Ferryman

Claire McFall knows a lot about the afterlife. I had no idea it was so hard dying, by which I mean the stuff that happens after you’ve died, in whatever form your death takes. And it seems that what you didn’t like alive, is quite possibly going to be what you have to go through as you try to get your soul to a good place. Or be lost forever.

In fact, what is surprising is that you can die again, as if it wasn’t enough the first time. If you are not diligent while traipsing through the wasteland, wraiths will come and get you and your soul will be lost.

On the other hand, the ‘real’ afterlife, which you could reach once mountains and swamps and anything else you hate have been conquered, seems really quite nice. But I’d never get up that first hill.

Although, if you get your personal Ferryman and he/she is as lovely as Tristan is to [dead] Dylan, then I suppose there are compensations.

On a train journey to meet her long lost father, Dylan dies in a train crash. This is how she meets Tristan, whose task it is to get her soul safely across the wasteland.

But what if you fall in love? You’re both dead, but in different ways, and there can be no happy ever after[life]. Or can there?

Ferryman is a romance with a difference. I thought at first it was just going to be another teen romance, even if they were dead, but there is more to it. It makes you think. And it also makes me wonder how they can keep up such personal service, considering how many people die all the time. But I’m guessing the afterlife is vast.

And surprisingly, the last six lines are somewhat creepy. Don’t know if they are meant to be, but I shivered a bit when I got there.

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Launching Trespassers

No sooner had I met Claire McFall last Saturday than she invited me to her book launch, which was last night at Waterstones. So back to Edinburgh I went. This was no hardship, as I’d had several days of ‘rest.’ And I was able to meet up with two toddlers on the same day, both of whom took exception to their mums being a bit busy with other people.

The second toddler belonged to Claire and he was a little vocal about mum sitting over there on the chair, without him. I thought that was rather lovely, and realised that there are too few tiny children helping launch their parent’s books.

Lari Don was there as well, and I will not speculate on why, or make anything up. Maybe. She had chaired Claire’s event at the book festival on Saturday, so has read both Ferryman and Trespassers. (Ferryman is Claire’s first novel about the afterlife, the one that is doing well in China, and it’s just been re-issued by Floris, so it can help usher the sequel Trespassers in.)

Between them Claire and Lari have enthused a lot about how wonderful they feel Floris have been. And that is good. Floris had laid on lots of crisps and chocolates and drinks, too. (And I know why Lari was there! She offered to hold my glass so I could drink and work.)

After an enthusiastic introduction, Claire told us all – well, some at least – about herself and her writing, what comes after the afterlife, and how she used to read trashy books as a teenager, and was a little surprised to find she’s now seen as writing romantic fiction. (Not surprising at all, and nothing wrong with that, I say.)

I had already encountered several spoilers re the end of Ferryman, so coped relatively well with Claire’s reading from Trespassers. It sounds at least as good as the first book, so those Chinese fans are in for a treat. As are the – slightly fewer – Scottish fans. Some of them are Claire’s students at school, and they were there last night.

Lots of photos were taken, including some great ones by Claire’s mother, which I had to go and ruin by suggesting maybe the book shouldn’t be held upside-down. I won’t be invited again.

Here’s to another million sales!

Day 6

Thanks to me wanting a scone (although it turned out not to taste terribly nice) I found Moira Mcpartlin downing an espresso at the station café, which was very nice indeed. We were both going to Edinburgh, so suddenly I had company, which was both welcome, and positively useful, as Moira kept me awake. And there was all that delicious book and author gossip to engage in.

In Charlotte Square the first thing Moira needed to do was photograph her own book (Wants of the Silent) in the bookshops. Which is a perfectly normal thing to do. Then we went over to admire [the photo of] Kathryn Evans in her swirly dress, and as we stood there a black clad figure wearing an enormous witch’s hat walked past and into the Corner theatre.

