Close to Home ~ Alyson Rhodes

As a book reviewer I have made contact with authors from all across the globe and feel immensely privileged to be able to share some amazing work. However, there is always something rather special when a book comes to my attention which has been written by an author in my part of the North of England. So with this in mind I have great pleasure in featuring some of those authors who are literally close to my home. Over the next few Saturdays, and hopefully beyond, I will be sharing the work of a very talented bunch of Northern authors and discovering just what being a Northerner means to them both in terms of inspiration and also in their writing.

Please welcome Northern Writer

Alyson Rhodes

 Hi, Alyson and welcome to Jaffareadstoo. Tell us a little about yourself and how you got started as an author.

I was born in Norwich but I grew up in Birmingham where I tutored and began writing poetry to help my recovery after a severe illness. I have always been a bookworm, toting huge libraries around with me when I moved house. I relished my Saturday visits to our local library as a child. I had my first major publishing breakthrough in 1996 when Collins Educational published my children’s novel set on the Norfolk Broads, ‘Soldiers in the Mist.’ (Still available to buy on www.amazon.co.uk).

When I met my husband to be we decided to raise our family in his home town of Bradford and we moved here in 2001. Motherhood and part time paid employment filled my time. I remained an avid reader and I think reading widely is a vitally important part of writing fiction. The more I read I believe, the better I write. It is an interlinked process.

But in 2011 I began (once again) scribbling ideas down in notepads. Fortuitously I spotted a WEA Creative Writing class in Otley, Leeds and so I took what felt like the huge step of joining. The tutor was/is the poet James Nash who has proved an inspiring, hugely encouraging mentor.

Which Yorkshire born writers have influenced you?

Two Northern born Y.A. authors, Messrs Robert Swindells (born in Bradford) and Westall (born in North Shields) have been important influences. I grew up reading their books and I return to them again and again. Swindells’ novel ‘Stone Cold’ had a huge impact on me, dealing with homelessness and life on the streets. It was eye opening. Several of my flash fiction pieces explore this issue. (‘No Home for Holly’ is available to read at:- https://zeroflash.org/2017/01/02/januarys-zeroflash-entries/)

Whilst Robert Westall’s interest in World War 2 and his supernatural stories, feeds into my own writing bent for the gothic, ghostly and macabre. My ghost story, ‘The Resurrection of the Reverend Greswold’ is available for download on www.alfiedog.com.

I do still write for Y.A.s and children- my latest book is ‘The Runaway Umbrella’ (ages 7 upwards) and it is available to buy on www.amazon.co.uk) but my main focus is writing Flash Fiction for adults. This is a new direction for me as a writer, telling a tale in 500 words or less or sometimes in just 100 words (aka a drabble), but one which I’ve found challenging and enjoyable. Many of my pieces are available to read on line, on websites like www.horrortree/tremblingwithfear and www.thecasket.co.uk or in print anthologies, ‘Twisted Tales 2016’ published by Raging Aardvark (www.amazon.co.uk)

Your books are written in Northern England – how have the people and its landscape shaped your stories?

Many of my Flash pieces are located in or inspired by the areas around Bingley in Bradford where I live. The park with its log cabin play hut described in ‘Doll Man’ is in Roberts Park in Saltaire where I used to take my son scootering. The sadly decaying old Odeon in Bradford town centre has inspired a number of derelict fictional buildings such as the hotel in ‘The Adelphi’. Cliffe Castle in Keighley is the backdrop for my longer ghost story, ‘Careful What you Wish For.’ Undercliffe Cemetery in Bradford with its lavish Victorian gothic monuments has worked its way into a few of my horror shorts.

A trip in the autumn to Leeds City Centre where we ate hot chestnuts bought from the handcart seller, led to the killer short ‘Chestnuts for my Sweet.’ Family holidays spent in and around Bridlington and Filey over the last 15 years, have their fictional overlay in several of my stories. Particularly the fun fairs and the piers. Ideal crime scenes!

All of these stories and more will be appearing in my debut Flash Fiction collection ‘Badlands’ which is due out from indie publisher Chapel Town Books later this year. This is an exciting opportunity for me, which came about via an open call from publisher/writer Gill James asking for authors to submit their short shorts! I will be appearing at the Morley Indie Book Fair with my book, on Sat 7 October 2017. So if you’re passing please drop by my stall and say hi.

If you were pitching the North as an ideal place to live, work and write – how would you sell it and what makes it so special?

