#lesley glaister

[learnthisphrase]

Best books of 2023

The best books I read in 2023

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson (Tor Nightfire, 2023)

Imagine Tana French writing a folklore-infused horror novel, and you have Knock Knock, Open Wide. The always-thrilling plot takes in a life-changing accident, a love affair, and a sinister TV series; the storylines overlap and entwine perfectly, and there’s a lot of beautifully crafted character work. It’s a dark and eerie book, but full of life and love, too.

Black Mountain by Simon Bestwick (Independent Legions, 2021)

A mixed-media horror novel disguised as non-fiction about the many strange incidents surrounding a cursed/haunted mountain. Unputdownable and genuinely unnerving at points – I had the time of my life reading this. I’m amazed it isn’t better-known among horror fans!

The Last Language by Jennifer duBois (Milkweed Editions, 2023)

A riveting, disturbing book about a language therapist’s relationship with the autistic man she’s helping to ‘speak’ using the controversial method of facilitated communication. I read it in one fevered session, completely in the grip of the dizzying, queasy moral maze duBois creates.

Hydra by Adriane Howell (Transit Lounge, 2022)

Just when you think the ‘unhinged woman’ trend has had its day, this excellent Australian debut offers a fresh spin on the whole idea. Anja’s dry, idiosyncratic voice rings out from the page, and the plot is never far away from intimations of something dark and weird. Read if you love Ottessa Moshfegh and Tár.

My Death by Lisa Tuttle (2004, reissued by NYRB Classics 2023)

A perfect novella about a widowed writer who becomes obsessed with her latest project, a biography of a little-known artist’s muse. Astonishingly clever, convincing and absorbing, it’s a revelation and turned me into an instant fan of Tuttle’s writing.

Grasshopper by Barbara Vine (Penguin, 2000)

A beautiful and eloquent coming-of-age tale dressed up as a crime novel. The plot has so many different strands that it’s difficult to describe concisely, but this is essentially a character-focused story about identity, aspiration and love. The rare book that actually made me cry.

How Can I Help You by Laura Sims (Putnam, 2023; UK ebook out in January 2024)

Explores the tense relationship between two women with secrets (some more dangerous than others) who both work at a public library. A sharp, nuanced character study that is also utterly propulsive. If you loved Death of a Bookseller, this should be next on your wishlist.

Novel with Cocaine by M. Ageyev, translated by Michael Henry Heim (Picador, 1985)

1930s cult classic about a dissolute Russian teenager, his friendships, affairs and drug addiction. Think No Longer Human, but (in my opinion) way better. It’s philosophical, funny and stuffed with remarkable descriptive writing.

Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes (Titan, January 2024)

Years after an infamous failed expedition, a captain with a sullied reputation must return to the Arctic in search of his former lieutenant. Immersive and enthralling at every level, this is a blood-soaked, frostbitten treat – I’ve been describing it as The Terror meets Heart of Darkness.

The Devil’s Playground by Craig Russell (Doubleday, 2023)

An elaborately plotted historical mystery about a legendary silent horror movie. Come for the lost film and its ghosts; stay for the well-researched portrait of old Hollywood, the world-weary heroine, and the fascinating detective story.

We Were Never Friends by Margaret Bearman (Brio Books, 2020)

A woman looks back at a strange period of her youth when her family became entangled with Kyla, a hated classmate of hers. Dazzling at the sentence level – Bearman illuminates Lotti and Kyla’s world with startling colour, vividly portraying the emotional landscape of adolescence.

Honour Thy Father by Lesley Glaister (Bloomsbury, 1991)

Four elderly – yet naive – siblings live in self-imposed imprisonment amid the squalid remains of their family home. How did they end up like this? We Have Always Lived in the Castle meets Come Join Our Disease in a dark tale that perfectly balances tender nostalgia, black humour and sinister threat.

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (Virago, 1957)

We meet Angel as an impetuous 15-year-old convinced she will become a great novelist, and follow throughout her life as she first fails upwards, then eventually loses everything. It’s a tragic story that centres on a pathetic character, yet Taylor writes with a compassion that makes it almost romantic.

The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge (Penguin, 2017)

A labyrinthine series of stories within stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft – but you definitely don’t need to like (or have read) Lovecraft to enjoy it. Deceptively complex, it excavates the lives of its characters while maintaining a subtle sense that the whole narrative is haunted.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward (Viper, 2023)

My favourite of Ward’s books since her debut Rawblood, this is a story about murder that deals with the long shadow it casts. It’s also about writing and witchcraft, unrequited love, and the death of the author, and is unexpectedly heartbreaking.

Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt (Cipher Press, 2023)

This book takes the ‘trauma as horror’ trope and eats it from the inside out. It’s full of fearless writing about fetishes, transness, transphobia, dysphoria, and what – if anything – it means to be virtuous. While often disgusting (be warned), I wanted to reread it straight away.

