The Last Words of Madeleine Anderson - Review

 

THE BLURB:

Once upon a time Gabrielle Price wrote and published an extraordinary novel.

But twenty years on her literary star has dimmed, her "work of genius" is all but forgotten, and no further novels have materialized. She now lives an unremarkable life: middle-aged, living alone in the sleepy village she grew up in, and working as a housekeeper for the local vicar. Her lonely existence is dominated by memories of her best friend Madeleine, who died young, in tragic and mysterious circumstances.

Gabrielle’s quiet world is turned upside down when she meets and befriends Simon – young, attractive, a would-be writer, and enthusiastic fan of the astonishing novel that Gabrielle published all those years ago. Charmed and flattered, she recklessly invites him into her home and her heart. But Simon is mysterious and manipulative, and it’s not long before he forces Gabrielle to confront the demons in her past. Gabrielle’s obsession begins to destroy her carefully cultivated life, and she comes to feel increasingly threatened by Simon’s presence. Who is he? Why did he seek her out? And what does he really want? 

MY REVIEW:

This is a beautifully written novel - quiet, yet deceptively complex, and offering as many twists as a thriller. It is both dark and comic, and imbued with a sense of growing unease as the story unfolds. It is a literary novel, evocatively descriptive, yet pacy enough to hold the reader’s interest to the final denouement. As the story unfolds we are not always sure who is in control; the balance of power shifts at every turn. At the heart of the novel are themes of loneliness, mind games and the damaging effect of secrets.

It’s also a beautiful book - with a fabulous cover. A writer and a publisher to watch.

This is my unbiased review in return for an advance copy.

Pre-order your copy here 

Costa Short Story Award

I've been sitting on this news for weeks and weeks, waiting (im)patiently for the anonymous public voting to close and the author names to be announced. But now I can finally reveal that my story 'Red' has been shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award!

When I first found out I was stunned. I sat at my desk, reading and re-reading the letter, muttering 'Oh my god, oh my god' at the computer screen with my hands over my face!

I still can't really believe it, in fact it probably won't sink in until I arrive at the Costa Book Awards ceremony on 29th January.

I hardly wrote any new stories last year, as I was busy editing/promoting my flash fiction collection, Brightly Coloured Horses (Chapeltown Books), and my short story collection, Separated From the Sea (Retreat West Books) - as well as concentrating on my poetry collection and the beginnings of a novella. So 'Red' was one of only two short stories that I wrote in 2018, alongside a handful of flash fiction pieces and a lone travel article.

The story had already been entered in a couple of competitions and subbed to two magazines with no success. However it was a story I believed in and I was a long way from giving up on it. And now it has done better than I could ever have hoped!

I'm really looking forward to the awards, and mingling with all the fabulous writers on this year's shortlists - though I know I'll be a little bit terrified on the night!

Bradt Travel Guides - New Travel Writer Award 2019

 

 I'm really pleased to announce that I've reached the Bradt Travel Writer of the Year shortlist. So thrilled, as it's a great competition! I'll be going to London to the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards in February, where the winner will be announced. 

I was shortlisted once before, a few years ago, and have been commended and highly commended since - so fingers crossed!

Review: Wild Life by Kathy Fish

What can be said about Kathy Fish’s writing that hasn’t been said before? She is a deserved legend of the flash fiction world, and Wild Life is a glorious collection containing work that spans fifteen years.
 
Fish’s themes are panoramic, distilled to their essence in these perfectly formed miniatures. She understands the human predicament, she writes sparingly, lyrically, with precision, about loss and longing, love and dreams. The world she creates is slightly off-centre, yet totally familiar, so carefully built, word by word. She crams the tiniest of spaces with illuminating wisdom, humour, and pathos, and with characters who are so close that you can feel their breath on the back of your neck as you read. 
 
These stories - all 109 of them - need re-visiting again and again, they demand to be savoured, and this collection will stay by my bedside until it falls apart.

Available HERE from Matter Press.

Review: This Is (Not About) David Bowie by Freya Morris

I'm thrilled to bits to be stop number three on Freya Morris's blog tour for the launch of This Is (Not About) David Bowie. 

"Every day we dress up in other people's expectations.

We button on opinions of who we should be, we instagram impossible ideals, tweet to follow, and comment to judge.

