Gracie by Marie Maxwell : Review and Q&A with the author

I've been a fan of Bernardine Kennedy's novels for many years, and am now most certainly a fan of her alter-ego Marie Maxwell.
Ruby was the first in a planned series of four novels and I enjoyed it immensely, it was published in the summer of 2012 and you can read my review of it here.

The second in the series; Gracie was published by Avon (HarperCollins) in mid April 2013 and I've been looking forward to catching up with the characters for a long time.   Although this book is part of the series, the author provides enough background information throughout the story which makes it a great stand alone story too.

Gracie is Ruby's best friend and although she featured heavily in the first novel, this is her story.  Gracie and Ruby are back home, living and working in the Southend hotel that Ruby recently inherited.  Gracie still has the scars on her heart from the hard times that she lived through when she was younger, but is excited and happy to accept a marriage proposal from long-term boyfriend Sean Donnelly.  Sean works hard and loves Gracie.  This is her chance to settle down and have a family, to love and be loved, probably for the first time in her life.
Gracie's big mistake is to keep secret from Sean the most important thing that has happened to her, the one thing that has shaped her life, and the thing that hurts her so much.  Despite this, the couple begin married life with big dreams and high hopes for the future, until Sean begins to show a side that Gracie does not like.

I loved Ruby; Marie Maxwell's first novel, but I adored Gracie.    As with Ruby, this is a compelling story that does not shy away from some really sensitive, yet very important issues.   It is clear that the author has drawn on her experiences and knowledge when writing this story as it is so real and believable.  The lead characters are, on the whole, strong women who have suffered hardships yet are still fun-loving and hopeful.

The period setting is wonderful, the descriptions of 1950s Southend are rich and evocative and the plot is fast-paced and packed with interesting and well-rounded characters - some you will love and others you will loathe and detest.

Both Ruby and Gracie have been a joy to read, I'm now eagerly awaiting the next in the series which I believe will feature Maggie and will be set in the 1960s.

It is an honour and a pleasure to welcome Marie Maxwell (aka Bernardine Kennedy) to Random Things - I asked her a few questions about books and writing.

      What are you reading at the moment?

Perfect People by Peter James (Kindle) and Dearest Rose by Rowan Coleman (paperback).  I like a cross-section of genres.... my bookshelves and Kindle reflect this, they will also reflect that I’m not too adventurous or literary. I want to read for entertainment so I’m in heaven with a good old Jackie Collins, James Patterson or similar. 

   

Do you read reviews of your novels?      Do you take them seriously?

Yes I do. Avidly! Sometimes I wish I could stop clicking but I can’t and I do take them seriously although if they’re particularly vicious (and there are always one or two) then I have to tell myself it doesn’t matter. But the majority are good and constructive and I do take notice of the feedback, I need it, writing can be very insular so knowing what readers expect is very important.

How long does it take to write a novel?

I write one a year but that year consists of research and plotting as well as the actual putting of the words onto the paper. And there’s usually that cross-over time when the previous book needs promoting and the new one is creeping towards deadline. A lot of juggling goes on constantly.

Do you have any writing rituals?

Only that I have to have the bits and pieces of everyday life in order before I can sit down and set to it, even if it’s only writing a list! Actually it often is just writing the list, that's enough to satisfy me... 

What was your favourite childhood book?

Probably Enid Blyton’s Island of Adventure. (and the rest of the series) Oh how I wanted to be part of that world. I was quite a solitary child and loved the idea of going off with other children and having adventures. 

Name one book that made you laugh?

I’m ashamed to say I don’t really read humorous books although I do sometimes laugh at biographies. Thinking about it I did laugh most at ‘Stone Me, the Wit and Wisdom of Keith Richards’. He has a way with spontaneous words both good and bad!

Name one book that made you cry?

I read ‘Home for Christmas’ by Annie Groves (Penny Jordan) just after she had died. She was a friend and I sobbed through that one. A fabulous and most prolific author.

Which fictional character would you like to meet?

The mother in ‘We Need to talk about Kevin’. Just to find out what she was really like. I simply couldn’t fathom her out and I’m still not sure if I feel sorry for her or if I blame her. Now I've said it I think I may go back and read it again. Something I don’t often do.

Which book would you give to your best friend as a present?

One of mine? No, not really. Maybe ‘Gone Girl’ the current top seller. I read it when I was on holiday recently, I wasn’t sure about it but I had to finish it to find out the end. I’d love to know what others think of it. It seems to have appeared from nowhere and flown!  

Are you inspired by any particular author or book?

