Category: Beautiful Books

Wasted

“When danger, passion and chance collide…”

So reads the strapline on this gripping novel from Nicola Morgan, and it sums up the book perfectly. The story of Jack, who lives his life by the flip of a coin, and Jess, who comes into his life, had me by the throat start to finish. Luckily I was actually being looked after following a night of illness so I had the perfect chance to sit and read without worrying about children or housework or anything else that would have so rudely taken me away from Jack and Jess’ story.

The pace is relentless, the main characters so perfectly drawn and the twists and turns of their lives so agonising that you can’t help but think “What if…” long after you’ve put the book down. It’s a Young Adult book, but really I think most adults would be equally as riveted by it, if not more so. Nicola makes you think about what the alternatives to your life could have been just by making one choice slightly differently, even the most seemingly trivial and irrelevant ones. I remember watching the film Sliding Doors eleven years ago with my new boyfriend, and I think that film had the same objective – what if one thing had happened differently, how would your life have gone? Wasted does this much more effectively and brutally and there are moments throughout that actually haunted me and replayed after I’d finished reading. As an adult reading this, I think Nicola’s writing had a much more poignant effect on me than if I’d read it as a young adult, ten years or more ago.

On a different note, Nicola also captures tiny details that really bring that atmosphere to life as well as the breakneck feeling you get when true love coincides with the end of your school life; it’s like one life ending as another begins and Nicola gets this so perfectly. I actually felt breathless at several points and very often was transported back to the start of my relationship with my now-husband which happened at the same point in my life. It’s really excellent writing.

Nicola has a non-fiction book coming out next June, called Write to be Published, and is running several workshops on this theme before then. I can’t recommend them highly enough, as this is so clearly someone who really knows what good writing is, and I’ll be doing my very hardest to get myself onto one! Check out Nicola’s blog or website for more details (this isn’t an official plug, I’m just genuinely that enthusiastic about this book!). Nicola’s blog, Help! I Need a Publisher! by the way, is one of my favourite blogs for writers. Unbeatable advice.

Here’s the Amazon listing for Wasted; it’s available in paperback and Kindle version. Go and buy it…or flip a coin and let chance decide.

Loving The Hating Game

If you check back to this blog on December 1st, I’ll be taking part in a blogsplash to promote Talli Roland’s debut novel, The Hating Game on its release date. In the meantime, I was lucky enough to get an advance copy to read, so here’s my thoughts on it as a little taster for you…

I really enjoyed this book! It really got me engaged with the characters, and I’m definitely more of a character person than a plot person. If a book has a brilliant plot but the characters are awful, I just won’t keep reading, but Talli’s characters had me entranced. Mattie, the heroine, starts off as such an unpleasant person you just love to hate, but by a couple of chapters in you are completely on her side and desperately want to her to come out ok. My favourite character, though, is her best friend Jess, who is the perfect best friend but very human and makes a couple of big mistakes. All of the characters have their own – shall I call them quirks? – and their individual journeys are very well-written.

I really don’t want to go into too much detail and give away any spoilers, but I highly recommend this book when it’s released. It is funny, touching, a cracking story and, as I said, very real and engaging characters. I can’t wait to read more from Talli, I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about her in the not-too-distant future!

The Hating Game will be released on Amazon as an ebook on December 1st and subsequently in paperback. As I said, I’ll be blogging again on release date, so check back!

Firebrand: An Interview With Seth MacGregor

I was over the moon to recently receive a copy of Firebrand, the first book in the Rebel Angels series by Gillian Philip. If you haven’t read this book, I can’t recommend it strongly enough. It’s an action-packed fantasy adventure that really had me gripped start to finish, and its fabulous anti-hero, Seth MacGregor, has kindly agreed to be interviewed here today! Eeek! Yes, you heard me. Seth (not Gillian – I’m hoping she’s busy getting the next books in the series ready for release as I can’t wait to read them), the bad boy faerie who fights too much, drinks too much and tweets about BBC dramas that just don’t get it right.