But what if we could just let it all go? What if we took off our capes and halos, threw away our uniforms, let go of the future. What if we became who we were always supposed to be?

Human.

This is (not about) David Bowie. It's about you.

This Is (Not About) David Bowie is the debut flash fiction collection from F.J. Morris. Surreal, strange and beautiful it shines a light on the modern day from the view of the outsider.

From lost souls, to missing sisters, and dying lovers to superheroes, it shows what it really is to be human in a world that’s always expecting you to be something else."

MY REVIEW

I read This Is (Not About) David Bowie from start to finish in one sitting, and then promptly read it again the next day! 

Freya Morris has a unique voice that is strong and daring. This collection of stories, poetry and miniature dramas is bright with brilliance - exciting, poignant, surreal, simultaneously other-worldly and utterly grounded. You find yourself instantly immersed in the crazy, startling, off-centre, sci-fi-esque world of Morris's outsiders and lost souls; characters who, like Bowie himself, are striving to find their identity, and often trying to be superhuman. And although you can feel his presence in every corner, as Morris says, this collection is more about us than it will ever be about David Bowie.

Her words are the sweet and sour fizz of a bag of Haribo Tangfastics that you can't stop eating, the crackle and bang of fireworks going off in your head, and after you've taken them all in so fast, you have to pause, reflect, go back and read them again.

Each story holds a new surprise, and it's hard to pick favourites, but here are some of the lines that stayed with me:

"What’s the point of dancing in the rain if you can’t feel it?" says Tom to Hannah in Dancing in the Street.

Freya Morris

“There is a painting in my father’s house that we would step into. The painting became our window when we were too afraid to look out of ours.”  The Last Thing my Father Sang to me.

“You gave me permission to be that girl in my Dad’s old suits. No, it was way more than that – you made it feel extraordinary. Better than the rest. No norms. No lines.” Lifeline - an Eulogy.

This Is (Not About) David Bowie is published by Retreat West Books, and is out now.

Get your copy here

FIRST EVENT IS THIS SATURDAY - 10th NOVEMBER!

The Last Of Michiko

If you'd like to hear me read one of my stories then head over to the Retreat West YouTube channel!

Retreat West YouTube Channel

CLECKHEATON LITERATURE FESTIVAL ANTHOLOGY LAUNCH

Reflections is a rich and diverse collection of prose and poetry, celebrating the legacy of Cleckheaton Literature Festival.

The anthology features work from many of the writers who appeared at the festival in 2015 and 2016, as well as stories and poems by members of Cleckheaton Writers Group, who organised and ran the festival.

Enjoy reading the work of James Nash, Alison J Taft, Ian C Douglas, and many other established authors, as well as that of emerging and – as yet – unpublished writers. The anthology is dedicated to the late Helen Cadbury, who appeared at both festivals.

‘This collection of writing is a testament to the work of the festival team that worked so hard to bring the joy of literature in all its forms to West Yorkshire. I hope they are justifiably proud of all they achieved in such short space of time.’  Mark Wright

The collection will launch at three separate events in November and December 2018, the first of which will be held at Cleckheaton Library, Whitcliffe Road at 1pm on Saturday 10th November. 

There will be readings by writers including Alison Lock, Ali Harper (A J Taft) and John Irving-Clarke.

This will be followed by an evening event at Heckmondwike Library, Walkley Lane at 5.30pm on Tuesday 27th November

There will be readings by writers including Julie Pryke and Martin Webster.

The third event will be at Cleckheaton Library on Saturday 15th December at 1pm 

There will be readings by writers including Noel Whittall and Ralph Dartford.

There will be the opportunity to purchase copies of the anthology as well as other books by the authors. All the events are free to attend, and there will be complimentary refreshments available.

Reflections includes work by the following writers: Martyn Bedford, Katherine Bevans, Helen Cadbury, John Irving Clarke, Clive Dale, Ralph Dartford, Bea Davenport, Martijn Den Burger-Green, Ian C Douglas, Laura Hobson-Tyas, Mandy Huggins, Alice Jorden, Sarah Linley, Alison Lock, Stephen Michael Moore, James Nash, Karen Naylor, Julie Pryke, Pauline E Scatterty, A J Taft, Neil Walker, Martin Webster and Noel Whittall.

I'm absolutely thrilled that I made the shortlist of the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2018 - the final 50 out of 1751 entries!