An hour or two later I discovered this had been Kirkland Ciccone. It being a really warm and humid day, he said he’d been too hot, except when you’re as cool as he is, you can’t be too hot. So that’s fine.

The first thing for me was to find Amanda Craig who was signing after a morning event in the Spiegeltent with Gwendoline Riley. Amanda told me it had been a good event, and how much she enjoys the book festival.

I rested in the yurt for a bit, and was able to hear all the shouting going on in the tent next door where Lari Don was entertaining a large horde of schoolchildren. Caught her just before her signing, when she was having a one minute rest.

My main reason for day 6 was to join Theresa Breslin’s school event (they said I could), so Frances kindly walked me over there and told them it was all right for me to sit in. When Theresa arrived, she handed me a school tie from Mr B, to make me blend in a bit. It made all the difference. And the event was much better than the one in my dream in the early hours (the reason for me feeling so sleepy).

Afterwards Theresa signed for a good hour, which meant I also managed to see Nicola Morgan who was half an hour behind in the signing tent. That’s what I like about these weekday school event days; my authors all over the place. So then I slipped across the square to the children’s bookshop, where I saw Judy Paterson, and Jenny Colgan with Kathryn Ross who had chaired her event.

On my way back to the yurt I encountered Cathy MacPhail en route to the Main theatre and there was time for a little hug. Saw Elizabeth Laird arrive, and then went to sit outside the yurt while waiting for a last photocall. Press boss Frances went off to buy green ice creams for her crew, which they licked in the rising heat, after first taking pictures of her posing with the five cones.

At last it was time for Norwegian crime writer Thomas Enger and James Oswald to face the paparazzi, and me. I think they were both taken aback by the onslaught of so many cameras all at once. Chatted to James while Thomas was being ‘done’ and it sounds as if it’s not something he’s used to encountering. And when it was James’s turn, I mentioned to Thomas that we’d met in Manchester a few years ago. Luckily he remembered who he’d been with, as my memory was fading a bit.

I picked up my school tie and half-eaten scone and walked to Waverley in the heat, ‘enjoying’ the piper on the corner, and narrowly missing my train. But there was another one soon enough, and it was both cold and empty, which is the beauty of travelling mid-afternoon and mid-week.

The Rasputin Dagger

In memory of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Theresa Breslin has written a wonderful historical novel, filled with fear and violence, starvation and romance.

The title might be The Rasputin Dagger, and Rasputin and the Tsar family do feature in the book, but this is mainly a story about normal people – brave, normal people – during a time of great upheaval and danger.

16-year-old Nina has recently been orphaned and must leave her home to go to St Petersburg to seek a new life. There she meets medical student Stefan, as well as the Royal Romanov family and the charismatic Rasputin, who seems to be running the show.

There is a war on with Germany, and there is serious unrest at home. Lenin wishes to return to Russia and the soldiers want to survive so they can return home too. The Tsar is weak, and the people hate Rasputin.

By some strange coincidence, Nina owns a jewel-encrusted dagger, which is the twin of one belonging to Rasputin. One of the daggers is said to carry a curse.

The readers feel the cold, and we can imagine ourselves in the early morning queue for bread. The poor need medical help they can’t afford, and the soldiers who return are in a bad shape and require more than the doctors can give them.

This is a lovely, historical, romantic adventure, with nice (yes, nice) people doing the best they can under appalling circumstances. And even though you know that both Rasputin and the Royal family will soon be dead, and Lenin will take power (and you know how that worked out, too), you still wonder how it all will end.

Black Moon

Well!

What a book Black Moon is! The end of the trilogy Lee Weatherly set in her new dystopic 1940s, two thousand years in the future, after us Ancients caused the world to be destroyed by doing so many things wrong.

Mistakes are there to be repeated. Now that Kay Pierce has taken over the country and is busy killing anyone not to her liking, plus quite a few more while she’s at it, things look grimmer than ever. And the more you read you realise that this is WWII all over again. Just in a different place and with new people taking the place of those in our war. But the mistakes are the same and the consequences also.

