Tag: Crooked Cat Books

Crooked Cat Author of the Week – The Question Post

Post author By Miriam Drori
Post date Mar 6, 2020
8 Comments on Crooked Cat Author of the Week – The Question Post

It’s time for a change.

I’ve changed my profile photo over social media. I’ve also changed various cover photos.

I have news, but I can’t divulge it yet.

And, in conjunction with the featuring of me on Crooked Cat’s website from tomorrow, 7^th March, this post is the one you should use to ask me questions. You can ask me anything at all. I don’t promise to answer everything, but I’ll do my best!

So, do watch the (possibly unusual) video and read the extra stuff, all on Crooked Cat’s home page. And then come back here to ask about me, my life, my books, my writing, even… …my poetry.

OK, your turn, go to the comments ⇒
OK, your turn, go to the comments ⇒⇓
OK, your turn, go to the comments ⇒⇓

Important: My Kindle titles are reduced for this week. That’s CULTIVATING A FUJI and SOCIAL ANXIETY REVEALED.

OK, your turn, go to the comments ⇒⇓
OK, your turn, go to the comments ⇒⇓me page, you have to click Comments at the top ⇑
(But if you’re reading this from the Home page, you have to click Comments at the top ⇑)

Tags Author of the week, Crooked Cat Books, Cultivating a Fuji, Social Anxiety Revealed, video

Books Interviews

Distancing Ourselves from Our Fiction

Post author By Miriam Drori
Post date May 27, 2019
1 Comment on Distancing Ourselves from Our Fiction

(The reason for this title will become apparent at the end of this post.)

I’m delighted to welcome back to the blog my friend, colleague and brilliant author. It’s Sue Barnard! Sue’s next book, Finding Nina, will be published in just a week and I decided to ask her a few questions about the writing process.

Finding Nina is ‘part-prequel, part-sequel to the bestselling Nice Girls Don’t.’ Did you write Nice Girls Don’t knowing there would be a prequel/sequel or did the idea for Finding Nina come later?

Nice Girls Don’t was originally written as a stand-alone story, with no plans for a prequel or sequel. Only after it was published did I realise that a loose end had been unintentionally left dangling. Thankfully it didn’t affect the outcome of Nice Girls Don’t, but it did leave open the possibility of a spin-off. Finding Nina is in many ways a backstory for one of the characters who barely steps out of the shadows in Nice Girls Don’t. I enjoyed exploring that particular character in more depth and letting her have her own say.

Was it hard to fit the new novel around the existing story? Did you wish you’d written anything differently in Nice Girls Don’t?

I had to make sure that the events of the two books coincided. The action of Nice Girls Don’t takes place over just a few months (from April to July 1982), but Finding Nina covers a much longer timespan – from 1943 to 2004. I had to write out a timeline of events covering the entire period, and work from that.

I also set myself the task of making sure that Finding Nina would still make sense to anyone who hadn’t read Nice Girls Don’t. I hope I’ve succeeded. The two stories do complement each other, but both can be read in isolation.

How much of the plot did you know before you began writing?

Very little, apart from my original one-sentence premise. Building an entire story around that proved to be quite a challenge!

Did you write the novel from beginning to end, or did you write scenes and fit them together afterwards?

A bit of both. I tried to work from beginning to end, but some scenes were written out of sequence as they occurred to me, and were slotted in later.

How much of the first draft is in the final version?

In terms of the plot, most of it is still there – although the actual text went through several revisions along the way (including rearranging the order of some scenes following feedback from beta-readers). But one particular scene from an earlier draft didn’t make the final cut, because I realised that it didn’t add anything to the story.

Did you write any of it in longhand or was it all typed on the computer?

It was all typed on the laptop, apart from odd notes jotted down by hand (or on my phone) if ideas occurred to me when I was away from the computer. It was interesting trying to make sense of them afterwards.

I suppose that could be a metaphor for my whole life…

Ooh, that made me pause for thought!

Thank you so much for answering my questions, Sue. Here’s some more information:

Finding Nina

1943: A broken-hearted teenager gives birth in secret. Her soldier sweetheart has disappeared, and she reluctantly gives up her daughter for adoption.

1960: A girl discovers a dark family secret, but it is swiftly brushed back under the carpet. Conventions must be adhered to.

