Back in 2018 I wrote an article about haunted house novels with a list of books you might like to read. Well, this October, I’m back with my own haunted house short story being published in the anthology Unquiet Guests. Currently, the scariest of my novels is Bitter Orange, but not for long, because my sixth novel, Hunger and Thirst will be published next year. So, you have a few to choose from if you fancy a spooky read, or scroll down for some of my favourite ghostly novels. (Click on the pictures to buy.)
Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford A slippery, fever-dream of a novel. Unsettling, puckish, and brilliantly written, it’s an absolute one-off. A group of young cousins gather at Aunt Frankie’s house in upstate New York. They see something from a window moving from the treeline to a shed and Abi, only three goes outside, and the others follow. There are ‘Intermezzos’ giving some of the history of the family and Beezy the matriarch and how she died. At the end there is some kind of resolution but just enough to leave me thoroughly unsettled. Highly recommended.
The Echoes by Evie Wyld This is so beautifully written, unsettling and vivid. Max is dead but moves through the house where his girlfriend, Hannah and he lived, watching her as she grieves and time leaps on without him. We also learn about Hannah and Max when he was alive, and all the things she kept from him. And then we travel further back to when Hannah lived in Australia and the trauma her family wrought upon her. It returns full circle at the end in a very lovely way.
You Like it Darker by Stephen King Twelve creepy, weird and brilliant short stories. My favourites tended to be the longer ones: Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream (Danny dreams that he discovers a person, murdered and buried behind a gas station, and his dream is true); Rattlesnakes (a man befriends his neighbour – a mad but harmless woman who pushes a stroller around with, supposedly her dead twins in it); and Slide Inn Road (a family take a wrong turn in their car and are apprehended by two men who terrorise them). Plenty here to get your teeth into and keep you up at night.
North Woods by Daniel Mason This is ghost-light. Beginning in the 1760s, lovers flee a community to live in a New Hampshire cabin. And from there we meet the occupants of the property through the ages and even into the future. We meet an apple farmer and his two daughters who die in extraordinary ways; a man hunting for a slave; the doctor of a man with schizophrenia who lives in the house and many more. The most perfect vignettes of human life and the nature that surrounds them and how all histories leach into each other, leaving traces behind. I was sad to say goodbye to every character.
Thin Air by Michelle Paver A brilliantly chilling ‘classic’ ghost story that I loved just as much as Paver’s Dark Matter. Here, five men are climbing Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas in 1935, following in the footsteps of a doomed expedition from 1906. Stephen Pearce joins the group at the last minute as the doctor, and brother of climber, Kit. As the group climb higher, Stephen begins to experience odd apparitions which he, even as the doctor, can’t put down to altitude sickness. If you’re looking for novel in the English ghost-story tradition, this is it, and I loved it. I listened to this via XigXag, excellently read by Daniel Weyman.
Old Soul by Susan Barker Not so much ghosts but plenty of scares. After a chance meeting at an airport between Jake and Marika, they realise their loved ones died in similar and disturbing circumstances, both linked by a mysterious woman. Jake sets out to find other people who have suffered the same way, and as well as a present-day story, we read the testimonies which Jake gathers, gradually leading to the mysterious woman and an even greater force. There are many creepy ideas and moments in this novel which had my skin tingling, and the writing is great. Definitely a book to put on your list if you enjoy literary horror.
Are you looking for a personalised book recommendation? Whether you’re about to go on a trip and want a novel set in that country, or you’d like a book about a road trip, or perhaps a novel about an artist. Whatever you’re looking for, send me a message with as many details as possible and I’ll hopefully answer your request in a future newsletter.
I’m revisiting some older articles, and this is one, Five on Friday, I wrote for Jill’s Book Cafe Blog back in 2023 just after my fifth novel, The Memory of Animals was published (I’ve edited it slightly to update links etc). Five on Friday takes the format of five questions which require five answers. Read on to find out five things most people don’t know about me, five things I’d still like to achieve, and more.
This article was originally written for Crime Reads.
Mysteries or Suspense
Publishers, booksellers, and many readers like to know the genre of a novel. Where will it sit on the bookstore shelf? How to categorise it online? Which types of readers will it appeal to?
Sometimes it’s easy to slot a book into a category or genre: romance, crime, or indeed, mystery. But there are lots of novels which are too slippery for that. They have plenty of suspense and often a good dose of secrets and the unexplained to propel the story forward, even though their premise is not built around a central mystery which follows a trail to a satisfying conclusion.
