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.