But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens

'I was quite a cheerful person, you know, in spite of what happened to us.'

In 1944, at the age of fifteen, Marceline Loridan-Ivens was arrested in occupied France, along with her father. They were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. When they arrived, they were forcibly separated. Though he managed to smuggle a last note to her via an electrician, she never spoke to him again.

'But You Did Not Come Back' is Marceline's letter to the father she would never know as an adult, to the man whose death has enveloped her life. With poignant honesty, she tells him of the events that have continued to haunt her, of the collapse of their family, and of her efforts to find a place in a changing world.

This is a breathtaking memoir by an extraordinary woman, and an intimate and deeply moving message from a daughter to her father. 

But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, translated by Sandra Smith,  was published in hardback by Faber & Faber on 21 January 2016.


This slim book is just 100 pages long, but every single word, on every single page hurts. It is painful to read, it is painful to know that the words are true. It is painful to close the book, once finished and remember the events that changed history, that should never be forgotten. But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens describes the horror experienced by the prisoners  of Auschwitz-Birkenau, her words are stark and severe, but haunting and honest.

Marceline and her father were arrested in 1944, France was occupied by the Nazis and the family were Jewish. Taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau, they were forced apart. They never spoke again.

Eventually, Marceline did return home. Her father did not come back. This beautifully written book is her letter to her father. In it, she details the horror of life in the camp, her despair that she cannot recall every word of the last note that her father managed to send to her, and the ever lasting impact of those years on her, and the rest of her family.

I'm not going to go into detail here about the things that Marceline witnessed in the camp, we are all aware of what went on behind those fences, under the noses of the locals. Many of us though will not have thought about what happened to the survivors after the liberation of the camps. How many of us considered how they would carry on living their lives with the images of what happened to their fellow human beings, carried out by their fellow human beings indelibly etched into their brains?

Marceline's words are honest and brutal. She blames herself for living, and I think, there have been times when she has blamed her father's death for the break-down of the rest of the family.

Please, sit down in a quiet spot and read these 100 pages. Then, take some time to reflect on our world, our history and our resilience.

Haunting, passionate, honest and enlightening. But You Did Not Come Back should be read by everyone, and remembered.


My thanks to Rachel from Faber who sent my copy for review.


Marceline Loridan-Ivens was born in 1928. She has worked as an actress, a screenwriter and a director. 

She directed The Birch Tree Meadow in 2003, starring Anouk Aimee, as well as several documentaries with Joris Ivens.

She lives in Paris.

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Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull *** BLOG TOUR ***

As a child living on the streets of London, then in an orphanage, Dawnay Price grows up determined not to let her background stand in the way of her ambition.

In an era when women rarely travel alone, especially for scientific study, Dawnay sets sail aboard The Prospect to the beautiful Iberian Peninsula. Amid rumours of mermaids in the sparkling waters, she makes some unexpected discoveries, including what it means to fall in love.

Having fought hard against convention, Dawnay is determined to put her career above all else. Yet as war approaches she finds herself divided by feelings she cannot control.

Told in Dawnay's words, from the author of The Visitors, this is an unforgettable story about what it takes to achieve your dreams, even when they seem impossible.

Published by Hodder and released in hardback on 18 June 2015, and paperback on 11 February 2016, Song of the Sea Maid is Rebecca Mascull's second novel. I reviewed her first, The Visitors here on Random Things in August 2014.

I am delighted to be a host on the Blog Tour for the paperback release of Song of the Sea Maid, once again Rebecca Mascull has created a solid and believable female character, set in a vividly imagined historical setting.

Homeless, orphaned and hungry, this young girl has just seen her only family member and ally press-ganged to sea. Without the brother who stole for her and protected her on the dirty and dangerous streets of eighteenth century London, it would be easy to lose hope. Her attempt at stealing goes horribly wrong, but her victim, a wealthy man, sees a spark in this child's eye and finds sympathy for her. This is the turning point in her life. Delivered to an orphanage, she is christened Dawnay Price, after the man who rescued her from the streets.

