The Guardian of Lies by Kate Furnivall BLOG TOUR @KateFurnivall @simonschusterUK @ed_pr #Giveaway #TheGuardianOfLies #Win

Discover a brilliant story of love, danger, courage and betrayal, from the internationally bestselling author of The Survivors. 

1953, the South of France. The fragile peace between the West and Soviet Russia hangs on a knife edge. And one family has been torn apart by secrets and conflicting allegiances. Eloïse Caussade is a courageous young Frenchwoman, raised on a bull farm near Arles in the Camargue. She idolises her older brother, André, and when he leaves to become an Intelligence Officer working for the CIA in Paris to help protect France, she soon follows him. Having exchanged the strict confines of her father's farm for a life of freedom in Paris, her world comes alive. 

But everything changes when André is injured - a direct result of Eloise's actions. Unable to work, André returns to his father’s farm, but Eloïse’s sense of guilt and responsibility for his injuries sets her on the trail of the person who attempted to kill him. 

Eloïse finds her hometown in a state of unrest and conflict. Those who are angry at the construction of the American airbase nearby, with its lethal nuclear armaments, confront those who support it, and anger flares into violence, stirred up by Soviet agents. Throughout all this unrest, Eloïse is still relentlessly hunting down the man who betrayed her brother and his country, and she is learning to look at those she loves and at herself with different eyes. She no longer knows who she can trust. Who is working for Soviet Intelligence and who is not? And what side do her own family lie on?

The Guardian of Lies by Kate Furnivall is out now, published by Simon & Schuster, priced £8.99 in paperback. 

As part of the Blog Tour organised by ed public relations, I am delighted to offer the chance to win a paperback copy of The Guardian of Lies to one lucky reader. Entry is simple; just fill out the competition widget at the end of this post.
UK ENTRIES ONLY PLEASE

GOOD LUCK! 

Further praise for Kate Furnivall's novels:

'Gripping. Tense. Mysterious. Kate Furnivall has a talent for creating places and characters who stay with you long after you’ve read the final word' Jane Corry

'Exquisitely heart-wrenching & utterly engrossing' Penny Parkes

'A thrilling, compelling read. Wonderful!' Lesley Pearse

‘Wonderful . . . hugely ambitious and atmospheric’ Kate Mosse

‘A thrilling plot … Fast-paced with a sinister edge’ Times

‘Truly captivating’ Elle

‘Perfect escapist reading’ Marie Claire

One paperback copy of The Guardian of Lies by Kate Furnivall


Kate Furnivall didn't set out to be a writer. It sort of grabbed her by the throat when she discovered the story of her grandmother - a White Russian refugee who fled from the Bolsheviks down into China. That extraordinary tale inspired her first book, THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE. From then on, she was hooked.

Kate is the author of ten novels, including THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE, THE LIBERATION and THE BETRAYAL. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages and have been on the Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller lists.

Snowed In At The Practice by Penny Parkes BLOG TOUR @CotswoldPenny @simonshusterUK #Giveaway #Win #SnowedInAtThePractice

Larkford Surgery is the heart of a tightknit community in the Cotswolds, as well as a hotbed of drama, rivalry, resentment and romance - and that's just the doctors …
 
Dr Holly Graham is finding life with two sets of twins exhausting. Even with husband Dr Taffy Jones and devoted friend Elsie by her side, she is completely outnumbered. Making the transition back to work will be no easy feat but a regular slot on Radio Larkford as their on-air doctor might be the perfect stepping stone, until an unexpected job offer changes everything.
 
Dr Alice Walker’s new canine clinic at Larkford Surgery with Coco, her assistance dog, has been a storming success. If only shipping her best friend, Dr Tilly Grainger, in from South America to cover for Holly had been such a smooth transition. It seems that Tilly isn’t finding life in the peaceful Cotswolds valley as rewarding as she’d hoped, and she is causing chaos ...