Where Furnaces Burn by Joel Lane (2012, reissued by Influx Press 2023)

A sprawling map of linked stories; layered, moody and strange. Not the easiest book to recommend – Lane, one of my favourite writers, invariably creates very bleak worlds – but an incredibly rewarding reading experience.

Notable reread: Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach (Picador, 2013)

A grieving, lonely young woman finds solace on an online debate forum and ends up immersed in someone else’s life. Just as fast-paced, gripping and brilliantly voice-driven as it was when I first read it a decade ago.

Honourable mentions

So many good books came out in 2023 that I have to mention a few more. The Book of Ayn by Lexi Freiman was the funniest, sharpest, most quotable novel I read this year. I loved the intriguing layers of Ben Tufnell’s The North Shore and Viola Di Grado’s poignant Blue Hunger, translated by Jamie Richards. Verity M. Holloway’s romantic, atmospheric The Others of Edenwell deserved way more attention. And this may be an unpopular opinion, but I enjoyed Elizabeth Hand’s A Haunting on the Hill more than The Haunting of Hill House.

For thought-provoking plots: Service by Sarah Gilmartin and Kids Run the Show by Delphine de Vigan, translated by Alison Anderson. For pure thrills: Nicholas Binge’s mind-bending Ascension and Jinwoo Chong’s dazzling Flux. For both, and great suspense: A Flaw in the Design by Nathan Oates.

And not forgetting the brilliant 2023 books I read as review copies last year: Nina Allan’s masterpiece Conquest, Alice Slater’s ultra-compelling Death of a Bookseller, and Maria Dong’s loveable Liar, Dreamer, Thief.

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Venus Anadyomene by Alyssa Lindley Sinclair

On SALE: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/venus-anadyomene-by-alyssa-lindley-sinclair/

Venus Anadyomene chronicles the trauma and change endured by a woman’s body through #pregnancy and #childbirth, while exploring the intersection of mental and physical #health. The #poems in this book consider the threat of climate change, #parenting and existing as a woman within the political landscape in Texas, and a mother’s longing for a safer and more beautiful existence for her children. These poems play with form and voice, including prose poems, word games and prayers that evoke the visceral, the spiritual, and how we exist in between.

Alyssa Lindley Sinclair completed her Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of St. Andrews. She grew up in the Boston area, and lives in Dallas, Texas. Her poetry and essays have been featured by Bear Review, River Teeth Magazine, Mutha Magazine, Literary Mama, and Poetry Society of New York, among others. She is the mother to three young girls.

PRAISE FOR Venus Anadyomene by Alyssa Lindley Sinclair

In this brave, passionate, sometimes tender, sometimes visceral collection, childhood memories mingle with prayers for the speaker’s own children – for all our children – as a counter to the harm being done, not only to the earth, but also to our bodies (particularly to the bodies of women) and to the “wordless garden / of myth” that nourishes the spirit. At a time when the dangers to that spirit are more insidious than ever, Venus Anadyomene is an urgent and moving call to reflection and response.

–John Burnside, Author & Poet, A Lie About my Father, Black Cat Bone, Winner of T.S. Eliot Prize, Forward Poetry Prize & David Cohen Prize

Longing, love, hope, disillusion and humour are layered in this playful and inventive collection. Various facets of maternity, from medicalised birth trauma, to the clamour of children in a hot car, via tender prayers, a word game, and allusions to Doctor Suess combine to make a moving and boldy visceral account of a mother’s experience.

–Lesley Glaister, Author, Honour Thy Father, Easy Peasy, Little Egypt, Winner, Somerset Maugham Award, Betty Trask Award, Jerwood Uncovered Fiction Award

In these lush, honest, sometimes brutal poems, Sinclair stares unflinchingly into both the beauty of mother/womanhood and what it takes to endure it. Where “legs become a basket” to care for one child, “[t]he floor tilts”, “the hospital room is an airplane climbing” while another comes into the world; Sinclair holds it all in balance. “Tall angel, please,” she writes. “Drip honey off your fingertips into the mouths of / My children, and deliver them … into something / more alive.” That’s exactly what these poems do.

–Sarah Carson, author and poet, Buick City, Poems in Which You Die, How to Baptize a Child in Flint, Michigan

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems

[reading-with-emily-blog]

Digging to Australia by Lesley Glaister (written in 1992) is a fantasticly ambiguous tale that will leave you frustrated and feeling restless.

Like in Alice in Wonderland, Jennifer, led by a stray cat, was lured to her version of Wonderland- a forgotten cemetery and dilapidated playground. She finds refuge from her eccentric family in her secret garden.

After family secrets come out from the woodworks, Jennifer can feel herself getting lost in lies and unknown truths. After the startling news of Jenny’s real birthday being in November instead of June she finds the truth about her mother: Jacqueline.