Although the orphanage is stark, and the food is just bearable, and the other children consider her to be a street-rat, Dawnay thrives. Her determination, her inquisitiveness and her sparky nature means that she is destined to succeed in life. The long nights, teaching herself to write by the light of a lamp, or sometimes just the moon could land her in trouble, but instead it leads her to more learning and to discovering that there is a wide world, full of things to discover.

The reader is then taken on Dawnay's journey. Through the streets of London, to see things that she had never imagined and then later, by sea to Portugal, on an adventure of discovery and science, and study and mermaids, caves and love.

Rebecca Mascull's writing flows so well, I was delighted by descriptions of London in the early part of the novel, and continued to be amazed when the story crossed to Portugal. Dawnay is a character to cheer for, way ahead of her time and overcoming almost every barrier that could be imagined for her. The interweaving of historical fact into this beautifully told fictional story is elegantly and cleverly managed, and despite the fact that historical fiction is not my first love, I was enchanted by Song of the Sea Maid.

A fine second novel to sit alongside The Visitors. Rebbecca Mascull has proved, once again that she is a very skilled author.


Rebecca Mascull lives by the sea in the east of England with her partner Simon and their daughter Poppy.
She has previously worked in education and has a Masters in Writing.
Song of the Sea Maid is her second novel.



Find out more about Rebecca, and her writing at her website
Find her Author page on Facebook
Follow her on Twitter @rebeccamascull

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The Finding of Martha Lost by Caroline Wallace

Martha is lost.

She's been lost since she was a baby, abandoned in a suitcase on the train from Paris to Liverpool. Ever since, she's waited in Lime Street station lost property for someone to claim her. It's been sixteen years, but she's still hopeful.

In the meantime, there are mysteries to solve: a suitcase that may have belonged to The Beatles, for one. And that stuffed monkey that someone keeps misplacing. But there is one mystery Martha has never been able to solve - until anonymous letters start to arrive that may hold the key to the past she longs to know.

Time is running out though - the authorities have found out about the girl in lost proerty, and if Martha can't discover who she really is, she will lose everything .... 

The Finding of Martha Lost by Caroline Wallace is published by Doubleday (Transworld) on 10 March 2015


There can't be many writers who can turn an ordinary train station in the centre of a busy city into a magical world of wonder and discovery, but Caroline Wallace has done just that. The Finding of Martha Lost is a book that I have looked forward for many many months. I heard the author read from it at the Transworld event last year and was transfixed, my gasp, as she finished her reading was heard all over the room .... This story is beautifully told and that gasp was certainly not my last.

Martha is a sixteen-year-old girl who has never left Liverpool's Lime Street station. She was found there, and has stayed there. The woman who she called Mother always told her that if she left the station, it would crumble and be no more. Mother took Martha in when she was discovered abandoned on the Paris to Liverpool train, she gave her a home, but she didn't give her any love.

Despite that, Martha is a joyful, inquisitive girl who takes a thrill from spinning around the station concourse, eating lemon drizzle cake from the station cafe next to the Lost Property office and run by Martha's best friend Elizabeth. Martha loves to find things, she loves to return them to their owner. Martha loves lots of things. Martha sees and feels joy in her small world, she loves her friend Elizabeth who wears yellow stilettos and the latest fashions, who sings along to The Beatles and Cilla Black and protects Martha whilst still allowing her to find her own way.

Martha's skill for finding things, and her special magical touch that enables her to know just where a particular item was lost, and why, soon brings her to the attention of Max Cole, an Australian who is on the hunt for the lost ashes of Liverpool legend Mal Evans. Everyone in Liverpool knows about Mal; the Beatles' roadie and mate who was shot dead in America. His ashes went missing during the journey home to Liverpool. Max Cole claims that he's discovered an old suitcase full of Beatles' memorabilia and finding Mal's urn would make him a very rich man.

But, Martha needs to find the one thing that has always eluded her. Her identity. If she can't find out just who she really is and where she came from, then she will lose everything.