Snowed In At The Practice by Penny Parkes is published in paperback by Simon & Schuster on 14 November 2019.

As part of the #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I'm delighted to have a paperback copy to give away to one lucky reader.  Entry is simple, just fill in the competition widget at the end of this post.
UK ENTRIES ONLY.

GOOD LUCK! 

Curl up with the wonderful new novel from the bestselling author of Out of Practice and winner of the RNA Romantic Comedy Award 2017.
 
Praise for Penny Parkes

Hugely enjoyable’ Catherine Isaac

‘Larkford is still my happy place’ Katie Fforde

'Delightfully warm' Jo Thomas
 
‘Has everything: warmth, humour, drama, laughter and a few tears’ Milly Johnson
 
‘A pure delight’ Julie Cohen

One Paperback copy of Snowed In At The Practice by Penny Parkes




Penny Parkes survived a Convent education largely thanks to a ready supply of inappropriate novels and her passion for writing and languages.

She studied International Management in Bath and Germany, before gaining experience with the BBC. She then set up an independent Film Location Agency and spent many happy years organising shoots for film, television and advertising - thereby ensuring that she was never short of travel opportunities, freelance writing projects or entertaining anecdotes.

Penny now lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, two children and a geriatric spaniel. She will often be found plotting epic train journeys through the Alps, baking gluten-free goodies or attempting to prove that you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks.

Twitter: @CotswoldPenny

The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis @brontemysteries BLOG TOUR #TheVanishedBride @HodderBooks

Yorkshire, 1845

A young woman has gone missing from her home, Chester Grange, leaving no trace, save a large pool of blood in her bedroom and a slew of dark rumours about her marriage. A few miles away across the moors, the daughters of a humble parson, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë are horrified, yet intrigued.

Desperate to find out more, the sisters visit Chester Grange, where they notice several unsettling details about the crime scene: not least the absence of an investigation. Together, the young women realise that their resourcefulness, energy and boundless imaginations could help solve the mystery - and that if they don't attempt to find out what happened to Elizabeth Chester, no one else will.
The path to the truth is not an easy one, especially in a society which believes a woman's place to be in the home, not wandering the countryside looking for clues. But nothing will stop the sisters from discovering what happened to the vanished bride, even as they find their own lives are in great peril...

The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis is published today (7 November 2019), in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton.
My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review and who invited me to take part on this Blog Tour.

 

Author Bella Ellis takes three of our most famous female novelists, and their wayward brother and turns them into detectives in this original and clever mystery story.

Set in the wilds of Yorkshire in 1845, the Bronte sisters are distressed to learn that Elizabeth Chester; mistress of Chester Grange has disappeared. Their friend Matilda works at the Grange as governess to the Chester children, and the sisters travel to see her.

They learn that Elizabeth is not the first Chester bride to suffer, and that Mr Chester’s first wife Isabel took her own life years before.

The sisters’ are curious and are determined that they will solve these mysteries. They declare themselves to be ‘lady detectors’, and use their love of words and vivid imaginations to begin to get to the bottom of things.

The Vanished Bride is beautifully and elegantly written. The author’s passion and knowledge of the Bronte sisters shines through in her writing. This a clever and intriguing mystery with such atmosphere; there’s a real gothic feel to this read with an added touch of the supernatural too.

I absolutely loved this story; everything about it ticks every one of my reading boxes. The characters are wonderfully developed; drawing on what we know about the sisters in real life and making them so incredibly realistic. The wild Yorkshire setting is perfectly created, adding a touch of chilling suspense to the tale. And, of course, there's the mystery element that is intriguing and compelling.

The author also incorporates a lot of social history within her story. The Bronte sisters, and their brother and father were certainly not the norm for their times. The sisters come up against the age-old prejudices against women, but deal with these with wit and with bravery. It's great to see some sparky, independent female characters portrayed in what is often a historical period that puts females in the darkest shadows.

The Vanished Bride is charming, witty and intriguing and a wonderful beginning to what I hope will be a long-running series from this very clever author.