Jackie Collins and ‘Hollywood Wives’. I not only wanted to write like her, I wanted to be her! I was so envious of it all! Note I said envious, not jealous. It was very fleeting but i still admire her tremendously. 

What is your guilty pleasure read?

I don’t feel guilty about any books I read now. Someone laughed on the train a while ago, a stranger no less, when I was reading Jeffrey Archer and suggested I put a brown cover on it. But I like his books, always have. Another good storyteller IMO. I don’t care about his private life!

Who are your favourite authors?

At the moment I’d say Jodi Picoult and Kathy Reichs but it could all change next month. I’ve gone through so many phases over the years. The one’s who have stayed all through are Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper.

What book have you re-read?

I’m currently re-reading Tanamera by Barber which I still love (a novel set in Singapore in the forties) but I recently read Valley of the Dolls and now wish I hadn’t. I loved it so much at the time but sadly it hasn’t worn well.

What book have you given up on?

War and Peace? Not that I’ve tried it recently! I tried to read many many years ago because I thought I ought to so that was probably the wrong way to approach it.

Thank you so much, Bernardine, for answering my questions Good Luck with Gracie!

For more information about Bernardine, her books and Marie Maxwell, take a look at her website here

**Givaway Time** The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway - Interview and Book Giveaway

In January this year I was lucky enough to read an early review copy of Bee Ridgway's debut novel The River of No Return, you can read my thoughts here.

I have a paperback advance reading copy to give away, please enter by completing the Rafflecopter form at the bottom of this post.

The River of No Return is a brilliantly escapist and enchanting debut novel about forbidden love by Bee Ridgway and will be published by Michael Joseph, Penguin on May 23 2013. 

Featuring a time travelling Marquis and a mysterious organisation called The Guild, The River of No Return has the same magical and indefinable atmosphere as The Night Circus or The Snow Child. Impossible to pin down in terms of genre, this is cracking, good quality, story telling at its best. A book that demands to be read, talked about and shared, it was born from Bee’s desire to include everything she loved in one novel. 

Bee worked for a year in features at Elle Magazine in the US and went on to Cornell for a doctoral degree in English Literature. She is now a Professor of American Literature at Bryn Mawr university and the book is interwoven with subtle literary echoes from her favourite books. Bee is super intelligent and lots of fun to be around. She lives with her partner in Philadelphia and this is her first novel.   Find out more about Bee and the book at www.beeridgway.com

Bee kindly agreed to answer some questions for me, here we go:

What are you reading at the moment?  I just this morning finished The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. They gave it to me when I visited the Penguin offices in London and it kept me laughing on the plane all the way back to Philadelphia.  It's a wonderful comic romance, both hilarious and humane.  The male hero and narrator is on the Aspergers spectrum, and has a very difficult time reading other people's emotions or feeling empathy in a conventional way.  His perspective makes the experience of reading a romance marvellously off-kilter, and as a reader you learn to empathise, and even love, in a new way

Do you / will you read reviews of your novel?  Do you / will you take them seriously?  Yes, and so far it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. The River Of No Return is my first novel, and it has only been out there for people to read and critique for a few weeks.  Learning how to read reviews and how to process them emotionally is proving to be a bit difficult.  No, rephrase. It is TERRIFYING.  But while the emotional side of it is hard, the fact is that I have been a professional book reviewer for years.  Once I get over the initial butterflies in the stomach, I can recognise when a review is going to be helpful to me. This is only partly because I need a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down!  It's also because - and I've learned this from years of teaching - it is easier to learn from the position of what is strong but could be made stronger, than from the position of what fails and is simply bad.  BUT - and this is very important - reviews are for readers, not writers.  I do read them and I try to learn from them, but I also think it is a privilege to see them at all.  I am not the audience for which they are intended, and if someone out there really didn't enjoy my book, I am sorry for it, but fair enough.  Different strokes for different folks!

How long does it take to write a novel?  All in all it was fifteen months between first sitting down to write and sending in the final page proofs.  I have never worked so hard in my entire life - the book went through many revisions - but I have also never had so much fun.

Do you have any writing rituals?  I didn't have an outline for my novel.  I tried to write every day until I hit a cliffhanger, either an emotional or an action-based one.  Sometimes that would be a ten or a fourteen hour writing day.  Then I would go to sleep, telling myself to figure out what came next in my dreams.  Almost invariably I would wake up fired up and ready to keep writing.  Once I was in the revision stage (or stages - it was completely overhauled and expanded several times) that completely changed.  But for getting that first draft down I wrote from cliffhanger to cliffhanger.

.  Check out the video below where Bee talks about her novel.

