“A complex tale of love, truth, identity, self-discovery and betrayal which shuttles between Jamaica and London, from the turbulent 70s to the present day.”
Jenni O’Connor’s description of her self-pub e-book is an excellent summing up. The heroine is Monique, a journalist of Jamaican descent who goes back to Jamaica for the funeral of a much-loved aunt to uncover the dark side of present-day Jamaicaand secrets in her family’s past. At heart it’s a thriller and I like it for the rich evocation of Jamaica, convincing dialogue and clearly defined characters, from firebrand dissident Mary to the malevolent and boorish Devon Jones. As the plot gathers pace, Jenni also fills in the ‘back stories’ of her main characters in separate chapters. I expected this to be a distraction from the main thrust of the story, but in fact these chapters are beautifully written with a real feel for Jamaicans at home and abroad. The story of June and Owen emigrating to UK recalled Andrea Levi’s Small Island and in this respect Jenni’s writing, if less literary, is equally affecting. Some aspects of the plot didn’t quite work for me (I would have liked a few more surprises towards the end) but this is still an entertaining and engrossing read.

The book is well presented with a professional cover design and typos few and far between. As indie pubs go, this definitely cuts the mustard.

D.O.Hill (Edinburgh Photographic Society)

I’d like to thank my host at The Victorianist for publishing my post about David Octavius Hill. The article presents the bare bones of a story I’ve been unravelling for a while and which gets more interesting all the time.

For instance, David Octavius Hill was so called by dint of being his parents’ eighth child, but it was only yesterday that I investigated his siblings other than the brother and sister I already knew of.

What I found* was this. Between 1794 and 1804, Hill’s mother had twelve children, of whom one was still-born, two (twins) died aged around two years, as did a subsequent boy, and two more died at less than six months old. Of those who survived into adulthood, one died of consumption in his early twenties. In other words, only four of Thomas Hill’s children outlived him. He  was a reasonably successful businessman, probably better off than many of the townspeople of Perth, and yet he and his wife had to suffer what today we would think of as unbearable loss.

It’s a useful reminder of how hard life was when Victoria came to the throne.

But here’s some happiness in the gloom. The National Galleries of Scotland, curators of one of the major collections of Hill & Adamson photographs are offering the 2002 Facing the Light: The Photography of Hill & Adamson at the bargain price of £4.95.  It’s an excellent overview and contains many of their most memorable images. I already have the book and can heartily recommend.

*The Remarkable Mr Hill, by R.H. Rodger, Perth Museum & Art Gallery, 2002

Then straight after I found myself reading an Irish novel (beautifully written, by the way) about a retired doctor who deliberately disappeared leaving no trace of her whereabouts. Her daughter and boyfriend  were at their wits end until the boyfriend followed a trail of clues to discover that the doctor was embroiled in a highly emotive and topical issue of medical ethics. Great! I thought again. Will it go to court? What side will the author/heroine come down on?  But sadly the heroine never had to stand up for (or even reveal to the reader) what she believed because the pending case against her was dropped. She and boyfriend decided to go off and live  happily ever after. Apparently this was only a love story too.

Enjoy!

#1
Biding her time

#2
Today’s sun is a wan smile, ready to do battle or maybe just deceive.

#3
The van ahead of us hits water at speed and is engulfed in plumes of muddy feathers

#4
Noticing

#5
DH has dried the washing on the line. Impressed with the weather. Impressed with the man.

#6
A single pink-petalled rose, summer’s survivor, gives an awkward nod to the quick-budding magnolia, an unexpected bedfellow.

#7
Something not quite right at Sunday lunch. Roasters crispy, greens al dente, atmosphere you could cut with a knife.

Hopefully another set will soon be ready to join the river of stones.

Today I walked to work, just for a change. The pub on the corner, The Salutation, is under new management. ‘Welcomes customers old and new,’ says the banner strung outside. On the adjacent wall is the pub sign, in quattrocento colours, an Annunciation. I’m as surprised as I think the management would be if an angel walked in.

I admit I was a tiny bit sceptical when approaching Ben Hatch’s comical account of taking two young children (both under 5) on a round-Britain trip. Since the days of packing our own car to the gunnels and setting off with two youngsters are long gone,  I thought the sense of humour might be too laddish, or that I might simply not want to go there again. For the first few pages I remained suspicious, waiting for the chirpy  humour to pall, as I think it might have done if the tale hadn’t taken a serious turn when Ben’s Dad is diagnosed, (out of the blue, as these things often happen) with cancer. From this point on the journey becomes more reflective and personal, with passages of reminiscence interspersed among the hilarious ups and downs of the car trip itself which also becomes a chance for Ben and his wife to look at their own relationship.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a very funny book as well as a tear-jerker but what made it work for me is the courage with which Ben Hatch reveals his own weaknesses and his attempts to overcome them. Since I read it, it has had honourable mentions all over the place, and rightly so.