1982: A young woman learns of the existence of a secret cousin. She yearns to find her long-lost relative, but is held back by legal constraints. Life goes on.

2004: Everything changes…

More About Sue

Sue Barnard is a British novelist, editor and award-winning poet who was born in North Wales some time during the last millennium. She speaks French like a Belgian, German like a schoolgirl, and Italian and Portuguese like an Englishwoman abroad. She now lives in Cheshire, UK, with her extremely patient husband and a large collection of unfinished scribblings.

Her mind is so warped that she has appeared on BBC TV’s Only Connect quiz show, and she has also compiled questions for BBC Radio 4’s fiendishly difficult Round Britain Quiz. This once caused one of her sons to describe her as “professionally weird.” The label has stuck.

Sue’s own family background is far stranger than any work of fiction. She would write a book about it if she thought anybody would believe her.

Finding Nina, which is her sixth novel, is not that book.

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Also by Sue Barnard

The Ghostly Father Nice Girls Don’t The Unkindest Cut of All Never on Saturday Heathcliff

“Finding Nina … is not that book.” That’s the sentence that spawned the title of this post. Why do authors need to keep asserting that our fiction isn’t autobiographical? Why do interviewers always expect it to be? Why do I need to say, about my new novel, Cultivating a Fuji, that Martin isn’t me?

Food for a different post, perhaps.

Tags Crooked Cat Books, Finding Nina, metaphor, Sue Barnard, writing fiction, writing process

Books

Cover Reveal

With everything that’s been going on… promoting the free day for Social Anxiety Revealed and lots more – bookwise and lifewise… I somehow omitted, on this blog, to announce the fabulous cover for my new novel, Cultivating a Fuji, to be released on 15th May.

Crooked Cat have created a masterpiece with this cover.

So, without further ado…

except for a crescendoing drum roll…

and a blast from the trumpet…

I present the amazing cover of Cultivating a Fuji.

Tags cover, Crooked Cat Books, Cultivating a Fuji, Uplit

Books

What on Earth is UPLIT?

The Marriage of Uplit and Cultivating a Fuji

What is UPLIT and why might it interest me?

If you look up uplit in a dictionary, you’re likely to find that either it doesn’t exist or it’s the past of the verb uplight: to illuminate from below. But google it and you’ll find uplit or up lit is a genre people are starting to talk about. And to read.

Possibly, there is a connection between those two meanings of uplit. It’s about lighting the world from below, from the ordinary people, rather than having to endure spotlights from above.

An uplit novel is one of kindness, compassion and empathy. But it doesn’t sugar-coat the world; it’s “about facing devastation, cruelty, hardship and loneliness and then saying: ‘But there is still this,’” says author Rachel Joyce. Uplit novels are books that embrace difference, idiosyncrasy and those who are either marginalised or overlooked by society.

Uplit is about broken people who become fixed. Three examples are:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Three Things about Elsie by Joanna Cannon
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Uplit gives us readers control. It makes us realise that we can change the world – not the politicians, the dictators or the superstars, but people like you and me. We can make the world a better place, each in our own small way, and the more of us who do it, the greater effect it will have.

Uplit helps us to develop empathy for marginalised groups: immigrants, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities or mental health problems. Sadly and weirdly, another group often labelled as marginalised is women. How can a group that consists of slightly more than half the population be marginalised? Yet, it is.

My new novel, Cultivating a Fuji, to be published by Crooked Cat Books in May, focuses on a marginalised character who doesn’t have a voice, at least not a spoken one. He is not able to explain how or why or who he is. And most people naturally fail to understand and simply label him as weird. Fortunately, a few of those he meets attempt to delve deeper, to reach inside his fortified exterior, and they are the characters who give the novel its uplit flavour. He is the only person who can turn his life around, but he needs those kind, understanding characters.

“No man is an island entire of itself.” ~John Donne

If the novel helps to create more empathy in our fragmented world, I will be delighted. But most of all, Cultivating a Fuji is a good story, even though I have to say it myself, for now.

Tags Crooked Cat Books, Cultivating a Fuji, Fredrik Backman, Gail Honeyman, Joanna Cannon, Uplit

Books SIM Talks with Miriam Social anxiety

SIM Talk 5: CJ Sutton

A hearty welcome, please, for C.J. Sutton, author of Dortmund Hibernate and This Strange Hell. He’s travelled a long way to be here. Over to you, CJ.

