Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (30th June 2016)

5/5*

Wow!

What an opening chapter! I started this book quite late on Sunday night with the intention of just reading the first chapter before bed. Well, that was never going to happen was it! I read the first five chapters before forcing myself to put the kindle down and go to sleep. Since then I’ve just had to pick it up every chance I’ve had. Thankfully I haven’t had much on this last couple of days.

Lily was abducted when she was just a teenager and has been locked away for eight years, subjected to horrific abuse. She has had a child, who has never seen the light of day. One night her chance to escape presents itself and she takes it, running for her life, with her daughter, back to her loving childhood home and her twin sister, Abbey.

They are in shock. They never expected to see her again. Except for Abbey who always believed Lily was still alive. A lot has obviously changed within her family in the past eight years and we follow Lily’s story as she comes to terms with being back home and what’s happened whilst she’s been away.

The whole community has to come to terms with the shock of who had been keeping her prisoner all this time!

To say this book is a page-turner would be an understatement. I was gripped from the very first page. It is a shocking story with some quite disturbing details of abuse, but it is very well written. The story flows well and the characters are believable and (mostly) likeable. The kidnapper/abuser’s character is brilliantly written. He made my skin crawl!

Definitely edge of your seat reading. It’s scary to think these kind of things happen in real life.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for approving my ARC via Netgalley. I will be more than happy to recommend.

You can purchase your copy here – Baby Doll by Hollie Overton

Description (via Amazonuk):

She kept moving forward. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back.

Lily has been abducted from outside her high-school gates.

For eight long years she’s been locked away from the outside world. During that time she’s changed from a girl into a woman. She’s had a baby.

And now she has seized her chance and escaped.

Running for her life, with her daughter in her arms, she returns to her family and the life she used to know – to her much-loved twin sister Abby, her mum, her high-school boyfriend – and her freedom.

But is it possible to go back?

Lily’s perfect life as a teenager doesn’t exist any more. Since she’s been gone, her family’s lives have changed too, in ways she never could have imagined.

Her return, and the revelation of who took her, will send shockwaves through the whole community.

Impossible not to read in one sitting, Baby Doll is a taut psychological thriller that focuses on family entanglements and the evil that can hide behind a benign facade.

Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (16th June 2016)

5/5*

What a gorgeous book! The cover is stunning and the story within has melted my heart.

Clover Quinn knows she was a surprise, but she’s always liked to think she was a good one. She’s twelve now and isn’t so sure any more. Clover and her Dad (Darren) are close. He has done his best, raising her as a single Dad. They lead a simple, day-to-day life. I particularly loved the scenes where they are watching Bake Off together! Clover just wishes he would talk about her mother more.

Clover is roughly aware of what happened to her mother, Becky, when she was just a baby, but she would like to know more. She doesn’t want to upset her Dad by asking too many questions though. Instead, she finds herself amongst her mothers things in the second bedroom and decides to catalogue what she sees as significant, as a sort of tribute to Becky. Her way of piecing together a story about who her mother was. The mother she never got to know.

Darren hasn’t thrown a single thing away since Becky died. Clover knows their home is different, more cluttered than other people’s homes, but she knows her Dad will get around to sorting it out one day. He’s been busy with work and helping Colin.

This summer is the first time he’s allowed her to stay in the house on her own whilst he’s at work. She is obviously a sensible girl. She’s happy to potter around and tend to their allotment. Darren still worries though, understandably (I have two teenagers!). Their neighbour, Mrs Mackerel, is close by to keep an eye on her though. Mrs Mackerel is HILARIOUS! She reminds me of my late Step-Dad’s late mother, Mrs Christey. She always used to say things wrong which made us giggle. ANTON DECK! Lol! If you’ve read this already you will understand. Otherwise you will know what I mean when you do. 🙂

The Museum of You is an easy five stars for me. It is a beautifully written story about love, loss, parenthood, friendship, family and growing up. I fell in love with Clover and her Dad along with the other wonderful characters in this story, all equally important in their own way. It might be a simple story on the surface, but it is just amazing. I’m sure many will relate in one way or another. These characters feel like very real people with very real (and still quite raw) emotions. Their story has been written with love and affection. The ending full of hope.

I’d love to catch up with the Quinn’s again sometime to see how they’re getting on.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for my Kindle copy of this wonderful book, via Netgalley. I will be recommending it to anyone and everyone. I’m off to add Carys Bray’s other books to my TBR list now!

