A Work in Progress

Genres Busting Out All Over, Part 2

When I decided to e-publish my much-rejected, now best-selling fourth novel, HOUSE OF SILENCE I knew my fans would buy it. They'd been begging for a new book for three years. But never in my wildest dreams did I think that, if I self-published HOS, thousands of new readers would buy it. I hoped to sell perhaps 10 copies a month. For the first three months I was selling 100 copies a day.

Since no publisher could hope to sell 12,000 copies of a book by a relative unknown like me, let alone in five months, with a publicity budget of £100 (the cost of the e-book cover), I can claim that all those editors who rejected HOUSE OF SILENCE because "it wouldn't sell" were wrong.

To be fair, when publishers say something won't sell, they usually mean, "We wouldn't know how to market it" and the (quite reasonable) assumption is that, for something to sell, it has to be marketed. Big budgets and marketing departments are organised around what purports to be a commercial fact of life.

But it no longer seems to be a fact. The only marketing for HOUSE OF SILENCE was done by me. (I wrote six guest blogs when the e-book was published and I had a spontaneous and enthusiastic cyber-launch with friends and fans on Facebook.) A few bloggers helped by writing great reviews and cross-posting them. (Thank you!) There must also have been a word-of-mouth factor on book forums. Then there was Amazon's own brilliant sales strategy. No respecter of persons or publishers, Amazon promotes books regardless of who they're by or what they're about. If it's selling, Amazon will rank it and promote it and HOUSE OF SILENCE was a beneficiary of that strategy. It sold because it was selling.

With a professional-looking cover and blurb, readers didn't know or care whether HOS was self-published. The text was correctly spelled, punctuated and properly presented. (I used to be a teacher.) As for my cross-genre cover blurb – it worked! Readers responded positively to the genre mixed-marriage, especially the tag-line, "COLD COMFORT FARM meets REBECCA". I discovered that REBECCA and COLD COMFORT FARM are favourite novels for many readers, as they are for me.

So you could say I struck lucky. Or you could say, by going it alone, having faith in my story and characters, faith in readers' passion for a good tale, my tenacity finally paid off.

I'm hoping to strike lucky again when my latest novel, UNTYING THE KNOT appears as a Kindle e-book next week. This novel is another hybrid genre marketing nightmare... "A ruined castle. A ruined marriage. Two shattered lives. When love is not enough, who pays the price?" It's a love story about a couple in their 40s who are divorced. From each other. There's a rom-com subplot, two weddings, some explosions, several war zones, flashbacks (in all senses) and the restoration of a ruinous Scottish castle. In short: TWO WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL meets THE HURT LOCKER.

Whatever its genre, UNTYING THE KNOT is the most romantic novel I've ever written, even more romantic than STAR GAZING (short-listed for Romantic Novel of the Year in 2009). But this was why one of the editors who really liked HOUSE OF SILENCE wasn't interested in publishing either HOS or UTK: they didn't belong to the same genre. (That distant thumping sound you can hear is an authorial head repeatedly striking a brick wall.)

Sadly, "Linda Gillard" is not a "brand", like Jodi Picoult or Sherrilyn Kenyon. To be really successful in print publishing, you need to be a brand. Print publishing is governed not by authors or readers, or even editors. It's ruled by retailers who decide which books will be stocked. That means they have a lot of influence – some would say far too much – over what gets published.

With the demise of Borders and, it's rumoured, the UK Waterstones chain, "book retailers" (in the UK at least) will soon mean supermarkets, which already dictate price and cover design to an alarming and unhealthy degree. Booksellers and supermarkets like brands. They like series. I’m not sure why. I suspect because they don't have to be marketed, they can just be advertised with, "Here’s more of the same". It's boring, lazy and unimaginative. I say, bring on the gay gladiators, comic cougars and vegetarian vampires. Put them into the fictional melting pot and see what happens. The result, if well-written, could hardly be dull.

Fortunately you don't have to be a "brand" to sell e-books. Readers browse and decide whether to click on the strength of the cover, the price, the title, the blurb and the reviews. (Price is a big factor and that's where indie authors really score.) Of course with indie e-books, there's no quality control – something which irritates, even depresses many e-book readers. But at least you can download a free sample which will reveal whether you're reading the work of a real writer or a deluded amateur. And don't forget how many books you've started, then abandoned, asking, "Who ever thought this was worth publishing?" or even, "Did no one proof-read this book?"

