writing

Goodbye to the old, hello to the new…

/ Jacqueline Grima / Leave a comment

It isn’t often I do a ‘looking back at the past year’ type post, but this has been such a bonkers year (both personally and professionally) I thought, why not?

At end of 2021, I was seriously considering giving up writing. I had spent almost the entire year writing a literary fiction book that I knew wasn’t right and that highly likely wouldn’t attract any interest from agents and publishers. As a last-ditch attempt to get my writing mojo back, I decided to write something different, quite unlike anything I’d written before. Something that I would enjoy writing, that I could have fun with. The type of thing I enjoyed reading myself. Hence, my first attempt at writing a psychological thriller.

A little over six months later, that book, now entitled THE WEEKEND ALONE, gained me a publishing contract with HQ Stories, an imprint of Harper Collins, and is the first of two thrillers I’ll be releasing this year. If someone had told me that would happen in 2021, I’m not sure I’d have believed it.

How life can change in just the space of twelve months.

A few weeks ago, I got to hold a paperback copy of THE WEEKEND ALONE in my hands for the first time. It really is difficult to describe how it feels when a project you’ve put your heart and soul into, especially when you’ve been writing as long as I have, finally comes to fruition.

To those of you who have already pre-ordered, thank you so much for your support. It is truly appreciated. To those who would like to order, THE WEEKEND ALONE is available to pre-order now at all the usual retailers, including Amazon, Waterstones, WHSmith and Blackwell’s.

The e-book and audiobook will be released on 11th January 2023 and the paperback will be released on 19th January 2023.

Not long to go now!

Happy New Year everyone. I wish you all the best for 2023!! xx

Book Review: The Old You by Louise Voss

/ Jacqueline Grima / Leave a comment

the old you

When I began reading The Old You by Louise Voss, I presumed that what I had ahead of me was a few pleasant days immersed in a memoir-ish fictional account of a family dealing with the aftermath of a diagnosis of dementia.

In the opening chapter, Lynn Naismith and her husband Ed deal with the devastating news that Ed has Pick’s Disease, a form of dementia that he has inherited from his father. As his condition seems to quickly worsen, Ed soon muddling words, forgetting essential passwords and losing all sense of inhibition, Lynn commits herself to juggling her new job with Ed’s care, the man she previously adored disappearing before her eyes.

When Ed is offered the chance to take part in a clinical trial, Lynn is hopeful that the results will at least put a halt to her husband’s rapid deterioration.

But is all as it seems?

A few chapters into the book, Voss suddenly pulls her reader down a completely unexpected path, the gentle suburban reading trip I thought I was taking suddenly becoming a dark and sinister mystery tour akin to the plot of a Hitchcock film. Gone now is the domestic tale of coping with illness. In its place is a twisting psychological thriller in which no-one can be trusted. To say any more would be to spoil what is a highly original plot. Suffice to say that The Old You is a one-of-a-kind novel that will have you turning the pages to find out what is really going on.

The Old You is published by Orenda Books and is out now.

Author Interview: Louise Beech

/ Jacqueline Grima / Leave a comment

IMG_2040-2 2

I recently caught up with Orenda Books writer Louise Beech to ask her about becoming published, current projects and her inspirations.

Tell us about your journey to becoming a published writer.

Oh, it was lo-o-o-o-ng! But I think always believing and never giving up paid off. It took more than eight years, four novels, four plays, fifty short stories, multiple newspaper columns, millions of rejections, the odd competition shortlist, and a few tears to get a book deal, which I finally did in 2015 with Orenda Books. The best thing about all that work is that I already had four complete novels when I got my deal, so I was ahead of myself. And luckily my publisher, Karen Sullivan, is going to publish them all.

Your first novel How To Be Brave was inspired by the life of your grandfather. Why did you feel you had to tell his story?

The phrasing ‘had to tell his story’ is so apt. Because I did. It was bursting out of me. By that I mean that I had always wanted to write Grandad Colin’s story but wasn’t sure how I’d do it. Then, when my daughter Katy, who has Type 1 Diabetes like Rose, refused to have her daily injections, I began telling her his incredible tale of bravery, just as Natalie does with Rose. I knew that was how the story should be told – as a story within a story. I hoped not only to portray his incredible bravery, but to inspire others during dark times, and to educate on how serious a condition Type 1 Diabetes can be.

 Your publishing journey has progressed very quickly with your first novel released in 2015 and your third Maria in the Moon due for release very soon. What has surprised you most since you became a part of the publishing industry?