I don’t want to give too much away, but to give you a taste, the book starts with Seth about to shoot an arrow into his half-brother’s heart. He and Conal (his half-brother) are exiled from the land of Sithe behind the Veil to our own land – except it’s the sixteenth century, and witch-hunting is getting too popular for comfort. Firebrand gives one shocking turn after another in Seth’s story; but I have to say that although the story itself is high-paced, the plot gripping and the detail incredible, for me it’s the characters that make the book so memorable.

Gillian obviously knows her characters inside-out as they jump off the page into real, full-blooded life. In fact, I have heard that she was writing a different book entirely, set in our own time, when one of its characters demanded his own story be told instead, and I can certainly believe that of Seth. Even though he’s a brat on more than one occasion, my heart was bleeding for him right from the start and by the end of the first chapter I was completely in love with him. His relationships with his family and friends are complex and totally believable and add so much to the book’s impact and drive.

But enough of my waffle, let’s hear from the man, er, Sithe, himself.

Hi Seth! Welcome to My Little Notepad.

I love the relationship between you and Conal. But what would you really change about your brother if you could?

Good question. Apart from him being such a bossy git? Let me see. Make him second-born? That would have saved a lot of hassle… well, maybe not. He’s good at the older-brother thing, I’ve got to admit. Just one thing, then: he does have a hell of a temper.  One of those slow-burn, explosive tempers. It’ll get him in trouble one of these days. And let’s face it, trouble’s my department.

Is there anything from our world that you would take back to your dun? I mean, there was a distinct lack of chocolate as far as I could see…

Just between you and me, I do take stuff back (including chocolate. There’s a guy called Sulaire who’s crazy for it). And your whisky’s got an awful lot better over the centuries; I take that back with me now and again. Your clothes – they’re great, really beat the old days. The Boss shops for me; she picks out some nice things. Ah… and bits and pieces of technology. Sionnach’s addicted to his iPod Touch.

What’s the one activity you would really have liked to have done with your father?

What? Not bothered. I don’t think about it. Not ever. Why would I bother pining over that? Doesn’t concern me. Not one bit.

Bet you’re really glad we don’t burn witches anymore. Tell me one other thing about our world you would change.

You ask good questions, you know. I think your world is great. I prefer mine, but really there’s a lot to like about your world. I don’t hate it the way I used to. Things have got better in a lot of ways.

Tell you what: I’d switch off all the lights at night. Every single one. Then you could see the stars. And if everybody had to look at the stars every night, you’d realise what a big universe it is and what an amazing stroke of luck it is that you live on this gorgeous habitable planet in the middle of all that space dust, and you’d stop trying to wipe each other out. Mostly over superstition, I might add.

I mean, I know the Sithe do love a fight, but we’re not trying to achieve our own mass extinction in the shortest time, y’know? Well, except for one of us. But we won’t talk about her.

How do full-mortal girls compare to Sithe girls?

You’re all gorgeous. I love full-mortal girls. You’re different but you’re great, you know? Obviously, you don’t live nearly so long, but… look, how can I put this tactfully? You don’t involve so much commitment.

Wolves or water-horses?

That’s like asking me to choose between my children. (Though obviously that’s not a bad thing where I come from.) Let me put it this way: wolves for companionship. Water horses when you’re in a really tight corner with a Lammyr after you.

I’m very intrigued by the idea that Gillian was going to write a different book but you took over and demanded that this story came first. Were you this demanding while she was writing? And do you keep shouting at her when she’s writing other books?

You have to understand (which she doesn’t, by the way) that when I call her the Boss, it’s with a massive dose of sarcasm. Why wouldn’t she want to write my story? She should have started there in the first place. So me taking over, it was for her own good.

As for her other books – oh please. It does my head in. She insists on writing books that don’t involve me, but believe me, I bug her the whole time. Some guy called Nick Geddes tried to punch me, once. That was a great scrap. I think we called it a draw in the end.