Taming the Mind

Social anxiety is an issue very close to me. Despite finding techniques to create a confident exterior, being placed in a crowded room or asked personal questions can still cause the heart to beat faster than it should. Many writers, to varying degrees, live with social anxiety. Our ideas thrive in our minds, transferred onto the screen and page for others to see at their leisure without our physical presence. This craft works best in isolation.

C.J. Sutton, author I learned quite quickly that I could tell a story. But my storytelling needed preparation if I was to be placed on that stage. Put a blank page in front of me and I’ll smash out a short story before the day is out. Replace the page with real faces and the result would not be identical.

Being socially anxious can mean even the most mundane task, such as ordering a meal or getting a haircut, can lead to avoidance. I know people who fear speaking on telephones and attending meetings but will happily hold a snake or ride a rollercoaster. What is the cause? It’s hard to say, because the mind is rogue, and everyone finds fear in a different cave.

The characters I create are constantly in situations I would dread. Being the creator of those scenes allows a unique perspective. One can explore the why and the when, constructing responses that appear resolute. But I am never anxious when I’m writing. Never.

In my debut novel Dortmund Hibernate, the protagonist is a psychologist tasked with nine criminally insane patients. He faces drug dealers, gangsters, sex addicts, murderers, rapists and all manner of sick minds. In his approach to his patients, this psychologist uses his education and passion for the job to remain calm and seek best solutions. But when having a drink at a bar, this changed. Suddenly, he cares what everyone else thinks of him and the room is suffocating.

This Strange Life by C.J. Sutton In my new novel This Strange Hell, a main character lives in a town governed by a violent gang and hidden from police patrol. When this gang enters a public place wielding guns and requesting donations, she is a pillar amongst the locals and does what she can to keep her friends at ease. Ten pages later, when meeting a love interest for a meal on her birthday, this same character is trembling and acting out of the norm. She owns guns and works off the land. Informal. When life becomes formal, she starts to crumble.

Social anxiety is different for everybody. Whether it’s crowds, queues, attention or expectation, the feeling of being trapped in that situation can be the equivalent of pain. People may call someone out for being shy or introverted, and they may think that person is rude or uninterested. But within, their hearts are fluttering and terror dawns.

I know social anxiety.

Thank you, CJ. And yes, social anxiety is different for everybody. When I mention having social anxiety, people assume I don’t like doing public speaking or talking to strangers. Neither is true.

THIS STRANGE HELL by C. J. Sutton

A suited man runs from a burning tower in Melbourne as bodies rain down upon him.

Before the city’s millions can compose, he boards a train into the countryside. Hiding his identity and changing his appearance, the man finds his way to Sulley Ridge, a lawless town in the heart of the harsh Victorian outback.

The following day, a burned man wakes up in a hospital bed. Surging with rage, he speaks a name. Within an hour, the suited man’s face is across every screen in the country. It’s the greatest manhunt Australia has ever seen.

But as he tries to camouflage in Sulley Ridge, he soon realises the town has its own problems. Under the iron fist of a violent leader, the locals are trapped within slow and torturous decay…

As we learn more about the night of the burning tower, the connection between the suited man and the burned man threatens to leave a trail of destruction across the state.

Here is the story of a man on the run from his past, as the line between sanity and evil is danced upon.

Here is the tale of This Strange Hell.

Find C.J. Sutton

on his website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

He previously appeared on this blog when he brought Walter Perch along to Letters from Elsewhere.

~~~

Another fascinating letter from elsewhere was written by Dr Eloise Kluft, who was brought by Stephanie Bretherton, author of Bone Lines. This book is now published and available from all the places listed on her website.

~~~

Do you know what Uplift means? I hope to blog about this in a few days. It has connections with my new book, Cultivating a Fuji, out in May.

Tags Australia, burning tower, C.J. Sutton, Crooked Cat Books, Dortmund Hibernate, evil, Melbourne, sanity, This Strange Hell

Books SIM Talks with Miriam

SIM Talk 4: Tom Halford

I’m delighted to welcome Tom Halford here, today, with this most interesting and informative post.

Misunderstandings in Comedy and Crime Fiction

One common thread between the crime genre and comedy is that both rely on misunderstandings.