You can buy your copy of this lovely book here – The Museum Of You by Carys Bray

Description (via Amazonuk):

Clover Quinn was a surprise. She used to imagine she was the good kind, now she’s not sure. She’d like to ask Dad about it, but growing up in the saddest chapter of someone else’s story is difficult. She tries not to skate on the thin ice of his memories.

Darren has done his best. He’s studied his daughter like a seismologist on the lookout for waves and surrounded her with everything she might want – everything he can think of, at least – to be happy.

What Clover wants is answers. This summer, she thinks she can find them in the second bedroom, which is full of her mother’s belongings. Volume isn’t important, what she is looking for is essence; the undiluted bits: a collection of things that will tell the full story of her mother, her father and who she is going to be.

But what you find depends on what you’re searching for.

…..From Netgalley…..

 ‘Deeply intriguing and provocative,… ALL IS NOT FORGOTTEN is not to be missed’

–KARIN SLAUGHTER

You can erase the memory. But you cannot erase the crime.

Jenny’s wounds have healed.
An experimental treatment has removed the memory of a horrific and degrading attack.
She is moving on with her life.

That was the plan. Except it’s not working out.
Something has gone. The light in the eyes. And something was left behind. A scar. On her lower back. Which she can’t stop touching.
And she’s getting worse.
Not to mention the fact that her father is obsessed with finding her attacker and her mother is in toxic denial.

It may be that the only way to uncover what’s wrong is to help Jenny recover her memory. But even if it can be done, pulling at the threads of her suppressed experience will unravel much more than the truth about her attack.

‘Original, compelling and very, very clever’
-B.A. Paris, bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors

 To be released on 1st September 2016.

(An invitation to view, from the Publisher, via Netgalley.)

Discover a unique, funny and moving debut that will make you laugh, cry and smile.

Meet thirtysomething dad, Alex
He loves his wife Jody, but has forgotten how to show it. He loves his son Sam, but doesn’t understand him. Something has to change. And he needs to start with himself.

Meet eight-year-old Sam
Beautiful, surprising, autistic. To him the world is a puzzle he can’t solve on his own.

But when Sam starts to play Minecraft, it opens up a place where Alex and Sam begin to rediscover both themselves and each other . . .

Can one fragmented family put themselves back together, one piece at a time?

Inspired by the author’s experiences with his own son, A Boy Made of Blocks is an astonishingly authentic story of love, family and autism.

Publisher: Bookouture (14th July 2016)

An absolutely hilarious, totally entertaining, spookily sexy read that you won’t be able to put down!

Life’s tricky for Melody Bittersweet.

She’s single, she’s addicted to sugar and super heroes, her family are officially bonkers and … she sees dead people. Is it any wonder no-one’s swiping right on Tinder?
Waking up lonely on her twenty seventh birthday, Melody finally snaps. She can’t carry on basing all of her life decisions on the advice of her magic 8 ball; things have got to change.

Fast forward two months, and she’s now the proud proprietor of her very own ghostbusting agency – kind of like in the movies but without the dodgy white jumpsuits. She’s also flirting with her ex Leo Dark, fraternising with her sexy enemy in alleyways, and she’s somehow ended up with a pug called Lestat.

Life just went from dull to dynamite and it’s showing no sign of slowing up anytime soon. Melody’s been hired to clear Scarborough House of its incumbent ghosts, there’s the small matter of a murder to solve, and then there’s the two very handsome, totally inappropriate men hoping to distract her from the job…

Welcome to Chapelwick, home of the brand new and hilarious Girls Ghostbusting Agency series, where things really do go bump in the night.

This is the PERFECT choice for fans of Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella or Lindsey Kelk, with an extra helping of hauntings and hilarity!

Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (16th June 2016)

Clover Quinn was a surprise. She used to imagine she was the good kind, now she’s not sure. She’d like to ask Dad about it, but growing up in the saddest chapter of someone else’s story is difficult. She tries not to skate on the thin ice of his memories.

Darren has done his best. He’s studied his daughter like a seismologist on the lookout for waves and surrounded her with everything she might want – everything he can think of, at least – to be happy.

What Clover wants is answers. This summer, she thinks she can find them in the second bedroom, which is full of her mother’s belongings. Volume isn’t important, what she is looking for is essence; the undiluted bits: a collection of things that will tell the full story of her mother, her father and who she is going to be.

But what you find depends on what you’re searching for.

Review requests from the Author/Publisher…..

 (Paperback copy sent from the author.)

Women always uncover the truth . . .

Three years and eleven months. That’s how long Lizzie Wells has been banged up inside Holloway prison, serving time for a crime she didn’t commit.

Six months. That’s how long it’s taken Lizzie to fall in love with her fellow inmate, Scar.