Who do you think should play you in a movie of Firebrand? (ask Gillian what that is…)

I’ve asked her this. She says she was watching a movie called Stage Beauty when she first saw me clearly. The guy was called Billy Crudup. I find it really disturbing and annoying that he was wearing a frock at the time.

I don’t think you’re how most people would picture a faerie. Do you ever see yourself in sparkly tights and wings? Why do you think we got it so wrong?

See my answer above about the frock. Good grief. I don’t know why you got it wrong – maybe because we’re hard to see? So you reckoned we must have wings, be very small, yada yada… Maybe it was just too much Buckfast.

I do know that the Boss’s daughter had those wee gossamer things all over her room when she was smaller and it drove me nuts. Too bad she never woke up and saw the real tooth fairy when I was putting the pound coin under her pillow. Ha ha. That would have been fab.

I know Gillian has a book shortlisted for the Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books (good luck with that, everything’s crossed!). What would you do to treat Gillian to celebrate Firebrand winning an award?

In that unlikely event, I think she should be treating me. But that aside, she’d probably be happy with a good movie and a fish supper down on the seafront. She’s very easily pleased, you know.

And she says to say thank you for the good wishes, by the way. And for keeping me out of trouble for an hour.

***

(Note from Gillian: Gods, he’s a bighead, Rebecca. I do apologise. I hope this is OK.)

I hope you all have a read of Firebrand. The Times recently called it the “best children’s fantasy novel of 2010” – I think I would call it one of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read.

Follow Seth on Twitter at @sethmacgregor

Gillian’s website is at www.gillianphilip.com.She blogs with other children’s writers at http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com , at www.trappedbymonsters.com, and at http://crimereading.blogspot.com. She’s also on Twitter as @Gillian_Philip.

NB There should have been a picture of the book but I’m having trouble with WordPress. I’ll get one posted asap!

10 Books I Love

If you read my blog, you may have caught my interview with Nik Perring lately (still excited about that one!). Well, if you hop over to his blog today there’s a great little post about spreading the word about books you love.

It’s a great idea, as I don’t know about you but I’m always on the lookout for something new to read, and love hearing what other people enjoy. And there is always a little part of me daydreaming about the time, at some point in the hazy future, when someone makes a list with “Something or Other by Rebecca Brown” on it. (Isn’t that a great book title? Think of all the times in the bookstore you’re trying to remember the name of the book; I’d always be top of the search results…)

So here’s my little contribution, and I’d love it if you could either give me a list in the comments, or even better do your own blog post and spread the love to your own followers. But let me know so I can go read it too!

Here’s a random 10 books that I love and would highly recommend to anyone:

1. Mere Christianity by C S Lewis

2. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by, er, C S Lewis (a caveat here – I love all the Chronicles of Narnia but this is my favourite. But I can’t recommend the series more highly)

3. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge – another childhood favourite

4. Christina Rossetti (Everyman’s Poetry) – I love her poems

5. The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry

6. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

8. Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett

9. Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser

10. Matilda by Roald Dahl – because various tweets etc yesterday reminded me how much I used to love Roald Dahl, and what better book to go on a list about book love?

So there you go. While I pop over to Amazon to leave reviews of these books, it’s over to you…

A Not So Perfect Interview with Nik Perring

Recently I won a draw on Bah! To Cancer’s blog for a signed copy of a book of short stories by Nik Perring, Not So Perfect. By the way, if you haven’t visited Bah! to Cancer before, pop over now and have a look, it’s a great site. No, not now, I’ll never get you back. Go at the end of the post, when you’ve commented about how wonderful I am. Sorry, Nik Perring is.

I’d heard great stuff about this little book, and I was over the moon to win a signed copy for myself. I started reading it quite late at night, intending to read a couple of stories then and digest it slowly, but I was completely hooked and devoured the whole lot in one sitting. I would have gone back and read it again but my husband turned the light off. Grr.

