Chick Noir – Is it just a fad?

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First there was Gone Girl, then there was Girl on a Train. Suddenly everyone was wanting more edgy thrillers about women in danger and the publishers cottoned on and there were more and more of these chick noir novels appearing, often with the world ‘girl’ in the title.

While I believe this genre has been around in many forms since the beginning of storytelling – (from those Old Testament heroines like Yael and Deborah through to ‘the girl’ in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, just for starters), this new breed of heroine is often an unreliable narrator – drinks too much, has memory lapses, tells lies or is blinded by emotion – which makes things interesting. Continue reading “Chick Noir – Is it just a fad?” →

The Mockingbird Effect

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To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the world’s best loved books, with its powerful themes, evocative setting and memorable characters, to say nothing of the writing. But one of the things about it that I love best is the voice of young Scout the narrator. Currently reading When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (why had I forgotten to read this gem before?), which is also written from the point of view of a child, I got to thinking about other books with child narrators. It seems very powerful to me to write about issues that plague us as adults from the point of view of childhood innocence. Here are some of my favourite novels with a child narrator: Continue reading “The Mockingbird Effect” →

Indie Author Tips 2: More About Covers

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Yes, I know I said you could design your own ebook cover, and you’ve given it your best shot, you really have. But somehow, despite your best efforts, you’re not happy. The good news is, there are plenty of graphic designers and cover design websites that will solve your problem, some at surprisingly little cost.

One solution is to buy a pre-made book cover. Here’s a few online sites that supply single-use book covers, with both ebook and ebook-plus-print-copy cost options. All you need to do is select a cover you like and supply your title/by-line/tagline and they do the rest. There’s usually an option or two for a bit of tweaking, re fonts and colours as well. Here are just a few of the online design companies that caught my eye – there are bound to be more, but these particularly impressed. Continue reading “Indie Author Tips 2: More About Covers” →

Indie Author Tips 1: Covers

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Perhaps, like me, you’ve decide to publish your own book, tracking down beta readers for that early manuscript, rewriting and polishing, until finally you’re ready to hit the ‘publish’ button on your enterprise. Only then there’s the cover. You don’t do art, but the cover’s the thing that will attract readers to your book, so it needs to be special.

It can be difficult to hand the project over to a professional designer, when you’ve put so much of yourself into your book so far. And expensive. Possibly you know what you want already – have done the research, checked out the covers of similar books that look good in the genre that fits your book. (Like the traditionally published books above, there’s a huge range cover styles, dependent on things like genre and reader expectation.) Continue reading “Indie Author Tips 1: Covers” →

Reading Australia

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For a while there, I mostly avoided Australian fiction, fearing the characters would sound as if they’d stepped out of Kath and Kim. I was foolish, I know – I’d read some Tim Winton and Peter Cleary with enjoyment, so can only assume I’d had a bad experience  once somewhere along the line.

But lately, I find myself constantly returning to and even looking forward to new fiction releases from our neighbours across the ditch. Here’s a round-up of some of the Australian novels I would particularly recommend. Continue reading “Reading Australia” →

The Hegartys Meet the Middlesteins

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I always enjoy a good family drama and no one does families like the Irish – what is it about Irish stories that is so quirky and interesting? Perhaps it has something to do with what Tolstoy said … ‘All happy families resemble each other, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’

Well, one particularly unhappy Irish family is the Hegartys in Anne Enright’s novel The Gathering. Told from Veronica Hegarty’s point of view, it’s about the nine siblings who gather at their mother’s home for the wake of brother Liam. Liam has killed himself, walking into the sea at Brighton, at the age of forty. Continue reading “The Hegartys Meet the Middlesteins” →

Up Lit – Is it Anything New?

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Up Lit could be the latest literary genre. The term was coined in a recent Guardian article in response to the success of novels such as Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman and The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon. (Incidentally, these two books made my top ten reads for 2017.) You might say this is a genre with empathy at its core, a welcome break from the psychological thrillers that have been claiming top spots on the best-seller lists – books like Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn) and Girl on a Train (Paula Hawkins). Continue reading “Up Lit – Is it Anything New?” →