Now they are both finally free and, together, they are about to embark on a vengeful search to find those who framed Lizzie . . . and to make them pay.

THE BUSINESS MAN. THE COPPER. THE MADAM.

 (Kindle copy gifted via Amazon from the author.)

What happens when “happily ever after” has come and gone?

On the eve of her only daughter, Princess Raven’s wedding, an aging Snow White finds it impossible to share in the joyous spirit of the occasion. The ceremony itself promises to be the most glamorous social event of the decade. Snow White’s castle has been meticulously scrubbed, polished and opulently decorated for the celebration. It is already nearly bursting with jubilant guests and merry well-wishers. Prince Edel, Raven’s fiancé, is a fine man from a neighboring kingdom and Snow White’s own domain is prosperous and at peace. Things could not be better, in fact, except for one thing:

The king is dead.

The queen has been in a moribund state of hopeless depression for over a year with no end in sight. It is only when, in a fit of bitter despair, she seeks solitude in the vastness of her own sprawling castle and climbs a long disused and forgotten tower stair that she comes face to face with herself in the very same magic mirror used by her stepmother of old.

It promises her respite in its shimmering depths, but can Snow White trust a device that was so precious to a woman who sought to cause her such irreparable harm? Can she confront the demons of her own difficult past to discover a better future for herself and her family? And finally, can she release her soul-crushing grief and suffocating loneliness to once again discover what “happily ever after” really means?

Only time will tell as she wrestles with her past and is forced to confront The Reflections of Queen Snow White.

 (Paperback copy received from RedDoor Publishing)

Publisher: Red Door Publishing (24th September 2014)

What if someone had secretly made a film of your life? Hannah Bailey has resigned herself to a dead-end job, she’s sealed her heart against love and her catastrophic thinking is out of control. In fact, she’s hard pushed to find a single reason for her existence until the day she stumbles across a tiny one-seated cinema and its mysterious French owner Victor Lever… Cinema Lumière doesn’t screen Hollywood blockbusters or even low budget arthouse indies. Instead it shows people films of their lives. But how does Victor create such unique biopics and why is he so determined to coax Hannah into that single red velvet seat?

 (an e-book copy via the author)

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (22nd February 2016)

The body on the mortuary slab wasn’t who Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron was looking for. But it wasn’t a stranger. Ian Selkirk must have crossed some dangerous people. Because now he was dead. Stabbed through the heart and dumped in the loch. Suddenly, a routine missing persons investigation becomes a fight for survival as Charlie goes up against notorious gangster, Jimmy Rafferty, who has ruled the east end of the city with fear for over thirty years. Rafferty is ruthless. Even his own family are terrified of him. But Jimmy’s best days are behind him and in the Rafferty clan a power struggle is taking place between the sons. Finding what the thief stole is the old man’s last chance to protect what he has built and hold on to power just a little longer. He wants to use Charlie to get it for him. And Jimmy Rafferty always gets what he wants. The trail runs from the cold dark water of Loch Lomond to the golden beaches of southern Spain, from the terraces of Celtic Park to a thrilling climax on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle. Charlie must give Rafferty what he needs or die. Only one problem. Charlie doesn’t know where it is.

 (Paperback copy received via author)

Publisher: Luna Tree Publishing (11th January 2016)

Maya is kicking up her heels, living the fabulous and mostly carefree life of a twenty-something young woman. However, in the back of her mind continuous longing for a good marriage and family lingered. How do you find the right man, the one who sticks through thick and thin? Will he provide you with the things you find essential in a relationship?
Maya kissed a few frogs before finding her Prince Charming, but what followed was of higher importance.
She started feeling chronic pain in her lower back, the pain that wouldn’t let her neither sit nor stand. Thus Maya began her relentless quest for diagnosis and healing, which she ends after discovering Energy healing. She travels the globe to receive and raise her own stored Energy, the one that changes everything.
Her ultimate desires come true.

 (Signed Hardback copy received from the author’s husband)

Publisher: Head of Zeus; UK Airports edition (14th July 2016)

Once a week, Rosie Tipcott counts her blessings.

She goes to sit on her favourite bench on the north Devon cliffs, and thanks her lucky stars for her wonderful husband, her mischievous young daughters, and her neat little house by the sea. She vows to dedicate every waking hour to making her family happy.

But then her husband unexpectedly leaves her for another woman and takes the children. Now she must ask the question: what is left in her life? Can Rosie find the strength to rebuild herself? More importantly, does she even want to?

