Changing genres

I disappointed a young reader the other week. I wish I hadn’t. Not that I think this reader will give up reading, but still.

There’s a writer whom we shall call Edward Litteless. He is very popular with his fans, and I’m not surprised. I’ve read the first books in a couple of his thriller style series, and while I personally have no need to read more, I can fully see why young people – and especially boys – love these books.

So when Wirral Boy’s mother made expectant noises online regarding Edward’s new series, I had a great idea. I would ask Wirral Boy to read and review it for me, as he’d be able to give it full justice.

Except, WB hated it so much he didn’t even finish the book. WB’s mother soldiered on, because she’s an adult and she felt I deserved the review I’d asked for. But she hated it too.

The thing is, I don’t like posting bad reviews, so she might as well not have persevered to the bitter end. What I don’t know, is if the book is not as well written as the others, or if it is merely this complete change of genre that went wrong for our fervent fan. It can’t have been only genre, though, or he would have expected to have no interest in the new series. I sometimes feel like that, and while it’s a valid opinion to have, giving something new a chance seems fair.

There’s another thing here I feel uncomfortable about. The review copies of Edward’s last two books have arrived with ‘contracts’ that I have no wish to have anything to do with. By default it is assumed I will adhere to the rules, which seems to be not only not to share with anyone, but to make no mention at all before publication date.

If you’re not writing Harry Potter, I think this is OTT. If people don’t trust me to handle advance copies; then don’t send them to me. In this case I broke the contract I’d not agreed to, by letting WB read the book. I saw it as me sub-contracting the work, in order to get a lovely review. That backfired.

My other problem is I chucked the press release and the contract and I have only my own memory of the date the book is published. Being vaguely fearful of getting it wrong, I double checked online. I found two dates in February. I found no date at all. There was a date back in 2013, and one for autumn 2014. Edward’s own website seemed not to mention it at all.

Apologies for any breach of contract. I meant well. And that’s why I have used a pseudonym for Edward. The date I’ve chosen came from throwing a dart at February and picking a day at random.

The talk

‘Are you going to the event next week?’ Helen Grant asked. Since I wasn’t going to anything at all, I knew my answer would have to be ‘no.’ But I still pressed for more information on the what, where and when. (A witch likes to keep track of that which goes on without her. Actually, no, not really. But still I asked.)

It was a shared presentation evening for four of Random’s authors, and once the event was over I even found out who they were. Not a random bunch at all. They are all at the crime-y thrillery end of YA. Good stuff, in other words.

So, Helen was on her own. Apart from the other three and those who had actually been invited. (If anyone is reading this; don’t take it as a heavy hint. I’ll be distancing myself much further from London soon, so will not be able to say yes to very many Southern events.)

Anyway, as you will have worked out from my post about the cover of The Demons of Ghent a couple of weeks ago, Helen has a new book coming ‘soon.’ She talked about that, as well as her first Belgian book, Silent Saturday. And because she’s a well organised kind of woman she recorded her talk and put it on YouTube for the rest of us.

Forbidden Spaces 1  Forbidden Spaces 2

Please enjoy.

The other three were Simon Mason who wrote that very good crime novel that I loved so much, as well as Jane Casey and Niall Leonard, who I am sure are responsible for equally excellent books. I just haven’t read them…

And here they all are! I wouldn’t trust a single one of them. Would you? But I shouldn’t speak, seeing as I have ‘borrowed’ this photo without asking. Possibly the handcuffs are for me.

The Demons of Ghent – the cover

You saw it here first! ‘It’ being the cover of Helen Grant’s next book, the second instalment in her Forbidden Spaces trilogy. Helen is very happy with it. The cover, I mean. But presumably also with her book, which we will have to wait another 129 days for. Personally, I think I might find it a bit hard.

The cover is beautifully sinister, which reminds me that her books are actually quite scary. In The Demons of Ghent, I will expect our heroine Veerle getting up to more inadvisable things, only this time in the lovely old city of Ghent. I love it when creepy stuff happens in ‘beautiful old churches, castles and guildhouses.’

From behind the sofa, obviously. But still.

Bring on June 5th! (At least it’s the day before a certain person’s birthday, which shows some consideration for what’s right and proper.)

Iceland, here they come

We’ll be up early to send the Resident IT Consultant and Daughter out to look for the Northern Lights. I’ve worried for months about whether or not there will be any. Is it the wrong time of the month? (Yes, I understand it is.) Will the weather co-operate? Who knows?

But it seems this is the last good winter for years, and lots of people have had successful trips. And Iceland appears to be ‘in.’ (So it’s not as if they are being terribly original.)

