Book Review & Author Guest Post: Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

Today I welcome Alice Feeney onto my blog with a brilliant Guest Post about naming a character. But first, here's my review.

The Blurb:

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:
1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.

Unnerving, twisted and utterly compelling, you won’t be able to put this new thriller down. Set to be the most talked about book in 2017, it’s perfect for fans of Behind Closed Doors, The Girl on the Train and The Widow.

My Review:

So, I saw this book on Netgalley, thought the premise was interesting; and started reading. Thank you Netgalley and publishers Harper Collins!

Oh. My. God. This book is quite brilliant, it really is. A psychological thriller that twists and turns and keeps you on your toes, and quite simply, I couldn't put it down.

The story is told from three different angles; Amber in a coma, flashbacks to the events leading up to her hospitalisation, and diary entries from her teenage years. I found these diary entries in particular to be very well written in the voice of a young teen, which contrasted nicely with the thoughts of the comatose adult Amber.

I was intrigued by the story behind Amber's accident, and I was kept guessing right up to the end. Her husband and sister are both regular, attentive visitors, but I never quite trusted either of them.

I loved the way the writer had Amber in a sort of locked-in state; she was able to hear and sense things going on around her, but no one knew as she was unable to communicate in any way. 

It's a really fast-paced story, full of intrigue. It's one of the best books I've read this year.

You can buy the book from Amazon, Waterstones and other retailers.

Author Guest Post - What’s in a name?

"I think about a story for a really long time before I’ll commit to writing it – my stories often spend months simmering away in the background before I begin, and that includes spending a lot of time with potential characters. 

I once heard someone say that they liked to audition their characters before they started to write a new novel, and that’s a really good way to describe it. You spend time with them, listen to their voice and have to decide whether it is a voice that is compelling enough for you to want to write it, and hopefully, later on, compelling enough for others to want to read. 

If I give a character a name, it means I’m really serious about writing them. There were several reasons that Amber was named Amber. Reynolds, her surname, came a few weeks later and felt completely right to me and so I started writing Sometimes I Lie.

I knew the beginning (those opening lines never changed from the very first draft), I knew a lot of the twists and I knew how I wanted the story to end. What I didn’t know, was what was going to happen in my personal life a little while later.

I had written about 20,000 words of the novel when we got the call to say that my niece had been born. It’s my first time being an Aunty, so I was thrilled and we rushed to the hospital. As I stood there, holding this perfect, beautiful child in my arms, with the whole family crammed into the hospital room, her parents announced that they were going to call her Amber. 

I hope that I smiled, but on the inside I felt awful. Amber, the main character in my novel is far from perfect and I immediately felt like I would have to change her name. But I couldn’t – she was already real for me. I then tried to change her behaviour in the book, but it didn’t work and, if anything, the things she did got worse. 

Other things changed during the writing process - new twists emerged and I came up with a new ending, but I could not change my protagonist’s name or who she was. It just wasn’t possible.

Writing is honestly the best job in the world and I feel so lucky to be able to do it full time now. Every day is a new journey. Some of the journey is so familiar to you by the time you come to write it, it’s like spending time with an old friend, other parts of the journey are a completely new adventure.

I do hope that if my niece reads Sometimes I Lie one day, she’ll forgive me for using the name Amber. Hopefully she’ll enjoy the book and they won’t have too much in common!"

Thank you Alice!

About the Author

Alice Feeney is a writer and journalist. She spent 16 years at the BBC, where she worked as a Reporter, News Editor, Arts and Entertainment Producer and One O’clock News Producer.

​Alice is a Faber Academy graduate from the class of 2016. She has lived in London and Sydney and has now settled in the Surrey countryside, where she lives with her husband and dog.

Sometimes I Lie is her debut thriller and is being published around the world in 2017.

http://www.alicefeeney.com/ @alicewriterland

Book Review: Life in a Fishbowl by Len Vlahos

The Blurb

Jackie's life wasn't perfect, but at least it was normal. That is, until her dad received a terminal cancer diagnosis. Then he went and did what anyone faced with mountains of medical bills and a family to support would do: he sold his life to the highest bidder. Which turned out to be a TV station.

Suddenly everyone from psychotic millionaires to cyber-savvy nuns wants a piece of Jackie's family as they become a reality TV sensation. Jackie's life spirals out of control just as her dad's starts to run out, and meanwhile the whole world is tuning in to watch her family fall apart.

Acidly funny and heartbreakingly sad, Life in a Fishbowl is an exploration of the value of life and what memories mean to us. Perfect for fans of Patrick Ness.