Won via a giveaway over on Portobellobookblog

 Three young Irish people have come to Australia, running from the economic ruins of their home country and their own unhappy lives. In this promised land, stunned by the heat and the vast arid space of the interior, they each try to escape their past in a chaotic world of backpacker hostels, huge fruit farms and squalid factories, surrounded by new friends who are even more damaged and dangerous than they are themselves. Endless supplies of cheap drink and drugs loosen what little sense of responsibility they have, and a spiral of self-destructive behaviour forces each of them to face up to the reality of their lives.

This is a story of the consequences of impulsive choices and of the places where they lead. A vulnerable young man is left alone by his friends in a remote wilderness; a desperate girl puts herself into the hands of violent sex traffickers; a once-privileged favourite son lets a drunken quarrel escalate to murder. An utterly compelling, readable novel that hooks from the first page and immerses us in an all-too topical nightmare.

 (Paperback from Choclit via Birthday Giveaway)

What if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you?

Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up.

That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question.

In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate.

But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after …

Purchased/Downloaded…..

 (Free sampler)

‘It made me giggle and it made me think’ Daily Mail

‘A properly good writer’ India Knight

A hilarious, heart-warming read perfect for fans of Shirley Valentine and You’ve Got Mail.

Could the worst thing that’s ever happened to Hannah Pinkman also turn out to be one of the best?

She and her husband Dan have reached the end of the line. Bored with the same gripes, the same old arguments – in fact, bored with everything – they split up after a trivial row turns into something much more serious.

Now Hannah has to make a new life for herself, but that’s not easy. She’s been so busy being a wife and mum that she’s let all her other interests slip away, along with her friends. And when Hannah is persuaded to join a dating site, her ‘best match’ is the very last person she expects it to be . . .

A clever, funny and poignant novel about life after a long relationship, the importance of friendship, and rediscovering your identity.

 One night changes everything for both of them…

At age twenty-five, Evianna Halle has a master’s degree and a broken heart. In an effort to move forward, she accepts a job as a live-in nanny for Nicholas Wilder, a recent widower with a young daughter. But when she meets Nick, her young and kind-hearted employer, she realizes that maybe the universe brought them together at just the right time for a reason, even if it’s unconventional.

Day by day, they learn to heal as one. Nick and Evi discover that perhaps friendship (and eventually love) can overcome heartbreak of the worst kind, even if that means abandoning the life they thought they’d live and embracing a new, unknown future.

And Then You is an emotional contemporary romance about unexpected love—and finding your way again when you thought everything good in your life was gone forever.

 Nothing has ever been quite ordinary for Ariella Malgrovech. At four years old she witnessed her mother’s surreal murder, and then years later on her eighteenth birthday, while attending her high school prom, her school catches aflame with her father trapped inside. With both of these tragedies come unexplainable supernatural circumstances. The series of unfortunate events that seemingly make up Ariella’s life, manifest into millions of questions that desperately crave answers.

Soon does she not only receive the answers she seeks, but she discovers that the world around her isn’t as she’s always thought it was–supernatural creatures exist among humans and her own father is one of them. What does that make her? Trust turns to betrayal and knowledge turns to danger in this thrilling paranormal romance as Ariella ventures out into a world where witches, vampires, and immortals exist among humans, and a power hungry witch is out to kidnap her and force her to become as dark and wicked as he is. Will love prevail or will it be her undoing?

My June Kindle first prime member freebie…..

 A loving couple, grieving the loss of their son, finds their marriage in free fall when a beautiful, long-lost acquaintance inserts herself into their lives.

Kat and Scott Hamilton are dealing with the hardest of losses: the death of their only child. While Scott throws himself back into his law practice in Los Angeles, Kat is hesitant to rejoin the workplace and instead spends her days shell-shocked and confused, unable to focus.

When an unwelcome face from Kat’s past in England emerges—the beautiful and imposing Sarah Cherrington—Kat’s marriage is thrown into a tailspin. Now wealthy beyond anything she could have imagined as a girl, Sarah appears to have everything she could need or want. But Sarah has an agenda and she wants one more thing. Soon Kat and Scott are caught up in her devious games and power plays.

Against the backdrops of Southern California and Sussex, in spare and haunting prose, Mary McCluskey propels this domestic drama to its chilling conclusion.

Bought at Tanya Bullock’s book signing at Waterstones, Walsall…..