A hallmark of the crime genre is the Red Herring, which is a strategy used by many crime writers to distract or mislead the reader. More specifically, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles is essentially about a series of misunderstandings. I’m going to describe the plot as vaguely as possible so that I don’t spoil it for anyone. People mistake an individual for someone he is not, and people mistake an animal for something it is not. The moment that Holmes and Watson are able to see things for what they truly are, the plot is essentially unraveled.

Tom Halford, author of Deli Meat A similar argument could be made for The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe. Famous French philosopher Jacques Lacan argued that Poe’s story is based on a misunderstanding of what the letter means, and another equally famous French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, argued that Lacan deliberately misunderstood Poe’s entire story. I’m not sure I understand Lacan or Derrida, but my point remains: a good mystery is based on a clever misunderstanding.

Some of the best comedy also relies on these clever misunderstandings. In the sitcom Arrested Development, a wannabe film star, Tobias Fünke, believes he is attending Method One classes to improve his acting skills. He is amazed by the various, gritty monologues that people deliver about their lives. As the series goes on, Tobias discovers that he has actually been going to a methodone clinic, a support group for people who are addicted to opioids. It is a dark play on words, but it is also extremely funny.

In my novel Deli Meat, one of my main characters, Conrad Arms, is plagued by misunderstandings. He believes he has uncovered a conspiracy in the small border town of Plattsburgh, New York. Unfortunately, he is completely wrong, and his misunderstanding has disastrous consequences. The other main character, Effie Pitts, tends to misunderstand herself and her own motivations. Essentially, what I was trying to do was to combine this shared quality of comedy and crime. Some of their misunderstandings are comedic and some of their misunderstandings lead to crimes.

Why are misunderstandings so pleasurable in fiction? I’ve added that qualifier “in fiction” because in real life, misunderstandings are almost always unpleasant. In comedy, the pleasure of misunderstandings undeniably has an element of schadenfreude, or pleasure derived at the misfortunate of others. There is dramatic irony in that we know something that the character does not know, and there is humour in watching the various consequences of these misunderstandings. However, the case is slightly different for crime fiction.

A truly clever misunderstanding in a crime novel has a few unique qualities.

Deli Meat by Tom Halford The first pleasurable aspect is that of surprise. As readers, we have assumptions about the characters and their motivations. A skilled writer gets us looking in one direction, essentially misunderstanding certain aspects of the story. Once the misunderstandings have been revealed, we have a moment of surprise when we find out that we have been wrong about the characters and their motivations.

The second pleasurable aspect is that of renegotiating meaning. After the initial moment of surprise, we find that we have to think back on the narrative and the assumptions that we have made. For example, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, we initially think that Holmes has left Watson in charge of the investigation, but when it is revealed that Holmes has been living in a hut and spying on everyone, we need to readjust our assumptions about whether or not Holmes truly respects Watson’s abilities.

The third pleasurable aspect is that of uncertainty. Readers are often certain that the plot is heading in one direction. Then they are surprised when a misunderstanding is revealed, and they are forced to renegotiate meaning. If a story has a truly well-developed Red Herring, then readers just don’t know what will happen next. They don’t know what else they have misunderstood and can barely wait for more surprises when all is finally revealed.

And what’s more pleasant than racing through the final pages of a crime novel to find out what actually happened?

Thank you, Tom, for making that so clear. I do wonder if it’s true that in real life, misunderstandings are almost always unpleasant. But I haven’t made a study of it. I know I quite enjoy listening to a conversation when I understand the participants are talking at cross purposes. I suppose that’s the same satisfaction I get from stories in which I know more than the narrator. As Tom says, “There is dramatic irony in that we know something that the character does not know.”

Tom Halford is the author of Deli Meat, a fun crime novel, published by Crooked Cat Books and available from Amazon.

***

If you want to write a post – fact or fiction – on any of the three topics in this series, the information is all here.

Tags Comedy, Crime, Crooked Cat Books, Deli Meat, Edgar Allen Poe, misunderstandings, Sherlock Holmes, Tom Halford

Books SIM Talks with Miriam Social anxiety

SIM Talk 3: Alice Castle

Last year Alice Castle brought her character, Belinda MacKenzie to Letters from Elsewhere. Today, she’s back to talk about… let’s see…

AliceCastle1 It’s such a pleasure to be here on Miriam’s blog today. I was really pleased when she asked me to contribute a post. I was offered the choice of Israel, Misunderstandings or Social Anxiety. As I’ve never been to Israel and I always try to avoid misunderstandings, I’m going to talk about the main character in my London Murder Mystery series, Beth Haldane.