It’s a supposedly educational trip, as well as fun, organised by the University of St Andrews Astronomical Society.

Just in case Daughter needs something to read, I had to find a successor to The Hobbit. It’s actually quite hard to pick a book that will suit. Not too long, but not too short, either. Not too heavy or large. It has to be good; exciting, but not – too – scary, with engaging characters. In other words, it has to be just right. Sort of in the Goldilocks zone of YA fiction. In the end I chose Siege by Sarah Mussi.

And for the group as a whole, you can’t beat a good quiz, so the Christmas quiz book has found itself sharing rather close quarters with a pair of heavy boots.

Should they need more entertainment, they also have Jar City on DVD. Nordic crime is in, and Arnaldur Indridason will hopefully be less well known than some other writers, and I hope no one has seen the film already. I was awfully tempted to send Virus au paradis, but that might have been taking things Icelandic too far. Besides, not everyone will be fluent in French/Swedish subtitles.

I will sign off with Eyjafjallajökull, which is even harder to say than it looks.

In the Morning I’ll Be Gone

From St Kilda (again) to Northern Ireland and straight into my own past. Adrian McKinty’s third – and hopefully not last – Sean Duffy novel changes so much of real history as to make me wonder whether things actually happened as he says. It’s plausible enough.

The first two Duffy books brought back modern Irish history and reminded me of what it was like back in the early 1980s. This one, set in 1984, takes several steps further, involving the IRA and the British Government in the most satisfying of ways.

Duffy is no fool. He was unlucky at the end of the second book, but he soon bounces back in his own inimitable way. He gets faced with a locked room mystery which is very interesting on its own. But it’s the ramifications it might have on the IRA terrorist at large after a jailbreak which make it better still.

I’ve said it before and I have to say it again; Adrian just doesn’t get any better than when he writes about his home town of Carrickfergus. Admittedly, he wasn’t an adult in the early 1980s, but he makes things up very well indeed.

You could read this book first, but you’d be a fool not to start with the right Duffy novel and read them in order. You’ll thank me for it. Seeing as In the Morning I’ll Be Gone isn’t published for another few weeks, you will have just enough time to read the first two.

(If I hadn’t already interviewed Adrian, I’d be off to do so now. And they say the UK television rights have been sold. Northern Ireland is bound to be the new Scandinavia…)

Bond matures

That’s not terribly likely, is it? Will James Bond ever mature?

My diary for today has the entry ‘Bond matures’ written in it, and every time I come across my little note I visualise the 007 Bond. Just goes to show how words and names become brands and images in your mind. (Shockingly, to me that is Daniel Craig…)

What it is – obviously – is a little reminder to me to do something about a bond that matures. That’s not going well. Both in that if I can’t read the reminder properly, it will do no good. But also, how on earth can you do anything with even small sums of money that will be better than stuffing the mattress with bank notes?

Next time I need to write a reminder to me I will try to phrase it in a more unambigous way.

And anyone who can tell me how to invest my paltry sum is welcome to offer advice. If you’re some African widowed queen I might not pay attention, though.

The Passionflower Massacre

Nicola Morgan kills at the drop of a hat. You have your spunky – if slightly naïve – heroine Matilda, who has just gone to pick strawberries (as a summer job; not for dessert), and she’s surrounded by old friends, and a couple of new ones. Fine, you think, she’s not alone.

And then Nicola kills. Swiftly. Just like that. And because you are already realising, well before Matilda does, that she has ended up very close to being in the grips of a cult, you don’t want her to be alone. You want her to possess more common sense. To be cautious. Or at least careful.

As if! Matilda is 18 and finally away from home. She couldn’t wait to be somewhere free and wonderful.

Gulp.

The people who run the fruit farm are so beautiful, and so charming and very friendly. (Personally I’d have felt the Jesus lookalike would be a dead giveaway, but there you go…)

This is interspersed with the story of an old woman visiting a man in jail 25 years later. He’s a charming conman, and he’s got his sights set on this gullible woman’s wealth and loneliness.

We can work out who he must be. We aren’t sure of her, nor of what has happened. Or if she can withstand his charm offensive.

Passionflowers play a great part in all this. I knew nothing about them before, and I can’t say they have inspired me with confidence. Creepy.

Not surprisingly, this is Nicola’s favourite book. Scary, but more-ish. The reader is forever shouting the equivalent of ‘he’s behind you!’ to Matilda. And she seems to be deaf. She wants to be loved and liked. Don’t we all?