 I have already read and reviewed this, but I now have a signed paperback copy on my bookshelf 🙂 If you haven’t already and would like to, you can read my review here – Homecoming: Quite Possibly The Strangest Romance Ever Told by Tanya Bullock

Quite possibly the strangest romance ever told Rosie and Tom belong together.
For too long, war and its devastating aftermath have kept them apart.
Now that Tom has finally returned home, Rosie hopes that they will be able to put the past behind them.
But when a mysterious sequence of events unfolds, their love is put to the test once more.
With a shocking secret hanging heavily over their relationship…
With circumstances conspiring against them at every turn…
Rosie and Tom find themselves caught up in the biggest battle of their lives.

And……

 Life as the single mum of a learning-disabled teenager is tough and gets even harder when puberty hits. To Izzie’s alarm, all her daughter Jaya, 18, wants from life is to get married and have babies. This creates a moral dilemma for Izzie. How she can continue to protect Jaya whilst at the same time letting her go?

With little prospect of meaningful employment or continuing education for Jaya, Izzie wonders if perhaps finding a ‘suitable husband’ via an arranged marriage wouldn’t be so crazy. But when Jaya falls head over heels for a teaching assistant in her college’s Special Educational Needs department, it sets in motion a disastrous sequence of events which turns things around in a way that nobody could ever have foreseen.

“Local author’s debut novel manages to combine a sensitive subject with Black Country Humour”. ‘Waterstones Loves’, Waterstones, Walsall

Added to my Wish List…..

This weekly meme is hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. It’s open to all to participate. Why not join in and let us know what’s on your reading list this week…

To join in, just answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

What I’m currently reading…..

 (via Netgalley)

Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (16 Jun. 2016)

Clover Quinn was a surprise. She used to imagine she was the good kind, now she’s not sure. She’d like to ask Dad about it, but growing up in the saddest chapter of someone else’s story is difficult. She tries not to skate on the thin ice of his memories.

Darren has done his best. He’s studied his daughter like a seismologist on the lookout for waves and surrounded her with everything she might want – everything he can think of, at least – to be happy.

What Clover wants is answers. This summer, she thinks she can find them in the second bedroom, which is full of her mother’s belongings. Volume isn’t important, what she is looking for is essence; the undiluted bits: a collection of things that will tell the full story of her mother, her father and who she is going to be.

But what you find depends on what you’re searching for.

What I recently finished reading…..

 (e-book copy via Blackbird Digital Books)

Publisher: Blackbird Digital Books (1 July 2016)

When Glasgow journalist Shona McGilvery moves with her partner Mikey and their baby to an idyllic cottage in rural Scotland, they believe that all that lies ahead of them is happiness.

But with Mikey working offshore, the frightening isolation of the Aberdeenshire countryside begins to drive her insane…

That is, until she is rescued by a new friendship with the enchanting Valentina.

She has the perfect home, the perfect man, and a charismatic new best friend – or does she?

As her fairytale life begins to unravel, the deep dark wood becomes the least of her fears…

A hauntingly intelligent, addictive psychological thriller from debut author S. E. Lynes.

If you haven’t already and would like to, you can read my 5* review for this brilliant book here – Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller by S. E. Lynes

Also, check out my Q&A with the lovely author herself, as part of the Valentina Blog Tour – **Blog Tour** Valentina by S E Lynes – Author Q&A

What I think I will read next…..

 (ARC via Netgalley)

Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (30 Jun. 2016)

She kept moving forward. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back.

Lily has been abducted from outside her high-school gates.

For eight long years she’s been locked away from the outside world. During that time she’s changed from a girl into a woman. She’s had a baby.

And now she has seized her chance and escaped.

Running for her life, with her daughter in her arms, she returns to her family and the life she used to know – to her much-loved twin sister Abby, her mum, her high-school boyfriend – and her freedom.

But is it possible to go back?

Lily’s perfect life as a teenager doesn’t exist any more. Since she’s been gone, her family’s lives have changed too, in ways she never could have imagined.

Her return, and the revelation of who took her, will send shockwaves through the whole community.

Impossible not to read in one sitting, Baby Doll is a taut psychological thriller that focuses on family entanglements and the evil that can hide behind a benign facade.

What are you reading?

Have you read any of the above?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments section 🙂

Kerry. x

I am delighted to be one of two stops today on S E Lynes’ Valentina blog tour with Blackbird Digital Books.

Publisher: Blackbird Digital Books (1st July 2016)

Q&A

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book please?

