Love Will Tear Us Apart - Holly Seddon

Ian Curtis and Joy Division were my first thought when I picked this book up. I am wondering if I am alone in that? But tuning in to some of the other musical references within the book I am wondering whether that allusion was deliberate on the author’s part? There is something in that lyric that echoes some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I read the book. 

In my ‘career’ as a reviewer I’ve read all of Holly Seddon’s books. And may I say what a joy it is to experience a writer developing, finding an author skin and feeling comfortable in it. The increasing confidence is palpable in this new book and, if I may be bold enough to assert, I think it is her best book to date.

Something else that impresses me about a writer developing is an ability to diversify. This novel departs from the psychological thriller flavour of the previous two books but the style and the integrity of the writing remains.  

Whist the opening cover blurb might have you thinking ‘When Harry met Sally’ , the concluding cover blurb is apt; ‘a moving and heart breaking exploration of modern love and friendship’, And that is it perfectly. In fact it goes beyond love and friendship to broader relationships. Some social comment too, both protagonists are from widely differing backgrounds. 

Whilst you might expect some faster paced, active writing from a thriller this is a more cerebral, slower tuned narrative inviting the reader to think and consider without jumping to conclusions. The implied secret is not divulged until nearer the end of the book and again it’s not a whistles and bells expose constant with today’s thrillers it is a, not wholly unexpected, nuance.

The narrative switches from past to present fairly effortlessly and the passage of time is managed well within the novel when you consider that Paul and Kate met when they were eight years old. The story telling felt very real with the occasionall repetition of events that served to consolidate matters of importance and highlight human frailties. The catalyst for the story is the imminent ten year wedding anniversary of Paul and Kate and the portal for the entire history of their lives and their relationships to be divulged. 

Paul and Kate are both well drawn characters. Kate with her failings and weaknesses possibly more real than Paul? Maybe that’s just me, sometimes he seemed too good but possibly that was to highlight Kate’s insecurities? I think Ms. Seddon understands the frailty of human nature and puts her understanding to fine use here in her characterisations.

There were some heart stopping and some heart breaking moments. I must admit I was prepared and steeling myself for an uncomfortable conclusion which didn’t happen. Is that a spoiler? If so, I do apologise. But I was paradoxically relieved and disappointed in equal measure!! There’s no pleasing me!!

But ultimately I was left with a good feeling; an enjoyable, well written book that touched on the human condition without seeking to preach or resolve but allowing the reader to think and compare and consider that tenuous of all emotions - love.

A Child Called Happiness - Stephan Collishaw Blog Tour

Good morning.

Today heralds my SECOND blog tour, hot on the heels of the first. I am suffused with a little more confidence this time. But...... to business……. and all things book blurbish.

 Three days after arriving in Zimbabwe, Natalie discovers an abandoned newborn baby on a hill near her uncle’s farm. 115 years earlier, the hill was home to the Mazowe village where Chief Tafara governed at a time of great unrest. Faced with taxation, abductions and loss of their land at the hands of the white settlers, Tafara joined forces with the neighbouring villages in what becomes the first of many uprisings. 

A Child Called Happiness is a story of hope, resilience and reclamation, proving that the choices made by our ancestors echo for many generations to come. 

Some other responses to this exciting work include.

 ‘A Child Called Happiness is steeped in the beautiful smells and sounds of Zimbabwe and evidences Stephan Collishaw’s love of the country… His balanced treatment of an emotive issue will challenge and provoke many readers. ’ Philip Barclay 

‘This is a beautifully descriptive story that evokes the harsh realities of life and the complex historical narratives that shape present-day Zimbabwe. Collishaw’s characters are delicately created and endearingly human,’ Celeste Hicks 

‘An incredibly timely book about the human impact of political upheaval in all its emotional forms. It places you right there in Zimbabwe’ Rosie Garthwaite 

To accompany these glowing endorsements I submit my own review for you. 

I don’t know what’s in the water this year but the number of African themed books that have come my way so far continue to grow. It must mean something but I don’t know what. Yet!

The latest from Stephan Collishaw is set in Zimbabwe. Unfamiliar with Mr. Collishaw’s work my first impression was that he must be a native Zimbabwean or at the very least have strong family ties or links of some kind he writes so convincingly of the country, its people, its culture and its politics. 