Quality control has been an issue for years. Editing and proof-reading are expensive services and some publishers decided long ago that money could be saved by cutting a few corners. With the e-book explosion, quality control is now a much bigger issue, but the book world is already adapting. Blogs, websites and Facebook pages are offering e-book recommendations. Even Amazon has realised that, if it's going to publish all-comers, it needs to give buyers some guidance as they navigate their way through a sea of teenage TWILIGHT clones and unpunctuated porn. They've set up a Kindle Indie book store on Amazon.com and I hope we'll soon have one on Amazon UK.

I'm very happy with the latest developments in the book world and I'm thrilled that my books are finding lots of new readers. But there's still one thing I'd like to see. (I think you might like to see it too.) I'd like to see a new genre being developed and promoted – not least because I think my novels would sit very well within this niche. The name of my new genre? Rattling Good Yarns.

It's a genre that everyone will read and love. And it will never go out of fashion.

Many thanks to Linda for sharing her experiences and thoughts on the challenges facing authors who are trying to get their work published.  You can find out more information about Linda's books here.  You can find Linda's books on Amazon here in the US and here in the UK.

Genres Busting Out All Over, Part 1

Please welcome author Linda Gillard who has kindly agreed to write about her experiences in dealing with genre issues she has encountered in finding and retaining a publisher for her books, notably House of Silence, which I wrote about yesterday.  This is the first of two parts.

What do you like to read? Do you like to know exactly what to expect when you open a book? Or do you like to be surprised? Do you stick to favourite authors? Do you read only certain genres or do you like to try something new?

The publishing industry is based on guessing what readers like to read. I say "guessing" because I'm yet to come across any publisher who does reader market research, apart from Harlequin, Mills & Boon. Sales figures show what readers bought, but not what they enjoyed and there’s a difference between the two (as you'll know if you’ve ever been disappointed by the gap between what a much-hyped book promised to deliver and what actually lay within its pages.)

I write fiction for a living, so I have more than a passing interest in what readers like to read. Over the years, I've found myself at odds with editors over this. We've disagreed about what readers like to read and it's led to discussions of the thorny question of "genre issues", something that has dogged many an author's career, including mine.

At the beginning of this guest blog I asked what you liked to read. Let me guess… A well-constructed story about interesting, believable characters, told by a distinctive voice. (Am I close?) Would I be right in assuming you'd also like this story to be well-written? After that, I'd guess it would be a matter of genre and this is where those of us who love, buy and produce books fall into two different camps.

In one corner we have readers and authors. Readers would like to read the best book ever. Authors, coincidentally, are trying to write the best book ever. A marriage made in Heaven, you might think, as neither in this reading partnership can thrive without the other.

In the other corner we have publishers and retailers who share a common goal: to sell the largest number of copies ever. I'm sure publishers would also like to publish the best books ever, but actually their priority is volume of sales, not quality of writing. I have many emails from UK and US editors, the kind known as "rave rejections", in which editors enthuse about my writing, my characters, my original "voice", but they all end with the same regretful formula, which says, in essence, "We don't think this will sell, so we don’t wish to commission it."

My first novel, EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY was published in 2005 and over the years I've been told many times that my novels belong to no clear genre. (I plead guilty as charged.) This apparently makes them difficult to sell. But this year I proved that wasn’t actually true by selling 12,000 copies (mostly in the UK) of a Kindle e-book I published myself, HOUSE OF SILENCE. I sold that number in five months and HoS became a Kindle bestseller.

HOUSE OF SILENCE had been rejected, not just by my own publisher (they wanted straight romance), but by every other editor my agent sent it to. One UK publisher nearly bought it, but their marketing department ultimately said "No" when they discovered that my next novel, UNTYING THE KNOT was very different. My agent received a final, regretful email, explaining, "Linda writes one-offs" – a phrase which sounds the death knell for the career of any author writing commercial fiction.

At least, it used to sound the death knell, before the e-book revolution. Things are rather different now. E-books are cheap and there's a vast range to choose from (much of it dross, it has to be said.) The e-book market is driven by readers, not retailers and readers want a good story at a good price. Apart from that, they have a fairly open mind and for $0.99, some aren't too fussy about literary quality. It appears readers are also happy to step outside their usual genre comfort zone, especially when they can sample the book for free.