I teach Creative Writing at Richmond Adult Community College. Valentina is my debut novel. It’s a psychological thriller or domestic noir, set in Aberdeenshire. There is a fairytale vibe to it, with plenty of treachery and dark acts.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

Many sources. This one came from a joke I often make about my husband – but I can’t tell you that joke without giving the game away! Flippant remarks often spark something in my imagination. Life experience plays a big part but also other books, radio interviews, films, newspaper articles, anecdotes. This morning, for example, I heard a discussion on Radio 4 about Vantablack, a colour so black, so dark it sucks away all surrounding light…ooh, that got me thinking.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

No, funnily enough. They tend to come from the central idea or event in the book, from what needs to happen. I then work backwards and ask who they would need to be in order for this to happen. And from who do they need to be comes what is their background, what made them that person? And that’s my way in. For this book, I had the central reversal and a final event, so I worked my heroine out backwards from there. I also did a lot of research on NPD (narcissism personality disorder) and other forms of psychopathy and of course, characters develop as you write them.

How do you pick your characters names?

For my main character I needed a Scottish name, so I picked Shona McGilvery from the various names I heard whilst living in Aberdeen. For Mikey, I had his first name but then I googled Liverpool surnames, which have a distinctly Irish flavour as you can imagine, and I chose Quinn. Valentina came out of thin air…

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

An idea, whatever the source, nudges somewhere in my subconscious. I let it brew, keep it in my head, keep thinking about it and see what emerges. I sit down and write something way too dense, which I then start to unpick to see if it will breathe. Then I make myself write every day if possible even when I don’t feel like it. I try not to worry about the quality until I have something on the page.

Do you have a favourite author?

How long have you got? Pat Barker is my absolute favourite. I love her visceral style, her Northern humour and grit, her intelligence. I love Alice Munro, who can leave me devastated time after time. I love Ian McEwan. Oh, I love Sarah Waters for her fantastic storytelling. Through writing a psychological thriller I have discovered Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, Erin Kelly, Alex Marwood and I have just discovered Tammy Cohen. I like a lot of literary fiction which I think feeds into my writing process. Valentina is accessible and, hopefully, gripping but I still wanted to have some beautiful sentences in there and I love the way some less commercial authors convey nuanced emotions without resorting to melodrama. There is always so much to learn from other authors. Books like Winter’s Bone by Daniel Audrell and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr are gritty and dark but beautiful. I could go on…

Were you a big reader as a child?

Of course! The first book that made me cry was Winnie the Pooh – I cried because it had finished and I was bereft. I still get that feeling now when a book has moved me. I loved Enid Blyton and spent some time wishing I could go to boarding school and have midnight feasts – I grew up on a housing estate so I guess that world was exotic to me. I studied French and Spanish at Uni so that opened my eyes to foreign literature, which I loved. Literature has always helped me make sense of life, other people, myself sometimes. Sometimes you read a character and think: thank GOD it’s not just me that feels that way!

When did you start to write?

When I was in my twenties. There are some very dodgy poems somewhere that need burning. When I worked at the BBC I used to love writing scripts for my presenter, Edi Stark. She was a perfectionist and my aim was to produce an intro, just once, that she didn’t change. I can’t remember now if I ever did. I wrote some children’s books in my thirties when the kids were little and we lived in Rome and then when we got back to the UK I did some writing courses at my local community college, where I now teach. From there I went on to do an MA in Creative Writing at Kingston Uni and studied under some very talented writers like Rachel Cusk and Paul Bailey.

What are you working on right now?

I am ruminating on an idea for the next book and tentatively writing the first chapter or two. I reached a thousand words and already I’ve managed to murder someone. Maybe I’m a psychopath!

When can we look forward to a new release?

I don’t know – but I will put my heart and soul into making it as gripping and satisfying as it can be.

How can readers keep in touch with you?

I am on Twitter @SELynesAuthor. Because I teach, I tend to post a lot of tips and advice about writing. Writing is enjoyable but tough, both to do well and to succeed in – I think maybe this is why writers are very supportive of one another. We are like golfers, it’s all of us against the course.

Many thanks to Susie for answering my questions. Also to Rosalie at Blackbird Books who introduced me to Valentina and invited me to be a part of this fabulous blog tour.

You can pre-order your copy of Valentina here – Valentina by S E Lynes

If you haven’t already and would like to, you can read my 5 star review of this brilliant book here – Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller by S. E. Lynes

Description (via Amazonuk) –

When Glasgow journalist Shona McGilvery moves with her partner Mikey and their baby to an idyllic cottage in rural Scotland, they believe that all that lies ahead of them is happiness.

But with Mikey working offshore, the frightening isolation of the Aberdeenshire countryside begins to drive her insane…

That is, until she is rescued by a new friendship with the enchanting Valentina.