My Review

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I don't usually read YA books, but this one grabbed me as these days many people spend their lives watching other people live theirs.

Jared Stone has an inoperable brain tumour, and in an attempt to safeguard his family's financial future, he turns their world upside down with more then just his diagnosis and the prospect of them losing a father and a husband - he sells their lives to a TV station.

The book starts with Jared firstly essentially putting their lives on ebay. Then we meet various people willing to pay, people who are all rather suspect. Desperate, greedy people who will stop at nothing to get what they want. The TV show is probably the safest prospect that the Stone family has to face. 

That Jared would even dream of doing such a thing without consulting his family seems to be a little far-fetched; though this could be an effect of the tumour on his behaviour. This tumour is a character of it's own, as it 'eats' Jared's memories and almost takes on a life of its own.

The book tells of the struggles of a family dealing with the prospect of loss, but all in the public eye, and their lives are coldly manipulated and taken over by the producers. But there is help at hand...

It's a great story, if a little fractured being told from so many different points of view. The behaviour of some of the characters leaves a sour taste, and nothing can really redeem them. 

I would suggest that anyone contemplating going on one of these 'reality' shows reads this book first!

Life in a Fishbowl was published on 12th January by Bloomsbury Childrens, and you can get it from Amazon, Waterstones and other places.

Book Review: Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land

The Blurb

'NEW NAME. NEW FAMILY. SHINY. NEW. ME.' 

Annie's mother is a serial killer. The only way she can make it stop is to hand her in to the police. But out of sight is not out of mind. As her mother's trial looms, the secrets of her past won't let Annie sleep, even with a new foster family and name - Milly. A fresh start. Now, surely, she can be whoever she wants to be. But Milly's mother is a serial killer. And blood is thicker than water. Good me, bad me. She is, after all, her mother's daughter... 

Translated into over 20 languages, Good Me Bad Me is a tour de force. In its narrator, Milly Barnes, we have a voice to be reckoned with, and in its author, Ali Land, an extraordinary new talent.

My Review

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Michael Joseph, for the advanced reading copy.

Oh. My. God. What a book!

I was initially intrigued by the premise of a girl having to deal with having a serial killer for a mother. But as I started reading Good Me Bad Me I started to get scared. I was worried the story was going to dissolve into a voyeuristic, sadistic car crash.

But I needn't have worried - I am so glad I carried on reading. Once I did, I found it hard to leave - hence a couple of late nights where I couldn't stop thinking about the book once I put it down.

The narrator, Milly, is talking to her mother. Telling her how she has made her feel, telling her how she is coping (or not) without her. The descriptions of the crimes committed thankfully don't go into gory detail, leaving your mind to fill in the blanks - which works to great effect here.

Milly is staying with a foster family, the Newmonts. The father, Mike, is a psychologist, helping Milly prepare to testify against her own mother. The mother, Saskia, a mere shadow of a woman, scorned by her own daughter, Phoebe, who rails against having to compete with a broken foster child.

Milly has to battle to survive, against her mother's voice, constantly with her; against her background, desperate to keep her past hidden, against herself, for fear of becoming like her mother. She finds a friend in Morgan, but can she keep her safe?

Phoebe is a poisonous character, hellbent on making Milly's life even more of a living hell than it already is. Ali Land depicts the turmoils of adolescence perfectly, showing how cruel girls can be to each other, vying to be leader of the gang, and how easily led some can become, to afraid to say no. 

This is an absolute smasher of a debut novel. I think Good Me Bad Me is going to be one of the most talked about books for 2017. Absolutely bloody amazing.

Good Me Bad Me is published on 12th January by Michael Joseph. You can buy the book at Amazon, Waterstones and other retailers.

About the Author

After graduating from university with a degree in Mental Health, Ali Land spent a decade working as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Nurse in hospitals and schools in the UK and Australia. Ali is now a full-time writer and lives in a creative warehouse community in North London. Good Me Bad Me has been translated into over twenty languages.

Follow Ali on Twitter @byAliLand

Book Review: The Art Teacher by Paul Read

The Blurb: 

Patrick Owen managed seven years at Highfields Secondary School without punching a pupil in the face.

Unknowingly drawn into a war against his own pupils, Patrick's patience finally snaps as he finds himself the number one target with the boy the school just can't seem to expel.

When one of his Art students needs his help, she unwittingly pulls Patrick further into the line of fire, altering their lives forever.

With the media circling and rumours of his involvement reaching new highs, Patrick must escape the world he lives in, or face the consequences.