I always knew – and accepted and was prepared for – that a great deal of hard work would be involved. But it still hits me sometimes how much there is to do. The writing is only one aspect of it. There are edits, proof reading, promoting (often on social media), events, travelling, meeting people, networking, and reading other books. And of course you still have your family, and I still have a day job. I don’t yet earn enough to only write, despite the fact that it takes up 24 hours of my life! This is why you MUST love it. And I do. There is nothing at all like writing. It has saved me, quite literally, at times.

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What are you currently writing?

I have just finished the (possibly) hundredth draft of a book that will be my fourth, called The Lion Tamer Who Lost, which is essentially a dark and tragic love story, with a bit of a twist. Not all hearts and romance, I assure you. And now I’ve just started what I hope to be book five, which is loosely called Star Girl, and involves the brutal murder of a local pregnant woman, and how it affects those around her.

What inspires you to write?

Everything! Music. Dreams. Conversations. Real life. Hardship. Love.

Tell us about your writing routine? Do you write every day?

It isn’t always possible every single day, especially when I work long hours or am away on book tours for days at a time. I do need to get a laptop for those long train journeys so I can do it then also. At the moment, I only write on my home computer. When I’m home, I write anywhere between one hour and five a day. I’m strict. I sit. I ignore social media. Put music on. And go…

What are you reading at the minute?

I just finished Exquisite by Sarah Stovell (wow, what a book!) and started The Last Days of Leda Grey by Essie Fox. I always have a book or two on the go.

Where do you see yourself in ten years’ time?

Writing, definitely. I’ll write until my ideas dry up or my eyes fall out, whichever comes first. I see myself having had a huge bestseller by then (a girl can dream!) and maybe, who knows, one of my books will have been made into a film. Whatever I’m doing, it will be with the same passion. I assure you of that.

Maria in the Moon will be out on Kindle on 15th August and can be pre-ordered now from Amazon. The paperback version will be out on 30th September.

Book Review: Coulrophobia and Fata Morgana by Jacob M Appel

/ Jacqueline Grima / Leave a comment

coulrophobia

Jacob M Appel is a physician, bio-ethicist, attorney and registered tour guide based in New York City. If that wasn’t enough of an impressive CV, Appel also has a magnificent talent for storytelling and has published over 200 short stories, his novel The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up winning the Dundee International Book Prize in 2012. Seeming to draw from this impressive amount of life experience in his writing, Appel, in his latest release, Coulrophobia and Fata Morgana, has created a magical collection of short stories that stay with the reader long after the reading light is turned off.

In this collection, Appel explores the world of family and friendships, picking apart the daily lives of what, at first, seem to be very ordinary characters with the perception and insight that seem to be this author’s trademark. The recycling of family violence and relationships, the dilemma of companionship over love, power, family hierarchy, sexuality and disability are all subjects explored by this author with an honesty and delicacy that is always very much without judgement.

“There but for the grace of God go I…” the reader might think as we follow the story of two lonely border guards pondering their isolation as they are faced with what seems like certain death. “What would I do?” we might ask, as we enter the life of Rita the butcher, suddenly finding herself sole carer of her dysfunctional sister’s newborn. Wincing as we witness a grandmother’s punishment of her wayward grandson, we wonder what we would truly do if we were in her position, if we were left to raise a grandchild alone, had been raised in a violent household. Indeed, as Appel makes us flies on the walls of his characters’ homes, he also makes us look more closely at our own lives, our own families, our own relationships, if only to stop for a few seconds and reassess them, perhaps value them more highly.

As in Appel’s previous collections, running through these shorts is a sense of magic, the mysterious mime artist, who has a profound effect on those around him, the Mrs Robinson type language teacher and her handsome chimney sweep, the baby prone to swallowing coins, not to mention the ghost of Greta Garbo, all being brilliantly rounded and fully formed without being quite real. Indeed, in each and every one of these stories, Appel’s characters seem to be of our world but, at the same time, not quite, the author seeming to create an other-worldly scenario with which the reader can nonetheless very much identify.

Anyone who thinks that short stories do not have a place in the publishing market should read the stories of Jacob M Appel, an author who actively exercises his gift of drawing the reader in and never letting them go.

Coulrophobia and Fata Morgana is available now. For more information, visit jacobmappel.com.

This review was originally published on Humanity Hallows.

Book Review: The Ghost Who Bled by Gregory Norminton

/ Jacqueline Grima / Leave a comment

The Ghost Who Bled_FRONT COVER

Writer and Manchester Writing School Lecturer Gregory Norminton has recently released a new book, The Ghost Who Bled. The book, published by Comma Press, is a witty and often highly moving collection of meticulously detailed short stories that span nearly twenty years of Norminton’s writing career, stories that take the reader on a journey not only across continents but also through time.