My uncle used to live in Otley and we visited every year walking our dog on Ilkley moor. So I have come back to my family roots in a round about way. I love the fact you are five minutes drive from the moors but you have such lovely towns with their flourishing arts scenes like Halifax, Harrogate, Hebden Bridge, Saltaire and Leeds, all so close to Bradford. I enjoy the history of these towns and their galleries, shops and cafes. Coming up from the Midlands I found Yorkshire people really friendly, chatty and down to earth! This summer on holiday, we are going whale watching by boat from Whitby! There is a huge variety of landscape and activities to explore in the North.

Writing is a solitary business - how do you interact with other authors?

Over the last few years, apart from the Otley WEA class, I have attended Saltaire Writers Group (where I met the romance author Helena Fairfax) and currently I go to Menston Writers. I regularly attend literature festivals locally and writing workshops. The most recent one I went along to was run by crime writer Liz Mistry in Keighley Library. It was excellent and informative. The Bradford libraries run a variety of (low cost) writing classes, coordinated by Dionne Hood and are very supportive of budding writers. I learn a great deal from these workshops and I enjoy chatting to fellow writers. Inevitably writing is a solitary business but with the internet it’s easier than ever to link up with like minded creatives. I sometimes think I enjoy the chatting about the writing over a coffee more than the hard work of generating the actual words!

What do you have coming up in the future?

In September 2017 I am hoping to run and teach some Creative Writing Workshops. The Craft House in Saltaire is advertising here:-

 http://www.saltairecrafthouse.com/announcements/creative-writing-course. 

My background is in teaching, both in the paid and voluntary sectors. After several years of writing and submitting my work, with all the highs of publication and the lows of rejection which I’ve experienced, I felt it was the right time to branch out into teaching. I hope to run more classes at another venue in Farsley, but this is yet to be finalised.

I am working on a collection of ghost stories for publication in November this year. Otley Writers group is publishing their own autumnal collection too called ‘The Darkening Season’.

I post information about my writing journey and any events I attend on my blog, which can be found at www.alysonfayewordpress.wordpress.com. You can also contact me via my blog.

Thanks so much for hosting me in your Close to Home slot, Jo, and for your interesting questions. I’ve really enjoyed talking about my writing journey and how living in Yorkshire has influenced me and my fiction.

Links:-

Blog :- www.alysonfayewordpress.wordpress.com

Facebook as Aly Rhodes

Amazon author page :- https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01NBYSLRT

My Book Gorilla page is at :-http://www.bookgorilla.com/author/B01NBYSLRT/alyson-faye/kcc

Author’s page on Gill James’ blog:- http://www.gilljameswriter.eu/p/blog-page.html

Warm thanks to Alyson for spending time with us today

 and for talking about her writing and sharing with us her love for the North of England

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Blog Tour ~ The Silent Fountain by Victoria Fox

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting today's stop on 

The Silent Fountain Blog Tour 

It's with real pleasure that I introduce the author, Victoria Fox

Hi and welcome to Jaffareadstoo, Victoria and thank you for spending time with us on your blog tour. 

When you were planning The Silent Fountain what came first the idea or theme, the plot, place or characters.  Did you base any of the characters and places on people and places you know?

Italy came to me first. I had always wanted to set a book in Italy, in particular the Tuscan countryside surrounding Florence, and I knew, for this book, the setting would be key. I wanted somewhere with a very definite atmosphere. As soon as I decided on Italy, I could picture the crumbling, dilapidated Castillo Barbarossa. I could imagine the overgrown gardens and tangled rose bushes; I could smell the lemon groves.

The Silent Fountain is a bit of a ghost story, so I liked the idea of events unfolding in a rundown, but once very grand, mansion. This led me to the character of Vivien Lockhart, a one-time movie star, who herself was once very grand – until a shocking family secret made her too afraid to step out of the house. I like the idea of faded glamour both in settings and characters, because it begs the question: What happened here? What changed? What befell these people, to turn their lives upside down? The fountain at the front of the Barbarossa was once its glittering centrepiece. Why, then, hasn’t it been used in decades? And why does its owner insist on keeping it filled?