Beth is a single mother in her mid-thirties, with a bad habit of stumbling across corpses. She also suffers from a crippling variety of social anxieties. Indeed, she barely gets through a scene in any of the five books I’ve written so far without hiding behind her fringe, blushing, stuttering or prevaricating in some way. She has the sort of nerves that all of us get, from time to time – except that she seems to suffer from them constantly.

As you’ll have gathered, Beth is a bit of a fish out of water. This is particularly true in Dulwich, the posh suburb of south London where I’ve set most of the action in my books. The other mums she meets at the school gates are mainly of the ‘yummy’ variety – they have tiny jobs, big handbags, cars the size of tanks and spend their days ferrying their children to afterschool activities like ballet and extra maths classes, meeting up with friends to moan about their au pairs. It’s a highly competitive, highly polished world, where appearances mean everything.

Death in Dulwich by Alice Castle Beth, on the other hand, has bills to pay, deadlines to meet and, until sudden death throws her together with a certain tall, handsome policeman, in the shape of Detective Inspector Harry York, she is struggling with it all alone, following the death of her husband. She, unlike many of her contemporaries, has real worries. Her anxieties are not just social, she has trouble making ends meet.

Beth also feels insecure. Over the course of the series of books, we find out more about why this might be so. But, from the start, we are aware that in a world of sleek, Amazonian women who spend plenty of time in the local beauty parlours, Beth stands out, for all the wrong reasons. She is short, scruffy, poor and earnest. And she cares, very much, about abstract concepts like justice, right and wrong, that seem to pass many of the other residents of Dulwich by.

When I was thinking of what type of heroine I’d like at the heart of my mysteries, I considered many different foibles – amateur sleuths always seem to have them. Miss Marple disguises her forensic intelligence behind that harmless-old-lady facade, Hercule Poirot has his little grey cells. I wanted my character to be an underdog, so that we would root for her against the well-heeled, smug types she comes across, but at the same time I didn’t want her to be a spineless jelly, jumping at her own shadow.

Well, I needn’t have worried. Beth popped into my mind whole, and has been wreaking havoc in Dulwich and the surrounding area ever since. She is a mass of contradictions, cripplingly shy yet daring when she has to be, kind to a fault but also able to give as good as she gets against those bullying playground mums. She prevaricates endlessly, yet has a passion for sorting things out. And she worries, constantly. But at heart she always knows what must be done, in the interests of justice, to ensure that Dulwich remains a safe place for her boy – and for us all.

Beth sounds like the kind of woman I’d like to meet. But I’d keep away from those corpses! Thank you so much for telling us about her, Alice.

Death in Dulwich has just been released as an audiobook and is available here.

Death in Dulwich, The Girl in the Gallery, Calamity in Camberwell, Homicide in Herne Hill and Revenge on the Rye are available from Amazon here, if you’re in the UK. Otherwise, search for ‘Alice Castle’ on your Amazon.

Read Alice Castle’s blog here or here.

Say hello to Alice on Twitter or Facebook.

Tags Alice Castle, amateur sleuth, Beth Haldane, Crooked Cat Books, mystery

Israel SIM Talks with Miriam Social anxiety

SIM Talk 2: Jo Fenton

For the second SIM Talk, I welcome back Jo Fenton to the blog. She brought Tina to Letters From Elsewhere, and also wrote a lovely post for my other blog. I wonder which of the three topics – Social anxiety, Israel, Misunderstandings – she’s going to talk about…

When I was 19 I went on a six-week trip to Israel. It was my first visit there and I was very excited. The main purpose of the trip was to work as a youth leader in a summer camp in Ashkelon, under supervision of a Hebrew speaking youth worker.

I went as part of a group, and there was to be time afterwards for touring the country. I had foolishly planned to do the touring with a young man who was the friend of an ex-boyfriend! More to follow on that subject…

I was a shy, nervous nineteen year old. Although I’d had a fantastic time during my first year at Uni, being away with a group of strangers brought all my social anxiety to the fore.