The story begins intriguingly enough with our female protagonist, Natalie, finding a new born baby near her uncle’s farmstead. What follows appears to be two parallel stories, present day Natalie, and another from an, as yet, unknown protagonist detailing his family history from the days of his grandfather, Tafara, over a hundred years ago. Initially I found this extremely irritating!! I got sucked into one narrative and wanted it to continue but I was then forced into the parallel narrative where the same thing happened. But it is as these two stories unfold that you begin to see the links and start to understand what this perceptive writer is attempting here. 

Zimbabwe has a colourful history to put it mildly. I am not a political animal by any means since it seems to me that politics causes more problems than it ever actually solves but what this book attempts is to show two sides. How the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons. And how loss is experienced on a variety of levels and how a group or an individual deal with those losses. 

The history of a country is complex and no credible writer would attempt to offer a definitive archive. What Stephan Collishaw has done here is to take one small pocket and suggest through fiction how it might have been. How white minority rule came to an end and human rights violations threatened the equilibrium of blacks and white alike. But also how throughout any political regimes there are people simply trying to live their lives, fulfil their dreams and right their wrongs with no wider agenda. The news reports seldom shows us these people but a work of fiction does and in the hands of an intelligent, succinct writer such as this the humanity shines through all of the political machinations leaving us with people, trying to do what they believe in, trying to do what they believe is right.

I found the writing pleasing, the work of a story teller. The two stories unfold and the realisation of the ultimate link between the two was a moment to be relished. And the two stories became one almost imperceptibly. The characters are well drawn, nobody, bar one, really comes cross as ’the bad guy’ and even the lesser characters are endowed with their own voices rather just being there as merely functional for the story. 

Returning to my earlier impression that this writer was somehow linked to Zimbabwe my perfunctory googling showed that nothing could be further from the reality!! If Wikipedia is accurate he is from Nottingham. Which makes this novel even more impressive. Thank you Legend Press for the opportunity to experience this wonderful writer.

And now to Stephan himself.

Stephan Collishaw was brought up on a Nottingham council estate and failed all of his O-levels. His first novel The Last Girl (2003) was chosen by the Independent on Sunday as one of its Novels of the Year. His brother is the renowned artist, Mat Collishaw. Stephan now works as a teacher in Nottingham, having also lived and worked abroad in Lithuania and Mallorca. 

Stephan was selected as one of the British Council’s 20 best young British novelists 

Stephan visited Zimbabwe and Zambia in 1989-1990 during the last says of Kaunda's dictatorship, he uses this experience to accurately cover the topical Mugabe dictatorship. 

Follow Stephan on Twitter at @scollishaw 

Reading the book piqued my curiosity about this writer and his raison d’etre so I posed some questions for him to which he has responded with some frank and full answers.

I’ve just read A Child Called Happiness and I enjoyed it very much. I was unfamiliar with your work prior to reading this book. My loss indeed. My first impression as I began the book was that you must have some deep connection with Zimbabwe. Is that so? And what was the motivation behind this book?

My first three novels have all been set in Eastern Europe, so this new novel is something of a departure for me. Geography and writing are intimately entwined; there is something special about places - different places have different atmospheres, and these, for me, are often intimately connected to their histories. The past is rarely indelibly erased; it continues to haunt a place. It is a part of the emotional geography of place. I am particularly interested in places in which one set of people have attempted to change the narrative course of a place, something that is common with the shifting borders in Eastern Europe. I first went to Africa in 1989. I was twenty and it was the first time I had ever been out of Britain. Zimbabwe was not just a new continent, it was a new world. It was a place I very much fell in love with – not just because of the extraordinary beauty of its physical geography, but because of the warmth and the generosity of the people I met there staying in villages and townships around the country. And as is always the case when you fall in love, you want to know everything, you want to discover the history of the one you have fallen for. Understanding who they are means understanding the journey they have been on to get to where they are. And so, A Child Called Happiness, is a belated attempt to do that. To explore the history of a beautiful place. I did write a ‘Zimbabwean’ novel earlier on in my career, but then gave it to my brother, the artist Mat Collishaw for his opinion, but he left it on a train and I never got it back. It took me a few years to come back to it.