It’s strange, when planning, how one notion can lead to the next. Once I had Vivien at the Castillo Barbarossa, I started thinking about the events that had brought her there: an Italian love affair, a scandal buried deep in the past and a tragedy that would change everything. We first meet Vivien in the 1970s, and it isn’t until close to fifty years later that she finally faces the truth she’s been hiding from. Also hiding is Lucy Whittaker, my contemporary lead, who escapes London in the wake of a shattered romance. Lucy finds work at the Barbarossa – and a lot more besides. Strange sounds come from the attic. Vivien will never meet her in person. She glimpses a woman by the fountain, but when she goes to confront her no one is there…

I haven’t based any of the characters on people I know (although there’s probably a bit of me in Lucy). I have, however, been inspired by some of my favourite set-ups in literature: the glamorous first wife in Rebecca; the terrible love triangle in Jane Eyre; even the dark, irresistible danger of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (even if my Heathcliff is Sicilian). I love to explore the friction between duty and passion.

The Silent Fountain is my seventh book and it’s definitely different to the stories I’ve written before – my previous novels have been high-octane blockbusters set in the celebrity whirlwind. But the important things remain the same: powerful female leads, enticing, escapist settings and plenty of drama and romance. I hope readers will step straight into Italy every time they open the book – but that they’ll be glad to step out of it again, back into the real world, leaving the ghosts of the Barbarossa far behind.

You can find out more about Victoria and her writing on her website by clicking here

Find on Facebook or Follow on Twitter @VFoxWrites

Blog Tour runs 1st - 9th March #TheSilentFountain

My thanks to Victoria for answering my question and for sharing her thoughts about The Silent Fountain.


Thanks also to Olivia at Midas PR and the publishers HQ for the invitation to be part of this blog tour.

The Silent Fountain is out on the 9th March 2017

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Review ~ Cleopatra's Shadows by Emily Holleman

Sphere
June 2016

There's just something about a well-placed Egyptian eye that conjures Cleopatra's Egypt like nothing else and yet, this book, in a refreshing twist, focuses on Cleopatra's sisters, namely Arsinoe and Berenice, who find themselves out of Cleopatra's shadow when in 58 BC Berenice usurps the throne to become the first queen of Egypt in a thousand years.  Arsinoe, then just eight years old, is in constant fear for her life as Berenice is not as supportive a sister as Cleopatra, and to Arsinoe's dismay, Cleopatra is now in exile and can no longer be of help to her.

What then follows is an atmospheric tale of two sisters who find themselves at the centre of Egyptian politics, in a court which is rife with intrigue, alive with danger and ridden with superstitions. Cleverly divided into alternate chapters, the story brings together both the elder and the younger sister thus giving vibrant life to Arsinoe and Berenice, and at the same time allowing a unique perspective into the intimate details of their lives.

As very little is known about either Berenice or Arsinoe I think that the author has done a credible job in bringing them to life so that they feel authentic, without being too contrived. Time and place is cleverly described and the opulence of living within the confines of the Egyptian court is cleverly juxtaposed against the collusion and conspiracies which lured the unsuspecting to their violent deaths.

Time and place comes alive in the imagination. The constant hint of danger, the uncertainty of life which was so easily destroyed, at whim, shows very cleverly the destructive nature of a family constantly at odds with itself. Of course, it must not be forgotten that this is historical fiction, but by blending together known facts, a fascinating story of the Ptolemaic dynasty emerges, and as I became immersed in the plots and machinations of Upper Egypt, Cleopatra’s Shadow was never very far away.

A good debut novel from a talented new author of Historical fiction.

Best Read with ..goblets of spiced Egyptian wine and platters of minted veal and honeyed duck

About the author

Emily Holleman became fascinated with Cleopatra's younger sister Arsinoe on a in 2011 trip to Egypt and has been researching and writing about the Ptolemies ever since. A graduate of Yale university, Holleman spent several years as an editor for salon.com - a job she left to follow Arsinoe and her quest for the throne of Alexandria. She lives and works in Brooklyn and is, unsurprisingly, a younger sister.

Find the author on Facebook and Twitter @emilyjholleman

Amazon UK

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book.

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The author in my spotlight is ... James Wilson

Alma Books
May 2016

A bit of blurb...

A powerful novel of friendship, rebellion and betrayal...

England, 1950s. While out playing in the woods, ten-year-old Mark meets a man living in an old railway carriage. Despite his wild appearance, the stranger, who introduces himself as Aubrey Hillyard, is captivating – an irreverent outsider who is shunned by Mark’s fellow villagers, and a writer to boot. Aubrey encourages Mark to tell stories about his own make-believe world, and in return he informs the boy about a novel he is writing – a work of ominous science fiction.

As the meddling villagers plot to drive Aubrey out, Mark finds himself caught between two worlds – yet convinced that he must help Aubrey prevail at any cost.