The Finding of Martha Lost is the heartbreaking, yet beautifully imagined story of how Martha begins to find herself. Accompanied by George, who dresses every day as a Roman soldier, and William who smells like a sewer and lives in the underground tunnels under the station, and of course, by Elizabeth - the colourful, loving cafe owner.

Caroline Wallace has cleverly interwoven the true story of Mal Evans and the missing suitcase into her fictional story of Martha and her missing heritage. Underneath Martha's joy and brightness is a startling vulnerability that only someone who has experienced pain could have expressed so beautifully. Her characters are all broken, yet are full of hope and belief, there is a darkness that overshadows each of them, yet as a team they are able to overcome their demons and begin to shine brightly.

This is a book that is written for book lovers and avid readers, by a book lover. When the reader discovers Martha's hidden book treasures they will feel delight and joy. It's like a Scouse Shadow of the Wind; the absolute love of the written word shines though, and Martha's explanation of how every book has more than one story will resonate with everyone that adores books and reading.

Love, being loved and how to love is the theme of this wonderful story, along with abandonment and rediscovery. Threaded with true Northern grit and Scouse humour, The Finding of Martha Lost is a story that should be savoured, enjoyed, digested and remembered for a long long time.




The Finding Of Martha Lost will be officially launched at an event at Waterstone's in Liverpool on Thursday March 10th at 6.30pm. 

Tickets are £3 and everyone is welcome.









Caroline Wallace worked as a lecturer for several years before turning her hand to fiction.

She lives in Liverpool with her husband and their many children.

For more information about Caroline, and her books visit www.carolinewallace.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter @Caroline_S

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The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin

Noah is four and wants to go home. The only trouble is, he's already there.

Janie's son is her world, and it breaks her heart that he has nightmares. That he's terrified of water. That he sometimes pushes her away and screams that he wants his real mother. That it's getting worse and worse and no one seems to be able to help.

In desperation, she turns to someone who might have an answer - but it may not be one she's ready to hear.

It may also mean losing the one thing she loves more than anything, Noah.

A novel that spans life, death and everything in between. The Forgetting Time tells an unforgettable story about Noah, about love and, above all, about the memories that shape us. 

The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin was published in hardback by Mantle (Pan Macmillan) on 11 February 2016 and is Sharon Guskin's first novel.

A lot of books randomly drop through my letterbox, I also buy a lot of books. I've usually heard about the books that arrive in my house; I may have seen the publisher talk about them, or the author, or a fellow blogger. Every now and again I receive a parcel that contains a book that I've heard nothing about before. A totally random thing through my letterbox. The Forgetting Time was one of those books. I looked at that wonderful wonderful cover, I read the intriguing blurb and saw that it was a Mantle publication, and fell a little in love with the whole idea. I have not been disappointed. This is a story that absolutely transfixed me from page one, it's one of those books that you just have to discuss and would make the perfect book group read.

YOLO

You Only Live Once

The four letters that seem to be the anthem of a generation. Plastered across t-shirts, on bags and on badges. It's a way to live life, to do things to excess and at times, a way to justify actions.

YOLO makes a fleeting appearance in The Forgetting Time; tattooed on the lower back of a character who is not even named. A quick glimpse of the tattoo of the moment, displayed by a young girl in a cafe, but those four initials ... those four words, are the central theme of his bewitching and original novel.

Janie is a single mother. Her young son Noah is her whole life, but Noah is a difficult child. He is terrified of water and refuses to take a bath. He's a bit smelly and sticky, and other people look at Janie and judge her because of it. Noah also asks when he will be going home, and when will he see his Mama again. He has nightmares that are vivid and disruptive. Janie loves Noah, but it hurts her when he pushes her away, she hurts for him when he becomes so distressed.

Noah's teacher is concerned. She askes difficult questions and thinks that Noah should have therapy. The therapists don't understand Noah and Janie doesn't know what to do next.