So what of Karen Maitland’s Company of Liars? I read this between a damp Christmas and New Year, and although the book begins in midsummer it fitted the season very well, evoking the rain-sodden landscape in a year when apparently it did rain every day from mid-summer to Christmas. The narrator is a camelot,  a seller of holy relics, or as he sees it, hope, who prefers to travel alone rather than give up the untold secrets of his past. With the ‘the sickness’ arriving in the south of England he gathers around him a band of loners, all beset by secrets and all hoping to outrun their past lives as well as the fast-moving plague.

The novel is totally convincing (even without the historical notes I believed every word ) in the detail of life in towns villages and countryside, but what I found most intriguing was the blend of myth, faith and superstition which sustains the travellers, and the populace as a whole. As the journey progresses, each tells a tale of his own past which involves magic, miracles or sheer fantasy. Changeling children, a man who is half swan and a young wife cursed by a witch are all readily accepted if not as truth then at least as a legitimate narrative. With ‘official’ belief system under threat ( a priest is no longer necessary for burial if  none can be found) the reader steps into this landscape of the mind and understands how it might sustain people in the harshest of existences as those around them fall prey to death or loneliness.

But this isn’t just about atmosphere. The plot is excellent (with a prologue that really works) and the ending totally in keeping with the rest of the book.

This is a great read, and if Are We Nearly There Yet? asks some questions about modern-day life, this one will make you grateful for the comforts that come with it.

Biding her Time

The ‘lovely Amaryllis’ sits squat and mutinous in her plastic pot. After the indignity of the journey she expected warmth, comfort, hospitality at least! But this window-sill is draughty, the watery daylight no substitute for sun. Her bare shoulders (they were mean with the compost) feel the chill.

With the right treatment she may settle in and stretch her swan-like neck. She may even put on her red dress, the one with the flounces.  

But only if they ask her very nicely.

Part of the River of Stones challenge

Well, just a minute. I am, as usual, hanging out on Twitter.  That’s writing, isn’t it? Or if you find that hard to swallow, it’s at least a way of being in contact with writers and the writing world.  Today my time there threw up small stones, a writing challenge that could be as little as one sentence (but a good one) each day. Sounds like a plan.

Which reminds me. The best antidote I know to writer’s block is to have more than one iron in the fire and knowing how slothful I can be when daylight disappears, I was clever enough to set up some tasks before December which might get me back to work. A Kettle of Fish has been promised to some new beta readers by the end of January, so I had better finish off those edits. Yes, it’s a bit of a chore, but if you can’t be creative, be productive.

And my new fiction project might not be progressing as I hoped, but it has spawned an article soon to appear on the excellent Victorianist blog. Like I said, if you can’t be creative …

And finally, from January I have a new writing job! An online golf retailer has asked me to return to the blog I used to write on their behalf. That’s a regular writing commitment with a bit of financial reward.

So one way or another, it looks like I am a writer, whether I like it or not. So time to knuckle down and do some writing. Which of course I just have.

(Like how I did that?)

A few impressions:

Sun sets before 6pm, but then all that concrete is so much prettier after dark.

‘Good things come in small packages’ does not apply when breakfasting at the Lime Street Cafe.

As for those fountains – it’s hard to convey the effect of sound and water, but try this Youtube clip. Notice how the voices go quiet as the show goes on.

So there you have it. Big, shiny, and lots of fun. Dubai Mall strapline is ‘welcome to everything’.

They have a point!

I’m hoping Nina will be around to take comments when this is posted, but if not, do look her up  at her Kitchen Table Writers blog.

Here’s what she had to say when we spoke last week.

 Hi Nina
I know all about your current projects, but when did you actually first think of being a writer? 