My novels have often been categorised as mysteries and although I’m okay with that, I don’t write them with that genre in mind. But I do try to use suspense in a number of ways. In my fourth novel, Unsettled Ground, a close reader might see some clearly placed clues in the first chapter, but whether a reader does spot them or not, the suspense which builds and the revelations that are scattered throughout the novel are more about the protagonist, Jeanie, discovering these surprises, rather than the reader.
One way a skilled writer can create suspense is to make us – the readers – develop it in our own minds. Leave just enough unsaid, and we will fill in the gaps. And the images in our heads are always worse than the reality. That’s why a writer or a screenwriter should never actually show the monster.
Another way to create suspense is to not allow the reader inside the head of the character who is able to provide the answers, and instead show us only glimpses through the eyes of others. Or alternatively, have the reader so close inside the protagonist’s head we experience their confusion and are kept in the dark for as long as they are.
Sometimes writers will show us the “terrible thing” right at the start of the book, and then circle back in time, as with The Secret History by Donna Tartt. There’s no mystery about what was done or who did it, but the suspense is created by making us guess when it is going to come and why the terrible thing was done.
Whichever suspense techniques I might use, when a reader contacts me after they’ve read one of my books to tell me that the suspense kept them reading long into the night, I know I’ve done my job.
Here are seven recommended novels which aren’t mysteries but are full of suspense. Click on the images to purchase on Bookshop.org where available:
This is the second part in a series about how my next book, Hunger and Thirst moves through the process of editing to arriving onto bookshop shelves. The first part covered structural and line edits with my UK and US editors at Fig Tree/ Penguin and Tin House / Zando. And in this part I’m going to be looking at copyedits which I’ve just finished checking for my US editor.
What are copyedits?
Copyedits are done on a novel to check for inconsistencies, missing words, repetition of words, that the publisher’s house style is being used, and many more things. Is a character’s eyes blue at the start of the book and brown at the end? Are capital letters and italics used in the right place? I’ve even had a copyeditor spot a plot hole in a previous book that no one else had. They are life savers.
A question I get asked many times is how the process of editing works with my UK and US editors: what if I don’t agree with what they say? Isn’t it my book to do with as I like? What about editors in other countries – do they have any input? What if my English-speaking editors don’t agree with each other? Who makes the changes? And then when I answer these, often another question comes: What happens next?
I thought I would start a regular post about how the process has been working for my next book, Hunger and Thirst, due for publication in May 2026. Keep in mind, though that this is me and this book, and my editors. The process won’t be the same for every published author, and isn’t exactly the same for every one of my books.
And also keep in mind that I’m describing the process after I’ve done all the self-editing I think I can do, and after my editors at Fig Tree / Penguin in the UK, and Tin House / Zando in the US have read the book, bought it, and read it with their editing hats on.
What I got from them both were editing notes. The first round came only from my UK editor (as my prime publisher), and later I got notes from them both. They didn’t particularly confer, but as we got further down the line they talked together before they talked to me so they could agree on what changes they were going to suggest, so I didn’t face too much of issue of conflicting opinions. (Although this was a challenge at some points.)
I’m emailed editing notes by my UK editor. At this stage they’re very high level, and they’re general questions, things for us to discuss. For example, ‘The ending feels a little too rushed’, ‘I would love us to work out how best to weave in both the art and the moments when we zoom out of Ursula’s story and into the narrative about the filming of the documentary’, and, ‘Ursula’s strangeness. Just how weird is she!?’ There were seven pages of notes like this.
We meet to talk through them, resolving some of the questions as we talk and agreeing that some might be sorted out on the page. We wonder what will the impact on X be if I change Y. And so on, for a few hours.
I spend several weeks working on these suggestions – the written ones and the things we discussed in person. Agreeing with most, disagreeing with some, or realising as I edit that something else now needs to change.
I send the revised draft to my UK editor, and there is another round of edits. More in depth than the first.
My US editor now sees a draft and is now also involved in making suggestions, and giving me editing notes.
I do another draft and receive more notes; another draft, and more notes. Sometimes I make too many changes and have to replace what I took out earlier, sometimes the story is too clear, sometimes too opaque. We all feel we are getting closer to the finish line.
The last round are line edits – minor changes to make sure everything links together, the pacing is right, the themes work, and more.
This whole process takes about a year.
And then the manuscript goes to copyediting.
I’ve just received the manuscript back from my US copyeditor, so watch out for a post next month about how this next stage of the process works.