There are 22 short short stories, and they really are short. The book is a small square and each story is only a couple of pages, but my goodness! Nik Perring says more in those couple of pages than a lot of people get to in three sides of A4. There is a range of stories too, some are more whimsical but some left me feeling like I’d been punched in the stomach. I think I actually caught myself holding my breath after Shark Boy. This was my favourite story, but the others were all wonderful, and like the best short stories, you can go back and re-read each one to find more and more layers and meanings. The stories are kind of like one of those rich sweets you get from a posh chocolate shop, y’know? They’re only tiny, you gobble a couple down, and just enjoy the experience, then you learn to chew them properly and discover all the flavours. Sorry about all the food references, it’s past my elevenses time.

So if that hasn’t whetted your appetite yet (sorry!), I was lucky enough to persuade Nik to give me a quick sort-of-interview. This is my first crack at this, so be kind to me…

How did you get published? Was it a long tortuous process involving pulling out of hair and staring into empty gin bottles in front of a dying fire?

This is going to sound very arrogant, so I apologise in advance, but my path to publication was really straight forward. I found a publisher I loved and wanted to work with (Roast Books), and I submitted to them. They liked what they read, asked for more, I sent those in, which they also liked, and so they said yes.  I would say though that I think the reason it was all so straight forward was because I’d spent an awful lot of time doing the hard work.

As for gin, well, I’m saying nothing!

If you had to pick one story from Not So Perfect – I mean, if your life depended on it – which would it be?

That’s always a really, really difficult question to answer, probably impossible, because I genuinely love, and am proud of, them all. I really enjoyed writing Number 14 because that was about the first one I’d attempted after deciding that writing short stories was what I wanted to do, and I loved writing Seconds Are Ticking By because it came so quickly and fully formed. I’ll always be fond of Shark Boy and In My Head I’m Venus because they’re really good fun to read out, like Kiss and The Mechanical Woman, and – and…

What was your process in making an anthology? Did you write a million stories and then choose 22?

The twenty-two that made it into Not So Perfect were my best and the ones that fitted together the best. There were a few that got left out because it was clear that they were different and didn’t quite fit but, to be honest, it all came together very naturally (and I’m a stickler for only putting work out there that I really love which I think helped the process).

What’s the best thing about being a published author? Or the worst?

The best thing is that people are reading my work and, apparently, enjoying it. That’s really, really special. It’s a nice feeling too to know that I’m not all that bad at it!

Worst? I don’t know. There are lots of bits about it that aren’t perfect. Being a writer’s a lonely occupation. I’ve seen people’s attitudes towards me change since this book’s come out, often in a not so perfect way. There’s a pretty constant sense of worry and anxiety and pressure.

But mostly, and I genuinely mean this (despite sounding like an utter grump) I love the job.

If you were giving advice to a newbie, what would be the one essential ingredient to a perfect (or not so perfect) short story?

Truth, I think. And by that I mean being true to yourself and being true to the story. So, not trying to write like someone else and not trying to write something you think a certain sort of person would like. I think any writer will write best when they’re writing something they’re enjoying (it’s a lot less pressure then too!). So yes, truth and feel free to write whatever you want to write.

The other advice would be: Just Do It! Be brave!

(You can see a list of my short story writing tips here: http://thestorycorrective.com/short-story-tips/)

Thanks so much for having me on here! It’s been a pleasure!

Thanks Nik!

Nik Perring is a writer, and occasional teacher of writing, from the north west. His short stories have been published widely in places including SmokeLong Quarterly, 3 :AM and Word Riot. They’ve also been read at events and on radio, printed on fliers and used as part of a high school distance learning course in the US.

Nik’s debut collection of short stories, NOT SO PERFECT is published by Roast Books and is out now. Nik blogs here (http://nikperring.blogspot.com) and his website’s here (www.nperring.com). He also offers short story help here (http://thestorycorrective.com/).