Bella Ellis is the Brontë inspired pen name for the award winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Rowan Coleman. 

A Brontë devotee for most of her life, Rowan is the author of fourteen novels including The Memory Book , The Summer of Impossible Things and The Girl at the Window, as well as the co-author of Mirror, Mirror, the debut novel by actor and model Cara Delevingne. 

Bella Ellis lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and five children.

Twitter @brontemysteries

The Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award - Shortlist Book #ThePerseverance by Raymond Antrobus @YoungWriterYear

I was honoured to be asked to be on the shadow panel for this year's Young Writer of the Year

Award, sponsored by The Sunday Times and the University of Warwick.




The shadow panel will read and discuss the shortlisted books, we will then pick our winner and see if we agree with the official panel.

The exceptional debuts of multi-award-winning British-Jamaican poet Raymond Antrobus, The White Review Short Story Prize winner Julia Armfield, British-Brazilian novelist Yara Rodrigues Fowler, and writer and Creative Writing teacher Kim Sherwood have been shortlisted for the 2019 Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award. It is the first year the University of Warwick, home to the acclaimed Warwick Writing Programme, acts as the title sponsor of the prize, following two years as its associate partner.




The judges have chosen the shortlisted titles – two novels, a poetry and a short story collection; written by three women and one man – from a record number of submissions to the prize. Publishers submitted over 100 books this year – prompting The Sunday Times Literary Editor Andrew Holgate, Chair, to sign up two further judges: the writer, editor and bookseller Nick Rennison and Warwick University’s Gonzalo C. Garcia have joined the award-winning poet and writer Kate Clanchy and the best-selling author Victoria Hislop.

Spotlight on The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus

Published by Penned in the Margins - 1 October 2018

An extraordinary debut from a young British-Jamaican poet, The Perseverance is a book of loss, language and praise. One of the most crucial new voices to emerge from Britain, Raymond Antrobus explores the d/Deaf experience, the death of his father and the failure to communicate. Ranging across history, time zones and continents, The Perseverance operates in the in betweens of dual heritages, of form and expression emerging to show us what it means to exist, and to flourish.

Raymond Antrobus was born in Hackney to an English mother and Jamaican father. He is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works III and Jerwood Compton Poetry. He is one of the world’s first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word Education from Goldsmiths, University of London. Raymond is a founding member of Chill Pill and Keats House Poets Forum. He has had multiple residencies in deaf and hearing schools around London, as well as Pupil Referral Units. In 2018 he was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Award by the Poetry Society (judged by Ocean Vuong). The Perseverance (Penned in the Margins, 2018), was a Poetry Book Society Choice, the winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Ted Hughes Award, and was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

The Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award:

Founded in 1991, the award recognises the best literary work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish writer of 35 and under. £5,000 is given to the winner, and £500 to each of the three runners-up. The award was suspended in 2008, but was revitalised in 2015, building on the remarkable legacy of the prize by introducing two significant and exciting innovations: extending its reach by including writers from Ireland and including self-published works as well as those from publishers – putting the prize in tune with the changing landscape of British publishing. In 2019, after two years as associate sponsor, the University of Warwick assumed the title partnership of the prize.

The 2019 winner will be announced at The London Library

on 5 December 2019.



Keep up to date with the award and join the conversation via:

www.youngwriteraward.com | twitter.com/youngwriteryear



The Sunday Times / The University of Warwick @YoungWriterYear Shortlist #youngwriterawardshadow

JUDGES SHORTLIST FOUR EXCEPTIONAL DEBUTS IN A RECORD YEAR OF SUBMISSIONS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES / UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD

It is my pleasure to be part of the Shadow Panel for The Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award



The exceptional debuts of multi-award-winning British-Jamaican poet Raymond Antrobus, The White Review Short Story Prize winner Julia Armfield, British-Brazilian novelist Yara Rodrigues Fowler, and writer and Creative Writing teacher Kim Sherwood have been shortlisted for the 2019 Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award. It is the first year the University of Warwick, home to the acclaimed Warwick Writing Programme, acts as the title sponsor of the prize, following two years as its associate partner.