Bookwitch bites #115

Steve Cole had some great news to share this week. He will be writing four (yes!) new Young Bond novels, with the first coming next autumn. He even had to go get a nice new photograph of himself, as befits an Ian Fleming replacement.

Some longlists are longer than others. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award list is longer than ever this year, with 238 names of hopefuls. 54 are there for the first time (which just goes to show people get nominated and nominated until they win…), presumably getting all excited about the possibility of winning five million kronor.

I was going to say that the Nordic countries have put forward more names than others, but I happened to notice that the UK list was longer still. See below. For the rest of the 238 you have to download the pdf yourself.

This week also saw the announcement of other Swedish related prizes, and I’m pleased for Alice Munro and Canada. A bit shocked to learn that only 13 women have been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, however…

The other Nobel Prize that made the Bookwitch family very happy was the Physics prize to Peter Higgs. It almost feels as if we’d been awarded the prize ourselves.

Malorie Blackman has announced ‘a campaign to support fiction for young adults in the UK during her two year term in the post. A highlight of this will be the first ever YA Literature Convention, hosted at the London Film and Comic Con in July 2014. Blackman will also be working with Booktrust on a search for the rising stars in the UKYA community.’ I think that sounds terrific, and I’m looking into ways of splitting down the middle so I can go to lots of events all at once.

And finally something on a smaller scale, but who knows? ‘Anyone’ could make it to be children’s laureate or discover a boson or write James Bond books. Here is a challenge for students doing A-levels. The Connell Guides are giving £1000 for the best essay in a competition to be judged by William Boyd. Submissions in January, but they want students to start writing now. So I suggest doing just that. Write! Who knows where it might end? (In Stockholm, shaking some royal hand.)

Siege

Reading Siege soon after two or three serious mass shootings was perhaps not the best of things to do. But it feels like it could be hard to pick a time when nothing bad is going on in the world.

I thought the worst about reading Sarah Mussi’s book would be the school shootings that it’s about. That was until I realised that Siege is set slightly in the future. A slightly dystopian future, at that. Although, the way things are going, that kind of society is almost here already.

YOU OP 78 is a school for less worthy children. The troublemakers who are deemed to merit less of an education, and who go to schools with special measures in place to keep them under control.

It’s enough to make you claustrophobic, if you weren’t already.

16-year-old Leah is late for school, which is why she is where she is when the shootings start. When the shooters have done their worst in her classroom, she and another student, Anton, escape up into the ceilings. It appears to be her younger brother Connor’s stupid and pathetic gang, going round shooting at anyone they feel like, armed to the hilt.

So far, so ‘normal.’ Leah, and the reader, thinks that all they need to do is wait for the police to come to the rescue. That’s when you suddenly understand that in a dystopic society, there could be other possible outcomes.

It would be hard to say much more without giving away what happens, and why. Leah behaves very bravely, doing her very best to escape, and to help others who come her way. She’s a credit to… yes, to what? Because a school for losers can’t very well produce courageous citizens with initiative, can it?

I guessed a little bit wrong, but both my theory and Sarah’s actual idea are equally chilling. There are worse things than school shootings.

And I wish that so many aspects of what’s in this book didn’t feel so close to Britain today.

Russian Roulette

He can still do it. Both Daughter and I have been spellbound by the Alex Rider prequel from Anthony Horowitz. It’s a read-in-one-sitting kind of book. There is almost no Alex Rider in the story, which is hardly surprising since it takes place before he was born.

What we get in his place is his arch-enemy Yassen Gregorovich, aged fourteen. They are remarkably similar in many respects. We have always known they share something, and that Alex’s dad knew Yassen.

I wonder how much of what we learn about Yassen was something Anthony already knew when he wrote the Alex Rider books, and how much he has ‘simply’ tied up loose ends? No matter. What we have here makes for compulsive reading and it is very exciting.

Yassen has to learn to survive by working hard, learning his killer skills from the experts, unlike Alex who mostly goes off with some MI6 gadgets and hopes for the best. We know from the start that Yassen’s task is to kill Alex. We also know that he can’t succeed, but that doesn’t detract from the suspense.

This is an interesting portrait of the new Russia, and the greed and wealth of newly powerful men. You root for Yassen, all the while knowing you mustn’t, and it’s hard to let go of the idea that they can all be friends at the end. (I had a theory about him, but it proved to be wrong.)

Great stuff! I hope I’ll never be too old for this kind of spy story.

(Daughter finished the book – before me, obviously – and then filled her suitcase with the complete Alex Rider series, just so she can have it close to hand.)