          A story such as this seems dependent upon authentic research. The descriptions and atmospheres created within the story are palpable. How did you go about your research? Obviously Robert Mugabe is a real person but how much of the book is fact and how much is fiction? Did you visit Zimbabwe

I went to Zimbabwe a number of times in the late 1980s, early 1990s. I travelled the whole country, staying on the whole with local people in villages and townships. I got to see some of the wonderful sights of Zimbabwe including the amazing ruins of a medieval town Great Zimbabwe, and the stunning Victoria Falls, but it was the villages and the townships that I really loved. There was one particular farm that I visited that has stuck particularly sharply in my memory. Separate buildings were allocated to specific roles. The kitchen was a traditionally built round hut with a conical thatched roof. The blood of an ox had been mixed with the clay used for the floor, which had been polished to a glorious dark shine. The walls were smoked to a beautiful shade and against the far wall locally produced pots had been stacked, looking like an art installation. It was stunningly beautiful, and something I had really not expected from a small farm out in the bush.

The novel is rooted in real events and there are some real characters who appear in it, like the spiritual leader of the first Shona rebellion, Nehanda. She was an inspirational figure in the late nineteenth century. And then, of course, there is Robert Mugabe. The history is as accurate as I could get it while shaping my story, though of course the majority of what I have written is fiction.

As a history graduate, I love the research element of writing a novel, but I really hope that very little of that research is evident when you actually read the story.

          As a reader initially I found the dual story lines frustrating as I got so absorbed in one and then had to switch to another. But all became clear as I progressed through the story and I thought it was very cleverly done. Was this always the format you intended for the book?

The intertwining of the stories is, I think, thematically important. The two narratives – the stories of these two sets of people who have inhabited the land – reflect each other. Both sets of people experience a loss.

I enjoyed the impartiality you write with. As a reader I never felt I was invited to ‘take sides’ as such although I felt encouraged to understand all perspectives. But I imagine it must have been hard not to be partisan during some of the events described in the book. Was this so?

I was particularly pleased that Philip Barclay, a British writer and diplomat, who knows a lot more about the subject than I do had kind words to say about the novel and felt that I managed to achieve a ‘balanced treatment of an emotive issue’. Though he noted that the issue would ‘challenge and provoke many readers.’ We’ll see. We often seek to simplify our world into the good guys and the bad guys, the heroes and the villains; my writing has always attempted to break down those barriers. Good people can often do bad things and bad people can sometime be right and achieve good things. That is not to say that I think there is no such thing as right and wrong, or good and evil, but just that as humans we rarely sit easily in categories. I’m not sure that the novel is about the rights and the wrongs of the often bloody history of Zimbabwe, it is about the stories of people caught up in these conflicts.

Very often in fiction some of the lesser characters appear as no more than functional. But In A Child Called Happiness I found them to have their own voice and persona. Was this intentional or part of your intrinsic writing ability?

Thank you, that’s very good to hear. I love the characters in my novels. I live with them for a long time as I build the novel. Characters do take on a life of their own. You can be planning for a character to do something in chapter twenty, and then when you get to that part of the novel, the character says to you, that’s ridiculous my character would never do something like that. As a writer you feel like saying, ‘Well tough luck, that’s what I’ve planned for you.’ But then it’s a lie. And you know it, so you can’t do that anymore, you have to bend your will to the integrity of your character. The minor characters in novels are often as important as the main ones and will often fight for their space. Certainly, when I wrote The Last Girl a very minor character just demanded to be explored and he found himself central to the next novel I wrote.

       Could you tell us a little about how you approach the act of writing. Do you store up ideas? Or do you act upon one the instant it manifests itself? Do you have any writing rituals or routines?

I have a notebook and I write down ideas in that whenever I can. Often I write them down and then loose the notes, but the fact that they have been written stores them somewhere in the back of my brain. And that it is the best place for them to be, because then they start talking to the other ideas I’ve had and they start sparking off each other, or merge, and the novel I actually write is an amalgam of different things I’ve planned. I don’t have any particular writing rituals. The most important thing for me is to switch off the internal critic who constantly peers over my shoulder telling me how rubbish my writing is. Self-consciousness is the enemy of writing. A glass of whiskey helps sometimes. 