She has the perfect home, the perfect man, and a charismatic new best friend – or does she? As her fairytale life begins to unravel, the deep dark wood becomes the least of her fears…

A hauntingly intelligent, addictive psychological thriller from debut author S. E. Lynes

Make sure you follow the rest of the Valentina blog tour…..

Check out today’s other stop over on Damppebbles book blog

Today I am delighted to welcome Shelley Day to my blog……

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

I’m one of those people who’ve always written. But I didn’t take my fiction seriously until I was made redundant when I was 55. The redundancy turned out to be the very thing I needed to get me off the treadmill of wage slavery. It gave me the chance to do what I’d always wanted – to write fiction. Before that, I’d been a lawyer and an academic, and so I’d always written things in my job. But deep down, I’d always wanted to write fiction. I was working freelance, so my time was my own, and I started with a basic Open University Creative Writing course and I was hooked! And I just went on from there!

My debut novel is just coming out in July with Scottish publisher Saraband. It’s DOMESTIC NOIR, and called THE CONFESSION OF STELLA MOON. The publisher came up with this amazingly macarbre-sounding strap-line which does capture the theme of the book: “Because dark secrets don’t decompose.”  It’s a novel essentially about a Family Secret. It is a black, brooding tale of matricide set in 1960s and 70s Newcastle in a family so dysfunctional as to be sinister. After serving a prison sentence for killing her mother, young Stella Moon is discharged to restart her life. But her plans are soon ruined when she falls prey to a dark family secret that pulls her back into the past. Strange rituals, shame and paranoia haunt her, like the persisting smell of her mother’s taxidermy in the abandoned boarding house. Stella is caught in a tangled web of guilt and manipulation. What truth and what lies are behind the chilling confession of Stella Moon?

It’s published as a CRIME novel, but it’s not a police procedural, or a whodunit. It’s more of a whydunnit, an exploration into the psychology behind the crime.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

It’s truly hard to pin down where exactly ideas come from! My Stella novel, for example, didn’t come from an idea, but from a character (Stella). She emerged on the page during an exercise in a writing workshop. You can get ideas from anywhere, if you allow yourself to be open enough to let them in. When you start writing fiction, you start to notice things more, little details, you make connections, you start to see patterns, ideas press at you, characters come into your mind and make their presences felt … So ideas can come from a lot of places. Out there in the world, in the ordinary everyday world you can notice some strange or interesting things. Or ideas can come from inside you, from vague memories, feelings, images, from your own reactions to people and places and things. Places can be very important to a writer, because places have a spirit, and sometimes you can feel that spirit and it makes you want to write about that place. Or things, ordinary objects, can be inspiring like when, for example, they have a history, a provenance, a load of emotions sedimented down inside them. Or a photograph. You wonder what happened before or after that photo was taken, what happened to those people five years later. Ideas can come from all those places. The ones you write about are the ones that come into your head and won’t go away. You write those down. And if you’re lucky, and kind to them, they will make themselves into stories. As a writer, you are always registering things and asking yourself, ‘what if?…’

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

I’ve never set out to base a character on a real person, and I never would. It would be a difficult thing to do, even if I wanted to. It would be difficult because, as a fiction writer, your imagination is engaged from the start; the minute your pen hits the page, or even before that, your imagination is working on whatever fragments of material are to hand. So even if you begin with some idea of something real, say a place for example, very shortly your imagination takes over and the reality is eclipsed by the story. Not every writer is the same, but I personally find it impossible to stay with ‘the real’ for any length of time. I don’t think I could write a memoir. I’ve tried a few times but by the second sentence I am making things up and have deviated totally from anything that might count as a semi-accurate memory. Now, having said that, all characters must come from somewhere inside the writer, albeit somewhere so deep down they wouldn’t normally have conscious access . There’s a theory that fictional characters are part of the writer’s personality, deeply buried parts of themselves. Sometimes, when I read my work back after a distance from it, I see themes I never consciously intended, and maybe I can see how someone I know might have inspired a particular character. But that would be extremely rare and I can’t think of a concrete example.

How do you pick your character’s names?