James ~ welcome to Jaffareadstoo and thank you for answering my questions about your novel,  The Summer of Broken Stories...

What inspired you to write The Summer of Broken Stories?

The popular view of Britain in the 1950s sees it as a dull, grey, conformist place – little more, really, than a kind of monochrome prelude to the psychedelic explosion of the 1960s. But I was a child then, and that’s not how I remember the period at all. And I wanted to capture something of what it actually felt like – or at least, what it felt like to me, growing up then.

But the world I was trying to recreate wasn’t just some kind of lost idyll. Beneath the superficial calm there was an underbelly of anxiety – expressed in comics, or on TV, or in the work of novelists like John Wyndham. And what struck me, looking back, was that – for all that in many ways that world feels remote now – the sense of unease you find in these stories still links it, in unexpected ways, with the world we live in today, the stories we tell ourselves now, more than fifty years later. And it was this that gave me the second strand of The Summer of Broken Stories.

Without giving too much away – what can you tell us about the story?

It’s narrated from the point of view of ten-year-old Mark, who – while he’s out with his dog one day – finds a strange man called Aubrey Hillyard living in a disused railway carriage in the woods. Hillyard is writing a science fiction novel about a sinister entity called The Brain, and does a deal with the boy: he’ll tell Mark about The Brain, if Mark will tell him stories about the fictional world of his model railway, Peveril on the Swift. This seemingly innocent encounter ultimately changes the whole course of Mark’s life. 

The Summer of Broken Stories is a story about friendship and betrayal – in your research for the novel, did you discover anything which surprised you? 

As I said, I – just! – remember the 1950s, so it required less research than my other books, all of which are set in earlier periods. The biggest surprise, I think, was to realize just how much freedom children had then, compared with their modern counterparts. One of the characters in the book – an elderly woman who, during “tea”, plies Mark with home-made country wine – is closely modelled on someone who treated the ten-year-old me in exactly the same way. Today, I imagine, she might well be had up for supplying alcohol to a child.

Have you always wanted to write and how did you get started?

I first wanted to be a writer when I was five. If someone had told me then how long I would have to wait to see my first book in print, I’d have been devastated! I started with non-fiction, and then – by a slightly circuitous route – made my way back to my first love, the novel. 

What do you hope young readers will take away from this book?

Although it’s narrated from a child’s perspective, The Summer of Broken Stories isn’t intended specifically for young people. I hope – as I do with all my novels – that it takes readers into an unfamiliar world, and shows them there something that they recognize, from their own experience, to be true.

Can you share with us anything about your next writing project?

It’s set in the 1960s – so, chronologically, a sort of extension of The Summer of Broken Stories. But the similarity ends there: the new book is told from a number of different points of view, and centres on the life of a young singer who disappeared mysteriously in 1970. I don’t want to say a lot more at this stage – except that I’m very excited about it!

About the author





Visit the author's Website

Follow on Twitter @jcwilsonauthor

Huge thanks to James for spending time with us today and also to Thomas at Alma Books for his help with this interview. 



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Book extract from We and Me by Saskia de Coster ...

I am delighted to be able to share an extract from 


We and Me

by

Saskia de Coster

Translated from Dutch by Nancy Forest-Flier

World Editions Ltd
6 June 2016

A bit of blurb..

A brilliant, incisive novel that dissects the lives of a dysfunctional, yet bourgeois, family; a literary Desperate Housewives and a European response to Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.

On a private estate near the top of a mountain close to Flanders lives the Vandersanden family. Neurotic, aristocratic Mieke grooms her carpets while keeping a close eye on her family and neighbours. Her husband, the self-made Stefaan, is building up a career in a pharmaceutical company which is threatened by scandal. Meanwhile, Sarah, their daughter, overprotected by her parents and curious for the real world, is finding her own path. Like a contemporary Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina, she longs for freedom and individuality. But will she find an escape from the claustrophobic family dramas and secrets that surround her?

Sharp, incisive but also tender, We and Me shows how every unhappy family is still unhappy in its own way…

Extract :

Sarah watches as her parents take turns placing stones on the scale of love, a scale that isn’t made for such weight and soon gives way, leaving two people facing each other, trembling with rage, overwhelmed by the debris of all those complaints, their hearts headed for some unknown depth, quivering, swirling, each one determined for the very last time not to be taken in by this comedy, which has been going on for more than ten years and which no one with an ounce of sense in his head can call a good marriage.

‘It’s all my fault, all of it,’ Mieke cries. ‘I should be dead! Where’s a gun?’