         I did some cursory googling as you were unfamiliar to me and Wikipedia described your genre as ‘Historical’. Is this a fair description? Is that how you would describe yourself?

All four of my novels have been historical dramas, but I don’t think you have to be interested in history to enjoy them. Personally, I love history, but I really try to make sure that all of my research is as unobtrusive as possible. 

  I know that being an avid reader is almost compulsory for a writer so a question I always ask is if  you can remember the first book you read that moved you to tears, if any?

So many books have moved me. The first novel I remember falling in love with was Middlemarch by George Elliot, which seems a little odd in retrospect. I was seventeen when I first read it. I had failed my GCSEs not once but twice and was employed as an office junior on a Youth Training Scheme. I would nip off to the toilets to read it. I read it three times before I was twenty. A totally different book that moved me was Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces. The first time I read it I was very sniffy about the overtly poetic style, even reading sections out to my wife ironically. However, when I finished it, I reopened it at the beginning and read it all over again, which is the first and only time that I have ever done that. I think the feeling of loss and grief in the novel and its meditation on memory are themes similar to those I often find myself exploring in my own writing. If not so beautifully as Michaels.

        Finally are you at liberty to tell us what you are working on at the moment?

I’m working on a new novel and it is slowly finding its shape. Very slowly. I also run a small press which specialises in publishing translated fiction from the Baltic countries, specifically Lithuanian fiction. We’ve brought out a number of superb novels written by award winning novelists who have never been published in English before. Late last year we published ‘Shtetl Love Song’ by the internationally acclaimed Grigory Kanovich and in July we will be publishing the award winning Lithuanian-Ukrainian novelist Jaroslavas Melnikas’ collection of short stories, ‘The Last Day’. You can find out more at www.noirpress.co.uk.

My thanks to Stephan for such a rich interview. My thanks to go to Imogen Harris at Legend Press for facilitating this interview and for the opportunity to read the book in the first place. 

Finally do check out the rest of the blog tour. See what others have to say about this fascinating novel.

Rooms - Lauren Oliver

I’m delighted to be reviewing this book for a couple of reasons. One is because it’s another library book and I’m pleased with myself for maintaining my resolution to use my local library more regularly than I had been doing.

https://nudge-book.com/blog/2018/03/libraries-a-reflection-by-gill-chedgey/ 

Secondly I was thrilled to find a Lauren Oliver book.

I’ve read several of Lauren Oliver books intended for YA readership, spellbinding books of dystopian fiction. I love to see a writer diversify so this novel , her first novel for an adult audience, was a gem to find nestling on the shelf. A digression to be sure but I was actually seeking out some early Cassandra Parkin whose last two novels I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. There were none on that day so rather than leave without borrowing a book I spotted this one. 

Published some four years ago Rooms deals with grief, loss, identity the parent/child relationship and the desire for closure that the human animal craves. Prefaced by a Franz Wright poem of the same name I was also briefly reminded of the Bible, John 14 ‘In my Father’s house are many rooms…”. Each part of the book is a different room, quite a nice device. Some might describe it as a ghost story, but as it is not a frightening ghost story others might see it as a more spiritual affirmation of life after death. 

The chain of events is precipitated by the death of Richard Walker Our main protagonists, ex wife, Caroline, daughter Mina and son Trenton are not, on the surface, especially nice people, hard to warm to them but they seem to have been formed by the path their lives have taken or not taken as the case may be. Blighted by the perceived shortcomings of Richard Walker their sojourn in his home unravels many secrets. Not all of them theirs, an integral part of the story belongs to the ghosts and the way the strands of all their stories weave together by the end is satisfying.

Oliver knows how to tell a story. And she does it well. There are some subtle, humorous undertones here. They need to be subtle for it is a sombre book overall, redemptive and vaguely hopeful in conclusion.  It’s slow paced story. considered and thoughtful. It’s not uplifting, in fact its downright sad in places but its in the careful hands of Lauren Oliver so it is steered in the right direction.