Congratulations to all the winners and fellow shortlistees!

You can read the full results here

Jonathan Pinnock Talks About Archie And Pye

I'm very pleased to welcome Jonathan Pinnock to my blog today, to talk about how Sylvia Plath helped him out of the creative doldrums to write his new novel, The Truth About Archie and Pye. I've only read Jonathan's excellent flash fiction up to now, but I intend to put that right and get hold of a copy of Archie and Pye as soon as my To Read pile gets down to twenty books (the minimum level before FOROOB* sets in!)

The Truth About Archie and Pye 

"Something doesn't add up about Archie and Pye ...

After a disastrous day at work, disillusioned junior PR executive Tom Winscombe finds himself sharing a train carriage and a dodgy Merlot with George Burgess, biographer of the Vavasor twins, mathematicians Archimedes and Pythagoras, who both died in curious circumstances a decade ago.

Burgess himself will die tonight in an equally odd manner, leaving Tom with a locked case and a lot of unanswered questions.

Join Tom and a cast of disreputable and downright dangerous characters in this witty thriller set in a murky world of murder, mystery and complex equations, involving internet conspiracy theorists, hedge fund managers, the Belarusian mafia and a cat called µ."

How Sylvia Plath Helped Me Out of the Creative Doldrums

At the beginning of 2014 my writing career was going nowhere fast. I’d had a small amount of success with Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens in 2011 and Dot Dash in 2012 and Take It Cool was on the way to publication, but I had no idea what to do next. So I’d decided to take the Bath Spa Creative Writing MA to help me find some kind of path. I’d sort of assumed that the array of illustrious tutors on the course would be able to steer me in the direction most suited to my abilities.

Oddly enough, that’s what actually happened, but not quite in the way I’d anticipated.

When you start the Bath Spa CWMA, you’re expected to come along with an idea of the book that you’re going to develop on the course. The idea I had in mind was an ambitious one. I intended to write a creative non-fiction alternative history of St George, framed as my (almost certainly unsuccessful) attempt to get the BBC to produce my putative sitcom about St George in the modern world and my (equally unsuccessful) attempt to get Omid Djalili to play the starring role.

I still think this wasn’t an entirely bad idea – I had a very early draft of something like it performed at Liars’ League in July 2008, called The Patience of a Saint – but it soon became clear that it wasn’t going to wash with Bath.

However, the Narrative Non-Fiction Module that I’d signed up for in order to help with the St George concept didn’t turn out to be a complete waste of time. The selection of books to study on the module was, frankly, a bit grim, being to a large extent about death and terminal illness, but I was rather taken with Janet Malcolm’s enquiry into the life and death of Sylvia Plath, The Silent Woman. This is actually an enquiry into the nature of biography, and takes the form of a series of interviews with various people who knew Plath and Hughes, discussing her own feelings as she evaluates the different conflicting narratives.

What I loved about it was the range of eccentric literary folk that she encountered along the way, and I was thinking about these people on my drive home one day. I imagined what a wonderful novel you could construct about a literary mystery and I suddenly realised that this was what I wanted to write for my course submission.

The problem was that I knew nothing much about literature – certainly not to the extent that I could get away with writing a book about one. I did, however, know quite a lot about Maths. And then I remember Archie and Pye, a couple of eccentric dead mathematicians that I’d invented for another story, Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions, that got read at Liars’ League (the month after The Patience of a Saint, in fact). By the time I’d got home, I knew exactly what I was going to write.

I submitted the first chapter of it to the next Professional Skills Workshop seminar and awaited the verdict of my tutor and peers with some trepidation. When my turn came, our tutor, the formidable Celia Brayfield, opened the critique session by asking everyone if they felt I should continue with this. One by one every hand went up, including hers. OK, I thought. We’re on.

So that was how I ended up writing an absurd mathematical murder mystery, with a little help from Sylvia Plath and a lot of help from my tutors at Bath – especially Celia Brayfield and also Maggie Gee. I’m quite proud of the result, although I’m not entirely sure what Sylvia Plath would have made of it.

Jonathan Pinnock’s THE TRUTH ABOUT ARCHIE AND PYE was published by Farrago Books on October 4th. A surprising number of people seem to be enjoying it.

You can buy your copy here 

*Fear of Running Out Of Books