Professor Jerome 'Jerry' Anderson has spent his whole career trying to prove that some children have lived before. He's found cases, many in India, of children that speak about people and places that they've never seen or visited. Jerry is ill, it is ironic that the form of Aphasia that is eating away at his brain makes him forget. He finds it difficult to remember words and people but he is determined that he will find a child in America who 'remembers', for his last book.

It's kind of inevitable that Janie and Jerry will meet, and Noah will become Jerry's 'case'. Together, despite Janie's misgivings and protectiveness and yes, a hint of jealousy, they piece together Noah's story and make a long journey across the country to discover whether Noah really has lived before.

Reincarnation is a subject that I've never really thought about, I haven't read about it, or considered my feelings about it, but this story has really made me consider what I do believe. Sharon Guskin has cleverly interwoven snippets from a book called Life Before Life by Dr Jim Tucker and these reported incidents add a sense of reality to what could easily have been a novel of pure fantasy, for Life Before Life and Dr Tucker are actually real and not a figment of the author's imagination.

Sharon Guskin's characters are a delight. Noah is a strange little boy, who is complicated yet so innocent. Janie often feels quite distant from the reader whilst Jerry exposes his inner feelings, his despair and his sadness and his reasons for his determination.

The Forgetting Time could be classed as a mystery, but it is also a deeply moving story of how death and sorrow can impact on family relationships. The author's writing is beautiful, her story is compelling and whatever the reader's views on reincarnation, there is no doubt that is extremely clever and completely irresistible. The story and the characters will linger for a long time, the questions that arise are probably unanswerable.

My thanks to Anna from Pan Macmillan who surprised me with this clever and remarkable novel.

Sharon Guskin has degrees from Yale University and the Columbia University School of the Arts, and has worked as a writer and producer of prize-winning documentary films.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two sons.

The Forgetting Time is her first novel.

Find out more at her website www.sharonguskin.com

Follow her on Twitter @SGuskin

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My Life in Books ~ talking to author Rebecca Chance

My Life in Books is an occasional feature on Random Things Through My Letterbox.

I've invited authors to share with us a list of the books that are special to them and have made a lasting impression on their life.

Today, I welcome my fifth guest to My Life In Books, Rebecca Chance. Rebecca writes novels filled with glamour, humour, fashion, glitter and sex!

Her first book, Divas was published in 2009 and her latest novel, Mile High was released last year.

I distinctly remember my parents getting furious with me for choosing Sue Barton, Student Nurse by Helen Dore Boylston as my favourite book when I was 6 or 7 - all the other girls in class had picked much more socially acceptable books but I was determined to be honest, and I was in love with that series! We did presentations up on the walls of the schoolroom, so the fact that I had not, say, picked Jane Austen was very obvious ...... And now it wouldn't be honest not to mention Sue!  I doubt I'd think much of the sexual politics now, of course, but at the time she seemed very dashing. 

As for the rest of these, I can't do a chronology as I read so ferociously in my teens and twenties that it's impossible to chart a progression. There wasn't one. The authors below I found in that time period and revisit constantly to this day.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte made a huge impression on me when I was in my early teens, as did Villette. There's an absolute craziness to Charlotte Bronte's imagination - the drawings in Jane Eyre, the opium trip in Villette - that made a huge impression on me. It was so wonderful to find heroines who acknowledged her inner lunatic side as usually women are so nervous of being judged for that. Those are by far the bits from both books that I remember most vividly. 

In my twenties I read a lot of contemporary lesbian fiction, both mysteries and novels, because lesbian writers had a much more free perspective on what it meant to be a woman, were much less constrained by stereotypes. Katherine V Forrest's and Ellen Hart's mysteries were very gripping, but the writer I loved the most was Jane Rule, whose spare prose and extraordinarily clear perspective on life felt extremely liberating. Of all her books, my favourite is This Is Not For You. It's very sad and dark as the love of the heroine's life, Esther, can't face the fact that she's a lesbian and runs away from her sexuality all the way through. But it's beautiful and haunting and friends of mine who have read it feel just the same.  