Should You Ask Me - Marianne Kavanagh

I will admit I did struggle with this for the first thirty pages or so. I’ve come across the dual confession narrative before and found it to be effective but for some reason it wasn’t gelling for me initially. However I’m not one to easily give up on a book. In fact I can’t remember the last time I did. And if a publisher ( thanks - Hodder & Stoughton) has been generous enough to send me a review copy my natural courtesy insists I finish it. And how glad I am!! For as I got into my stride I found this book to be enormously enjoyable.

Marianne Kavanagh is a new name for me and although getting to know someone is a pleasure it can take a little time. And so it took me some time to ‘find’ the writer’s voice and it took me some time to get to know Mary and William. But it was so worth it.

For their stories are unusual and their arrival at mutual understanding was touching and satisfying. The story takes place over six days in the novel’s contemporary time setting of the second world war with William’s story starting a little earlier and Mary’s considerably earlier! I do not wish to give too much away but if you are interested in the themes this book has to offer then love must surely head that list, closely followed by loss, heartache, missed opportunities and the keeping of secrets.

The writer has sustained the historic authenticity of both time frames and locations yet never loses her way, suggesting some faultless research and plotting. Both the main characters are developed and then sustained throughout and it feels as if we are privy to the growing of their mutual association and respect. 

And whilst it is relatively easy to identify the themes, assigning a genre seems more challenging. I like that in a book!! Our need to compartmentalise can sometimes be counter productive and inhibiting. You could say this is a war story. Or an historical novel. Or a love story maybe? A mystery? The wonderful Emma Thompson suggests it is ‘An unputdownable combination of thriller and psychological drama’. That all suggests that there is something for everyone. You can’t get better than that.

The derivation of the title of the novel is, too, a point of interest raising awareness of, to me anyway, a little known poet Vera Rich. Her titular poem is quoted in full at the beginning of the book. And the whole story was apparently inspired by a natural history book about Purbeck Island. All adding to the richness of this deceptively slender volume. 

And if, like me, you falter in the initial stages of the book do persevere for I doubt very much that you will be disappointed.

The Murder of My Aunt - Richard Hull

This is utterly scrumptious, if one can ever describe a book as such. Well I can and I have!! Originally published in 1934 this book is one of the recent British Library Crime Classics publications and a worthy addition to this wonderful collection. Again with a helpful foreword by the inimitable Martin Edwards this jewel of a crime novel has been polished up for contemporary crime readers to enjoy.

As a crime tale goes it is subtle in the sense that no police,no detectives, no courts and no judges so much as put in an appearance. And it is so funny!! Darkly funny to be sure but there is an absurdity and an almost off balance predictability that grabs the reader in its clutches. Edward is nephew to the formidable Aunt Mildred, keeper of the purse and guardian of Edward after the death of his parents. She is happily living in Wales, Edward is not.  She is the titular aunt and the story is about Edward and his desire to murder his aunt. 

The bulk of the narrative is told in diary form, Edward’s diary and the writer cleverly develops Edward’s character through his diary accounts of situations and events and allows the reader to chortle away at the innermost workings of Edward’s mind. There are some subtly satiric undertones that are not always verbalised but offered to the reader to draw their own conclusions. And the conclusion of the novel is a delight, not unexpected if we’re honest but done so well that you’re happy you saw it coming and you haven’t been made a fool of!! 

You can’t actually warm to either Edward or his aunt  but it doesn’t really matter because it means the reader can remain neutral and just enjoy the ‘antics’ especially of Edward as he bungles his away around rural Wales upsetting, possibly, everyone. 

And of course the cover is another inspired addition, taken from a GWR tourist poster advertising Wales. Hats off to the British Library, they’ve done it again! Please don’t stop!!

Underwater Breathing - Cassandra Parkin - BLOG TOUR!

Be gentle with me. This is my first ever blog tour!  And I couldn't be happier that it's for this writer and this book. I read the The Winter's Child last year and loved it. So I jumped at the opportunity to read Underwater Breathing.

So let's begin with a little of the blurb..........

On Yorkshire’s gradually-crumbling mud cliffs sits an Edwardian seaside house. In the bathroom, Jacob and Ella hide from their parents’ passionate arguments by playing the ‘Underwater Breathing’ game – until the day Jacob wakes to find his mother and sister gone. 