After giving birth at 18 Jacqueline gives Jennifer up to be raised by her parents; then gone without a word. Except a letter to be opened on Jenny’s 13th birthday.

As Jennifer enters her new life as an adolescent; three new people enter her life: the idea of an absent mother, Bronwyn, the new girl at school and th enigmatic Johnny. Jennifer’s social standing jumps as the new girl Bronwyn arrives. No longer on the bottom she is still stuck with at the bottom with the new girl. Slower than the other girls and much larger in body development and height, Bronwyn stands out and clings to Jennifer. Their friendship is built on the foundations of starving off loneliness; stumbling through Jenny is always on the look out for something better.

One day Bronwyn tells Jennifer that she is a nymphomanic and her rich father was murdered by gangsters in America. Jenny pities Bronwyn and her mother and stays friends.

When Jenny meets the mysterious and kooky Johnny in an abandoned and unholy church, she gains the feeling of maturity when in his presence. Johnny tells her of his dreams of flying with his handmade wings. Not sure what to think of Johnny and his delusions, she keeps coming back.

As the months go by Jennifer’s life is shaped by these three people, representing different trials and changes in her life. However, when the truths come out, ugly and demanding Jenny is lost and confused.

But when a terrible and evil event happens...

Is Jennifer to blame?

When reading Digging to Australia at the beginning I was wondering where the hell the story was going. I found that reading it for the second time (or third) I was able to pick more of the story; also coming up with more questions. The ending is definitely worth getting through the start as you will be left wondering... I even made my mum read it for the twist.

I’ve even send the author an email (not expecting a response) as I NEED to know!

I’d recommend this book for anyone in the mood for a short story (214pgs) and lovers of never ending questions. Suitable for ages 15 up.

3/5

SPOILERS: Triggers: death.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to chat!

[beingfictional]

As Far As You Can Go review #AsFarAsYouCanGo #LesleyGlaister #books #reading #Australia #Australianoutback #thrillers I'm really not sure how this little known book came on my radar. It only has 300 or so reviews on Goodreads.

[papapiusxiii]

50 Great Thrillers by Women, as recommended by 10 of the UK’s female crime writers

Sophie Hannah:

Summertime by Liz Rigbey. Follows a woman who loses her baby and whose father unexpectedly drowns. When her husband and sister close ranks against her, she begins to suspect they are lying to her.

The Spider’s House by Sarah Diamond. Also published as In the Spider’s House. When Anna Howell discovers that a 1960s child murderess was the previous resident of her old cottage, her marriage, sanity and life come under threat.

Hidden by Katy Gardner. When a young mother’s seven-year-old daughter disappears, she finds herself questioning everything in her life. Then a police officer starts asking about the murder of a woman 14 months earlier …

A Shred of Evidence by Jill McGown. DI Judy Hill and DCI Lloyd investigate the murder of a 15-year-old girl on a patch of open parkland in the centre of town.

Searching for Shona by Margaret Jean Anderson

The wealthy Marjorie Malcolm-Scott trades suitcases, destinations and identities with orphan Shona McInnes, as children are evacuated from Edinburgh at the start of the second world war.

Val McDermid:

The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey. A teenage war orphan accuses two women of kidnap and abuse, but something about her story doesn’t add up.

Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer. The Booker-longlisted author of Snap follows it up with the tale of a medical student with Asperger’s who attempts to solve a murder.

The Field of Blood by Denise Mina. The first in the Paddy Meehan series sees the reporter looking into the disappearance of a child from his Glasgow home, with evidence pointing the police towards two young boys.

A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine. Writing under her pen name, Ruth Rendell tells of the discovery of a woman and child in the animal cemetery at Wyvis Hall, 10 years after a group of young people spent the summer there.

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson. In the third Jackson Brodie book, a man is released from prison 30 years after he butchered the mother and siblings of a six-year-old girl in the Devon countryside.

Ann Cleeves:

Little Deaths by Emma Flint. Inspired by the real case of Alice Crimmins, this tells of a woman whose two children go missing from her apartment in Queens.

The Dry by Jane Harper. During Australia’s worst drought in a century, three members of one family in a small country town are murdered, with the father believed to have killed his wife and son before committing suicide.

Devices and Desires by PD James. Adam Dalgliesh takes on a serial killer terrorising a remote Norfolk community.

The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina. Heavily pregnant DS Alex Morrow investigates the violent death of a wealthy woman in Glasgow.

Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky. The inimitable VI Warshawski takes over coaching duties of the girls’ basketball team at her former high school, and investigates the explosion of the flag manufacturing plant where one of the girl’s mothers works.

Sharon Bolton:

Gone by Mo Hayder. In Hayder’s fifth thriller featuring Bristol DI Jack Caffrey, he goes after a car-jacker who is taking vehicles with children in them.

Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. A murderous revenge is being plotted against the boys’ grammar school in the north of England where eccentric Latin master Roy Straitley is contemplating retirement.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. A time-travelling, murderous war veteran steps through the decades to murder extraordinary women – his “shining girls” – in Chicago, in this high-concept thriller.

The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood. Two women who were sentenced for murdering a six-year-old when they were children meet again as adults, when one discovers the body of a teenager.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty. Married scientist Yvonne, who is drawn into a passionate affair with a stranger, is on trial for murder.

Sarah Ward:

A Place of Execution by Val McDermid. Journalist Catherine Heathcote investigates the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl in the Peak District village of Scarsdale in 1963.

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths. Forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway investigates the discovery of a child’s bones near the site of a prehistoric henge on the north Norfolk salt marshes.

The Ice House by Minette Walters. A decade after Phoebe Maybury’s husband inexplicably vanished, a corpse is found and the police become determined to charge her with murder.

The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard. When a body is found in Dublin’s Grand Canal, police turn to the notorious Canal Killer for help. But the imprisoned murderer will only talk to the woman he was dating when he committed his crimes.

This Night’s Foul Work by Fred Vargas (translated by Sian Reynolds). Commissaire Adamsberg investigates whether there is a connection between the escape of a murderous 75-year-old nurse from prison, and the discovery of two men with their throats cut on the outskirts of Paris.

Elly Griffiths: 

R in the Month by Nancy Spain. Sadly out of print, this is an atmospheric story set in a down-at-heel hotel in a postwar seaside town. The period detail is perfect and jokes and murders abound. This is the fourth book featuring the fantastic Miriam Birdseye, actress and rather slapdash sleuth.

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. A gripping crime novel in which the detective never gets out of bed and the murder happened over 500 years ago. Griffith says: “I read this book as a child and was hooked – on Tey, crime fiction and Richard the Third.”

The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thomson. Cleaner Stella Darnell finds herself tidying up her detective father’s final, unfinished case, after he dies. It is the first in a series featuring Stella and her sidekick Jack, an underground train driver who can sense murder.

A Place of Execution by Val McDermid. Griffiths says: “I could have chosen any of Val’s novels, but this book, about a journalist revisiting a shocking 1960s murder, is probably my favourite because of its wonderful sense of time and place. It’s also pitch perfect about journalism, police investigation and life in a small community.”

He Said, She Said by Erin Kelly. An account of a rape trial at which nothing is quite as it seems. Griffiths says: “The story centres around a lunar eclipse, which also works wonderfully as a metaphor and image.”

Dreda Say Mitchell: 

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. The Gone Girl author’s debut follows journalist Camille’s investigation into the abduction and murder of two girls in her Missouri home town.

Dangerous Lady by Martina Cole. Cole’s first novel sees 17-year-old Maura Ryan taking on the men of London’s gangland.

The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid. Clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill is asked to profile a serial killer when four men are found mutilated and tortured.

Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky. A client tells VI Warshawski he is a prominent banker looking for his son’s missing girlfriend. But VI soon discovers he’s lying, and that the real banker’s son is dead.

The St Cyr series by CS Harris. Mitchell has nominated the whole of this historical mystery series about Sebastian St Cyr, Viscount Devlin – master of disguises, heir to an earldom, and disillusioned army officer. It’s a bit of a cheat but we’ll let her have it.

Erin Kelly:

No Night Is Too Long by Barbara Vine. Tim Cornish thinks he has gotten away with killing his lover in Alaska. But then the letters start to arrive …

Broken Harbour by Tana French. The fourth in French’s sublime Dublin Murder Squad series, this takes place in a ghost estate outside Dublin, where a father and his two children have been found dead, with the mother on her way to intensive care.

Chosen by Lesley Glaister. When Dodie’s mother hangs herself, she has to leave her baby at home and go to bring her brother Jake back from the mysterious Soul Life Centre in New York.

A Savage Hunger by Claire McGowan. Forensic psychologist Paula Maguire investigates the disappearance of a girl, and a holy relic, from a remote religious shrine in the fictional Irish town of Ballyterrin.

The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald. Parents Joanna and Alistair start to turn against each other after their baby goes missing from a remote roadside in Australia.

Sarah Hilary:

The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin. A sleep-deprived young mother tries to stay sane while her fears grow about the family’s new lodger, in this 1950s lost classic.

Cruel Acts by Jane Casey. Leo Stone, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of two women, is now free and claims he is innocent. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwen want to put him back in jail, but Maeve begins doubting his guilt – until another woman disappears.

Sex Crimes by Jenefer Shute. A lawyer’s New Year’s Eve pick-up spirals into an erotic obsession which leads to graphic cruelty.