‘Calm down!’

‘Just kill me, that’s all I ask. Do me a favour and kill me.’

‘There’s no talking to you.’

‘But I am talking, right? I’ve even come up with a solution.’

It’s either the hunger or the commotion, but Sarah suddenly feels faint. She drops down against the wall. She can’t get any air. Now she knows for sure: her parents are going to get divorced because they hate each other.

Together they begin howling at the moon, at the stars, at each other’s darkest, most hateful, most unbearable shadows and delusions. Stefaan can no longer control himself, and with all the outraged fury and strength he has in him he kicks at the door to the utility room, the only door that isn’t made of oak. The door answers with a crunch. He’s left hanging in the splintery hole. He begins hopping around on one foot, the other having been swallowed up by the gaping mouth in the door. He isn’t able to wrench himself loose.

‘Now that’s a solution,’ Mieke cries.

‘I’ll take care of it,’ Stefaan says, instantly pale and serene. Blood is starting to flow where his ankle has disappeared into the door.

‘Oh dear oh dear, you’re bleeding,’ cries Mieke. She hurries to the kitchen and comes back with a bucket and a sponge. She wipes the blood from his leg and begins to scrub the surrounding floor. Blood, stubborn stuff.

As in the most idiotic slapstick comedy, the front doorbell suddenly rings. Mieke, torn between two places where her presence is required, decides to complete her tasks one after the other.

‘Stefaan, everything is going to be fine,’ she keeps repeating as she squeezes the sponge into the red water.

Stefaan can’t think of anything better to do than smile his eternal smile and say, deathly pale, ‘I’m going to deal with this. Everything is under control. You go get the door.’ He tries to pull his foot out with a single tug but the door refuses to release its prey from its mouth of splinters.

‘Sarah, help me out here!’ Stefaan calls out. ‘Go get a saw and hammer out of the garage.’

More exemplary than ever, Sarah deals with this moment of crisis by playing the role of obedient child. She goes out to Stefaan’s gigantic do-it-yourself arsenal and picks out a hammer and a small jigsaw.

‘If that’s Ulrike again with more of her penny-pinching dance, I’ll get rid of her fast enough,’ Mieke grumbles. Her neighbour Ulrike is extremely well off. Her husband is a professor of economics and sits on dozens of boards of directors, yet Ulrike loves a bargain. For months now she’s been trying to convince Mieke to have a sauna installed so both of them can get a twenty percent discount. But it isn’t Ulrike. Marc from across the street, not exactly the shy type, slips right past Mieke and walks to the dining room uninvited. 

‘Marc! What a surprise!’ Mieke runs after him.

‘Hi, Mieke. I have a question for Stefaan. My regular golf partner just cancelled, and ... ’

‘I’d go get him but he’s in the shower,’ Mieke says. ‘Sorry, Marc.’

Marc shoots a glance into the kitchen and sees Stefaan struggling at the door.

‘Excuse me, Mieke,’ and he deftly pushes her aside. ‘I’m going to give Stefaan a helping hand.’

Like a genuine action hero, he forces his way into the kitchen. ‘This looks like child’s play compared to what I do in the operating room every day.’

‘Leave it, Marc,’ Stefaan mumbles, but Marc has already grabbed the jigsaw and is skilfully carving his way through the wood until he reaches Stefaan’s leg. In no time at all Stefaan is standing with both feet on the floor. Marc looks at his work with satisfaction. After a slap on the back for Stefaan and a wink for Sarah he sails back to the front door.

‘Stefaan is in the shower,’ he says to Mieke, who has gone purple in the face. Marc now has a cluster bomb of gossip on hand that he can set off all over the neighbourhood.

©Saskia de Coster

About the author

Saskia de Coster (born in 1976) is an artist, playwright and broadcaster. Her previous novel, Hero, was nominated for the BNG Literature Prize and earned the longlist of the AKO Literature Prize. This is Mine was longlisted for the AKO Prize and the Golden Owl. Her work was translated into ten languages.

Author website

Amazon UK

My thanks to the publishers and Diana at Ruth Killick Publicity for their kind permission to use this extract.

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Review ~ coffee tea The Caribbean & Me by Caroline James

Add caption

Coffee Tea The Caribbean & Me is the second book in the Coffee Tea series which began with Coffee Tea The Gypsy & Me, and which now continues the story, several years later, of Jo and her best friend Hattie. In this book , the story begins with Jo trying to rebuild her life after a devastating loss, and for those who haven't read the first book, I won't spoil anything here by revealing too much. Suffice to say, Jo and Hattie both need time away from Kirkton Sowerby and where better than to visit the Caribbean, ostensibly to visit Jo's son, Jimmy, who has recently relocated to Barbados, but also gives them time to mend their wounds and to take stock of their lives.