My Review:

Thank you to Legend Press for the advanced copy of this unbelievably good book.

Poor Patrick. Things are pretty crappy for him - and they are about to get a whole lot worse.

Once a semi-successful rock-star, Patrick is now an Art teacher at rough inner city school and lives on his own in a flat nearby. The kids are fearsome, the teachers weak, and Patrick feels helpless as he gets no support from his peers. It's a place full of people who lack respect for anyone.

It's a frightening but highly compelling read - I read it in two sessions, terrified at what was surely going to happen. The fear of walking alone in the dark in a dodgy area is brought to life on the pages, causing your heartbeat to increase and sweat to appear on your brow as if you were there under threat yourself.

The menace of the gang culture, of the lack of authority - it's all there in bucket-loads of visceral prose, so well written it's hard to believe this is Paul Read's debut. It's an intelligent thriller, a work of literary fiction but not to the exclusion of people like me!

Marks out of 5: 5. Well done, Paul. Keep up the good work!

You can buy The Art Teacher here (other retailers are available).

The Author:

After gaining a first in Fine Art at the Kent Institute of Art and Design at Canterbury, Paul Read moved to London, finding employment at Foyles bookshop before becoming a teacher. He has worked in several inner-city schools as an Art, English and supply teacher, both in England and Italy. He received a distinction from City University London for his creative writing MA.

A few years ago, Paul was involved in a hit-and-run incident which put him in a wheelchair for several months and was where he wrote the first draft of The Art Teacher. He lives with Patricia and their two children.

Follow him on Twitter: @paulreadauthor

Owl Song at Dawn - Author Q&A

I'm proud to be on the Blog Tour for Owl Song at Dawn today, with a Q&A with author Emma Claire Sweeney. You can read my review of the novel here.

Emma Claire Sweeney has won Arts Council, Royal Literary Fund and Escalator Awards, and has been shortlisted for several others, including the Asham, Wasafiri and Fish.

She teaches creative writing at New York University in London; co-runs SomethingRhymed.com – a website on female literary friendship; and publishes features and pieces on disability for the likes of the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and The Times.

Owl Song at Dawn is inspired by her sister, who has autism.

V: Hi Emma, welcome to my blog, and thank you for the opportunity to ask you questions about your fabulous new book, Owl Song at Dawn.

I've read that you were inspired to write this book by your sister, who has cerebral palsy, and also your Grandma, who provides the inspiration for the main character, Maeve. The story of Maeve's life, dominated by her family's determination to care for her 'severely subnormal' twin sister is heartbreaking. Though the quality of the way the authorities care for people like Edie has, one would hope, changed for the better, in what way is Maeve's life similar to your own in caring for your sister?

E: The positive aspects of the relationship between Maeve and Edie are quite similar to those shared by my sister and me. Lou has an amazing capacity for happiness, which rubs off on other people. Just the other night, after the northern launch party for Owl Song at Dawn, Lou persuaded three of my friends, my parents and me to parade around the living room in a human choo-choo train. Her lack of inhibitions gives the rest of us a great excuse to shed our reserve too.
Some aspects of care tend to get over-emphasised in narratives of disability. I’m thinking particularly of toileting. Most people who support someone with disabilities don’t feel defined by this aspect of their role, nor do they see it as a demeaning part of their loved one’s life. In my novel, I have tried to show that these aspects of care are simply a small part of a much richer and more complex relationship, which involves listening with the heart.
One of the things that I have learnt from Lou is that there can be dignity and kindness for all of us in seeking and accepting care.

 V: Do you think society has changed that much from when your book is set (in the first half of the 20th Century) in the way able-bodied people look at those with disabilities? How would you like to see it change, and do you think it ever will?

E: Maeve and Edie were born in 1933, the year Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Before long, the Nazis had begun trialling methods of mass murder on people with disabilities. These deaths have never been adequately commemorated. What’s more, Britain played a role in this shameful history since the Nazis were inspired in part by some of the eugenicist ideology prevalent in the UK. When a forced sterilisation bill was debated in parliament in 1931, it was successfully opposed only in favour of incarcerating people with learning disabilities in asylums. One of those who spoke out against forced sterilisation, nonetheless described people with learning disabilities as having “infantile and puerile minds, with perversions, with anti-social tendencies”.

On many levels we have clearly come a very long way since then. People like my sister can grow up in loving families, surrounded by supportive friends. People with learning disabilities and autism have achieved high-profile positions as actors, for instance, and as social activists. Couples with learning disabilities have married and some have raised children of their own.