I can always remember the moment in reception class when we were first asked to ‘write a story’. Mrs Marsden had read us the fable about the mouse and the lion. She put the book down and said, ‘now you can have a go children…’ (or something similar). I can’t recall writing my story, but what I do remember clearly is thinking…people write stories! It was a complete revelation. Previously, I suppose I assumed that stories flowed from a higher place, and just…arrived…like manna. The idea that people wrote their ideas down on paper, and these could end up in a book with a hard, colourful cover overwhelmed me. I think I knew right then I’d like to be one of those people. I certainly didn’t think about payment or reward…which is just as well! Mind you, many writers would say that ideas for writing do flow down from a higher place, and I wouldn’t disagree with that entirely.

Well for me I suppose they sometimes flow and sometimes get stuck  there –  like a cat in a tree!
I know you’ve had a young adult book published some years ago. Can you tell us about that and if you feel you’ve changed direction since then ?

I was delighted when my 9+ novel, Sweet’n’Sour was published by HarperCollins, although it was a bit of a poisoned chalice as they are such big boys that they allow smaller writers to sink or swim. I had a great review from the Sunday Observer on, and a great ‘strapline’ from the reviewer… Embark on Nina Milton…and you won’t stop reading…
Since then, I’ve been writing books for both adults and children. I have now completed a second novel for 9+ children and started a third. The second is with a small Welsh publisher, who are considering it; they like it a lot but they’re trying to persuade me to change the setting to a Welsh landscape,and I’m considering this.
I’ve also completed a contemporary novel, which my agent read and told me she thought she could sell if I changed the protagonist’s gender. I’m always very wary when publishers ask writers to do these sorts of things; they’re a lot of work and they may be for no reward at all, but I trust Lisa, and she does seem to love my work, so I’m in the middle of doing this at the moment (like…I should be getting on with it now!). But I’m also very caught up with the other books I’m writing, too, which is a series about a young shamanic therapist who is trying to live a simple, alternative life but keeps falling into dangerous adventures due to the sort of work she does. People come to shaman with very difficult internal problems and a lot of her work is done entirely on a different plane. I really enjoy writing these parts; to me they’re not fantasy, but descriptions of where shamanic journeys can take you. Sabbie Dare is a bit of a dreamer, a bit of an innocent, and she often gets into dreadful trouble in the real world because of her insatiable curiosity and genuine nature; she really wants to help people…even quite strange and frightening people.

How did the character of Sabbie Dare arrive in your mind? did you know she was going to be a detective?

She did arrive fairly fully-formed along with the basic plot to the first novel. But she’s not a detective. She doesn’t have a police-genome in her body. But she’s got the hots for a detective on the local force, and when they compare their work, they realize they have a lot in common…once they get a puzzle to solve, they worry at it until they know the answer – and they both want to help the people who come to them in trouble.

Oops, maybe I should have said sleuth or investigator rather than detective – which does sound much too official. Any interest in Sabbie from publishers or agents so far?

My agent is positive she can sell the stories, but she’s having trouble convincing publishers that this fusion of genres; crime, thriller, contemporary female literature with a little bit of fantasy, is a strong bet. She determined though, and I feel it will only be a matter of time.

How did you end up working for Open College of the Arts and what has your commitment to it been?

I applied to be a tutor with the OCA after I gained my MA in creative writing from Bath SpaUniversity. I’d always enjoyed giving constructive advice, and the OCA are the leaders in the field of offering real, practical advice to all kinds of artistic endeavour, while also offering good degrees. Since joining them, I’ve had hundreds of students, some of whom have gone on to complete their books and some have become personal clients of Kitchen Table Writers.
I’ve also written two sets of course materials for the OCA; Writing Skills, which is the initial level one course, and Life Writing at level two. (In Higher Ed, that’s levels 4&5.) I also assess course work for degree credits three times a year at their headquarters inBarnsley, and recently I ran a workshop for the OCA at the Ilkley Literature Festival, which I really enjoyed.

Has the move to Wales messed with your writing head or provided new inspiration?

Good question! It doesn’t seem to messed with my head, and the landscape is feeding me with loads of ideas; it is just so ancient and breathtaking. I’ve recently composed a series of poems on the Mabinogion (the book of Welsh legends), and joined a storytelling class here. But the main difficulty is not that I can’t write, it’s finding the time while we create our house and garden. I try to split my time fairly between the computer and the spade, but when it’s nice out, the garden really beckons, and there’s so much to do. I imagined that, as winter came on, I’d be writing most of each day – I’ve got a lot of projects I want to have a go at – I haven’t written a short story since I arrived here – but that hasn’t happened yet because we’ve had such marvellous weather for November. And long may it last!

We miss you in BWW but it sounds like you made the right move. Thanks for coming along and best of luck – with the computer and spade!