What was your favourite childhood book?  I had/have dozens and dozens.  I doubt I will ever read with quite such a feeling of magic and transporting joy as I did when I was a kid.  But let's see,  I think I was on a continuum between traditional masterpieces like C S Lewis' The Magician's Nephew (my favourite in the Narnia Series) and Daniel Pinkwater's far edgier Lizard Music, which is a surreal adventure about a misfit boy in a gritty magical version of Chicago.  Although now that I think about it, The Magician's Nephew is about a misfit boy in a magical verison of England so maybe not so different after all.

Name one book that made you laugh?  I love being surprised into a good laugh.  But the book that mde me laugh the most is a little-known 1948 memoir by Betty MacDonald called The Plague And I.  I found it in a charity shop in Sevenoaks and I picked it up because I have a secret love of plague literature.  Like for instrance, Daniel Defoe's A Journal Of The Plague Year.  Not a funny book, Mr Defoe's.  But amazing.  So I picked up this old, falling-apart green-and-white Penguin paperback thinking "this will be nice and grim".  It's about the year MacDonald spent flat on her back in a tuberculosis sanitarium outside of Seattle, Washington. Which does not sound funny, I know.  But trust me.  I laughed so hard my sides ached for a day and a half.

Name one book that made you cry?  I'm an easy crier, just like my Dad - so it isn't necessarily a gauge of anything!  But I had a real cry during the first scene of Elizabeth Fremantle's The Queen's Gambit.  It is written form the perspective of Catherine Parr's second husband, as he lies dying.  She gives up his pain and his passion in its entirety for a few pages, and never returns to him ..... you know you will lose him even as you begin to know and love him.

Which fictional character would you like to meet?  Jo March.  I'd like to give her a piece of my mind!

Are you inspired by any particular author or book?  All of them?  I mean, it's amazing that people write books, and they they invite people into them.  I'm also impressed by readers.  I love borrowing a book from a friend or the library and reading in the wake of other readers - other voyagers into the unknown.  But the question was about a particular book or author, and I suppose that today I am inspired by Philip Red Eagle. My novel is a big, frothy time travel story set mostly in London of 1815 .... it couldn't be more distant in tone and subject from Red Eagle's serious, emotionally harrowing time travel stories in Red Earth: A Vietnam Warrior's Journey.  His path to writing the two novellas in that volume was difficult.  Writing literally saved his life and I will always find that utterly humbling and incredible.

What is your guilty pleasure read?  When I'm feeling blue I reach for my beautiful old rag-eared paperback copies of Georgette Heyer that I collected from charity shops when I was living in the UK.  Especially her early novel, These Old Shades.  Surely someday the well of pleasure will run dry. But I hope not.

What book have you re-read?  See above!  But actually there are many to which I return again and again, both for pleasure and for my work.  I'm a professor, and I have to read the books I teach over and over again.  Each re-readig is a new experience.  I teach a class three or four times before I feel I've wrung it dry. Next year will be my last time teaching a course called American Girl.  It is a class that asks why girls and girlhood are so important to pre-suffrage American literature.  So of course we have to read Little Women, a book that I love and hate in equal measure.  I hope that this next time I teach the novel I will finally be able to reconcile my feelings.  But I think irreconcilable feelings was Alcott's goal when she wrote that dastardly book, darn her!

What book have you given up on?  There are a lot and most often is isn't the author's fault.  When it is something that I would say was a 'fault' with the book it's usually because it is a genre convention that just isn't to my taste.  I read a lot of books that fall under the umbrella of 'romance', but I'm picky about it, and I don't enjoy every variant of the genre.  For example, I just don't like romances where the heroine has to contend with another woman who wants to bring her down out of jealousy. Basically the evil stepmother plot really bugs me.

I'd like to say a huge thanks to Bee for answering my questions and giving such interesting answers

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Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley - Blog Tour & Giveaway

Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley was published by Tinder Press at the end of last month.  I read and reviewed it back in August last year and enjoyed it very much.   If you'd like to know more about what I thought of the story, you can read my review here

I have a hardback copy of Amity & Sorrow to give away to one follower, there's also a funky #godsexfarming badge up for grabs.   Entry to the competition is open to everyone, just fill out the rafflecopter form at the bottom of this post - Good luck!

Peggy Riley is a writer and playwright. She recently won a Highly Commended prize in the 2011 Bridport Prize and was published in their latest anthology. Her short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio and published in "New Short Stories 4", Mslexia Magazine (Third prize - Women's Short Fiction Competition 2010), and as an app on Ether Books. Her plays have been commissioned and produced off-West End, regionally, and on tour. She has been a festival producer, a bookseller, and writer-in-residence at a young offender prison. Originally from Los Angeles, Peggy now lives on the North Kent coast in Britain.