Yet, these are the exceptions. Even now, learning disability is under and misrepresented in the media. Most people with such disabilities still face great opposition from family and state if they try to forge romantic and sexual relationships. Young people with disabilities are three to four times more likely to be sexually abused than their non-disabled peers and disability hate crime rose last year by 41%. Only 6.6% of adults with learning disabilities have any kind of paid employment. These are troubling indicators that we have yet to learn the lessons of the past.

Even on the more benign end of the spectrum, our attitudes to learning disability can be damaging. When I mention my sister’s cerebral palsy and autism, I am usually offered sympathy on the assumption that her life must be miserable and my childhood must have been tough. This is hardly surprising given that as recently as 1983, when Lou was diagnosed, the doctor told my parents to focus their love on her twin, Sarah, and on their eldest daughter, me; put Lou in an institution; forget there had ever been three.

Sarah and I are both profoundly grateful that our parents ignored the doctor, daring instead to share their love and attention between all three of their girls. Far from a miserable existence, Lou has a compelling joie de vivre that defies preconceptions about disability, and even calls the term itself into question.

V: Maeve comes across as a very strong character, but her life doesn't seem to have moved forward for years, including the denial of her own chance to have a family. Was she punishing herself through guilt at being able-bodied, or guilt regarding the incident in the bath?

E: Good question! If the lives of the twins had panned out differently, I suspect Maeve would have come to terms with her guilt at being born the non-disabled twin. Her situation taught her that life is unfair, so she would have learnt to accommodate this knowledge. It’s her feelings of guilt at her brief yet devastating neglect of Edie that really cause her life to stall. I wanted the novel to speak of how a life may be damaged and restricted by forgivable mistakes and wrong beliefs – a few moments of inattention, a poor choice of boyfriend, a misperception of the reasons why he deserted her, an excessive self-blame.

V: Have any other writers influenced you? Is there one you'd consider to be a mentor? 

E: Two writers in particular spring to mind: one a mentor and the other a peer. 

Jill Dawson taught me at UEA well over a decade ago, and I’ve considered her a mentor ever since. She played a hand in pretty much every positive development of my early writing life. Nowadays, Jill runs Gold Dust mentoring scheme, so lots of emerging writers get to benefit from her refreshing combination of warm encouragement and tough straight-talking. But, more than anything, it was Jill’s writing itself that influenced me. I’ve always admired the way she writes technically ambitious novels about complex subjects, and yet does so with a deceptive lightness of touch. Wild Boy was a particular influence because it is also a novel that questions stereotypes of disability. Set in eighteenth-century France, the novel is inspired by the real-life story of the wild boy of Aveyron. Through the portrayal of both this child, Victor, and Doctor Itard, who attempted to educate him, Jill Dawson explores the varied faces of autism with nuance and insight.
The ethos of Jill Dawson and Michèle Roberts, who both taught me at UEA, centered around collaboration. As a result, I have a fantastically supportive circle of writer friends. One of these friendships actually has its roots in pre-UEA days. Emily Midorikawa and I met during our early twenties, when we were living in rural Japan, working as English teachers by day and scribbling stories in secret by night. Back then, we were so shy about our ambitions that we could not even speak of them to each other.

After almost a year of friendship, over plates of Japanese pasta in a garlic-themed restaurant within a small-town shopping mall, we finally ‘came out’ to each other as aspiring authors. In the decade-and-a-half since then, we have shared every one of the uphill struggles and celebratory moments of each other’s creative journeys: offering encouragement, critiquing work-in-progress, sharing news of publication opportunities, being there to empathise when the going got tough.

Our own experiences as writer friends prompted our interest in the female alliances of our favourite authors of the past. We set up a website, Something Rhymed, on which we post our findings and now we are writing about the subject in greater depth. It is a particular pleasure that my next book, A Secret Sisterhood: the hidden literary friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë. George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, will have both mine and Emily’s names on the cover. 

V: How hard did you find writing Owl Song at Dawn, with it being linked to your own circumstances?

E: There were certain areas that I couldn’t let my imagination inhabit: sexual or physical abuse, for instance. It was just too painful for me to bring to life such a scenario. However, I came to feel that there were perhaps some benefits to my reluctance to write about this subject. Sometimes a novel’s depiction of abuse in asylums can overshadow the primary trauma of incarceration itself. 

I discovered that even at the height of institutionalization from the 1930s-1950s, only one-third of people with learning disabilities were ever sent away. This sparked my interest in the two-thirds who tried to remain together as families, and the pressures that might have been brought to bear on them. Such matters were difficult but therapeutic to write about because I was rehearsing various scenarios about my own future with Lou – some of which I hope might come to pass and others that represent my deepest fears.