Years later, the sea’s creeping closer, his father is losing touch with reality and Jacob is trapped in his past. Then, Ella’s sudden reappearance forces him to confront his fractured childhood. As the truth about their parents emerges, it’s clear that Jacob’s time hiding beneath the water is coming to an end. 

Here's what some other people had to say about the book.

 ‘A dark, powerful and emotional novel with hauntingly beautiful prose. It will compel you to read on even as it sends chills up your spine’ Nicola Moriarty 

‘This is a glorious, emotional novel about who we really are, where we belong in the world, and how truly at mercy we are to the events that shape us. I can't recommend it enough’ Louise Beech 

And if that hasn't whetted you appetite maybe my own review will?

Underwater Breathing - Cassandra Parkin

Oh, Cassandra Parkin, you’ve done it to me again. Only this time you’ve really done it! I am wrecked after reading this book! Which is as good a way of putting it as any, given the theme. Sort of. In a nutshell the book is about love. About the fragile, crumbling, tempestuous madness of love. In one long, glorious metaphor using the sea and its relentless power Cassandra Parkin has constructed a fiction of chilling beauty. 

If a missing child was at the heart of The Winter’s Child then missing persons are at the heart of this gripping new novel. Not necessarily physically missing though.  An onion story where layers are peeled off to reveal the truths that hide within these delicate hearts. Such tenderness nestling against such sharpness, the juxtaposition of the two states twirls your emotions around.

There are few characters in the book but without exception they are superbly drawn. Once again Ms. Parkin has demonstrated that ability which allows you to feel what her characters are feeling. Although the story seems to be Jacob and Ella’s story there is another marvellous character in Mrs. Armitage. Fascinating in her complexity and such a wonderful example of how love can wear many faces she is a support that keeps the whole story together and offers both the other characters and readers too a refuge against the storms of life that batter the people in this story. 

Impressive, too, are the vivid descriptions of the sea and the land and the battle between them. I often wonder what this poor writer has put herself thought to be able to describe these scenes and situations with such clarity and authenticity. In fact the sea is there as as one of the main characters possibly the ‘baddie’ of the book. 

There are writers and there are storytellers and sometimes you’re lucky enough to get them both within one author and I think it fair to say that of Cassandra Parkin. This is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. Thanks to Imogen Harris at Legend Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy. 

Do you still need convincing that you simply must read this book? I've saved the best till last!! An interview with the lady herself. Cassandra Parkin answers the questions I put to her.

1. I’ve just finished reading Underwater Breathing and i thought it was marvellous. Some 
powerful themes for a reader to absorb. So I am wondering where the inspiration came for this
 story?

Oh, thank you so much – I’m thrilled you enjoyed it! 

I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to ideas – something will grab my attention for a moment and I’ll hoard it away along with all the others, until one day it comes to the surface again. The seed for Underwater Breathing was a story on the news, years ago now, about an East Yorkshire village that was falling into the sea. The residents had always known this would happen, but the erosion was much faster than anyone had predicted. There was this one couple who’d retired there. They’d bought their house knowing perfectly well it would fall in the end, but they were gambling on them both being dead by the time the sea came for their home. They said they’d made a bet with the sea, and lost.

That seemed like such a strange and powerful bargain – the inevitability of your own death, staked against the power of the sea. I scribbled down the words family make bet with sea and lose, and then promptly forgot about them, until one day the entire plot of Underwater Breathing came to the surface and I had to write the story.     

2.Your characters are all so believable and as a reader it is easy to engage with them, especially Jacob and Ella. Jacob broke my heart he was so full of love despite his troubled childhood and adolescence. They both grew and developed before our very eyes. Is this part of your planning before you start to write or do characters evolve as you’re writing ?

For me, one of the joys of writing is getting to know the characters, and having them “take over” the story. The best moment for me is when they start telling me that no, it happened this way, not that way; that they wouldn’t do that, but would do this instead; that this is how they really felt at the time. There’s a scene in Alice Through The Looking Glass that describes this perfectly for me. The White King is trying to make a note in his diary, but Alice, invisible, stands behind him and starts guiding the pen so that it writes her words, not his. I feel as if the story and the people in it already exist, somehow, and my job isn’t to create them but to describe them, as accurately as I can.