There were some lovely people in the group, particularly amongst the girls, and I did make some friends. I’m not sure if it helped that my closest friend in the group was a recovering anorexic, and the other girls and I spent a lot of our time making sure she ate, and trying to convince her that her view of her body image was distorted. At the time, I didn’t realise how similar I was to her in many ways, having an inaccurate view of myself due to the unkind comments of just a few.

There was a young man amongst the group – an attractive-looking guy with a charming smile and a Scottish accent. I don’t know if he understood how hurtful he was when he commented almost daily on my nervous laugh. Perhaps he was stupid enough to think he was helping me. Not surprisingly the more he commented, the more nervous my laugh became!

ashkelonsunset — Ashkelon (photo by David Drori)

Ashkelon was beautiful. I loved working with the kids, many of whom came from deprived homes; but who were lively, cheeky and resilient. It felt great to be able to do something worthwhile with them. The highlight of each week was the Israeli dancing on the beach, where we would dress up, enjoy ourselves, and socialise. I kept away as much as I could from the young Scotsman. My anxiety always returned ten-fold whenever he was near. I spent several weekends with the girls in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and fell in love with the country.

Eventually the time arrived for us to say goodbye to the children, and go off on our more extended travels. My ex’s friend, whom I shall name P to save anyone embarrassment, agreed to do a brief tour taking in Lake Tiberias and Netanya before meeting the girls back in Tel Aviv for the flight home.

P refused to accompany me to Masada and the Dead Sea as he had already been. Without knowing it, he did me a favour, as I’m sure I got much more out of the trip to those fantastic places when I visited with my husband, sons and my mum last year!

From the minute we set off on the bus towards Tiberias, he started moaning: I was cramping his style. The fact we appeared to be travelling together meant that all his potential girlfriends would be put off from approaching him. This complaint continued throughout the three days we spent in each other’s company. He thought nothing of my own feelings, but by then, I was so downtrodden, the idea of me getting a boyfriend seemed a million miles away. One thing I was certain though – he was not on the list!

Overall, the trip did little for my confidence. All the anxiety that had been squashed during my first year as a student, returned in full force thanks to these somewhat insensitive young men. It was not until I met my husband-to-be a few months later, that some confidence returned.

Looking back, I see that I shouldn’t have allowed these individuals to get to me, any more than my anorexic friend should have been affected by the idiots who joked that she was fat. (She was the opposite!) I’m happy to say that I haven’t been criticised for my laugh or my existence since then, and as stated above, I returned to Israel for a most enjoyable and fulfilling trip with my family last year.

Ah, the tribulations of the young! I’m so glad you had a much better experience on your second visit. Thank you, Jo, for that entertaining account, which includes all three topics of the series!

Jo Fenton grew up in Hertfordshire. She devoured books from an early age, particularly enjoying adventure books, school stories and fantasy. She wanted to be a scientist from aged six after being given a wonderful book titled “Science Can Be Fun”. At eleven, she discovered Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer, and now has an eclectic and much loved book collection cluttering her home office.

Jo combines an exciting career in Clinical Research with an equally exciting but very different career as a writer of psychological thrillers.

When not working, she runs (very slowly), and chats to lots of people. She lives in Manchester with her husband, two sons, a Corgi and a tankful of tropical fish. She is an active and enthusiastic member of two writing groups and a reading group.

Her first novel, The Brotherhood, is available from Amazon.

The sequel, The Refuge, will be released this summer by Crooked Cat Books.

Jo can be found on her website, Facebook and Twitter.

Tags Ashkelon, Crooked Cat Books, Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Jo Fenton, Masada, psychological thriller, Tel-Aviv, The Brotherhood, The Refuge, Tiberias

Books Social anxiety

A New Book

I promised a post from Val Penny today. Unfortunately, some bad news meant that Val was unable to write the post. Unfortunately, you’ll have to put up with a post from me, instead. Fortunately, some good and very exciting news has given me the impetus for this post. And here is that news:

Cultivating a Fuji is going to be published by Crooked Cat Books in May 2019.

This is a novel I’ve been working on, on and off, for a long time. It involves a character who is very dear to me and a topic that is so important. But most of all, although I have to say it myself for now, it’s a delightful story, told with emotion and a lot of humour.