Skin Deep by Liz Nugent. Nugent, whom Ian Rankin has compared to Patricia Highsmith, tells the story of a woman who has been passing herself off as an English socialite on the Riviera for 25 years – until the arrival of someone who knows her from her former life prompts an act of violence.

Cuckoo by Julia Crouch. Rose’s home and family start to fall apart when her best friend Polly comes to stay.

Louise Candlish:

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Christie’s classic – with a legendary twist. The best Hercule Poirot?

The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith. A conman on the run with his wife meets a young American who becomes drawn into the crime they commit.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. The author of The Handmaid’s Tale imagines the life of the real 19th-century Canadian killer Grace Marks.

Little Face by Sophie Hannah. Hannah’s thriller debut is about a young mother who becomes convinced that, after spending two hours away from her baby, the infant is not hers.

Alys, Always by Harriet Lane. Newspaper subeditor Frances is drawn into the lives of the Kyte family when she hears the last words of the victim of a car crash, Alys Kyte.

[whattoreadnext]

Art for Whose Sake?

(painters; fakers; patrons, art-enthusiasts)

Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost

Michael Ayrton, The Mazemaker

Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth

Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring

Mary Flanagan, Trust

Michael Frayn, Headlong

Lesley Glaister , Sheer Blue Bliss

Alan Hollinghurst, The Folding Star

Wyndham Lewis, Tarr

Shena Mackay , The Artist’s Widow

W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, he Flanders Panel

Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy

[littlefoible]

2538 - Lesley Glaister https://www.instagram.com/p/ByEgPB-nPfe/?igshid=1f3ogzelima6n

[shinynewbooks2]

The Squeeze by Lesley Glaister

The Squeeze by Lesley Glaister

Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Admitted, to say that the world has shrunk into a village has shrunk into a cliché itself. But the cliché is painfully accurate, and Lesley Glaister’s The Squeeze plays out the global village in its most brutal sense. Glaister squeezes Europe into an Edinburgh brothel, where global human rights violations and personal issues become – quite literally – bed mates. One…

[moniackmhor-blog]

We have one space left in a female twin room for next weeks fiction retreat.

[tabby007]

An Interview with the wonderful Lesley Glaister.

An Interview with the wonderful Lesley Glaister.

 You have had 13 books published by major houses, which, for most of us reading, is the ultimate dream.   How do you view writing?  As a job or a compulsion. Both. It is certainly a compulsion as it would be a bonkers career to embark on without that inner impulse. But it’s also a job. Writing a novel means sitting down and putting in the hours …   2.   Do you enjoy the writing process?  Do you…

[weirdesplinder]

Young adult per adulti

Dopo il post precedente dedicato ai libri che parlano di amori adolescenziali, oggi voglio consigliarvi una carrellata di libri Young adult, adatti però anche agli adulti, e che toccano temi seri, con però la leggerezza della giovinezza, a tratti.

Titolo: Come vivo ora

Autore: Meg Rosoff

Trama: Daisy, quindici anni, sta trascorrendo le vacanze in Inghilterra, insieme a cugini che non ha mai visto, quando un Nemico non meglio identificato attacca Londra, scatenando una guerra di cui i ragazzini non sono in grado di capire le proporzioni. Isolati nella fattoria in mezzo alla campagna inglese, Daisy, Piper, Edmund e lsaac sono costretti a inventarsi la vita quotidiana, senza elettricità, acqua, telefono e una serie di altri comfort scontati in condizioni di normalità. Ma in quell'insolito isolamento la fattoria si trasforma in un luogo magico, dove Daisy - uscendo dal proprio isolamento interiore e abbandonando la rabbia - scopre l'inebriante sensazione di sentirsi responsabile di chi ama.

Titolo: L'estate dei segreti perduti

Autore: E. Lockhart

Trama: Da sempre la famiglia Sinclair si riunisce per le vacanze estive su una piccola isola privata al largo delle coste del Massachusetts. I Sinclair sono belli, ricchi, spensierati. E Cady, l'erede di tutta la fortuna e di tutte le speranze, non fa eccezione. Ma l'estate in cui la giovane Sinclair compie sedici anni le cose cambiano. Cady si innamora del ragazzo sbagliato e ha un incidente. Un incidente di cui crede di sapere tutto, ma di cui in realtà non sa nulla. Finché, due anni dopo, torna sull'isola e scopre che niente è come sembra nella bellissima famiglia Sinclair. E che, a volte, ci sono segreti che sarebbe meglio non rivelare mai.