I’ve said this to a few people, and got varying reactions (other writers tend to know exactly what I’m on about, whereas non-writers just nod respectfully in a don’t alarm the madwoman way and change the subject). I will admit it sounds weird. But then, how can I possibly have made it all up using just the pink squishy stuff between my ears? That seems far weirder to me.

3.Jacob’s relationship with his father is so touching. Despite the volatile and changeable behaviour, for the most part, he maintains such outward tenderness. What kind of research did you do in regard to memory loss conditions and the management of them by carers?

Lots of reading, to start with, from as many sources as possible. Oliver Sacks wrote some beautiful case studies about memory loss that show you the condition but also the person living with it. Then, lots of NHS advice leaflets and websites (to get a feel for what it’s “supposed” to be like), and lots of blogs and personal testimonies (to get under the skin of the reality). Finally, most families are touched by memory loss or dementia at some point, and my family has been too. So some of what Jacob feels, that combination of love and guilt and exasperation, is based on personal experience. 

4.I found the character of Mrs. Armitage absolutely fascinating. It’s easy to focus so much on Jacob and Ella that you can almost forget that here is another story running parallel to theirs. Another story of love. Her pragmatism and controlled emotions were masterful. And yet the latent care and love she had for the children was extremely moving. Is she based on anyone you know? 

Mrs Armitage came to me as a very complete person – I didn’t have any sense at all that I was creating her. It was more like having someone wander in to the narrative and say, Actually, you need to hear my version to properly understand what’s going on here. I really enjoyed getting to know her, although I’m not sure what she’d make of me in return.

5. The underwater descriptions when the children are holding their breath are so vivid and believable that it made me wonder if you practised yourself in order to write with such authenticity!!

Actually I did! Once you get used to the feeling of being completely submerged, it’s a very peaceful place to be. Sadly, as Jacob and Ella both know, it’s not possible to stay underwater for ever.

6. For me the book had two dramatic peaks, the sibling relationship, and the disintegration of the land into the sea. The descriptions of the latter were so graphic one could almost feel oneself at the risk of drowning! It’s a wonderful piece of visual writing too. Was it difficult to write that part?

It was challenging, because I wanted to get the atmosphere right. It’s terrifying, but also sort of glorious – the moment you’ve dreaded is finally here, and now you can finally discover what comes next.

7. I saw the crumbling of the mud cliffs as a sustained metaphor for how aspects of our lives can crumble and we are powerless to stop it. The sea certainly felt like a threat throughout the book. It felt like an additional character, a villain almost. Was this your intention?

It definitely was, and I’m so glad this came through for you in the story! My grandfather was in the Merchant Navy, and although he loved every minute of his seafaring life, he also told me that the most important advice he had for me was “never turn your back on the sea”. He thought of the sea as a living entity, with its own will and its own plans, that might coincide with our plans or might conflict with them. He said there was no point trying to fight the sea, because it would always, always win – all we could do was work with it as best we could.

8.I read A Winters Child last year which also impressed me and I was quite surprised to see another book which seemed hot on its heels! For novels of such depth and substance you seem very prolific!  Do you have ideas already stored up just waiting to be written?

I always feel as if I’m being way too lazy and not doing enough, so you can’t imagine how much it means to me to have you say this – thank you! I constantly collect little seeds and nuggets of ideas, but I only have room in my head to plant and nurture one at a time into a novel. In this industry, people quite often (and quite reasonably) ask you, “have you got any ideas for the next book?” Although I try and come up with some sort of answer, the truth is that generally speaking, I don’t, and will continue not to have, until about a month after I’ve finished the current one. (Which I find pretty terrifying, because maybe one day there will be no more ideas, and then what on earth will be the point of me?) So while I was writing The Winter’s Child, I had absolutely no idea that the next one would be Underwater Breathing. 

I must admit, writing Underwater Breathing was incredibly tough (in contrast to The Winter’s Child, which came very easily), and right up until the moment when I finished it, I wasn’t sure if I could make it work. I actually got forty thousand words into my first draft, then realised I hated every word of it and was going have to start again from scratch. I told my best friend this and she said it made her feel quite ill to think about it, but it was one of the best and most liberating experiences of my life – accepting that it was okay to fail, and start again, and do better. 

9. How do you write? By that i am wondering if you have a special place, special time, any special routines and rituals? 

I don’t think of myself as having much of a routine, but when I stop to think about it, I definitely do. I always start by building an outline, using post-it notes and sheets of A4 paper. This has to happen in the afternoon, on the living-room floor, and it’s absolutely critical that my cats come and sit on it, move things around a bit, steal post-it notes, and generally bless it with their presence. (The only time they didn’t, I wrote the first draft of Underwater Breathing that I had to throw away and start again. Moral of the story: Cat Blessing is clearly a vital part of my creative practice.)

The actual writing part tends to happen in the mornings. I have a target of between 1,000 and 2,000 words a day, depending on what else is happening and where I am at the time, and given the choice, I’ll always write at a dining-room table, in my pyjamas. 

I write my first draft like a cat crossing the road – top speed, straight ahead and don’t look back until you reach the other side. So my first drafts are always an utter unholy mess of repetition, contradictions, out-of-order events and general over-writing. I think most writers would agree that editing is when you really bring something together, and I’m no exception. 

10. I know that being an avid reader is almost compulsory for a writer so a question I always ask is if you can remember the first book you read that moved you to tears, if any?

What a beautiful question. So many books have moved me to tears, but the first one I remember is the end of “Watership Down”, when El-Ahrairah comes for Hazel. I was about six, and it was the most grown-up book I’d ever read. Hazel looks back for a moment at all the rabbits he’s leaving behind, and El-Ahrairah says, “You needn’t worry about them…they’ll be all right, and thousands like them.” That image of Hazel, setting off on his last journey but still needing to check that his family are all right before he can go…it still makes me cry now. 

11. And finally having enjoyed this novel so much I am bound to ask when we can expect another new one!

I’m currently working on the first draft of a new novel, provisionally called The Slaughter Man, about a family who have suffered the death of one of their identical twin teenage daughters. It’s about the ways we reconstruct ourselves in the wake of devastating personal loss, and how we accept that we’re allowed to survive even when the people we love the most have left us. At the moment it’s in its this-is-awful, I-can’t-do-this, what-on-earth-made-me-think-I-could-do-this awkward teenage phase, but I have faith. And at least I haven’t had to throw it all out and start again. 

I'd like to thank Cassandra for her time and her fascinating answers. (I was delighted that her work is underpinned by feline presence!)

The Illumination of Ursula Flight - Anna-Marie Crowhurst

          In which the blogger does try to fashion a review.

I adhere to the adage that you can’t judge a book by looking at its cover but I might make an exception here. For the cover is a delight and prepares us for what’s inside this delightful debut novel from Anna-Marie Crowhurst. It is one thing to write historical fiction, many have done so successfully and convincingly but this book swallows up its reader and deposits them very firmly in the seventeenth century. It is as if you are truly there . Now that may be down to the fonts used and the wonderful design, format and layout of the book, it certainly helps without a doubt, but t’would be a disservice to this writer to credit the success of this book wholly to that. Ms. Crowhurst writes with an exuberance so often a feature of a debut novel and overdone in many instances but here it all works so perfectly. Using several devices, diary, letter and play scripts, we accompany the young Ursula on her journey to maturity.

For this is such an enjoyable book, warm and witty even when the going gets tough for Ursula, our heroine. And what a heroine she is! It’s a restoration comedy that romps along barely giving the reader time to breathe. Ursula is a breath of fresh air. A modern woman of her time, she possesses such spirit and resilience that she pushes this story onwards to its satisfying conclusion.

The buoyancy of the book must surely belie all the hard work and dedication that has gone into its creation for it is more than a straightforward, meticulously researched historical fiction. The basic premise of an arranged and unsuccessful marriage is not a new one but it is a feature of that age and has fired the imagination of many a novelist. It’s how a writer takes a basic premise and develops it that elevates the book. Using the vernacular of the age so consistently throughout was a joy to read. The authenticity of the descriptions flowed and convinced.

I don’t think there is anything I didn’t like about this book. From Ursula’s birth on the night of a ill omened comet to her ultimate triumph in pursuit of her goals, this coming of age story will uplift you and if you’ve avoided historical fiction up to now, think again, and maybe take a chance with this story. It really is fun.

My thanks to Readers First for the opportunity to read this delightful story.