The premise of the novel, the piece of information that kicks off the story, is that Martin is being sent to Japan to represent his company. And if that hasn’t shocked you, it’s because you don’t know Martin. Oh, but you will know him. First, you’ll know him from the outside. Then you’ll keep watching through the lens as the camera zooms in and drills to the inside of his head.

What happens in Japan is interesting. But that’s only the beginning, the catalyst for the rest of Martin’s life. Don’t worry; this isn’t a biography, told as a series of isolated events. There are just two short periods, seasoned with flashbacks and enveloped by the future. Keep reading (when the novel is available, that is) because even when you think there can be no more surprises, you’ll discover another.

There’s a woman, too, called Fiona. She and Martin meet late in life and she brings her own baggage to the relationship.

And one more thing: Martin isn’t me. Although social anxiety has touched both of us with its sorcerous sceptre, we had different genes and different experiences, and Martin was affected in different ways to me.

Tags Crooked Cat Books, Cultivating a Fuji, humour, Japan, weird

Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Pierre

Post author By Miriam Drori
Post date Oct 26, 2018
3 Comments on Letters from Elsewhere: Pierre

My little French visitor has written a letter. That surprised me until I discovered it’s an assignment from his teacher. He and his classmates were asked to write a letter of introduction, telling a little about themselves and then something of what each of them wants for the future.

Chère Madame Noyer,

My name is Pierre Mancelle and I am eight years old. I live with my parents in the village of Messandrierre. My maman is a music teacher but not in a school. She has students who come to the house and sometimes she goes to their houses. Sometimes she teaches in school when another teacher is sick. My papa sings at the opera house in Marseille, so he is often away. But I have my own phone now so that I can talk to him when he’s not in rehearsal or on stage. We have an apartment in Marseille that is near the opera house and also close to the old port. Papa lives there when he’s singing but comes home when he’s not. He also goes to Lyon and Paris to sing too. He’s not famous or anything like that. He’s a tenor and he sings as part of the company, but he does understudy sometimes.

I like music, but not opera, it’s too complicated. I like playing my recorder. I also like riding my bike around the village and going on patrol with Gendarme Jacques Forêt, except he’s not a gendarme in the village any more. He works in Mende now. So I have to do my detective work with Gendarme Clergue instead. He’s OK… but it’s not the same.

Just like at home. It’s not the same. The family is changing. It’s always been only me and maman and papa, but soon I won’t be on my own any more. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Maman says, that as the eldest, I will have to take on new responsibilities. Papa says that I will still be ‘the man of the house’ when he isn’t there. And grandpapa says that I will always be just as precious to maman and papa as I always have been. But I’m not so sure…

I know I want to be a detective like Jacques. Maman says I have to call him Monsieur Jacques. But he lets me call him Jacques when its just us two and when he was a gendarme he let me call him Gendarme Jacques when we were working on cases together. But now he’s working in Mende I only see him at weekends when he brings Madame Elizabeth to the village. I wish I could see him more often because he would know what to do. He knows what to do about everything. He would know what to do about one of the boys who are always hanging around outside school. A boy I don’t like….

Ah, I was wondering when he’d get to the point, if ever. If you want to know more, you can find out in Montbel by talented Crooked Cat author, Angela Wren… that is, you will be able to when it’s released on 13th November.

About Montbel

A clear-cut case?

A re-examination of a closed police case brings investigator, Jacques Forêt, up against an old adversary. After the murder of a key witness, Jacques finds himself, and his team, being pursued.

When a vital piece of evidence throws a completely different light on Jacques’ case, his adversary becomes more aggressive, and Investigating Magistrate Pelletier threatens to sequester all of Jacques’ papers and shut down the investigation.

Can Jacques find all the answers before Pelletier steps in?

Montbel is the third Jacques Forêt mystery and can be found on Amazon.

Angela can be found on Amazon US, Amazon UK, her website, her blog, Facebook, Goodreads and Contact an Author.

***

This might be the end of Letters from Elsewhere. I feel it’s time for something new. But not just now. I’m too busy working on my own future at the moment. So, don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while, but don’t be surprised if you do. And I’ll still be around on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

Miriam Drori, reading from her non-fiction book: Social Anxiety Revealed

Tags Angela Wren, Crooked Cat Books, Jacques Forêt, Montbel, murder mystery