What then follows is a lovely story about the power of friendship, of comfortable days spent in the sun, of eating glorious food and drinking far too many cocktails, and enjoying light hearted flirtations. And yet there's also a lovely inclusion into the story of other characters especially Jo's other son. Zach, who is a talented , and it must be said, rather handsome Michelin starred chef. The author fills her characters with such warmth and wit and their delightful personalities shine through onto the pages of the story. I really liked spending time with them and thoroughly enjoyed seeing how the story eventually played out.

The very nature of Coffee Tea The Caribbean & Me lends itself to a continuation, however, the story also sits comfortably on its own merits and can be read as a standalone. It's a perfect read for a sunny afternoon in the garden or leisurely reading on a hot afternoon by a poolside, preferably, somewhere exotic.

Best Read with.. Tall glasses of ice cold Pina Colada, heavy with white rum and a seafood lunch, of snapper, conch and pickled shrimp...

About the Author

Caroline James was born in Cheshire and wanted to be a writer from an early age, she trained, however, in the catering trade and worked and travelled both at home and abroad. Having lived in Cumbria for many years Caroline owned and ran a pub in Appleby followed by a country house hotel, south of Penrith and says that her time in Cumbria was the inspiration that led to her writing path.

Caroline's debut novel, Coffee Tea The Gypsy & Me shot to #3 on Amazon and was E-book of the Week in The Sun newspaper. Her second novel, So, You Think You're A Celebrity… Chef? has been described as wickedly funny: 'AbFab meets MasterChef in a Soap…' The manuscript for Coffee Tea The Caribbean & Me was a Top Ten Finalist at The Write Stuff, London Book Fair 2015 and the judge’s comments included: “Caroline is a natural story-teller with a gift for humour in her writing.” Her next novel, Coffee Tea The Boomers & Me will be published autumn 2016.

Website

Facebook

Twitter @CarolineJames12

Amazon UK

My thanks to the author for sharing her novel with me.

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The Season is Coming : 20:08:2013

Published 20 August 2013
Bloomsbury

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Welcome to Scion: No safer place

Set in 2059, in a dystopian future where London is a hot bed of intrigue and moral turpitude, nineteen year old Paige Mahoney, is a dream walker and clairvoyant, working as part of an elite criminal underworld in the notorious Seven Dials area of Scion London. On a rainy day, and due to a catastrophic error of judgement, Paige is kidnapped, drugged and taken to the secret city of Oxford, where she is assigned to a Rephaite, who becomes her master, and who is as mysterious, as he is deadly. In this whole new world, complete with its own syntax and idiom, Paige must learn to curb her natural instincts, or risk the consequences.

The Bone Season is unlike anything I have ever read before, and so far out of my comfort zone, that I am at a loss to know where to start to evaluate the story, but I can’t do the author or the story a disservice by describing all that happens. Heck, even after finishing the book, I still don’t know half of what happens, but what I do know, is that this is a remarkably good debut novel. The strength of imagination needed to control a world within a world is finely explored, and the inspired use of original and highly inventive terminology adds authority to a story which ultimately takes you by surprise and leaves you, in the end, wanting more. Thankfully, there is a wonderful glossary which reveals a vocabulary which gets to be so utterly familiar, you find that you want to drop the vernacular into your own life; I mean who can resist a good Flash House?

There are going to be the inevitable comparisons made between The Bone Season and recent trends in popular fiction, and yes, it does have some of the magical elements of Rowling’s Harry Potter, the otherworldliness of Pullman’s His Dark Materials, and some of its own shades of grey in the relationship between keeper and voyant , but ultimately, what’s important is that you should read the book on its own merits, and judge it against none – merely enjoy a good story, settle in and take your seat for a ride to Scion London.

My thanks to Chloe at thinkjam.com and Bloomsbury for my ARC of this book and to the author for an introduction to a whole new world. 

More about the Author

Samantha Shannon wrote this novel when she was nineteen. The Bone Season has already been sold into 18 languages and Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings) and Jonathan Cavendish (Bridget Jones’s Dairy) have optioned film rights through their British production company, the Imaginarium Studios.

I have one copy of The Bone Season for one lucky UK reader in this great giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway