Sam Silver, Undercover Pirate by Jan Burchett & Sara Vogler

You know, the lovely thing about widening the scope of my reviewing into younger fiction is that I get a chance to review fun, silly, and as the blurb says, swashbuckling stuff like the first two volumes of the Sam Silver series: Skeleton Island, and the Ghost Ship.

                        

Now, these two books have been out for a few months, but what better time, with Christmas almost upon us and stocking fillers to still find, than to tell you about them?

Sam's story kicks off with Skeleton Island. He's a totally normally kid, living in Backwater Bay above his mum and dad's fish and chip shop, and his room is full of the normal assortment of rubbish. But at the beginning of the book he's just found a new piece of junk: an old bottle with what looks like a note inside. Of course, Sam, is immediately convinced that the note is from some castaway, desperate to be rescued and that, as the resucer, Sam will become rich and famous overnight. So, he's somewhat dismayed to find that the note was written in 1705, because clearly that makes the writer too old to be rescued!

But fear not. The note is, of course, from a pirate, with instructions, of sorts, to find his hidden treasure, and it's signed by one Joseph Silver, captain of the Sea Wolf. Sam know immediately what this means. His name is Silver too. So he's decended from a pirate. What could be better? Actually becoming a pirate, of course, and that is precisely what happens when Sam tries to clean the dirty old coin that fell out of the bottle with the note. One minute he is standing in his bedroom, the smell of fried fish wafting up the stairs, and the next minute he is cowering in the hold of a ship with a knife-wielding pirate heading straight at him and threatening to make him walk the plank.

The Silver name proves to be his salvation and once Sam explains to his new found pirate friends about the treasure, it's a non-stop action as they go about finding and securing the loot. On the way, there's lots of fun to be had with Sam's continual use of modern terms: there's a nice interchange about PE, which only gets worse when Sam tries to explain the term by reference to football, for example. And there's lots of typical pirate stuff too: sea battles, storms, jagged rocks and of course, a skeleton on an island. Sam even gets to make a couple of friends in the form of Fernando, the pirate who originally found him, and Charlie, a stowaway who's trying to escape an evil step-father.

In The Ghost Ship, Sam finds himself back with his old pirate friends who have spent all the money from Joseph Silver's hoard and are now in desperate need of funds again. So, they head off on the pirate adventures once more,this time taking on a ghost ship which has been raiding all the other ships in the area.

There are more Sam Silver books to come. Indeed the third one, Kidnapped, has already been published.  If these two are anything to go by, then there will be more fun, nonsense, action and suspense to enjoy. And all of that laced with delightful little black and white illustrations by Leo Hartas too (my personal favourite is the weeping pirate in The Ghost Ship).

So, a joyous lot of nonsense, here. No messages, no preaching, just good clean fun. Perfect for little boys and maybe even some tomboy girls. And nice and short and easy to read. How refreshing is that in the run up to Christmas?

 The lovely folks at Orion Books provided these review copies. If you want one for yourself, then please click through from here and Amazon will make a small contribution to the maintenance of this blog.

  

The Gathering Dark by Leigh Bardugo

I vowed to myself a while back that I wouldn't read any more books featuring a teenage girl with an unhealthy fixation for a vampire, were-wolf, demon, fallen angel or any other mythical beast or humanoid. I'd read enough, had enough, and could rehearse the hackneyed plot lines in my sleep.

And I held true to that vow until I was sent The Gathering Dark.

Now to be fair The Gathering Dark doesn't quite fall into the 'paranormal romance' category. For starters, it's set in another world where there are humans and Grisha - semi-magical humans with individual special powers - and our heroine, Alina,turns out to be one of these magical creatures herself. In fact, to start with, I was more struck by similarities with another recent huge hit, The Hunger Games. You have the same peasant girl who gets dragged from her poor surroundings and plunged into a fantastically rich and priveleged environment, only to have to fight for her very survival shortly thereafter. You have the same fascination with food, clothing, hair and make-up. (Seriously, are teenage girls that shallow?) And you have the same ordinary guy love interest that gets left behind.


And there we were until about half way along. And then it all sort of changed. First there was a brief flirtation with Twilight territory as Alina struggled to decide between good old Mal, or the dangerously sexy Darkling. But then she starts to see the truth, the excitement levels increase and the book becomes the page turner that you had hoped it would be before the clothing, hair and make-up got in the way. From about page 200 on it's difficult to put the book down. There's violent action, then moments of true tenderness, and all set against a richly depicted imaginary world.

There's no doubt that Leigh Bardugo has created a fascinating world here and it defines the book's uniqueness. Maybe the similarities with other books are unavoidable in the current economic climate. I can see that something that could be described as The Hunger Games meets Twilight might have the dollar signs rolling in the publiher's eyes. But Bardugo does, somehow, rise above this and I'm intrigued to see what happens in the next book in the trilogy.

 The lovely people at Orion Books provided this review copy. If you would like to get your own please click below and Amazon will kindly send a small contribution towards maintaining this blog.

 

Operation Bunny by Sally Gardner

Many of you will be familiar with the name Sally Gardner, if only for all the recent media coverage for her recent book from Hot Key Books, Maggot Moon, and the huge discussions about dyslexia that surrounded its publication. You may also know her from the hugely successful I, Coriander. But did you know she also has a nice line in middle grade fiction too?

You might not, as she's been a bit quiet on that front recently, but with Operation Bunny she has hopped (excuse the pun) back onto the wagon to produce a totally mad, funny, and exciting little gem.

 Our heroine, Emily Vole, hits the headlines when she is discovered in a hat box at Standsted Airport and very nearly blown up as a suspect package. That doesn't deter the spoilt and deliciously grotesque Daisy Dashwood, who with her indulgent husband, Ronald, adopts Emily and starts to raise her as her own child. There wouldn't have been much of a story if things had stayed there, but, of course, Daisy soon discovers she's pregnant and when her triplets arrive, Emily is relegated to the role of skivvy and general dogsbody.

At this point there are nods towards Harry Potter (Emily's bed is an ironing board in the laundry room) and Lemony Snicket (ludicrously gothic characters who are as charming as they are ghastly) which might raise a wry eyebrow in the well-read but never degenerate into plagiarism. Then Emily meets the strange old lady from next door and her even stranger cat, and things start to get seriously silly. There's a bird-clawed witch with a propensity for turning people into bunnies of assorted hues, an irritable fairy and the cat, who's called Fidget, talks and walks on his hind legs. And there's a quest!

This is wonderful stuff. It moves fast, has a cast of gloriously awful villains, fairies, witches and bright pink bunnies. And it's illustrated with spiky black and white drawings by David Roberts that conjure up the characters in all their barmy glory. What more could you want?

This is the first in a series which will have Emily, Fidget and Buster (the irritable fairy) solving further cases for Wings & Co, the fairy detective agency, bringing, I am sure, lots more fantastic villains and equally fantastical stories for us to enjoy. If you have a 7+ year old who likes fun, then this would be a great little gift, and who know, might even get the odd reluctant reader interested too.

The lovely people at Orion Books provided this review copy. If you would like to get your own please click through from here and Amazon will kindly send a small contribution towards maintaining this blog.


 
 

Diamonds and Doom by Marcus Sedgwick

So, sad schmuck that I am, I only get to find out about Marcus Sedgwick's younger reader series The Raven Mysteries when the last one comes out. Not sure how that happened, but if like me you're new to these books then dive in quick because, if Diamonds and Doom is anything to go by, they are a laugh out loud riot.

Castle Otherhand is up for sale. Minty, Lord Valevine, Solstice, Cudweed and even Fellah are at their wit's end. Chaos and catastrophe reign, and there's only hours left to get rid of a mystical space time vortex tungummy, save everyone from whatever is roaming the corridors, and find a squillion or two in cash. To a noble, sulky and grumpy  raven of Edgar's abilities that almost presents a challenge worth getting out of bed for.

Diamonds and Doom starts with Edgar the Raven,the usual narrator, away on his regular, once every twelve years, two week 'holiday' and Soltice discovering that the family have run out of money leading to the banks putting the castle up for sale. We know this from Solstice's 'completely secret and totally private diary' which is quoted in full at the start of the book. Edgar soon returns to take control and is shocked to find, not only that the castle is to be sold but that a younger, more athletic, raven called Rob has appeared and is vying for Solstice's affections. And after that all hell lets loose.

Now you wouldn't think it would work would you? A raven narrator bemoaning the presence of a younger raven and getting all jealous and sulky. But then again, there's noting particularly believeable about anything that happens in Castle Otherhand. Minty, Solstice's mother, is a witch and Lord Valevine is a sort of dotty and incompetent inventor. Then there's the Solstice's little brother, Cudweed, whose need for food seriously compromises Solstices effort to use her mother's spell book, and a small cast of assorted other odds and bods. So when Solstice's food smeared spell goes wrong, setting off the aforementioned 'mystical space time vortes thingummy', you sort of expect that some seriously weird stuff is going to happen.

And it does. There are jelly staircases (something to do with Cudweed's snack?), and a space monster, people turning to stone, an upsidedown room, a room full of sheep riding motorbikes and just about anything else that you care to imagine. And, boy, oh boy, it works.

Sedgwick's style has a lot to do with it, of course. He sucks you in with his conspiratorial, chatty prose. It's easy to read, funny and exciting and so when the weird stuff happens, you just accept Edgar's take on it and move on. But then there are the spectacular illustrations by Pete Williamson as well. These are part Nightmare Before Christmas, part naive cut-outs and they work brilliantly. 

This is gothic humour for kids of the highest order and I for one will be looking for the other five books in the series the nest time I'm in a bookshop.

 The lovely people at Orion Books provided this review copy. If you would like to get your own please click through from here and Amazon will kindly send a small contribution towards maintaining this blog.

SCBWI 2012 Agents Party

It hardly seems possible that it's come around again but there we go. In a much less physically hot atmosphere than last year, the assembled masses once again gathered in the Theodore Bullfrog's upstairs room for the annual SCBWI Agents Party last night.

As has become the norm for these events the agents present on the panel opened the evening by taking turns to give us a little idea of who they were, where they came from and what they were looking for.

First up was Bryony Woods. Bryony started her career in bookselling and libraries before undertaking an MA in publishing and then joining the Caroline Sheldon agency, where she is at present but not for much longer. Bryony was unable to give us much information, but she is about to join a new agency with another agent, whose name the new agency will bear - hence the secrecy. There should be an announcement soon but in the meantime watch this space. She is very excited about the prospect of looking for new authors and will be seeking, in particular, YA and older middle-grade books which are a bit strange or different (think Neil Gaiman, Roald Dahl and Meg Rossof). She likes books that are dark, have a strong sense of space and time. She's particularly keen on the Victorian era. She also likes adventure stories with action, humour and a strong bond of friendship.

Jodie Marsh of United Agents came next. Jodie started off as an assistant to Rosemary Canter, who was the first specialist children's agent. Rosemary died eighteen months ago and Jodie took over her list. Since then Jodie has been developing the illustrator side of the list but she does handle both writers and illustrators. She believes that picture books have become more important recently because the best picture book writers can produce 7, 8 even 9 texts a year whereas the best writers rarely produce more than one.United Artists are a large and newish agency (established in 2008) and have agents representing film and TV as well as other talent. This gives them an edge in handling 'transmedia' (a word Jodie clearly disliked) which she believes is becoming an increasingly large commmercial reality in children's books.

Jodie would like to find a bestseller! She likes classic children's books and is a bit sceptical of the YA market. She prefers the teen classification. She also warns against trends, remarking that the supposedly big publisher led dystopian genre is barely out-selling the readership-led dark romance genre which is now well past its peak.

The next agent to speak was Joanna Volpe of new Leaf Literary and Media. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with that agency, it might be because it's based in New York. Fear not though because they are still willing to accept submissions from British SCBWI-ers!  Joanna has a small list and likes to look at projects from all angles. This means she likes to sign people for the long run. She represents every one frmo picture book writers to teen and likes dark fiction, dark comedy and all things quirky. She agreed with Jodie about reader trends and commented that this is why she is looking particularly for scifi.

And then it was the turn of Juliet Mushens of PFD. Juliet has been at PFD for two years and was at harper Collins for two years before that. PFD has been around since 1925 and is a full service agency covering foreign rights, talent, film and TV. Her list is broad. She has celebrity writers and YA. Her taste is broad too but all her children's books are from debut writers. She is particularly interested in epic fantasy and she also wants to find the British Judy Bloom but whichever it is it must be aimed at 12+.

Last up was Claire Wilson of RCW. Claire is building the children's list and likes quirky and odd books that are also page turners. She is looking for something arresting that will make her sit up. And she advise writers not to worry about trends but to write from the heart.



The next stage of the evening was the questions section:

Q1: Is there a gap in the market for books 7-9 year old with both boys and girls in the lead

A1: Joanna agreed, especially in the US, but commented that more girls read. Jodie added that girls will read books with boys in the lead.

Q2: Do you google people's names when they submit to you?

A2: Bryony looks to see what is out there but comments that a writer doesn't have to have a platform. Jodie has never done this. She just reads the book! Joanna does but also does not mind if a writer has no social media platform as she will work with writers to develop this as appropriate. She does check on Google though just to make sure they're not 'mad'. Juliet doesn't think it is helpful as she doesn't believe social media platforms translate to sales.

Q3: How importnat is it that a character can be franchised?

A3: Bryony doesn't think its essential but it's a nice to have. Jodie finds the idea interseting but horrifying and cites Penguin Books current efforts to find a new Peppa Pig which has them controlling all aspects of the character's development and all the rights. This can lead, for example, with a televisions company being able to change the book content. She thinks there will be more of this but believes it will be mainly important for the picture book market.

Q3a: If you found a character that you liked but it's not pitched right wuold you develop it?

A3a: Jodie will work on it if she sees potential. She advises that positioning is important in writing - you need to do your research and get the vocabulary and the style right. Joanna commented that every major publisher in the US has an Intellectual Property department. So a lot of packaging goes on. She's not looking for franchising per se but it's nice if it happens. Claire advised that most of the biggest brands in fiction were accidental. She's looking for great books that she loves not brands.

Q4: Is there a shift from YA to younger fiction?

A4: Bryony still gets mostly YA submissions, but publishers are looking for middle grade and particularly funny MG, but she advises not to worry about this and just write what's best for you. Jodie thinks the UK is best at middle grade and books that get to the hearts of children and the US at YA. Joanna and Juliet also get too much YA and want middle grade. Claire finds she mostly gets picture books. She thinks it's because people think they are easy, which they aren't.

Q5: How much editorial work do you put in?

A5: They were all prepared to edit a lot if necessary and for the right book but Joanna commented that this might mean she turns something down because she is already involved in a lot of editorial work with other clients. Bryony also added that you need to be comfortable that a prospective client will be prepared to take your advice, and Jodie mentioned that sometimes it might be better to use a literary consultancy as agents don't always have the time.

Q6: How can someone write something special but the book still be wrong?

A6: Joanna commented that sometimes the tone is wrong for the style of book but another genre would fit the tone. Claire noted that all the authors she's ever taken on have had books that didn't work. Jodie pointed out the importance of resilience and keeping going even if you've got an agent and a deal. She said that the most difficult thing to sell, she finds, are the third books. Most publishers give you two book deals and then you have to reinvent yourself to get the third. Bryony added that if an agent tells you to go away and write another book, that's a good sign.

Q7: Do you mention if you've had editorial input in a submission letter?

A7: The UK agents all thought you should but Joanna warned against it for the States as there are a lot of scam artists working there. Bryony also advised that it's not always a plus point. You might have ignored everything the editor said.

Q8: Would you be interested in polished first few chapter if the rest of the book wasn't written?

A8: This question was met with a resounding NO! and prompted the 'F-bomb' incident which so amused the audience when one of the agents cited a colleague advising 'Just finish the fucking book!'

Q9: Is there any interest in poetry for children?

A9: Jodie thought not. She said the market is small and dominated by big and famous names.

Q10: Can you give us one tip?

A10: Bryony - write from the heart.
         Jodie - read
         Joanna - write mostly about the book not yourself in your query letter
         Juliet - keep trying
         Claire - read.

And then the meeting broke up to give the brave amongst us a chance to pitch

 

and queue!

 

Many thanks to Bryony, Jodie, Joanna, Juliet and Claire for giving up their evening for us yesterday and to Liz de Jager for organising it all.

 

Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke

You cannot imagine my excitement at being offered a proof copy of Cornelia Funke's latest children's book to review. I haven't read one of her books for a while but I knew I would be in for something special. I can still remember reading Dragon Rider to my daughter when she was little and the misty imagery of The Thief Lord will haunt my idea of Venice forever.

And I mention those two books, rather than the, perhaps, more famous Inkheart series, because this book, Ghost Knight, seems to me to be more in their style.

Here's the blurb:

Eleven year old Jon Whitcroft never expected to enjoy boarding school. He never expected to be confronted by a pack of vengeful ghosts either. And then he meets Ella, a quirky new friend with a atste for adventure... Together, Jon and Ella must work to uncover the secrets of a centuries-old murder, while being haunted by ghosts intent on revenge. So when Jon summons the ghost of the knight Longspee for his protection, there's one question - can Longspee himelf really be trusted?

So, here we have a gothic adventure in the literary sense, set amongst the architecturally gothic buildings of Salisbury Cathedral and its school. This is perfect territory for Funke. The setting is dark and mysterious and provides no end of opportunity for Funke's ability to conjure up mists and shadows and generally send a thrill down the reader's spine. But the young protagonist and his friend sail through the horror with a wry sense of humour and a pretty solid, on the part of the girl, dose of good sense. This stops the story getting too dark and keeps it well-suited to its 9+ readership.

The proof copy I have is paperback, but the real thing will be released in hardback in October 2012, and it strikes me that this will be another of Orion's little masterpieces. They seem to have a knack of producing something that you want to handle and cherish. And there will be even more reason to value this book. For Funke's delightful and thrilling, in all senses, story is superbly illustrated by Andrea Offermann in a style that steers a perfect line between that ever-present gothic horror and a childish naivete. It pleases me no end that more children's novels are being illustrated and I am glad Orion is taking a lead in this area.

 The lovely people at Orion Books provided this review copy. If you would like to get your own please click through from here and Amazon will kindly send a small contribution towards maintaining this blog.

Writer, Artist and Illustrator, by Caroline Lawrence

Today, I am excited and honoured to host a guest post by Caroline Lawrence. She's a lady I've admired for a while and I've always been impressed by her generous spirit and fun nature, not to mention her writerly prowess. But here she reveals another facet and I want to thank her for allowing me to reveal it to you:

Writer, Artist & Illustrator by Caroline Lawrence

The first ‘A’ I ever got in school was for Art. And when I was in high school my parents wanted to send me to Art School in Paris. Who could turn down such an offer? I did. By then I was hooked on history and Classics, thanks to a book I read on my gap year. So I said ‘No’. Besides, although I can draw, I am not compelled to paint or draw. Writing was my dream job and now that I’m lucky enough to be doing it as a living, I’ve discovered my art can also contribute to the overall product.

For my Roman Mysteries, I drew the little scrolls at the head of each chapter and a few other things like the handsome orator Flaccus making ‘the gestures’. 

But I am also lucky enough to have married an artist. Nearly twenty years ago I married a graphic designer named Richard Russell Lawrence.

Unfortunately, four years after we got married, he tore an artery in his neck bowling cricket for fun and had a massive right brain stroke. The National Health was great but he was in hospital for an entire summer. The stroke didn’t affect his speech or writing, but it did cause his graphic design business to completely dry up.

A stroke cuts you right down but then there is a gradual improvement. Over the past fifteen years Richard has regained his visual-spatial skills. He and I have been collaborating on maps and plans for my Roman Mysteries.

Here’s how it works. I give him a sketch and primary sources. He does a rough version. I make changes with my red biro and give it back. He implements the changes and brings it to me, and so on. We work in different rooms of our riverside flat and he sometimes claims he feels like a dog playing fetch. I throw the stick and he brings it back. Sometimes as a joke he brings his artwork in his mouth and drops it on my desk and pants.

Richard has been getting better and better at maps and so I started to ask him to do more ambitious projects, like a view of the Villa of Pollius Felix in Sorrento, 

 

or the Circus Maximus in AD 80, or a Roman chariot as it would have really looked. 

I was so pleased with his work that I asked him to do chapter headers for my new series, the P.K. Pinkerton Mysteries. This probably started when he drew P.K.’s Smith & Wesson’s Seven-shooter, a small pistol popular in the early 1860s. I now love collaborating with him on these headers, each of which has something to do with the chapter. I can remind myself of the story’s arc just by looking at the 50 chapter headers.

Perhaps our best collaboration came when I wanted to compose an image of my 12-year-old boy-girl misfit hero Pinky. I found the photo of a Native American on the internet, flipped it, stretched it and bumped up the contrast. Then I copied the slouch hat from the cover of The Outlaw Josey Wales and stuck it on the photo of the stretched Indian kid. Finally Richard traced it with his special pen. Voila! P.K. Pinkerton, private eye!

I reviewed Caroline's latest P.K. Pinkerton Mystery, The Case of the Good looking Corpse here. 

Thanks, Caroline, for sharing this with us.

I'm Dougal Trump and It's Not My Fault

Dear me, I seem to have a London buses thing going on here: don't post anything for a month or so and then three posts in the following month. Well, just like Dougal, it's not really my fault. Blame SCBWI and networking and all that - can I really help it if there are interesting events and lots of good books to review all at the same time?

But more of Dougie. I'm Dougal Trump and It's NOT My Fault is signed quite clearly, on the cover, by 'me, D. Trump'.

That's a fib, of course, because it's really by a lovely and very respectable lady called Jackie Marchant who lives in North West London with her family and dog and is as far removed from a mischevious schoolboy as you could possibly imagine (although she does have a nice line in ludicrously named and bizarrely concocted canapes!).

Now I've known Jackie for a long while. We're both active members of SCBWI and we happen to be members of the same online critique group too, which means that I'm more than familiar with Jackie's writing. For teens. I had an inkling she wrote for a younger audience but Dougie was a total revelation. It was like discovering your mum had an alter ego as a lap dancer. Well, maybe not quite that extreme, but you catch my drift.

Anyway, enough of my wittering. You want to know about Dougie, don't you? The back of the book is a helpful starting place:

Dougie has found a note pinned to the shed. It reads:

Do not disturb. Creature will be collected in the next 3 days. Tranquilisers will wear off shortly. If the creature wakes, give it fruit and keep it quiet, or else. If it dies so will you. If anyone finds out what is in the shed, you are dead.  

Now eat this note.

Of course, Dougal can't eat the note, but the dog can, and things just get worse from that point on. His older sister, Sibble (or Sybil as she would have it spelt) treats him exactly as an self respecting teenage sister would treat a younger brother, despicably. His mother nags him, constantly. And his dad dishes out car-cleaning punishments like there's no tomorrow. Even his friends seem to desert him and his goal-keeping exploits are severely curtailed when he breaks his arm (for the third time).

And then there's the creature in the shed.

So, will Dougal be killed by (1) the Creature, (2) Sibble, (3) Mum, (4) Dad, (5) One of the neighbours (6) One of his 'friends'? And, by the time he has written, edited, and re-edited his Will to take into account all these suspects, will there be anyone left to inherit if he does die? In answering these questions, Dougie (or Jackie) trots us through a laugh out loud story that solves the mystery of the creature and even allows Dougal to revel in the role of hero, for a short while. The publicity blurb describes Dougal as Bart Simpson meets Just William. Personally, I'd throw Horrid Henry into that mix as well. Dougie has Henry's sneering loathing for his sibbling and his unerring knack to be looking guilty even when he's innocent of the crime. He's also got Henry's magnet-like attraction for trouble.

But what those other three don't have, and Dougie does, is the Dog.

The Dog is a masterpiece. Anyone who's ever owned a dog, or even lived around one for a short time will recognise this monster. The publicity blurb says it 'inhales socks.' That description doesn't go half way. There is one scene, with the Dog, Mum, and a zebra crossing which had me laughing so much I nearly set fire to myself. (OK I probably shouldn't have been reading and cooking simultaneously but I didn't want to put the book down and the family were screaming to be fed.) I won't reveal more because that would spoil it for you, but just take my advice and make sure your in a safe place before you open this book.

I'm Dougal Trump and It's Not My Fault is the first of what we all hope will be a long series. I'm Dougal Trump, Where's My Tarantula will be the next. Heaven alone knows what will come out of Jackie's startling imagination after that. But look out world, Dougal Trump is here, and little boys' lives have just got a whole lot sillier.

The lovely people at Macmillan sent me a copy to review. If you would like your own copy please click on the link below and Amazon will kindly send me a small contribution to the maintenance of this website.

The Case of the Good Looking Corpse by Caroline Lawrence

You have no idea how pleased I was when the package containing the Case of the Good Looking Corpse dropped onto the doorstep. I loved Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries and somehow I had managed to miss the first of her new P.K. Pinkerton series: The Case of the Deadly Desperadoes. So getting my hands on this precious little book was a treat indeed.

And there is something precious about this book. It's another of Orion's little hardbacks (like Michelle Lovric's Talina in the Tower). And just like that book this one is lovely to hold in your hands too. It has nice creamy coloured paper and wonderful little line drawings pepper the beginnings and ends of every chapter or 'ledger' as they are called here. It's one of those books that says, 'Own me, love me, don't just read me,' and for my money, exemplifies why real books are so much better than their digital siblings.

At this rate you might think I'm cooing about the object because the story itself isn't up to much. You'd be wrong. The story is a gem. Not that you would expect less from Caroline Lawrence.

The Good Looking Corpse begins within hours of the previous book finishing. The streets of Virginia City are teeming with young gunfighters battling it out to take the place of Whittlin' Walt as the 'Chief of the Comstock Desperadoes'. The self-styled and self-schooled detective, P.K. Pinkerton is nursing the bullet injury sustained in the previous story and wondering if anyone will ever take a twelve year old detective seriously when a black servant girl called Martha turns up asking for help. Martha has witnessed the murder of her mistress, 'Short' Sally Simpson, and is convinced that the murderer is now after her too. P.K. can't resist the case, of course, and immediately embarks on an enquiry that takes the reader on a rollercoaster trip through the seemier parts of Virginia City in the company of a glorious cast of larger than life wild west characters and keeps P.K. and the reader guessing as to the identity of the killer right to the very end of the story.

And it's all enormous fun!

P.K. has a Thorn, Foibles and Eccentricities, and the Mulligrubs. The Thorn makes it diificult for P.K. to relate to other people and read their emotions. So P.K. has a system, a series of numbered facial expressions which would be fine if they didn't get confused sometimes. The Foibles and Eccentricities lead to collections, in this case, of different types of tobacco, which P.K. puts to good use in solving the crime. And the Mulligrubs are a dark mood that can only be combatted by the sort of visioning that, in my experience, is more usually advocated by the lovely ladies of the National Child Birth Trust.

Put all this together with the wry, charming voice that Lawrence uses here and you have a matter-of-fact little hero who steers their way through an historical reality that pulls no punches. There are gunfights, mutilated bodies, drunks and gamblers, prostitutes and slavery, and the sheer carnage of the American Civil War. It's all just there. P.K. takes it for granted and so the reader does too. And, quite frankly, it's delightful. I love P.K.'s tendency to capitalise words. I love the odd spelling mistakes and the slang. It brings the whole story alive and it makes you want to join that never ending line of girls and ladies who want to give P.K. a hug and a kiss even though the Thorn means P.K. hates to be touched.

And there you have it. A wonderful story with a wonderful character by a wonderful author. I'm off to find The Deadly Desperadoes now and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one too.

The lovely folk at Orion Books sent me this review copy. If you would like your own please click below and then Amazon will send a small contribution towards maintaining this blog.

 

An Evening with Hot Key Books

For once this summer, the weather shone on me. At least, it shone long enough to enable me to undertake the one point something hike across country lane, bridle way and footpath to the local station without the need of wellington boots and waterproofs. And a mere couple of hours after leaving the house I was ensconced with fellow SCBWIers in the light and airy board room in Hot Key Books new London headquarters.

The observant among you will notice the odd glass of wine on the table and the happy faces of the attendees.

 Please don't get the wrong impression. There were refreshments but not such that we were all smashed before we started.

And anyway, some people (Paolo) had to work.


But I digress.

The evening opened with a short introduction from Sarah Odedina, Managing Director of Hot Key Books and a lady with an illustrious publishing career.

Sarah set the scene. Hot Key have been around for less than a year and will have their first books on the shelves of booksellers in July. They plan to have 9 books published this year and have commisioned near 40 so far. They are very catholic in their tastes. They look for writers with a unique sensibility in their writing regardless of genre or age group (although they do not publish picture books).

Sarah believes in the hand-made. They hand-pick their authors, hand-design the books and get book-sellers to hand-sell them. You get the sense that the team there has been hand-picked too, when you hear them speak.

Editorial Director, Sara O'Connor then took up the reins.

She explained how Hot Key are trying to use digital media to keep a conversation about books going with people all the time, and they don't confine that conversation to their own books either. So they ensure that the blog is updated frequently and regularly and they all tweet. The aim is to be open and easily accessible as they believe that this is the way to build a reader audience.

They are also trying to be innovative in the way they use digital publishing. For example, Sally Gardner, the author of Maggot Moon, is dyslexic and the condition plays a major role in the novel. Sally was keen to provide additional material about dyslexia, to help readers understand it, for the digital edition and that is precisely what the enhanced i-book does.

In another example, the enhanced i-book of A World Between Us, which is a romance set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, includes a lot of the period background, drawn from the author's own family history.

Sara's view is that enhancement is not for all books and it is important to identify the right projects. Those books that aren't right for inhancement will have simple digital versions of the printed edition.

The Sales and Marketing Team of Kate Manning and Sarah Benton took over next.

Kate explained that their job is mostly spreadsheets and nattering. When Kate and Sarah started their were no books to sell or market and so their aim was to get themselves known.

The first thing they did was to set up the blog to tell the story of how they set up a new publishing house and to reflect the passion, excitement and enthusiasm they all had for the books they were acquiring. They soon discovered that the more they talked the more people listened and they now have regular readers among the big booksellers.Twitter has been key to driving traffic to the blog. There are 4 or 5 people who tweet as Hot Key.

To illustrate what they now do (given they finally have books to market) they provided two contrasting examples:

Shrunk is a debut novel by F R Hitchcock. They acquired it because it was the craziest idea that had ever landed in Sara O'Connor's inbox. It tells the story of a boy who wishes on a star that he could shrink things and his wish comes true. He shrinks al manner of things, of course, but then he shrinks Jupiter and loses it. That throws the whole solar system out of alignment and the race is on for him to find Jupiter before the Earth hits the Sun. Sara fell in love with it instantly and had to publish it.

But this is a new author and so they have to establish her. This has involved ideas like the author tweeting photos of Sylvanian family creatures with tiny books with the Shrunk cover and they are about to make a promo video of a tiny tea party too. They are also working with children's magazines on shrinking things. These ideas have come from the author and the editorial team as well as the sales and marketing people.

Maggot Moon, by contrast, is by a well-established author who has won a number of awards. It was acquired by Sarah Odedina because it was 'exceptional and original'. This book will be published in hard back and is aimed at a more literary audience. So they are expecting it to be picked up by the independent booksellers and Waterstones, ie book shops where hand-selling is more usual.

They took over the regular Hot Key newsletter for Maggot Moon, making it look like something from a totalitarian state as this fits the dystopia in the novel. This gives booksellers a reason to pick up the book and read it and then they are equipped to sell it properly.

Kate and Sarah believe that the author often has the best ideas about marketing. They like to support authors in developing their readership. Twitter plays a role in this. Readers can tweet to authors while they are reading. This gives them a relationship which they never had in the past.

The last person to speak to us was Art Director, Jet Purdie.

Jet explained that one of the unusual things about Hot Key is that the Art department actually get to talk to the authors. He cited the example of A World Between Us.  They originally produced a series of photographic covers for the book but the author wanted something in the style of Spanish Civil War posters and with a tight colour scheme of red blue and yellow. Eventually Jet located a Swedish illustrator who'd worked in those colours and he produced something which everyone at Hot Key agrees is a far better cover than the original ones. So the author actually pushed them to work harder and it was a success.

 The aim is to produce covers that stand out. Everyone buys books by cover. So design is key.

The floor was then opened to questions and the following topics were covered:

• Acquisitions policy. They are looking for authors with original voices and ideas. They accept unsolicted manuscripts and will give everyone a personal reply. They are in very active buying mode and as they do not have a back list they don't have the problem that  they can't acquire something because it's too similar to something else on the list.
• Editorial input. The only thing they can't fix is voice. So if they like the voice they are happy work hard on developing the manuscript.
• Age banding. They don't. But they have developed Hot Key Rings which give buyers an indication of what they will find in a book. This is orginal and makes their books stand out.

And then the meeting broke up and it was time for all those budding writers to pigeonhole an editor:

And they did!







It was a great evening, with lots of information and very friendly hosts. I think we all came away wanting to be acquired by Hot Key Books. It would just be so much fun!

The Bonehill Curse by Jon Mayhew

I have a confession to make. I probably wouldn't have got round to reading The Bonehill Curse if I hadn't happened to win a copy in one of those odd 'retweet this' type of competitions on Twitter.

It arrived on my doormat when I was still in the middle of my 'I've had enough of reading kids' books' phase and I was in the middle of reading The Girl with The Dragon Tatoo, which I hadn't read before because, you guessed it, I was too busy reading kids' books to find time for the grown-up stuff!

Anyway, I unpackaged it and had a look at the blurb on the back. And I was immediately hooked. Djinns. I've been rather partial to djinns ever since reading a little AS Byatt story. So that got me interested. Plus there was the heroine's name: Necessity Bonehill. Dickens sprung to mind and now I was definitely reeled in.

All of which meant finishing the Larsson as fast as possible.

So I blitzed it to within the last twenty or so pages just before going to bed one night. Huge mistake. It was probably the writer in me, but all I could think about all night long were alternative endings which involved either that basement of horrors being re-opened and used by a certain female member of the Vanger gang or the same lady equipping Harald's shack to the same ends. Either way, it rather spoiled my appreciation of The Girl but it put me in the perfect frame of mind for The Curse.

So what's the Bonehill Curse all about? Necesity Bonehill is a misfit. She's a tough, feisty, tomboy of a girl in an all too girly, girls' Dickensian style boarding school called Rookery Heights. She's been parked there by unloving parents and the only person who sees her point of view is the mad old Sergeant Major Morris, ex of the mysterious Fourth Hinderton Rifles. At the beginning of the book she receives a parcel from an uncle. It contains a dirty old bottle, carved with strange and horrifying figures, and accompanied by the instructions that she mustn't open it.

Well, what would any self-respecting rebel do in those circumstances? Of course, she opens is and in so doing unleashes the djinn Zaakiel who is bent on destroying humanity in punishment for what he sees as their despicable and immoral behaviour.

From that point we follow Ness on her travels to London and beyond, in search of her parents, the djinn and anyone or anything that can help her find them. This brings her allies from unlikely places: a bunch of secretive moorish warriors pledged to destroy all the djinns and a cast of mostly elderly men and women straight out of Dickens such as Reverend Cullwirthy, Mrs Quilfy, Henry Lumm, Corporal Grubb and the delightful creation, Mr Evenyule Scrabsnitch.

I think half the charm of this book lies in the way Jon has melded a story that, by rights, belongs in the Arabian Nights, with an expertly drawn Dickensian setting. And it is expertly drawn because what Jon takes from Dickens is the light stuff: the funny, grotesque, loveable, infuriating minor characters that makes us laugh and provide welcome relief when a Dickens story gets too dark.

The other half of the book's charm is the way it's written. This is an action packed, roller-coaster of a book. The blank pages and little proverbs and aphorisms between each chapters act as literary palate cleanser but they also drive you to read the next chapter and the next one and the next.

And you know something? I didn't have that problem or worrying all night about an alternative ending for The Bonehill Curse. Maybe it was because the ending came late and tied everything up. Indeed it tied everything up so neatly I was at a loss as to how Jon was going to follow it. Unless of course he takes a leaf out of another Victorian's book.....

Anyone up for Arthur Conan Doyle next?

(And while you decipher that I'm off to find Jon's two earlier novels, Mortlock and the Demon Collector. Oh yes, he's hooked me. Totally!)

The nice folk at Bloomsbury provided this review copy. But if you want one of your own please click below and Amazon will contribute a small amount to the maintenance of this blog.

First Person, Third Person and The Movie Deal

I recently conducted a small experiment: I went to see movie and then I read the book. And this got me thinking about the differences, because, believe it or not, and I guess you will believe it since I'm clearly a reader, this was the first time I'd seen the film of a book before reading the book! (Actually I think I may have seen 2001 before reading the book but that doesn't count as the film came first anyway, if I remember correctly)

So what was the film/book?

Pretty obvious, I suppose.

But why all that blather about first and third person in the title? Let me explain:

I came out of the cinema from watching The Hunger Games a tinsy bit unhappy.I'd enjoyed the film, of course, been thrilled and revolted in all the right places and so on. But I couldn't shake a niggling feeling that I really didn't like Katniss, that, in spite of few obvious examples of self-sacrifice, she was fundamentally a selfish and not very nice person.

And that bothered me because I couldn't believe that I was meant to be feeling like that. So what had gone wrong?

In spite of squeals of irritation from the kids, I had lingered in the cinema after the last scene long enough to see that Suzanne Collins had participated in the screen play. So the lack of author involvement couldn't be the answer. It had to be something else. And I sat down with the book to see if I could find out why. (Well, and just to enjoy it, of course.)



Now, at this point in the narrative, I need to bring in the fact that my online crit group have recently been discussing the differences between first person and close third person narratives (that's the one where the writer still uses he/she, but everything is written from the inside of the he/she's head).

Anyone who's read The Hunger Games will know that it is written in first person, that Katniss herself narrates the story. Of course, this means that we know from the outset that she will survive, after all,how else could she be telling the story? But Suzanne Collins does an excellent job of keeping us on the edge of our seats nonetheless. And this is no mean feat because one of the risks of using first person in an action story, and The Hunger Games is nothing if it's not an action story, is that the narrator's thoughts can so easily slow things down.

Of course, what it can also do is give the reader an unrivalled insight into the protagonist's inner thoughts and, in Katniss' case, turmoil. And that's why first person works so well for this book. You see the narrator's thoughts don't slow the action down in the book. Rather the action gets in the way of the thoughts. And what we are left with is a brilliant rendering of the sort of confusion and angst caused when you are just to busy fighting for your life to sort out what you really think, who you really love and even who you really are.

And I don't think you can depict all that in an action film.

So did I still dislike Katniss when I'd read the book. No. I wouldn't say she's the nicest sixteen year old girl around, but she is sympathetic. You understand why she does what she does and you also understand that she may not much like herself for doing it too. And for that reason alone the book is a hundred times better than the film.

And that's definitely the first conclusion of my experiment.

But there's a second too. If you're writing an action novel and you want to secure a movie deal that will conjure a true rendition of your precious protagonist, maybe you'd be best off writing it in third person!

Illegal by Miriam Halahmy

You have no idea how pleased I was when Miriam Halahmy's Illegal dropped onto my doormat a couple of weeks ago. I've known Miriam for a few years now and I even attended one of her workshop sessions at a SCBWI conference back in 2010. So I knew that the writing in this novel would be superb. It was. But there was so much more too.

Illegal is the second of Miriam's three Hayling Island cycle books. Each of these novels stands on its own but a minor character in one appears as a major character in the next. For those of you who don't know it Hayling Island is a small Island off the south coast of England.

Miriam has been visiting Hayling with her family every summer for many years. She knows it well and that knowledge and understanding seeps through on every page of this book. But more of this anon. Let's talk about the story:

Fourteen year old Lindy carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. Since the death of her baby sister her already disfunctional parents have completely disintegrated. Her father is now incapable of bringing in enough money for the family to eat and her mother spends the day in her PJs. Lindy's brothers don't help either. The oldest two are in jail and the youngest, Sean, relies on Lindy for all aspects of his care. So when her cousin, Colin, offers her a gardening job she jumps at the opportunity. The only problem is that the garden in question is a cannabis farm and Lindy soon finds herself being drawn further and further into Colin's dangerous drug-dealing world.

With this set up, Lindy could easily be painted as a victim. That she isn't is a tribute to Miriam's skills. The clue to her combative nature comes early with the depiction of her fearsome 'spearnail.' And her initial and intermittently continual assumption that the mute Karl is a 'retard' shows she can be just as bitchy as any one of the girls who have bullied her. Watching her ability to fight the inevitable grow is part of the joy of this book. Watching the dawning realisation of just what a catch Karl might be, is most definitely the charm.

And what of the island?

I'm pretty sure that I've heard Miriam talking about using setting as a character at some time in the past. But whether I have or not, Miriam is certainly an expert. Hayling island permeates this book; the inlets, the water, the tides and the Langstone Bridge are all there. You can taste it, smell it, hear it and in the end it is the island itself that finally does for Colin.This is one of the best examples of setting as character I have come across in a long time. I knew I should expect something good from Miriam and she delivered.

I love this book. It's fast paced and exciting, a great story with great characters. The social issues that underpin the story: drug and alcohol abuse, self harm, violence, mutism, bullying to name a few, are handled with delicacy and honesty. There's no preaching here and you don't feel like you've been forced to 'learn' something. And that, if you ask me, is the way to do edgy fiction.

So, pace Miriam, but if you wouldn't mind getting off that beech and getting on with writing the third novel, we'd all be very grateful!

(Note: This is a second version of the original review that Blogger mysteriously lost for me. I hope it's captured the flavour of the original and many thanks to Miriam for copying a couple of sentences onto Facebook so that I at least had something to work around!)

As I said above, Miriam kindly sent me this review copy. If you would like to get your hands on your own copy, then please do so via the link below. Then Amazon will send a small contribution to the maintenance of this blog.

 

The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish

The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish was first published last May but in honour of the new paperback edition, I thought a quick review might be in the offing.

First the blurb:

When Elliot and his brother, Ben, move into the old and crumbling Glebe House they don't expect to find themselves sharing it with ghosts. But soon sinister events are unfolding...  An old diary reveals glimpses of the mansion's past - and of a terrible tragedy. A mysterious woman talks to the dead. And evil lurks in the East Wing - a hideous labyrinth of passageways devised by a truly twisted mind. Can Elliot and his family escape the clutches of Glebe House? Or will they be trapped in the maze of corridors, forever hunted by the dead?

If you turn this book over you will see, in garish yellow capitals, the words 'NOT FOR YOUNGER READERS. If you then turn the book back, open it and read the first page you'll understand the warning. This is horror of the imagination. The opening sequence, with 16 year old Elliot lying in bed and listening to the approaching ghostly footsteps might sound a bit corny, but it's handled with a chilling touch. For a start, there are no jangly chains or eerie cries. The ghost that wakes Elliot was a young girl in life and the thumping that accompanies her is the head of the doll that she drags behind her. And for my money, if that isn't a pretty scary starting point I don't know what is.

The Hunting Ground of the title is an area of land close to Glebe House where a previous owner liked to chase his victims and that sense of chase permeates every page of this book. McNish whisks the reader along at a breath-taking pace, dropping clues for the protagonist and reader alike and never giving either of us time to really digest what we've learnt before moving onto the next.

This technique makes for a very quick read. You finish one chapter and have to move onto the next in the hope that the answer to the problem raised in that last chapter will be answered in the next, and so on. This is fun and exciting, and works perfectly for the first two thirds of the book. But I had a strong sense that the final act needed something different. All the story elements come together in the last third. The story twists and turns as fast as Elliot chases through the East Wing's corridors, and then, suddenly, things start to happen which are entirely new and seemed, to me, to belong in a different book entirely. I can't reveal the details without spoiling the story, but a new set of paranormal rules are introduced in that final act which haven't been prefigured in any way in the earlier action and without which the denouement cannot occur.

Now maybe, if the action hadn't flown as quickly as the metaphysics, I might have not been bothered by this. As it was, the nice little twist that brings the story to a close got lost while I tried to get my head around what had actually happened. And that meant that the end felt a bit like one of those 'with a bound he was free' things, which is a shame because the rest of the book is very good indeed.

So now I think, maybe, you need to read at least the last third of this book a bit more slowly, let the weird metaphysical stuff at the end sink in. Then the power of the twist will hit you and you will put it down feeling fully satisfied.

And as to that warning on the back. I agree. Horror of the gory kind is fine for younger readers. They love it. But there really isn't any gore to talk of here. Well, not described anyway. Instead there is plenty of opportunity to imagine all manner of ghastly ways to die, be maimed, tortured and generally put through pain. And it's all so seductively written that you don't really notice how much you are imagining all those nasty things until you put the book down.

And that, frankly, is enough to give anybody bad dreams.

The lovely people at Orion Books sent me a review copy. If you want one of your own please click the link below and Amazon will send a contribution to the maintenance of this blog.

 

SCBWI Professional Series Book Camp

On the evening of Tuesday 6th March we all met once again in the upstairs room at the Theodore Bullfrog pub in London for the latest Professional Series event. This time is was 'Book Camp' with Julia Churchill, Lirerary Agent of The Greenhouse, and Ali Dougal, Commissioning Editor of Egmont Press (who was standing in for the poorly Leah Thaxton, Publishing Director at Egmont).

The evening was billed as a run through of the process of finding an agent and getting a book published and so, logically enough, Julia went first.

Julia started her career as an agent in 2002 when she joined Darley Anderson. At that time DA specialised in commercial fiction and non-fiction and did not represent children's authors but in 2004 a manilla envelope dropped on the floor with a submission from Cathy Cassidy for Indigo Blue. Everyone cried on reading the script but didn't know what to do with it. So Julia sat down with the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and started to contact publishers. The rest, as they say, is history.From that start Julia built up the children's side of the business until she left Darley Anderson in 2009 to join Sarah Davies' new agency, where she is responsible for all non-USA clients.

At Darley Anderson, Julia's day started with the post. All the agents would sit round and go through the submissions before anything else, on the principle that they wanted to be the first agency to get back to a good prospect so as to seal an exclusive look at a script. At The Greenhouse all subs come via email and so Julia finds herself going through this process not once, but many times a day, and night and at weekends too! She reads the first 5 pages of a script and if she likes it, askes for a full. If she likes that she will either sign up the writer immediately or do some editorial work with them first and sign them up if that works out. In her experience most debut writers need some editorial work, and much as she would like a script that could be sold immediately, she is happy to work on perfecting it.

Sara believes that agents are increasingly becoming editors. This is to ensure their books get sold. Publishing editors receive on average 5 scripts a day from agents but they are buying less. At Macmillan, for example, debut novels are down by 30%. So your script needs to stand out. In addition there are few old school publishers around now where the editorial team takes the acquisition decision. Now, an editor will have to justify acquisition to the whole company. That can be a bloody experience and so the editor really needs to love the book first.

Once Julia has a book ready for submission she tries to find a good pubilshing match. Some agents do a lot of research and then sub to a few publishers. Julia prefers to sub more widely as she thinks this is more successful. With a publisher hooked, her next role is to negotiate the optimum contract. She notes that the difference between accepting the first contract you're given and fighting can mean as much as 20 to 30p per book extra in royalties. She looks for better options for authors in terms of rights, advances and payment schedules. In particular she is keen to keep foreign rights so that these can be sold off separately as this generates more income streams. In her terms she turns a publisher-friendly contract into an author-friendly one.

A debut author's career starts with the first novel and the first deal but this doesn't always develop into a second book with the same publisher. An agent works with an author to develop their career. This may mean finding a new publisher, developing new novels, or advising on a pen-name. And even if an author stays with a publisher, the agent is still their long-term business partner, as editors often move between publishing houses.

So that's what she does for her 15%!

Julia then went on to discuss what she's looking for:

• trends - this is for her to sell a book, not for an author to write one, as the timescales don't work. There are typically four or more years between an author starting a script and a book being published. Trends can change a lot in that time.
• taste of certain editors - in spite of Julia's wide submission policy there is no point in sending some books to some editors
• holes in publishing lists
• something that will become a classic

Her personal view is that debut business in the short-term will focus on a lot more younger fiction: 'the world doesn't need much more Young Adult'.

In reviewing a script she looks for six things:

• Concept - The hook, in a few lines. This is the focus of the book, its USP. It needs to be fresh, a new twist.
• Character - Should leap off the page and be tied into the plot. She wants to get to know the characters and like them so that they become her new friends. They need to change and learn, be fresh, and be credible in their world.
• Story -What do the characters stand to win or lose? There needs to be anguish, real choices, courage, action. Characters need to face high stakes involving outward danger and/or emotional challenge.
• Setting - Needs to enhance the action and be integral to it.
• Theme - This is the residual that stays with you after you've finished reading the script. It's something deeply felt, at the heart of the story.
• Voice - Needs to plug into the age group, be identifiable, different, special, authentic. Julia says it's hard to explain but easy to spot!

Julia finished up with some advice to debut writers:

• know your market- read widely and understand the dreaded age categories.
• distance yourself from the first draft so as to get a fresh perspective on it. Better still get a crit buddy to look at it.
• when reviewing the first draft look at the main story arc: where does it go, does it start strongly, what do you find out about the main character in the first few pages, are there too many characters, do all the scenes need to be there, are you entering late and leaving early in each scene?
• read the dialogue out loud or better still, get some else to do it for you.
• make sure there are no 'lessons' - don't preach
• show don't tell!

At that point Ali Dougal took over the microphone.

Ali works as a commissioning editor with Egmont Press where she handles books in the age range 5 years to Young Adult and Crossover. She started her career at Puffin where she was for 5 years before joining Egmont three years ago.

Egmont is regularly in the top 5 publishers each year. They are the largest publisher in the UK, if you include the whole business of magazines, tie-ins and character books, and fiction. In fiction they have a good split between back and front list. Their backlist includes Enid Blyton, Flat Stanley, Michael Morpurgo and provides them with the financial means to keep a good front list going. Their biggest brands include the backlist as well as the Mr Gum books and Michael Grant.They used to be focused more on younger books but now have a dedicated YA imprint (Electric Monkey). The list is small but growing. This means every book has impact.

There are four editors and a pubishing director. Although this is a small team it is pretty typical.

Ali desribed what she is looking for in a debut:

• stand-out writing. This could be eccentric or anarchic
• great story-telling - something that resonates with adults as well as children
• characters that are going through a real emotional struggle
• a good hook as this will help her sell the book to the sales team
• YA that appeals to her teen self
• younger fiction and anything that plugs gaps in the list (this needs to be balanced with mass market, literary and reluctant reader book all covered)
• quality middle grade - she would love to find the next Artemis Fowl or Percy Jackson

 Ali notes that a lot of agents don't work on scripts and most scripts still need a lot of editing. So the script doesn't have to be perfect to be accepted but it does need a really great hook.

 She then went on to discuss the author-editor relationship. It should be personal so that:

• the author's vision is shared
• you want to work with each other
• there is a connection - this is especially important with humour
• there is confidence, trust, honesty
• the author's career can be grown.

Ali likes to meet with an author before signing them so that she can set up this relationship at the earliest opportunity.

Once the deal has been signed she likes to meet the author again to discuss the mutual vision in more detail. The author then meets the marketing team. Each book has a tailored marketing strategy. The editor is involved in this as well as design, productions and sales.

Then the editing process starts in earnest. This should be fun and collaborative. When editing, Ali focuses on character consistency, a clear journey through the story, voice consistency, pace and fitness for target reader.

The editorial team and author will also sit down with the design, marketing and production teams to discuss the cover. They try to get the right illustrator for each author and book and will change illustrators if necessary.

Ali next went on to talk about the state of the industry. She noted that in 2010-11 only 36% of the population bought a book. During that period booksales dropped by 8%, largely as a result of a drop in the sales of paranormal romances. Egmont bucked the trend and saw a rise of 18% over the same period. Other observations included:

• e-books are growing fast but still a very small percentage of sales
• books that are tied in to cinema releases have huge sales
• there are a few months in which sales are strong and so it is important to think about this when deciding when to publish a book
• there might be a case for concentrating more on royalties than advances

For Ali, the ideal author will push their book themselves, albeit with support from their publisher. So they will attend festivals, build a brand, hone the script to perfection, know their readership, play to their strengths.

At this point the meeting broke for a few refreshments followed by questions. Sadly, your trusty reporter had to leave to catch a train and so I can't provide a digest of the questions as I would usually.

Caroline Hooton has also written up the evening over on her blog and has more photos too. So check it out.

Many thanks to Julia and Ali for sharing all this with us and not minding me taking the photos!

ILLEGAL Blog Tour

Here we go again. This month I am really excited to be hosting Miriam Halahmy on her blog tour to launch her latest novel, ILLEGAL.

I've known Miriam for quite a while now. She's one of those people who will come up to new faces at workshops and conferences and introduce herself, offering you help, support and advice or just simple friendship. I've attended one of her inspiring workshops at a SCBWI conference and I've just sat and chatted with her at social events. But we're here to talk about Illegal and I think it's about time I passed over to Miriam herself:

Karl, my second main character, is mute!

Illegal, the second novel in my cycle of three, focuses on fifteen year old Lindy who is in terrible trouble. Her family are too dysfunctional to support her and she doesn’t get on with either the kids or the teachers at school. 

They are doing Hamlet in English. 

The teacher tells them, “Hamlet’s uncle killed his father and married his mother. He had no-one left to turn to. Hamlet was a spiritual refugee.” A spiritual refugee. Lindy liked that. Just like me, I’ve got no-one left at home either. Lindy has been drawn into the shadowy and dangerous world of international drug dealing and with two older brothers in prison, she is terrified she will end up in a cell too. But support comes from a surprising quarter - fellow misfit, Karl, who is known in school as ‘the kid who doesn’t speak.’ Together they embark on a desperate race to ensure Lindy’s freedom.

I decided to create a mute character for this novel partly to challenge Lindy and partly to explore the problems presented by mutism to sufferers. As a special needs teacher for 25 years, I came across several cases of mutism, two in one school. 

Mutism is defined as a consistent failure to speak. Some people are mute for physical reasons perhaps because of severe hearing loss or a problem with the voice box. But Karl is mute for psychological reasons. He uses almost no form of communication, except occasionally moving his eyebrows. He became mute after a particular trauma which his parents ignored. As a result he ceased to speak until finally he spoke to no-one for over two years.

 Most young people who are mute do speak at home or perhaps to one school friend. However, if they cease to speak all together then this is classified as Progressive Mutism. They will need very specialist therapeutic input to start speaking again. In my novel, Illegal, I create a second trauma which shocks Karl into speaking later in the book. Not the ideal way to deal with the problem!

Mutism can become a phobia about speaking. Sufferers might be self conscious about the sound of their own voice, or simply speaking up for themselves, which Karl describes to Lindy in one very poignant scene.

It was quite a challenge to create a second main character who would not speak for such a long part of the novel. I wrestled with Karl and his different forms of expression for about a year. Karl doesn’t do mime or writing explanatory notes. Most of the time his face is quite impassive and Lindy actually comes to enjoy his silence and learning to guess what he wants to say. The silence becomes a very beautiful part of the book, right to the final page.

Lindy doesn’t accept Karl’s mutism immediately and throws insults at him, calling him ‘dumb’, ‘deaf’, ‘thicko’ and ‘retard’. But she learns to regret her meanness as their relationship develops. By putting these terms out there and then challenging them, I hope that my readers might reflect on how inappropriate they are.

Writing Illegal gave me a chance to develop characters which have emerged from the many young people I taught who came from difficult backgrounds or who had emotional and behavioural problems which were holding them back in life. I believe with the right support every young person has a future, as Lindy and Karl demonstrate in my novel.

Miriam Halahmy

 The London launch of Illegal is taking place on 13th March. I'll be there. Maybe some of you will be too.

Thanks Miriam for a thought provoking post.