Titolo: Raccontami di un giorno perfetto

Autore: Jennifer Niven

Trama: È una gelida mattina di gennaio quella in cui Theodore Finch decide di salire sulla torre campanaria della scuola per capire come ci si sente a guardare di sotto. L'ultima cosa che si aspetta però è di trovare qualcun altro lassù, in bilico sul cornicione a sei piani d'altezza. Men che meno Violet Markey, una delle ragazze più popolari del liceo. Eppure Finch e Violet si somigliano più di quanto possano immaginare. Sono due anime fragili: lui lotta da anni con la depressione, lei ha visto morire la sorella in un terribile incidente d'auto. È in quel preciso istante che i due ragazzi provano per la prima volta la vertigine che li legherà nei mesi successivi. I giorni, le settimane in cui un progetto scolastico li porterà alla scoperta dei luoghi più bizzarri e sconosciuti del loro Paese e l'amicizia si trasformerà in un amore travolgente, una drammatica corsa contro il tempo. E alla fine di questa corsa, a rimanere indelebile nella memoria sarà l'incanto di una storia d'amore tra due ragazzi che stanno per diventare adulti. Quel genere d'incanto che solo le giornate perfette sono capaci di regalare.

In lingua originale vi segnalo inoltre :

Titolo: Beauty queens

Autore: Libba Bray

Trama: Survival. Of the fittest. The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program - or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan - or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up? Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Your tour guide? None other than Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.

Titolo: Dead to me 

Autore: Mary McCoy

"Don't believe anything they say." Those were the last words that Annie spoke to Alice before turning her back on their family and vanishing without a trace. Alice spent four years waiting and wondering when the impossibly glamorous sister she idolized would return to her--and what their Hollywood-insider parents had done to drive her away. When Annie does turn up, the blond, broken stranger lying in a coma has no answers for her. But Alice isn't a kid anymore, and this time she won't let anything stand between her and the truth, no matter how ugly. The search for those who beat Annie and left her for dead leads Alice into a treacherous world of tough-talking private eyes, psychopathic movie stars, and troubled starlets--and onto the trail of a young runaway who is the sole witness to an unspeakable crime. What this girl knows could shut down a criminal syndicate and put Annie's attacker behind bars--if Alice can find her first. And she isn't the only one looking

Titolo: Now you see me

Autore: Lesley Glaister

Since walking out on her life at sixteen, Lamb has lived alone in the gaps between other people's lives. Secretly inhabiting the cellar of an elderly man for whom she cleans, she keeps herself to herself, her life a precarious balancing act until she meets Doggo, a young criminal on the run.

[shandymediaclub]

SMC Review: Little Egypt by @lesleyglaister from @saltpublishing

As part of my resolution to try new things, write new things and read new things in 2014, I took the big plunge this year and got both feet stuck into Twitter. It's fast becoming a place I pay more attention to than facebook, as I've stuffed my feed to the brim with publishers, authors, poets, writers, journalists, small printing presses, journals and literary magazines. It's lovely. Everytime I check in I find about new opportunities for submitting, literary debates raging, people getting cross about things which actually matter, books coming out and being reviewed and publicised and the chance to get involve in lovely arty campaigns. I should have been here years ago, but I was terrified of getting sucked in to vacuous celebrity gossip shit. If I'd known it was this easy to pick and choose, I'd have been here years ago. Never mind. Better fashionably late to the party than forever lurking outside the door.

One of the presses I started following were Salt Modern Fiction. Their big recommendation for reading in the run up to Easter was Little Egypt by Lesley Glaister. I didn't know the author, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for but for that reason I decided to feel the fear and do it anyway, and downloaded the Kindle copy. I do sometimes find it scary reading new books. Not least because my disposable income is not especially large, but even I could find 99p for a new and recommended book.

I'm glad I did, because I was immediately engrossed. The premise was different to almost anything else I'd encountered, (except perhaps for The Pitchfork Disney) . Little Egypt tells the story of twin sister and brother, born to obsessive Egyptologist parents, who spend the vast majority of their children's adolescence chasing archaeological discovery in Egypt during the 1920s, leaving them at home to be raised in England in genteel poverty. The obsession with Ancient Egypt is shared by the one of the twins, Osiris, who has becoming engrossed in the death culture of Egypt as a child. Isis, however, rejects the family passion and is on a permanent quest for love and affection, something which is in startlingly short supply in her life.

The narrative flows back and forth between Isis and Osiris surviving their dysfunctional childhood, raised by a housekeeper called Mary with occasional visits from their uncle Victor, who is still traumatised by the first world war, and Isis's experience of life as an elderly woman, which resembles nothing more than a dry tapestry of existence, from which she wrings every drop of possible joy. The determination of Isis to look on the bright side of her confusing and disjointed life, always hungry for any scraps of love and affection, makes her an appealing and engaging character.

Her friendship with dumpster-diver Spike leads to some modern light and air finally penetrating the boundaries of 'Little Egypt', the house she has spent her entire life in, guarding a terrible secret which threatens both her and her increasingly odd and distant brother Osiris, who has lived in the upstairs rooms and hasn't been seen even by Isis for many years. As the story unfolds, switching between Isis's first person accounts and third person descriptions of the events which lead to her becoming trapped at Little Egypt, the full scope of the horrors experienced by Osiris and Isis grip the reader and drag them into the novel faster than quicksand. 