I came across the Modesty Blaise series by Peter O'Donnell, around the same time. They were a revelation - other contemporary mysteries featuring straight women were either very dull, with the heroines not having much agency, or trying to act like men. And here was a caper-adventure series written by a man with an incredibly strong heroine who had a sexy male sidekick! I devoured them all and when I found that Peter had also written standalone romantic adventures under the name of Madeleine Brent, I was over the moon. In these, a young woman is always raised in a hostile environment which causes her to be extremely strong, resilient and intrepid and she uses those skills to save herself and others at the climax of the story - often saving the male love interest, a lovely turnabout from the usual women-in-peril stereotype.  

Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber short story collection (a film was made of A Company of Wolves) was revelatory, showing how a feminist perspective can turn fairy stories with traditional gender roles upside down.

I remember the Bluebeard version particularly. And the other writer who pulls this trick off superbly is Tanith Lee below ... 

I wish I had found Tanith Lee's Young Adult science fiction/fantasy novels when I was the right age to read them, but I came across The Birthgrave in my early twenties and was enthralled to discover her as a writer. Over the years, I tracked down almost all of them - I would look in every second-hand bookshop and library. Back then, before the internet, finding out-of-print writers was a real labour of love and every time I came across another book of hers I would be ecstatic. She never got the recognition she deserved for her highly original, feminist and poetic work.  

My guilty pleasure in my twenties was Jilly Cooper's shorter romances - Octavia etc. Not a guilty pleasure because they were romances but because the heroes were so bossy and sexist and treated the heroines sometimes in a way that you simply wouldn't get away with today, while the heroines were pretty much incapable of taking care of themselves at all.

But they were, and are, hugely charming and I do remember them very fondly.  

As a huge crime fan (and writer at the time, as Lauren Henderson) I love the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. It's hard to pick one of her books but the device she uses in Endless Night is remarkably well done and I usually end up citing it as my favourite.

When I was asked to pick a must-read crime novel for the anthology Books To Die For, this was the one. 

And from Dorothy L Sayers, I picked, for the same anthology , Have His Carcase.

It's got a great romance, and a brilliant solution which is right there under the reader's nose all along - but no one sees it!

The last mystery writer I re-read incessantly is Ngaio Marsh - I have absolutely Golden Age tastes in crime novels. I hate the contemporary ones with women in more and more disgustingly imagined peril or torture scenarios. Marsh's politics aren't perfect (neither Christie or Sayers is great with race/class issues, but Marsh is infinitely worse, with a particularly vicious hatred for spinsters!) but her plotting is superbly forensic and Artists In Crime is one of my favourites. I literally re-read a copy to death - it fell apart in my hands. 

Georgette Hayer's Regency romances are of course the best ever written and though it's hard to pick a favourite, The Grand Sophy has a particularly strong-minded and cleverly scheming heroine, who I love. Her detective novels are also wonderful, especially Death In The Stocks. 

And maybe the most-read for last, the woman called Eleanor Burford, who also wrote as Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, Elbur Ford (amazing fictionalised retellings of real-life crimes that ought to be much better known), Kathleen Kellow, Anna Percival, and Ellalice Tate! Her storytelling skills and research are simply wonderful. One of my best friends is a huge fan and has collected almost all of them, even the very rare copies, so I'm lucky enough to be working my way through them all. I have copies of all the Holts myself - I can't really pick a favourite, but the early ones are best and you can't go wrong with Bride of Pendorric! 

Rebecca Chance was born in Hampstead to international art dealer parents and grew up in the exclusive millionaire's row surroundings of London's St John's Wood. Tiring of her cushioned, privileged existence, she ran away to Tuscany to live a wild, bohemian life on a wine-making estate where she lived in a 14th century villa in a Chianti vineyard, partying with artists, learning Italian, and picking grapes. 
But big city life was calling her and after staying in Rome and Porto Ercole, she moved to Manhattan, lured by the glamorous single-girl existence and nonstop nightlife. She spent a decade living the Sex In The City dream in SoHo, equally at home in an uptown penthouse on Fifth Avenue overlooking the Metropolitan Museum, or downtown dancing on the bar of the Coyote Ugly for kicks. Eventually, a handsome American husband in tow, she moved back to London to settle down (as much as she can) and finally fictionalise some of her most exciting and glamorous experiences into her bestselling bonkbuster novels.