The judges have chosen the shortlisted titles – two novels, a poetry and a short story collection; written by three women and one man – from a record number of submissions to the prize. Publishers submitted over 100 books this year – prompting The Sunday Times Literary Editor Andrew Holgate, Chair, to sign up two further judges: the writer, editor and bookseller Nick Rennison and Warwick University’s Gonzalo C. Garcia have joined the award-winning poet and writer Kate Clanchy and the best-selling author Victoria Hislop.







Kate Clanchy said: "Reading through all the books for the judging process affirmed for me that there is still such a thing as a literary generation – a zeitgeist of concerns, ideas and images which belong especially to those born in a particular time. We read many books about identity, the body and inheritance, and we chose four especially searching and beautiful treatments of those themes, all of them books which brought something new to their forms. It’s a thrilling shortlist, and I can’t imagine how we will chose a winner."


Victoria Hislop said: "There were many really strong contenders for the Young Writer of the Year Award, and the four on our shortlist are the best of the best. I think all the judges are excited about the next and final stage of what has so far been a really rewarding and interesting process."


With Adam Weymouth (2018), Sally Rooney (2017), Max Porter (2016) and Sarah Howe (2015), the Young Writer of the Year Award has spotted and supported the leading writers of a new generation since returning from a 7-year break in 2015. This year’s winner will be the fifth in an exceptional line-up of defining new voices.

Since it began in 1991, the award – for the best work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish author under 35 – has continuously identified future greats at the beginnings of their career, with an alumni list that includes everyone from Robert Macfarlane to Zadie Smith, from Sarah Waters to Simon Armitage.

The 2019 shortlist shows the enormous breadth of this generation’s writing: In the critically acclaimed debut of the Hackney-born Raymond Antrobus, elegies for the poet ’s father sit alongside meditation on the d/Deaf experience. The Perseverance, published by the small press Penned in the Margins, was the first book of poetry to win the Rathbones Folio Prize, earlier this year. Julia Armfield’s collection of stories, Salt Slow, swings between isolation and obsession, love and revenge as the London-based writer and playwright blurs the mythic and the gothic with the everyday.


Yara Rodrigues Fowler mixes the personal and the political in Stubborn Archivist, a formally inventive novel of growing up between cultures, and finding your space within them. Authors including Olivia Laing and Nikesh Shukla have lined up to praise the book. Influenced by her grandmother’s experiences as a holocaust survivor, Kim Sherwood finds new language to express love and loss in her novel, Testament, which see a young woman uncover the truth about her family’s past as Hungarian Jews coming to Britain in 1945.

For the first time this year, the winner of the award will be given a year’s membership of The London Library, further adding to an attractive winner package that already includes a bespoke 10- week residency at the University of Warwick, in addition to the prize money of £5,000. Administered by the Society of Authors, the award works with a growing network of partners, including the British Council, to provide a critical support system to the very best talent at work right now.

The 2019 winner will be announced at The London Library on 5 December 2019.

The past winners of the award are: Adam Weymouth, Kings of the Yukon (2018); Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends (2017); Max Porter, Grief is the Thing with Feathers (2016); Sarah Howe, Loop of Jade (2015); Ross Raisin, God’s Own Country (2009); Adam Foulds, The Truth About These Strange Times (2008); Naomi Alderman, Disobedience (2007), Robert Macfarlane,

Mountains of  the Mind: a History of a Fascination (2004); William Fiennes, The Snow Geese (2003); Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2001); Sarah Waters, Affinity (2000); Paul Farley, The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You (1999); Patrick French, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division (1998); Francis Spufford, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination (1997); Katherine Pierpoint, Truffle Beds (1996); Andrew Cowan, Pig (1995); William Dalrymple, City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi (1994); Simon Armitage, Kid (1993); Caryl Phillips, Cambridge (1992); and Helen Simpson, Four Bare Legs in a Bed and Other Stories (1991).