As I followed Isis growing up and saw her longing to break free, as her life became twisted and shattered, I felt gripped with the same compulsion of watching an inevitable and unavoidable train wreck. It's been years since I set my alarm clock early so that I could get up and read the final chunk of this book before going to work one morning, but this book demanded that I finish it. Glaister engages all of the senses with her portrayal of two very different deserts, both the lonely house of Little Egypt and the vast deserts of 1920s Egypt, which for Isis are both filled with extremes of temperature, confusion, isolation, loneliness and boredom, not to mention her own anger, abandonment issues and insatiable longing for love and affection.   

This was my first experience of reading Lesley Glaister, I am certain it will not be my last.

Purchase Little Egypt from Amazon

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I HAVE SOME BOOK RECOMENDATIONS FOR YOU PEOPLE!!!

If you're into dark stuff then I whole heartedly prompt you to pick up some of Lesley Glaister's works. Her novel Now You See Me is one of my favorite books of all time and it is soon going to be made in to a movie called Stay With Me and it will star Kaya Scodelario and Tom Hughes. 

If you want something a little lighter then get yourself one of Laura Buzo's books. I especially recommend Good Oil. It is so funny and heartwarming and it's the type of book that has something for people of all ages to relate to.

These are both kind of obscure authors, but I promise if you just give them a go you will not be disappointed!    

[moniackmhor-blog]

Due to a cancellation, we have a room available on next weeks Fiction retreat! 

[tabby007]

THE INTERVIEW WITH LESLEY GLAISTER.

As promised, THE interview with, in my opinion and countless others, one of the greatest women writers of our time:  LESLEY GLAISTER.

 Lesley is the author of 13 novels, the most recent being LITTLE EGYPT published by the renowned press, Salt Modern Fiction.

 Lesley is one of my greatest influences and I remember being incredibly reassured that her themes were often dark (murder, madness and obsession crop up regularly in her books) because it made me realise that I wasn’t actually psychotic just rather imaginative.

Her first novel Honour Thy Father (1990) won the Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award, Now You See Me was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for fiction in 2002, and Easy Peasy was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award 1998.[1][3] Her first play, Bird Calls was performed at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in 2003.

Leslie also is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

 Onwards Ho!

 You have had 13 books published by major houses, which, for most of us reading, is the ultimate dream.   How do you view writing?  As a job or a compulsion?

 Both. It is certainly a compulsion as it would be a bonkers career to embark on without that inner impulse.  But it’s also a job. Writing a novel means sitting down and putting in the hours …

 Do you enjoy the writing process?  Do you have any rituals?

 Sometimes I love it; sometimes I loathe it.  There is nothing like the satisfaction when it is going right and nothing like the frustration when it isn’t.  I prefer to be alone when I’m writing.  I like quiet and space and privacy to pace about and speak it out loud, or laugh or groan.  If there’s no one else in the house I feel as if my face drops off and I’m not quite a person, in the social sense, any more. If there’s anyone else there I feel constrained. If I’m writing a particularly difficult bit, or just needing to work but feeling delicate, I nurse myself, get into bed with a hot drink, hot water bottle and write from there. Bed is a good place to write from - sometimes the dreams are still hanging around.

Which authors would you ascribe as influences?

 Woolly answer I’m afraid, but it’s hard to say. There are writers I love: Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Rhys, Barbara Pym, Dickens, Ford Madox Ford, John Updike, I could go on and on!  But I think really that everything I’ve ever read has probably had some influence, good or bad, and this is the same for any writer.

 What do you think of the Scottish Crime Noir?  I noticed your were popping off to Arran with Val Mcdermid and Denise Mina.  That must of been enormous fun.

 It was Colonsay actually, and there was Val McDermid, but not Denise Mina. Christopher Brookmyre was there too.  it was enormous fun to hang out with them.  But I have to admit that I’m not much of a reader of crime.  An interesting question though is why so much dark, crime fiction is emerging from Scotland.  Perhaps something of the legacy of James Hogg, and Robert Louis Stevenson?

 An English writer in Scotland?  How did you get here?

 I am married to a Scot!  But ever since I was a child I’ve had links with Scotland – I actually started school in Glasgow as we lived there for a few years when I was a child.  And every summer we’d drive to Skye or some other beautiful part of Scotland for our holiday.  I have been spending summers in Orkney for the past seventeen or so years and working in Scotland for 7 years now, so it feels quite natural to me to be here. I live in Edinburgh, a city I love. I have a son and two little granddaughters who live near Fort William and another son in Glasgow. It’s a great country.  It does make me feel ‘English’ in a way I didn’t feel particularly when living In England – and that is interesting.