Find out more about Rebecca by visiting her website www.rebeccachanceauthor.com
Check out her Author page on Facebook
Follow her on Twitter @MsRebeccaChance

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The Sender by Toni Jenkins

Can an inspirational card from a secret sender really help change your life?

For Abby, Kat, Patti and Tessa, it seems to hold that extraordinary quality.

The card instructs each woman to hold it in their possession for six months before sending it on, with an invitation to meet the sender two years from the date of its inception.

From Edinburgh to Glasgow, York to Cambridge, the card is sent on a journey to impart its magic.

But who is the sender and what was their motive? And why where they the chosen ones?

The Sender by Toni Jenkins was published in paperback, and e-book in June 2015.  I was contacted by author Angela Jackson about this book late last year. Angela wrote The Emergence of Judy Taylor, a really fabulous book that I reviewed on Random Things in November 2013. Angela asked if I would like to read The Sender by Toni Jenkins, I'm really glad that I said yes. It's a beautifully written story that holds the reader captive, fans of Jojo Moyes and Rowan Coleman will adore this book.

The premise of this story is intriguing, and it begins with a Prologue narrated by the anonymous 'sender'. The Sender knows that Abby is facing huge difficulties in her life and wants to let her know that there is love and support for her, but that she herself is strong enough, although at the moment she does not realise it, to overcome anything that life throws at her.

And so, the card is sent, a simple white card with a message on the front: You can overcome anything,  and inside Abby is instructed to keep the card for six months and then send it to the next woman in need. From darkness to light.  Also included is a four leaf clover, and each woman is instructed to take a leaf from it before sending on the card.

Abby certainly is facing hard times. Her heart is broken and her whole world has been turned upside down. Gone are the expensive cars and the luxury lifestyle, and she is faced with life as a single mother, with no job.

Toni Jenkins has created four very strong female characters who face their problems with strength, with humour and with character. Abby sends the card to Kat, who in turn sends it to Patti, it finally reaches Tessa before the four women meet on a designated date, in Edinburgh, to discover who the mysterious sender actually is.

There are a lot of serious, and quite dark issues dealt with within this story. Each of the women are tested to their limits during their sections of the book, but each one of them takes some comfort from knowing that the card is there, and there is someone out there who cares deeply about them. The story could quite easily have become overwhelmed by the themes of death, betrayal, illness, dysfunctional families and grief, yet the author has cleverly structured the book so that each character has their own individual story to tell, with no padding but exquisitely written. 

The stories of each of the women do overlap slightly, and this ties the whole book together very nicely. These characters are strong women, facing some of the most challenging battles, yet each one of them are determined and forceful, yet loving and emotional too. The characters are equal, each one is real, robust and extremely likeable, the reader will shout for them, and egg them on, and be delighted when they conquer their demons and can send the card on to the next woman.

The planned meeting in Edinburgh does take place, and the women meet and it is clear that the card has created the beginning of long-lasting friendships between them. The Epilogue is a message from the Sender, and although I was desperate to know who sent the card, it really doesn't matter in the end who it was, although I didn't guess correctly at all. This is not a mystery story, it's a story of real women and it's life-affirming and quite beautifully written, it delivers tears and laughter and inspiration in equal measures.

The Sender is wonderful, Toni Jenkins is a talented and astute author. I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

My thanks to Angela Jackson who introduced me to the author, and to Toni Jenkins who sent my copy of the book for review. She also sent a little card with the book .....




Toni Jenkins was born in New Zealand in 1970. After graduating with a BA Honours degree in Education, she bought a one-way ticket to the UK and so began her love affair with the northern hemisphere.
With a lifelong passion for writing, Toni wrote her first novel in her early thirties, with her second being penned in an Italian village during her 'mature gap-year'. 
The Sender is her third novel and the first to be published.
She is currently re-working her Italian creation and building the plot for her fourth book.
Toni lives in Edinburgh with her partner, Peter.