Keep up to date with the award and join the conversation via:

www.youngwriteraward.com | twitter.com/youngwriteryear



The Perseverance

Raymond Antrobus

(Penned in the Margins)

An extraordinary debut from a young British-Jamaican poet, The Perseverance is a book of loss, language and praise. One of the most crucial new voices to emerge from Britain, Raymond Antrobus explores the d/Deaf experience, the death of his father and the failure to communicate. Ranging across history, time zones and continents, The Perseverance operates in the in betweens of dual heritages, of form and expression emerging to show us what it means to exist, and to flourish.

Raymond Antrobus was born in Hackney to an English mother and Jamaican father. He is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works III and Jerwood Compton Poetry. He is one of the world’s first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word Education from Goldsmiths, University of London. Raymond is a founding member of Chill Pill and Keats House Poets Forum. He has had multiple residencies in deaf and hearing schools around London, as well as Pupil Referral Units. In 2018 he was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Award by the Poetry Society (judged by Ocean Vuong). The Perseverance (Penned in the Margins, 2018), was a Poetry Book Society Choice, the winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Ted Hughes Award, and was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Forward Prize for Best First Collection.




Salt Slow

Julia Armfield


(Picador)

In her brilliantly inventive and haunting debut collection of stories, Julia Armfield explores bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of her characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession, love and revenge. Teenagers develop ungodly appetites, a city becomes insomniac overnight, and bodies are diligently picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sleepy sea-side towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to its inhabitants. Blurring the mythic and the gothic with the everyday, salt slow considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new entirely.

Julia Armfield lives and works in London. She is a fiction writer and occasional playwright with a Masters in Victorian Art and Literature from Royal Holloway University. Her work has been published in Lighthouse, Analog Magazine, Neon Magazine and The Stockholm Review. She was commended in the Moth Short Story Prize 2017, longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Prize 2018 and is the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018.




Stubborn Archivist

Yara Rodrigues Fowler


(Fleet)

A bold debut novel exploring the nuances and the spaces between ourselves and our bodies, told through the shards collected by our own stubborn archivist. When your mother considers another country home, it’s hard to know where you belong. When the people you live among can’t pronounce your name, it’s hard to know exactly who you are. And when your body no longer feels like your own, it ’s hard to understand your place in the world. This is a novel of growing up between cultures, of finding your space within them and of learning to live in a traumatized body. Our stubborn archivist tells her story through history, through family conversations, through the eyes of her mother, her grandmother and her aunt and slowly she begins to emerge into the world, defining her own sense of identity.

Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a British Brazilian novelist from South London. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist

, was published

in 2019 in the UK and USA. It was called ’stunning’ by Olivia Laing, ‘visceral and elegant ’ by Claire-Louise Bennett and ‘breathtakingly written’ by Nikesh Shukla. Yara was named one of The Observer’s nine ‘hottest-tipped’ debut novelists of 2019 and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. Yara is also a trustee of Latin American Women’s Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe for and by Latin American women. She’s writing her second novel now, for which she received the John C Lawrence Award from the Society of Authors towards research in Brazil.




Testament

Kim Sherwood



(riverrun)

The letter was in the Blue Room - her grandfather’s painting studio, where Eva spent the happier days of her childhood. After his death, she is the one responsible for his legacy - a legacy threatened by the letter she finds. It is from the Jewish Museum in Berlin. They have found the testimony her grandfather gave after surviving the labour camps in Austria. And, since he was one of Britain’s greatest twentieth century artists, they want to exhibit it. But Joseph Silk - leaving behind József Zyyad - remade himself long ago. As Eva begins to uncover the truth, she understands the trauma, and the lies, that have haunted her family. She will unravel what happened to József and his brother, who came to England as refugees. One never spoke of his past - the other couldn’t let it go.