 You are a teacher of creative writing at St. Andrews University.  That is quite an achievement in itself.  What aspects of teaching your subject do you enjoy most?

 I enjoy the students. It’s privilege to get to know such bright, creative people and I enjoy watching their work develop – when it does!  Some of them are quite humblingly brilliant.  I also like the contact and the feeling of dipping my toe into the outside world.  I have had patches when I have done nothing but write and I think there’s a danger of staleness, and a sort of agoraphobia setting in. After weeks of talking to no one but family and living a largely imagined life, it can be quite hard, almost frightening to face the world; so a place to go with an office and a pigeon hole with my name on it, colleagues, students and all the rest of it help me to feel properly human.  On the other hand, I do rather wish I taught something other than creative writing. But I don’t know anything else! Being so focused on explicable aspects of the craft of writing in the work of others makes it more difficult to lose myself in my own story worlds without self-consciousness. For this reason, I rarely write first drafts while teaching. I only teach for one semester a year, so I have plenty of writing time too. An ideal balance.  For the above reason, I’d advise any would-be writer to learn another trade, or skill, or find another profession, so that they can bring something other than writing back to their writing.  Plan on finding a way to pay yourself to write, in case no one else does!

  How do you keep focused during writing.

 On the best days, focus is no problem.  I put in earplugs if my husband’s in the house and playing banjo.  Otherwise just plain old-fashioned will-power.  

 Your husband, Andrew Greig, is also a well-known poet and author - does he read your work and help with the re-write process?

 I don’t show Andrew my work until it is as polished as I can make it on my own.  Then he is my first reader.  I can’t bear to let anyone read anything when I know there are problems with it – a bit hypocritical perhaps for a teacher of creative writing!  Andrew shows me his work as he goes along. He needs encouragement to carry on; I need privacy.  Both of these, of course, stem from insecurity.  Show me a secure writer and I’ll eat my desk.

 What about rejection?  Do you think the way we handle it as writers is about personality?  The more sensitive we are the harder we find it?

 It’s unbearable. Full stop.

 What gets you excited when you read a book?

 I want to forget about the craft and just become submerged in the story.  I can’t do this if the prose is weak or if it is too self-consciously showy. I want characters I care about, and stories that make me need to know what happens next. I want to believe in a story world, whether familiar or alien and I want emotional satisfaction at the end. If I’ve laughed and or cried in the process, then that is perfect.

 What do you feel about self-pub authors flooding the market?  I buy ebooks but always commit to the ones I love in print too.

 I like the democracy of everyone having a chance. Until recently the big publishers and book-sellers had too much influence on what the reading public were directed towards, concentrating largely on best-sellers and no-brainers, piling them high, discounting them savagely, and largely ignoring writers who weren’t slap bang in fashion or likely to make shed-loads of money.  I trust readers to distinguish the good from the bad, and really like the way social media, as a form of word-of-mouth, is becoming important in terms of book publicity. It feels much more genuine somehow than leaving it all to established book reviewers who perceive everything from within the canon of the literary world – and often have an agenda of their own. 

  What about publishers relying on authors to self-market?  I find this incredibly unfair.

 Well, I’ve been marketed and it wasn’t all that successful – and publishers tend to take the credit if it works, blame the book if it doesn’t.  I don’t know.  I am not a publicity hound by any means and would gladly hire a body double to do it for me! On the other hand it’s nice to have some sort of contact with readers, and if this helps with marketing, then that can’t be a bad thing.  It’s embarrassing though and having been brought up with the phrases like, ‘Who do you think you are?’ and, ‘Don’t blow your own trumpet,’ and the like, it’s hard to do it without cringing.

  QUICK FIRE SILLINESS

  Favourite place to write?

 Bed.

 Music when you write?

 Absolutely not.  Andrew comes in and plays the banjo when he makes his morning coffee, which drives me mad.

 Guilty pleasure?

 Neighbours!

 Do you think getting noticed as a writer is more difficult now?

It’s always been hard, there are more chances now that big publishers don’t have a monopoly.  It’s heartening how often small independent publishers (who in the main care much more about the work itself than just how much profit it might make) are getting work on prize shortlists etc.

 Dog or Cat?

 I admire cats but have a dog.  And walking the dog is part of my creative routine.

 Pirate or Spacewoman?

 Neither!

 Chocolate or Pistachio?

 Pistachio. With chocolate sauce.

 Jane Eyre or Mrs Rochester?

 I think the latter would be more realistic!

  Thank you so much, Lesley,  for answering my questions in such detail and with such verve.  I wish you every success with Little Egypt, not that you will need it, and look forward to the next novel.

 Leslie’s incredibly accomplished and darkly shadowed novel is available from Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops on and off the web.

 Leslie is also my mentor on the Gold Dust Mentoring Scheme .

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