V: You describe the setting for the book, Morecombe, very fondly. Have you lived there, or do you have fond memories of it as a seaside resort?

E: My story began to emerge when I could hear the voices of my main characters: twin sisters born in 1933. Maeve is fêted as the cleverest girl in town and Edie is diagnosed as ‘severely subnormal’. But they both spoke with Morecambe dialects. This posed a problem because I had never set foot in the town. 

Since I hail from Birkenhead, I tried to relocate my novel to the Wirral’s coastline. But, try as I might, Maeve and Edie refused to morph their Lancashire dialects into Scouse.

At this point, I accepted that I’d simply have to put in the hours, investigating Morecambe’s history from 1933 to the present day. No more excuses: I’d simply have to get it right.

I had been drafting and redrafting for some time before the reasons behind my fascination with the town finally dawned.

My sister had spent a few years at Beaumont College in Lancaster – a college for people with cerebral palsy and associated disabilities – and they used to take trips to the seaside. On some subconscious level, Morecambe is a town that I associate with my sister and her disabilities: a welcoming place where she experienced the happiest of times.

V: I love the way the book is told through Maeve, as if she is telling it to her sister. With the switching between telling their story in the past, and the present day, did you plan the majority of the story out or did you find yourself developing the story and characters as it went along?

E: I’m so glad that you liked this aspect of the novel because I really wrangled with the structure. I always knew that I wanted to piece together a patchwork narrative because I feel that our minds are made up of fragments of memories, reflections, visceral experiences and the voices of others that we’ve internalised. I did plan the story out first, but, as I wrote, the characters’ lives evolved and I had to change the plan radically with each of the novel’s many redrafts.

V: Are you writing a new book now?

E: I am in the midst of writing A Secret Sisterhood: the hidden literary friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë. George Eliot and Virginia Woolf with my own writer friend, Emily Midorikawa. 

After that, my next book will be another novel. But it will bring together both my fascination with female novelists and my interest in disability. I discovered that the sister of one of my favourite authors was diagnosed with ‘imbecility’ and written out of the family history. My next novel will be narrated by her.

Thank you, Emma, for a fascinating insight to your writing!

Book Review - The Wacky Man by Lyn G Farrell

I am taking part in my first ever blog tour for this amazing book! I've got a fabulous Q & A with Lyn G. Farrell, the author of The Wacky Man, to share with you all. 

But here is my review. The Wacky Man was the winner of the 2015 Luke Bitmead Bursary, the UK's biggest prize for unpublished authors. And here's why:

My new shrink asks me, ‘What things do you remember about being very young?’
It’s like looking into a murky river, I say. Memories flash near the surface like fish coming up for flies. The past peeps out, startles me, and then is gone…

Amanda secludes herself in her bedroom, no longer willing to face the outside world. Gradually, she pieces together the story of her life: her brothers have had to abandon her, her mother scarcely talks to her, and the Wacky Man could return any day to burn the house down. Just like he promised.

As her family disintegrates, Amanda hopes for a better future, a way out from the violence and fear that has consumed her childhood. But can she cling to her sanity, before insanity itself is her only means of escape?

Wow. Just wow. This is the compelling, brutal story of a teenager in a family broken by the father's violence. I say brutal, but the descriptions of the violence are not gratuitous at all, but written as matter-of-fact, as Amanda and her family have accepted their lot. Outside intervention has little effect, our heroine is apparently beyond help. The contrast between some of her teachers, who consider her nothing more than a big problem for them, and those who do care - Mr Kramm and 'shrink' Mr Broeder - is vivid, and heart-breaking.

Amanda is an intelligent, articulate young woman, despite her avoidance of education. It is harrowing  that there are children such as Amanda out there. We all know it happens, but this book brings it to the forefront of your mind. Some people are unfortunately unsalvageable, and we see the obstacles in the way of those who try to help them rather than leaving them to rot in society.

Despite, or perhaps in spite of, the harrowing story, I highly recommend this novel. It is not a misery memoir - it is so much more, so well written that I could not put it down. Amanda's voice prevents it from being depressing even though she is close to losing her mind, and her situation is so very heartbreaking.

The author wrote this book not to evoke sympathy and hand-wringing, but to be a voice for children like Amanda who are so often not heard.

It's bloody brilliant.

Thanks to the publisher Legend Press for an advanced reading copy.