And I believe this is what makes it so interesting, giving the reader a chance to look at what is the same but different. And to see how people still make the same mistakes despite knowing the fate of the Ancients all those years ago.

I’d been concerned about the love interest not taking a wrong turning, but there is of course always the problem with loving in a war to contend with. Who will survive?

Amity is a marvellous heroine and she is surrounded by great friends and lovers, and say what you want about President Pierce but she makes for a formidable enemy. Reading this third book made me marvel even more over the fact that Lee wrote it before the recent Presidential election, and still got it spot on.

I can’t recommend this trilogy enough. It’s the kind of read that makes you glad to be a reader and grateful that some good books are still published. I don’t – now – want more of this, but I do crave more wow-factor books. 650 pages can go so fast when you are having a fantastic time.

Release

This is a beautiful story. Release by Patrick Ness is, as he says in his foreword, a very personal book. And I believe this is what makes it what it is. I’m obviously not sure what is ‘real’ and what is fiction, but he points out that he was raised in a religion like Adam’s, and that fortunately he also had friends like his main character’s. I hope he had, and preferably still has, an Angela.

Modelled on Mrs Dalloway, ‘one of the three best books,’ Release takes place in one day, and this helps make it special. We follow Adam as he gets ready for a not-party, but a get-together that evening, to say goodbye to his former boyfriend Enzo, who is leaving town.

Adam’s very religious parents are hard on him. They don’t want a gay son; they want a perfect preacher for their church, next generation. Adam wants what most teenagers want, a normal life with friends and lovers, an education and a job, and preferably a family where he can feel he belongs and is loved.

He does have the latter, because he can use Angela’s family, who are just what he wants and needs. I’m not sure if I’ve come across a better friend than Angela, who is very short, except in the ‘universes where I’m Beyoncé.’

There might be a new boyfriend. Adam isn’t sure. His perfect older brother is a nuisance, and not preacher material. The town has had a recent murder, so we also have a ghost wandering round on this day, and that’s not as weird as it might sound.

We – and Adam – learn that people are not always what they seem. Some better, some far worse, than you thought. And he still needs to work out exactly what he is hoping for.

For those who have always wondered about gay sex but were afraid to ask, Release tells you more than most YA novels, whether you’re the curious bystander or you’re gay but inexperienced.

I often ask myself if I really need to read the latest book by Patrick Ness. It didn’t take more than a few pages before I knew that I did.

I do.

Into Exile

Last we saw them, Kevin and Sadie were leaving Belfast in a hurry. In the third of Joan Lingard’s novels about the two teenagers from Northern Ireland, they are living in – relative – squalor in London. Married at Gretna Green, they are struggling to earn money, wanting to find somewhere better to live, but knowing this is all they can have for the moment. Both miss their tight-knit lives from their respective Belfast neighbourhoods.

But they discover that it is possible to make new friends and slowly life gets better, until a few new spanners are thrown into the works for them, in the shape of new workmates, girls down at the pub, an admirer for Sadie, and family troubles at home.

They know they want to be together, but it is so hard to keep going when life gets tough.

This is a beautiful time capsule, taking some of us back to the early 1970s, reminding us what things were like in those pre-historic days. And what this really is, is a typical tale of displaced people. It doesn’t matter which decade or where those people came from or why. There is always hardship, and suspicion from the locals, and even a lot of prejudice from the newcomers. I suspect this will never change.

Also, Sadie is very young – well, they both are – and impetuous, and it’s not easy not to spend too much money or not to want to go out and have fun. But Sadie happens to have a knack for making friends anywhere, which is a good thing, because you do need people when life is tough.

In Into Exile it seems as if most of their worries stem from the family back in Belfast, but they can’t go back. Or can they?

Sometimes all you need is a new colourful mug to cheer you up.