Any questions? Or anything I’ve missed out? Let me know either in a comment on this post, or send me a message here, and I’ll try and cover them next time.
(The image used at the top of this post was strangely influential in writing this novel. I found it online when I was looking for an old-fashioned medicine bottle. It informed one of the character’s names, the name of some medicine another character takes, and even the year in which most of the book is set.)
At the end of 2024, my husband, Tim and I had taken a photo every day for the previous ten years. Every day we take at least one picture – if we take more than one, we decide on the most interesting – and upload it to my computer. Throughout the year, Tim lays each picture out into a book format via Blurb, and at the end of the year we get a single book printed. 365 pictures per year; ten books. Here are two pages from each of the ten books.
Ten years of friends and family, kids growing up and leaving home, holidays, chores, dinners, and work, parties, book events, Alan the cat, literary heroes, and my hair going from red to grey. What Tim and I have learnt that is no matter how beautiful the sunset or the field of flowers, it is people we want to look back at – those who are still around, and those who have gone.
These ten years also include moving house and the pandemic. They include an online book launch for my fourth novel, Unsettled Ground, since all bookshops and public spaces were closed. Ironically, this is one of my favourite pictures from all ten books. At the end of the launch we asked everyone to turn on their cameras, and we got an image: all those lovely faces from right across the world, celebrating with us.
Thanks to all our friends and family (and sometimes strangers) for being so tolerant to us saying, ‘Time for a photo of the day!’ Here’s to another ten years.
Last year I was delighted to be invited by Buckinghamshire Culture to get involved in their Village Stories project. As well as commissioning a photographer and a choreographer to take photographs of the people from three Buckinghamshire villages, three writers were asked to work with the villagers on writing projects. I was given the village of Burnham, near Slough, and during a week in September 2024, I delivered three flash fiction workshops to community groups, and one open session in Burnham Library.
I took photographs of the village and handed these out as inspiration for the pieces of writing that were created by Slough Writers (a group which meets in Burnham), Men in Sheds, Burnham Grammar, and the library session. And I was amazed and delighted by the pieces which were produced.
In addition, I was commissioned to write two pieces of flash fiction – also inspired by the photos I took, and these, together with the villages photos and the work by the other writers were produced in a booklet.
In November we had a celebratory evening in Burnham where the village photographs – inspired by Bruegel, were unveiled, and several people who had attended my flash fiction workshops came along and were brave enough to read out their pieces.
It was a wonderful project to be a part of.
If you’re interested in me collaborating with anything similar, please get in touch.
I read about 85 books this year, and three of the ones on my top ten reads of 2024 I listened to as audio books. An excellent audio book does depend on an excellent narrator as well as a brilliantly written book, and while I always have an audio book on the go as well as a physical book, when I’ve finished listening, if I’ve loved the audio book, I always buy a physical copy. I sometimes use my library to get my audio books, but recently, I also been using xigxag – a UK-based audio book company where you can buy audio books without a subscription, are usually only £7.99, and where some books are ‘x-books’ which allow you to switch between the audio book and an ebook. (If you’d like to get your first xigxag audio book for £3.99 click this link to download and register in the xigxag app – I will earn a free book when three people buy their first book via this link.)
So, here are my and Tim’s favourite ten books of the year. We share one: Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke, which we read for our book group.
Rachman is just so damn good at writing completely believable characters, those I love and those I hate. I listened to this read by Sam Alexander (who read it exceptionally well), and I loved it so much I bought a physical copy. This novel covers the life of Charles (Pinch) Bavinsky, and we first meet him when he is five in his father’s painting studio in Rome, in 1960. Bear Bavinsky is a famous, philandering, egotistical, larger-than-life painter and Pinch is both terrified and in awe of him, and really remains so for the whole of his life. And yet although everyone crumples in the path of Bear – his several wives, his many children and so on – Pinch has the last laugh, although it’s still not funny. For the most part Pinch’s life is a sad one – solitary, unfulfilled, dissatisfied, but so real. I wanted to shake him; I wanted to hug him; I loved him. Buy The Italian Teacher from Bookshop.org
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Another book I listened to and then bought when I fell in love with it. Beginning in the 1760s, the novel starts with a couple fleeing a community to exist on their own as lovers in a cabin in the woods of New Hampshire. And from there we meet the occupants of the cabin – which is developed to a house – through the ages and even into the future. We meet an apple farmer and his two daughters who die in extraordinary ways; a man hunting for a slave; the doctor of a man with schizophrenia who lives in the house; and after his death his sister who finds his videos of the woods with titles that relate to those who have lived there before; a closeted painter in love with a poet; a young biologist, and many more. The most perfect snippets of human life and the nature that surrounds them and how all histories leach into each other, leaving traces behind. I was sad to say goodbye to every character. Buy North Woods from Bookshop.org
Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst
This might be my perfect kind of book. I LOVE true stories of physical danger and survival, and have read many. But this non-fiction account of how Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s boat capsized and how they survived in the Pacific for four months in a raft and a dinghy, goes beyond that (fascinating) story, to what happened immediately afterwards and in the rest of their lives. It is a love story, and yes, there was a moment when I cried. In 1973 M&M set sail from England, heading for New Zealand, but in the pacific their boat is hit by a whale and sinks. They manage to grab a few provisions and scramble into the life-raft. They survive for 118 days floating on the ocean, catching fish and birds and sharks, and eating them raw. When they are finally rescued they are given celebrity status. Elmhirst writes their story in wonderfully clear and precise prose, without melodrama and with exactly the right amount of detail. The audio book is beautifully read by Florence Howard. Buy Maurice and Maralyn from Bookshop.org
And Claire’s next 7
Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford
A slippery, fever-dream of a novel. Unsettling, puckish, and brilliantly written, it’s an absolute one-off. I loved it. Written mostly in the first person plural, a group of young cousins gather with their parents for a birthday party at Aunt Frankie’s house in upstate New York. They see something from a bathroom window moving from the treeline to a shed, ‘…we just knew it was the same thing over and over, which was worse, somehow, even though it should have been better that there was only just one.’ Abi, only three goes charging outside, and the others go in search of her. It gets darker and weirder as the children encounter many inexplicable things in the woods. These sections are interspersed with ‘Intermezzos’ giving some of the history of the family and Beezy the matriarch and how she died. There is creepiness, and surprise, and craziness, all of it brilliantly written. At the end there is some kind of resolution but just enough to leave me thoroughly unsettled. Highly recommended. It will be published in the UK in April 2025. Pre-order it and thank me later. Buy Idle Grounds from Bookshop.org
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
The Shards: Sex and death in 1981 in LA. This is a lustful, gory, page-turnery, meta, fictional writer’s origin story, and I loved it. I did love the second half more than the first, but by the end I was eating it up and then I had to spend another hour on Reddit to work out what the hell I just read (and still didn’t know). Seventeen-year-old Bret Ellis is alone for the start of his senior school year at Buckley – a private LA school where everyone is rich and good looking (and where the actual BEE went) – his parents being on an extended trip around Europe. When new student, Robert arrives, Bret immediately believes he’s got something to hide and is lying about a great deal. At the same time there is a serial killer on the streets of LA, as well as a weird hippie cult, and girls and animals are disappearing. Bret believes that Robert has something to do with it. But Bret himself is unreliable, writing this story age 57, telling us many times that it’s a narrative, and that he is prone to embellishment. He scatters the story with clues which are slippery and clever so that by the end you realise nothing was as you thought…or was it? Bret is a semi-closeted lust-filled young man with a girlfriend, and the sex – of which there is a great deal – is graphically described. Buy The Shards from Bookshop.org
Birdeye by Judith Heneghan
Yes, I’m quoted on the cover of this, and yes, Judith is a friend of mine, that wouldn’t be enough to make her second novel (for adults) on to my top ten reads of the year. The book is here because I stand by every word of my quote: Evocative, haunting, masterful. I loved this book. Liv Ferrars, born in England, has lived in a ramshackle house in Upstate New York since the ’60s when Birdeye was a thriving commune. Now there is only Liv, her two closest friends Sonny and Mishti, and one of her adult daughters left. And then one April morning a young man turns up unexpectedly. At the same time, Sonny and Mishti make an announcement, and shortly afterwards Liv’s other daughter arrives from England, and everything that Liv thought was stable and ongoing is upset and unreckonable. Buy Birdeye from Bookshop.org
Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke is a re-issue from 1973, which apparently was met with horror on its first publication. I can see why, but I loved it. It is repulsive, disturbing, grotesque, and mordantly funny – I laughed out loud many times and then felt bad about laughing. It’s a clever writer who can make a reader feel both delighted and appalled in the same moment. Dinah Brooke’s writing is clear and crisp, and the images she creates in the reader’s head are vivid and nightmarish. Lord Jim at Home is a story in three parts about the life of Giles Trenchard, born between the wars into an upper middle class family where he is cruelly treated by his father and his first nursemaid. He learns to keep his head down, and by doing this he survives school and escapes to the Navy. The second part is about long stretches of time doing nothing, and an hour or two of intense and terrible fighting. When Giles returns to England he finds he doesn’t fit in anywhere, can’t understand what he’s supposed to be doing, and the third part is completely unexpected and yet makes complete sense in a weird and very dark way. Buy Lord Jim at Home from Bookshop.org
People who eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry
This non-fiction book tells the story of twenty-one-year-old Lucie Blackman, from England, who disappeared in Japan in 2000. She’d been working as a hostess in a nightclub and had gone with an unknown man to the seaside. Her father, Tim worked hard to keep her disappearance in the newspaper headlines, until finally her body was discovered buried in a cave some months later. This is the story of what kind of person Lucie was, how her disappearance and the search for her unfolded, and what happened after her body was discovered. Lloyd Parry is a master at giving us all the details without sensationalism, yet as a narrative which makes us want to read on. Utterly compelling, and highly recommended if you enjoy true crime. Buy People Who Eat Darkness from Bookshop.org
The Night Interns by Austin Duffy
I loved this novel about three surgical interns in a Dublin hospital working the nightshift. And the more I think about it, the cleverer I realise it is: a novel with a structure that matches the content. It’s told from the point of view of an unnamed, ungendered narrator who’s working several shifts, mostly at night with two other interns, Lynda and Stuart. They are continually beeped on their pagers and have to go to different wards around the hospital to carry out various tasks – mostly mundane but some highly pressured. Sleep deprivation, and terror at doing something wrong or being accused of doing something wrong by the toxic hospital consultants is pervasive, which means there’s alternately a dream-like quality to what’s happening or everything is lit up with a hideous brightness. Some reviews criticised the book for a lack of a plot and that many (all?) of the crises fizzle out, but I think that’s the point. Instead of the usual Western structure of everything leading to a single climax, here is scene after scene that might go badly or might go well (just as the narrator feels). And these brightly lit scenes and are linked both physically and metaphorically by the long dark corridors that the interns have to traipse up and down to get to the wards and back to the res where they can (perhaps) rest. Lynda and Stuart talk and laugh with each other and just like the narrator we don’t always understand why. This kind of confusion just made me feel more like the narrator must be feeling – too tired, too discombobulated to work things out. I love novels set in places of work, and I love reading about hospitals, so The Night Interns was always going to appeal to me, but I think it’s a brilliant novel. Buy The Night Interns from Bookshop.org
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
I loved this from the very beginning. I took it on holiday with me and could not put it down. In fact it gave me such a book hangover that it spoiled all the other books I took with me. Reading it as a writer, I was alternately thinking, How does Andrew Miller do that?, and I might as well stop writing now. In the winter of 1962 to 1963, two women make a connection through their pregnancies. Rita and Irene are isolated, facing difficulties with their husbands, and everyone begins to struggle with the worst winter in living memory, and the snow. We hear also from the husbands’ point of view: the local doctor and a man who has decided to take up farming. Not a huge amount happens, but it is all absolutely gripping, fascinating, and beautifully written. I was completely smitten. Buy The Land in Winter from Bookshop.org
Tim’s Top Reads of 2024
Tim’s Top 3 (in no order)
The Horse by Willy Vlautin
I love all Willy’s novels and his most recent, published in 2024 is no exception. Ann Patchett describes this book as extraordinary, and I don’t argue with Ann Patchett. She’s also very perceptive when she says “Willy Vlautin writes about people overlooked by society and overlooked by literature.” 65-year-old Al Ward lives alone, miles from anywhere, in Nevada. One morning, a blind horse arrives outside his home, seemingly unable to feed itself or stay safe from coyote attacks. 30 miles from the nearest town and broken by alcoholism and anxiety, Al has to decide what to do. Ageing, memory, longing, music and the American landscape, even a hint of autobiography – it’s all in there! Heartbreaking. The Horse is just Brilliant. Buy The Horse from Bookshop.org
Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
Curtis Sittenfeld is remarkable. Her short stories are as complete as her novels and her novels are a sharp as her short stories. This collection will be published in February 2025 and contains 12 brilliant stories, 3 of which I’ve read before – but was excited to revisit. All her characters are so believable with their insecurities and anxieties. Familiar themes of divorce, relationships, female friendships and everyday life. All written in a way that no one else can get close to. Claire and I read this to each other and it was so difficult not to binge on. Buy Show Don’t Tell from Bookshop.org
The Archive of Feelings by Peter Stamm
I’ve only just found Russell Banks. I have no idea why it’s taken me so long – everything I love about contemporary American fiction is in this one. It’s his last collection, published after his death in 2023. Three stories all set in the same upstate NY town. They all work so well – individually and together. A man sells property to a temperamental stranger, and is hounded on social media when he publicly questions the man’s character. A couple grow concerned when a family move next door, and the children start sneaking over to beg for help. Two dangerous criminals kidnap an elderly couple and begin blackmailing their grandson, demanding that he pay back what he owes them. I’ve already made a start on his back catalogue. Buy American Spirits from Bookshop.org
That’s it from us in 2024. I’d love to hear about your favourite reads of 2024.