I'm delighted to be taking part in the Blog Tour for Amity & Sorrow and welcome Peggy to 'Random Things' - she has been kind enough to answer a few questions:

What are you reading at the moment?  I am just finished 'Instructions for a Heatwave' by fellow Tinder Press writer, Maggie O'Farrell.  I love her characters and her big, big heart.

Do you read reviews of your novels?  Do you take them seriously?   I do read them, because it's still a novelty, but also because I am very grateful for the time and thought that bloggers and reviewers give to reading books and writing about them.  Even when I might not like their response to mine, for it is not a book that will suit every reader, I get some insight into what I've written through the experience the reviewer has had while reading.  Amity & Sorrow is too dark for some readers, while for others the rhythm of the writing is too 'slow'.  Everybody brings her own expectations and tastes to a book.  It's not always the right time to read it.  I take all reviews seriously, wherever they come from, but I try very hard not to take them personally.

How long does it take to write a novel?   The short answer is - as long as it takes.  Every writer is different.  We write at different speeds under different circumstances.  I write and rewrite a lot of drafts before I begin to edit or think about it being read.  Every novel is different as well, so each is written differently - even by the same writer.  My second novel required a great deal of historical and science research, so the planning has taken as long as the writing.  It took a long time to write Amity & Sorrow, because I was learning how to write fiction.  I was learning to move away from writing plays, which I was used to.  The second novel has been quicker to write, but as the story is more complicated, the editing is much slower.  You have to just set targets and deadlines and hope to meet them.

Do you have any writing rituals?   I write in a little log cabin at the bottom of my garden, the Blue House. I roll up the curtains, boil the kettle, and fire up the Calor gas heater before I can do anything.  Then I do morning pages on line, 750 words of automatic writing to clear my head.  Then I turn on the playlist that feels like the writing I need to do, and I begin.  Having written all that, I can see how very many rituals I have.

What was your favourite childhood book?  Oh, so many!  "The Dark is Rising", second in the fantastic five book sequence by Susan Cooper, was very important to me.  I was also rather obsessed with "A Wrinkle in Time".

Name one book that made you laugh?   I tend to laugh more at a book's cleverness or at a great twist, even if it isn't funny.  I laughed a lot while reading Michel Faber's "The Crimson Petal and the White".  It's not a particularly funny book, but it is dead clever and pure delight.

Name one book that made you cry?   I can't think of one.  I'm not sure I can ever escape that deeply into a book, into text.  I'm much more likely to have a quiet blub to music, whether in concert or as underscoring in film or theatre.  I'm not sure what that says about me.

Which fictional character would you like to meet?   I'm tempted by Little Red Riding Hood's Wolf and Hansel and Gretel's Witch, but I suppose I should choose a character who won't want to eat me.  I'll choose the Mad Hatter, then, if I get to be Alice.  Wonderland would be rather splendid, if I can only avoid the Queen of Hearts.

Are you inspired by any particular author or book?   Amity & Sorrow owes a great deal to John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath", which casts a long shadow over any writing of the Oklahoma Panhandle or the Dust Bowl.  In rereading it, I was struck again by his dazzling skill with language, both in the Joad Family chapters and in the alternating propaganda chapters.  It was groundbreaking in 1939 and it feels incredibly modern still.  It's made me want to reread everything of his now.

What is your guilty pleasure read?    I love a good thriller.  Who doesn't?  I love a book where the pages seem to turn themselves and the hours drift away.  I still remember the visceral thrill of reading "Silence of the Lambs" and Michael Connelly's "The Poet".

Who are your favourite authors?   Louise Erdrich, Barbara Kingsolver, Margaret Atwood, Sarah Waters, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor.  I should stop there.

What book have you reread?  Other than "The Grapes of Wrath", the last book I remember rereading is "Jane Eyre".  I can't get enough of that book.  It taps into something really primal and secretive,  I can't quite put my finger on it.

What book have you given up on?   I give up on books all the time and I think there's no shame in it.  It's usually because the book isn't the right book at the right time.  I had to start "Wolf Hall" several times before I had the headspace to read it.  On holiday, it was the exact right book at the right time and then I devoured it like a greedy thing.

My thanks to Peggy for giving such insightful and interesting answers to my questions.

Thanks to Tinder Press, I have a hardback copy of Amity & Sorrow to give away, along with a really funky #godsexfarming badge.   The giveaway is open internationally and will end at midnight on Friday 25 April 2013

Enter below, and good luck!

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