#FlowersofSin Sinful Blogs
Blog Tour #FlowersofSin
When Titan Books announced my Sinful Blog Tour, I was ambivalent: had I so much to say on what sounded so religious a theme? Turns out that the themes of sin are also the themes of literature, of politics, of life, of love. Here’s a round-up of the fun and vitriol I’ve poured out while visiting such lively blogs.
London Pride: Flash Gent’s Guide to Swinging (18)60s London (It Takes a Woman)
Envy: “Envy. An underrated sin, I commend it to novelists.” (Rising Shadow)
Wrath, Righteous Wrath : Dickensian London is still with us ( Madwoman in the Attic )
Gluttony v Austerity: Taking our Country Back…to the 1860s (Linda’s Book Bag)
Sloth: Done the Crime, Now Do CrimeFest, with Dark-Readers.com
Lust: Walter and his erotic memoir My Secret Life, on Bookmoodreviews.com
Greed/Avarice: Getting Our Country Back with SugarQuills.
More on my #FlowersofSin blog tour, courtesy of @TitanBooks, taking the chance to rant about novels I love, politics I abhor, & #SinfulBiscuitry for Lawless and the Flowers of Sin.
1. Pride: London Pride: The Flash Gent’s Guide to Swinging (18)60s London .
Blog Tour: Lawless and the Flowers of Sin – Pride | It Takes A Woman
Five naughty night spots in Victorian London: places and books are crucial in The Flowers of Sin and Lawless & the Devil of Euston Square, eg T***f***d Street. To these rooms rented by the hour, the priapic Walter (see below) brought girls so young that the taxi-driver overcharged him in disgust. (1849-65: 6.5% of female admissions to one venereal hospital were under sixteen.)”
2. Envy: : “Envy. An underrated sin, I commend it to novelists everywhere.”
Envy drives enemies together, pulls friends apart, warps relationships, divides countries. It fixates on love, family, money, possessions, or a whole life.
Unequal friendships feature in many of my favourite novels. There are novels narrated by a sidekick, a right-hand man or a minor character, where the main character is beatified or idealised or aggrandised in a way that neither a third person narrative nor an autobiographical style can manage.
Envy makes for wonderful novels. I commend it thoroughly to any writer.
3. Wrath, Righteous Wrath: Dickensian London is still with us (Madwoman in the Attic)
“The media whip up frenzies about crime, immigration, eco-disaster. To speak against the status quo is to be branded a danger to the nation. 1859. How unimaginably different from today…”
4. Gluttony v Austerity: a Trip Back in Time
With the advance of Progress promised after the War, inequality decreased. Why is it now again on the rise? “Take your country back,” we were told. Back to the 1960s, before all the wishy-washy-pinko-egalitarian nonsense? Back to the 1860s, before women’s rights, worker’s rights, free education, enfranchisement.
Back to the 1960s, before all the wishy-washy-pinko-egalitarian nonsense? Back to the 1860s, before women’s rights, worker’s rights, free education, enfranchisement? “
5. Sloth: You Done the Crime, Now Do CrimeFest, with Dark-Readers.com
Q “How many characters should you have?”
A “Start off with a few. End with less.” (@NevFountain)
6. Lust
The epic erotic memoir, Walter’s My Secret Life, casts a long shadow over my novel. This real life sex addict tells of his encounters with women high and low, willing and unwilling, for payment and for pleasure (and, frequently, both). It is hard to read of the insouciant Yellow-Haired Kitty, who insists she is not yet a prostitute butmerely sleeping with men for “pies and pastries”, without rethinking our understanding of sex work.”
7. Greed/Avarice: Getting Our Country Back with SugarQuills
“Man is still the pie that bakes and eats itself, I’m afraid, Mr Gray. The oven is getting hotter.”
Here endeth my #FlowersofSin blog tour, courtesy of @TitanBooks, to trumpet the publication of Lawless and the Flowers of Sin.