Their story - and that of the woman they both loved - is in her hands. Revealing it would change her grandfather’s hard-won identity. But it could also change the tide of history. This testament can lend words to wordless grief, and teach her how to live.


Kim Sherwood was born in Camden in 1989 and lives in Bath. She studied Creative Writing at UEA and is now Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England. Her pieces have appeared in Mslexia, Lighthouse, and Going Down Swinging. Kim began researching and writing Testament

, her first novel, after her grandfather, the actor George Baker, passed away and her grandmother began to talk about her experiences as a Holocaust Survivor for the first time. It won the 2016 Bath Novel Award, was longlisted for the 2019 Desmond Elliot Prize and shortlisted for the 2019 Author’s Club Best First Novel Award.

The Home by Sarah Stovell @sarahlovescrime #TheHome @OrendaBooks

One more little secret
One more little lie…
 
When the body of a pregnant fifteen-year-old is discovered in a churchyard on Christmas morning, the community is shocked, but unsurprised. For she lived in The Home, the residence of three young girls, whose violent and disturbing pasts have seen them cloistered away…
 
As a police investigation gets underway, the lives of Hope, Lara and Annie are examined, and the staff who work at the home are interviewed, leading to shocking and distressing revelations … and clear evidence that someone is seeking revenge.
 
A gritty, dark and harrowing psychological thriller, The Home is also a heartbreaking drama and a piercing look at the underbelly of society, where children learn what they live… if they are allowed to live at all…

The Home by Sarah Stovell is published in ebook on 28 November 2019 by Orenda Books, the paperback will be released in February 2020.

Fans of Sarah Stovell's previous book; Exquisite will be aware of the beauty of her prose; of how she creates the most alluring, yet insidious characters and keeps her readers gripped throughout the telling of her stories.

The Home is another superbly written story that will chill the hearts of the reader. It's a murder mystery, it's psychologically thrilling and it is heartbreakingly emotional. This author has taken three young girls and told their individual stories with finesse and compassion. It is mesmerising, unsettling and immaculately crafted.

The Home houses troubled young girls. With just three residents and situated in a desolate part of the Lake District, it's not a happy place. The staff are underpaid, the manager is in despair and the girls are broken. Hope, Lara and Annie are three of the most elegantly crafted characters that I've met in fiction for many a year.  Their inner turmoil explodes into behaviours that try the patience of the staff, and each other. Lara's silence hides secrets that are so terrible that they cannot be voiced. Annie's determination to better herself, to study and to make something of her life mirrors the brutality of her childhood. Hope's total disregard for her own safety and for the feelings of others is a reaction to the traumas she has experienced since she was just a baby.

Hope is dead. Drowned in one of the beautiful Lakes. She was pregnant, she was fifteen.  Annie was discovered alongside the body of Hope; distraught and emotional. Annie and Hope had been lovers; theirs was an innocent love that consumed both of them. They found solace and hope in each other, they had plans. These plans have been ruined and only Annie can answer the questions posed by the staff of The Home, and the police.

The Home is exquisitely written, as we have come to expect from this extremely talented author. The story touches on the darkness that engulfs the children who are let down by their families, and by society. It is dark and it is eye-opening. It can be a difficult read at times; the author doesn't shy away from issues that are all too often swept under the table and brushed over by the majority.

The story is intoxicating and riveting; I finished it in almost one sitting; it's a story that drew me in and continues to haunt me after I turned the final page.
Beautiful, visceral and uncompromising. The Home has been a long time coming, but I can assure you that it is worth every single second of the wait.




Sarah Stovell was born in 1977 and spent most of her life in the Home Counties before a season working in a remote North Yorkshire youth hostel made her realise she was a northerner at heart. 

She now lives in Northumberland with her partner and two children and is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lincoln University. 

Her debut psychological thriller, Exquisite, was called ‘the book of the summer’ by Sunday Times.

Twitter @sarahlovescrime