most of all, I'm nervous about the features that various journalists are writing about me - features that will, inevitably, concentrate on my Mormon upbringing. As a writer I choose my words carefully. On the few occasions I have written about

Broadhursts Window

Today's happy thought - this is the window of my local bookshop, Broadhursts J

Some Early Reviews

I'd like to say a massive  THANK YOU  to all the kind readers who've written early reviews of A Song for Issy Bradley. If I could make a cake for each of you, I would! 






No matter what you thought of the novel - whether you loved it, whether it left you cold, or you felt somewhere in between - I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to sit down and write about it. 

Here are

One week to go and other nervous things

It's one week to publication day. Yikes! I can't believe it's almost here. All sorts of exciting things are happening and appearing - like the little character quotes (below) that are being Tweeted by Windmill Books. Twitter users can retweet them to win a signed copy of the book.






Of course, while it's an exciting time, it's also really, really scary. I'm nervous about reviews and nervous

Book Covers

Glenn O'Neill who designed my book cover discusses the process in a piece at WeLoveThisBook. He talks about taking pieces of text and searching for matching images and ideas. I really enjoyed reading about the process and especially seeing some of the other versions of the cover (see below). 








This week the American cover has been finalised. It's very different from the English cover -

Interview with Liane Carter

Earlier this year I taught a publishing seminar to undergraduates at Edge Hill. I felt I needed to learn more about self publishing and as a result I've been speaking to some writers who chose to self-publish their work. Today I'm interviewing teacher and children's writer Liane Carter whose book The Dream Devils has just been published.

When did you start writing?

I used to make up mini