What is immediately striking about Norminton’s writing is the author’s ability to adapt his voice to the collection’s settings and characters. Stories in The Ghost Who Bled span the world and its cultures, the author taking us as far afield as Malaya and Japan before bringing us nostalgically back to the green Surrey of his childhood.

In Zero + 30, we meet the American husband of a woman who survived the Pol Pot regime of Cambodia. Returning to the country with his wife, he finds out the real motive behind her decision to marry him many years ago.

In Confessions of a Tyrant’s Double, a commoner’s likeness to a much revered, and perhaps reviled, president leads him to a life that is no longer his own. A prisoner of his own appearance – ‘my good looks did not belong to me’ – his only hope in ensuring his existence is not forgotten is to note down his experiences and hope them to be a read by a suspected snooper: ‘by your aid I have proved that I existed.’

In Bottleneck, a ‘flagrantly pregnant’ musician struggles with the concept of bringing a child into an already overpopulated near-future world. Here, we clearly see the battle between capitalism and creativity – ‘Is  it common for the Small Hall to have so many empty seats?’ – beautifully shown in the fatalist but practical attitude of Clare’s scientist  husband, her tendency to find refuge in music and, ultimately, in the conception of a baby despite strict precautions.

In what is probably the strongest story in the collection, The Ghost Who Bled, a ghostly young Japanese airman reflects on his life, watching from a distance the impact of the horrific nuclear bombing of his country. Unbearably lonely, he is unwilling to leave his life behind, hiding to watch his loved ones and longing to be part of their lives again. Why, we ask ourselves, is he so reluctant to move on?

Gregory Norminton’s writing is beautifully lyrical, yet, at the same time, completely concrete. The author not only describes Cambodia, Japan, Malaya, but picks his readers up and drops them in the very countries, villages, pasts and futures in which his stories are set.

The Ghost Who Bled is available now from Comma Press. To mark the launch of the collection, Gregory Norminton will be talking about his work at a series of events, including an appearance at Waterstones on Deansgate, Manchester on Friday 19th May at 6.30pm. The event is free to attend and refreshments will be available.

This review was originally published on Humanity Hallows.

 

Book Review: My Sister and Other Liars by Ruth Dugdall

/ Jacqueline Grima / Leave a comment

my sister and other liars

Ruth Dugdall is a former probation officer turned novelist who lives in Suffolk. Her works include the Luke Bitmead Bursary and Debut Dagger Award winner The Woman Before Me, Nowhere Girl and Humber Boy B. Ruth has a BA in English from Warwick University and an MA in Social Work. My Sister and Other Liars is her sixth novel.

The book tells the story of 17-year-old Samantha Hoolihan, who, due to a severe eating disorder, is currently residing in the ‘Ana’ unit of a Suffolk hospital. The subject matter of this book immediately creates a novel that is, by no means, an easy read, Dugdall’s portrayal of the unit and its inhabitants brutally honest and often heart-breaking. The author’s obviously detailed and thorough research into the impact of anorexia is clear on every page; as the girls hide their food, idolise those patients having to be fed with a tube and even ‘water load’ before weigh-ins, the reader is very much drawn into life on the ward, feeling hopeful for the patients we think might get better and extremely sad for the ones we think might not.

Life with an eating disorder, however, is not the only focus of this psychological crime thriller as, using flashback, the author takes us back to the traumatic events in Sam’s life that led to her being hospitalised. With the help of Sam’s therapist, Clive, and a box of treasured family photographs, we learn how, eighteen months before, Sam’s sister Jena was attacked and severely injured, the incident leaving her family broken almost beyond repair. Taking it upon herself to rescue all she holds dear, Sam sets out to discover the identity of her sister’s attacker, her actions subsequently leading her into the darker side of Suffolk and towards a truth which could completely shatter her world.

My Sister and Other Liars is a challenging novel, the details of life on Ana Unit and of Jena and Sam’s often horrific experiences certainly not for someone looking for a light-hearted read. As she successfully drip feeds the plot to up the suspense, however, what Ruth Dugdall creates here is a page-turner, forcing the reader to keep going until the end so that, alongside Sam, we can get to the bottom of this mystery and found out who attacked Jena and, perhaps more crucially, why.

With a string of successful crime novels behind her, it seems that mystery and suspense is what Ruth Dugdall does best.

The Kindle version of My Sister and Other Liars is available now from Amazon and other good retailers. The paperback can be ordered ahead of its release on 1st May.