For more information about Toni Jenkins, visit her website www.tonijenkinsauthor.com

Find her author page on Facebook

Follow her on Twitter @tonijenkinsauth

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My Life in Books ~ talking to author Milly Johnson

My Life in Books is an occasional feature on Random Things Through My Letterbox.

I've invited authors to share with us a list of the books that are special to them, and have made a lasting impression on their life.

Milly Johnson
from www.millyjohnson.co.uk

My fourth guest on the My Life In Books feature is Milly Johnson. I'm really pleased to welcome Milly here today, I've been a fan of her writing for a long time now.

Milly is the author of fifteen novels, her first The Yorkshire Pudding Club was published in 2007, and her most recent, Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe came out last year. Her sixteenth novel will be published in June this year. 

So many books have had an influence on me, but these immediately came to mind:

The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton    the first time I ever completely lost myself in a book was when I read this. My Nannan bought me an Amelia Jane book by Enid Blyton and I was hooked ...... but the Enchanted Wood took me to a wonderful place in my head. My books always have a little magic element somewhere, because I think this wood infected with the concept of magic and I've never healed. And never want to.  I loved how the wood was painted and I can still picture today how I thought it looked then. When I write today, I always disappear into a world of my own creating. Setting is very important to me.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte   My favourite book of all time. I read it when all my sexual hormones were budding and the first man they reached out to was Rochester. This book has everything to me - a small, imperfect, feisty heroine who I totally identified with. A powerhouse of a hero who made my nerve endings sing. Beautiful love rival who doesn't get the man, but you think she might, conflict, a little bit of magic and that glorious gorgeous Thornfield. I think all of my books have a little bit of Jane Eyre in them. I never tire of it. I moved to live in Haworth on the strength of reading this book.  

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding  Here was a book that I read whilst shouting 'yes, yes that's me, that's what I do' at every page. I wanted to write a book like that, that women could identify with. It was fresh and funny and I cried and laughed at it and I wished I'd written it. I met Helen Fielding a couple of years ago and it was a massive highlight of my year/decade/life. I was a blubbering superman. When anyone writes and tells me that they read my books and say 'yes, that's me, that's what I do', I think I owe it to Bridget - and Helen - for influencing me. 

 Persuasion by Jane Austen   I hated Jane Austen at school. I thought she was old and boring and rubbish until a blessed teacher of mine ripped the scales from my eyes and showed me how much she was (direct quote) 'taking the piss'. I 'got' her irony and her tongue in cheek humour then. And this book is full of people you just want to slap. But also there is the most gorgeous love story about a woman who missed her chance for happiness, regretted it, feels that was her one and only crack of the whip .... but gets her day in the sun. My books are full of these Renaissance moments - they give readers hope that life can change. Even set-in-a-rut ones. I feel Anne Elliott blossoming in the pages and I'm rooting for her all the damn way. Captain Wentworth is a nip behind Rochester in the romantic hero category, but it really is only a nip!

The Treatment by Mo Hayder  I have a very dark side. That's why my books often have dark themes. They'd be a lot darker too if my Editor didn't keep reining me in. I want to split myself in half and write a crime novel. This book was the perfect dark story to me. Masterful but never gratuitous, with a hero I cared about. I might write what is categorised as 'Romantic Comedy' but I write about life and all its horrors. I like books with light and shade. Life is made up of tears and laughter after all. The Treatment was a masterclass in writing terror. 

Milly Johnson was born, raised and still lives in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. As well as being an author she is also a copy-writer for the greetings card industry, a joke-writer, a columnist, after-dinner speaker, poet, BBC newspaper reviewer and a sometimes BBC radio presenter.

She writes about love, life, friendships and that little bit of magic that sometimes crops up in real life. She likes owls and meringues and hates marizpan. She is very short.

You can find out lots of interesting information about Milly and her life at her website www.millyjohnson.co.uk 
She has a book page on Facebook
Follow her on Twitter @millyjohnson



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