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Are you currently editing a novel or a non-fiction book? I’ll be teaching Editing Fiction and Non-fiction for Arvon in Shropshire (UK) in January 2025. More information.
I have just returned from Festival America – a literary festival held in Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris, and what a wonderful, inspiring, energising and creative time it was. I was there talking about my novel Terre Fragile (aka Unsettled Ground) which was published by Editions Stock in France in January.
It’s the eleventh year of Festival America, which happens every two years. And this year for the first time, the festival also invited authors from Europe, bringing our total to 80. France does literary festivals differently to UK festivals. Firstly, French audiences are so engaged and enthusiastic! That’s not to say that UK audiences aren’t, but they are much smaller. Even for the events with authors who might not be today’s ‘literary stars’ (me included), the turn-out was always more than 100. There are no questions from the audience, but after the event the authors sit in the signing tent behind their piles of books, sometimes for up to three hours. (In the UK, books are sold and signed immediately after each event – sometimes in the bookshop; sometimes just outside the event room, and authors aren’t expected to sit behind their books while potential buyers walk past.) What I really love is that authors and books are selected for panels based on a theme, and that means that authors of my level are often sat next to the ‘literary stars’ talking about a particular subject. The picture above was a panel about ‘What use is literature to the world today’, hosted by a bookseller, with me, Colson Whitehead and Stephen Markley (and our amazing interpreters). I’m certain 95% of the audience were there to see Colson, 4% to see Stephen (sorry Stephen) and 1% me – but that meant lots of people bought my books who had never heard of me before, which is a wonderful thing.
Scroll Down for Pictures
I got to thank Lauren Groff (and give her hug) for her wonderful quote that she gave for Unsettled Ground. I did three separate school events in one day. I got to meet the whole of my Stock publishing family. I met Donal Ryan for the first time, and we talked about silence in fiction with Antoine Wauters. I sat a seat away from Richard Ford in the signing tent (he’s also published by Editions Stock). I love his writing and I introduced myself and well, we mostly talked about the weather in Paris and Missouri. I was on a panel about families with Szilvia Molnar, and I was so interested in what she had to say that I bought her book (in English – Shakespeare and Co had a stall in the signing tent). And then same happened when I talked about ‘On the margins’ with Jakob Guanzon. I saw a dog on the back of a motorbike, wearing glasses. I met Matilde, my French translator who has been translating my books for eleven years, but this was the first time we’d met in person. I bumped into Susan Barker, who was there with her author partner Glen James Brown. (Susan’s brilliant and scary novel, Old Soul will be published by my UK publisher, Penguin Fig Tree next year.) I laughed about with Colm Tóibín – mostly nonsense – and we pulled silly faces for no reason at all.
Sorry – not sorry – for all the name-dropping. It’s exciting meeting your literary heroes (and have them live up to expectations), but it is even more wonderful to meet so many writers who are new to me and discover their books.
Thank you, Festival America, for the invitation, the fun and the hard work.
I’m hosting a Giveaway on Instagram for a signed copy of Viv Groskop’s memoir, One Ukrainian Summer, and a signed copy of the paperback of The Memory of Animals. To enter visit my Instagram account: www.instagram.com/writerclairefuller, find my post with this image and follow the instructions.
The Giveaway is open to everyone no matter where you live, and closes on 21st July.
I’ve just finished reading One Ukrainian Summer and I loved it! It’s an account of a year in the 1990s when Viv travelled to Russia as part of her university degree. Age twenty, she works in St. Petersburg teaching English, and falls in love with a Ukrainian rock star. Things are not as she expects when she travels to his home in Ukraine to see him on stage. It’s funny and sweet, and so interesting to read about Russia just after it stopped being the USSR.