My characters come to me with their name badges already on. The name is part of the character and could only with great difficulty be changed. Characters arrive with their baggage, and their name tags. Like Paddington.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

I don’t have any discipline to my day. I know I should have, but I don’t seem to be able to stick to one. Every time I try to impose a scheme on myself, it goes to pieces in no time. I always carry a notebook. I jot things down if they seem important. I always mean to set aside time to go through my old notebooks in case I find anything good in there to work on, but again that very rarely happens. I have a hut in my garden which is my writing hut. I am sitting there now. There is no internet out here, so no distractions. I’m eating PomBears and drinking black coffee. I am typing directly onto my laptop. When I’m writing fiction, I will often write by hand. Not always though. I’ll type up bits of it as the mood takes me. Inevitably I will edit it as I am typing. Often I will abandon the handwritten draft after half a page and type off at some completely different tangent. My writing process is all a bit random. I have only just realized quite how random it is when I tried to answer your question! I can’t really work at home, not in the house. That’s one thing I can say with certainty. Out here in my hut is almost ok but not quite. I work best in libraries or cafes. You have to be a lot more systematic once you’ve got a first draft, I mean the editing process, and structuring the work, all that demands sustained attention and commitment. I do a lot of that type of work outside in my hut. Also I read out here. I have a lot of books, lots that I dip into for reference or to check things. I have photos on the wall of things I like looking at. But mostly I like the light out here, and the quiet, and the fact that no-one will disturb me here. When I’m out here, my time is entirely my own. I need that solitude.

Do you have a favourite author?

I have many many favourites, and could pick a different handful every day, easily. So today I will pick Muriel Spark. The woman was a genius. I love her dark quirky humour and her spot-on observations. Thomas Hardy. I never read him any more but there was a time in my twenties when I read all his work from start to finish, I got completely carried away with him, wonderful storyteller, and capturer of the spirit of a place and time. The best book I read last year was Agota Kristof’s The Notebook. I was completely blown away by that, completely knocked sideways by the brilliance of it. I also loved, last year, The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas, a Norwegian writer. That was a stunning story and I went straight away to read one of his other books but was disappointed by the translation. And I return to the classics again and again. I’m reading Katharine Mansfield’s letters just now. And stories. Lorrie Moore’s stories. Lydia Davis’s stories. Carys Davies’s stories. Angela Readman’s stories. Jackie Kay, Ali Smith, Janice Galloway, Nathan Englander … I’m putting a short story collection together as we speak so I have been reading a lot of stories. I have so many favourites, it would take me forever to list them and tell you why I love them!

Were you a big reader as a child?

Yes. I read all the time. Milly Molly Mandy, I think she came first. Then my mother read Eric Knight’s Lassie Come Home aloud to us and I was transported. I was transported so far away by that book, I don’t think I ever really came back!

When did you start to write?

I’ve always written. As a kid I wrote and wrote in my school jotter, I was always going to the front and asking for a new one. I wrote from the time I could hardly manage to manhandle those big fat blunt wax crayons. I wrote poetry about my dog. Well, not really ‘poetry’ but you know what I mean. And magazines, I made little magazines and coloured them in and stapled them together and sprinkled glitter on. My grandfather got me a little kids’ typewriter when I was about 9. I still have it. It’s very precious. I typed many a magnum opus on that little machine.

What are you working on right now?

I’m putting together a short story collection which is called A Policy of Constant Improvement. In 2015 I won a New Writing North Award for it, and was lucky enough to be mentored by Carys Davies. So I am currently finishing that off. It will be out in 2017. I am also working on a second novel about a character called Clara. I’m not yet sure how that will pan out. She’s a complex character and leading me a bit of a dance at the moment.

When can we look forward to a new release?

My debut THE CONFESSION OF STELLA MOON will be launched in Edinburgh on 7^th July and in Newcastle on 13^th. They are free events, both at Waterstones. Everyone welcome!

How can readers keep in touch with you?

I have a website where my events and things are listed, and a facebook author page, and I am on Twitter. Here are links to my book and my author pages etc

Amazon http://amzn.to/1sFJGak

Waterstones http://bit.ly/1Pt1lXy

http://shelleyday.com

Twitter @PascaleBientot

Fb author page https://www.facebook.com/Shelley-Day-Author-1649675385297734/

Thank you so much for inviting me onto your blog! I really hope you’ll enjoy my book!

(Shelley ~ in the white shirt ~ at The National Library of Scotland, 21st June 2016)

Thank you so much for joining me on my blog today Shelley. I’m looking forward to reading your book!

Publisher: Contraband (1st July 2016)

A timely and intelligent book’ – AL Kennedy. 1977: A killer is released from prison and returns ‘home’ – a decaying, deserted boarding house choked with weeds and foreboding. Memories of strange rituals, gruesome secrets and shame hang heavy in the air, exerting a brooding power over young Stella Moon. She is eager to restart her life, but first she must confront the ghosts of her macabre family history and her own shocking crime. Guilt, paranoia and manipulation have woven a tangled web. All is ambiguous. What truth and what lies are behind the chilling confession of Stella Moon?

Pre-order your copy here – The Confession Of Stella Moon by Shelley Day