This new way to buy books has led to a proliferation of genres, sub-genres and a lot of creative inter-breeding, so that boundaries have become blurred, genres more complex. I haven't actually looked to see if you can find gay-dystopian-fantasy-romance on Kindle, but I expect it's there somewhere. Whatever you want to read (cougar rom-coms, gay nautical historical fiction, Roman romance with gladiators, male or female), someone will be writing it and now, thanks to indie e-books, someone is publishing it. And why not? Let books find their readers!

I knew HOUSE OF SILENCE would be tough to market, but I didn't see why it should be hard to sell. It's a country house mystery/family drama/gothic rom-com/love story. Or to put it another way: COLD COMFORT FARM meets REBECCA. What's that? You're salivating already? Your clicking finger is itchy? That's because, like me, you love those genres. You don't care if they get mixed up and if you subscribe to the "Too much is never enough" philosophy, you perhaps don’t see why they shouldn’t be mixed up.

But sadly, that's not how book-selling works. In the world of book retailing, they like to keep things simple, so you, the consumer don't get confused.

Tomorrow in the second part of this guest blog, I’ll tell you how I marketed the unmarketable and how, very soon, I plan to do it again.

House of Silence by Linda Gillard

I do love a book with a grand manor house as the backdrop of an atmospheric story.  Linda Gillard's latest novel, House of Silence, has both along with an interesting cast of quirky characters and a mysterious story that unravels at a rapid pace as each lie, secret and deception is exposed.  Gwen Rowland gets more than she bargained for when she convinces Alfie Donovan, an actor she meets during the filming of a costume drama, to take her to Creake Hall for the holidays.

"We were kindred spirits in a way.  Detached, self-centred, yet both obsessed with the past.  Our past.  The difference was, I had no family and Alfie did.  He had a family--a large one--but mostly he behaved as if he didn't, as if he wanted no part of them, however much they might want a piece of him."

An only child who grew up in an unhappy environment of hard-living relatives, Gwen has had to take care of herself for most of her life.  Her mother, aunt and then uncle each died early as the result of destructive lifestyles.  When she was only twelve Gwen woke up Christmas morning to a mother who had overdosed and carries with her painful memories.  It's natural she's drawn to Alfie, a charmer with curly blond locks and eloquent brown eyes.  It's only later she wonders whether it was Alfie's looks and easygoing personality or his situation that attracted her, as she has always dreamed of being part of a large, raucous family.

Alfie grew up in just such a household with four older sisters and a famous, though eccentric mother.  He jokes about having an alter ego, which turns out to be a fictional character well-known and well-loved by so many children for which he served as inspiration.  His mother is the author of a successful and long running series of books about a boy named Tom Dickon Harry and his many adventures.  Only the books have taken on a life of their own and overshadow Alfie's career--he's known less for his own work than for his mother's creation.  So it's with some resignation that he agrees to spend each Christmas at Creake Hall with his family, which for Alfie feels like a burden and chore, yet to Gwen sounds like a dream.  He agrees to take her to his family's celebrations but tells her it may well be the second worst Christmas she's ever had.  She has no idea just how correct he'll be.

Alfie does warn Gwen that when he's with his family he's a different person, but she's almost shocked by how much he changes when they arrive at Creake Hall, a large Elizabethan manor with extensive gardens.  He's driven by duty more than love and seems almost cold in his manner towards his sisters.  The eldest, Viv, has remained at home to take care of their mother who is in a fragile state of health.  Rae rarely leaves her room and it's obvious that her memories are somewhat garbled.  Hattie is closest in age to Alfie, sweet tempered but shy.  Gwen feels a natural affinity towards Hattie as the two share a love of needlework and textiles.  Gwen's work as wardrobe mistress and Hattie's skill with a needle mean the two have lots to talk about.

Although once at the Hall Alfie distances himself from Gwen, she discovers that she gets on well with his family.  Rae finds her to be a sharp and capable young woman and both Viv and Hattie treat her as an honored guest.  She has less success with Fan, when Alfie's two sisters who live away from home arrive.  Frances is a successful London photographer, beautiful and elegant and always the first to leave in any relationship.  Alfie has always been closest to Fan who seems to resent Gwen.  Deborah, however, a divorced school teacher, treats Gwen with as much warmth as the other two sisters. 

What begins as a promising holiday takes on a confusing hue when Gwen begins doubting Alfie is who he says he is.  She's confronted with inconsistencies between what Alfie has told her and what she sees and hears in Creake Hall.  Gwen is even more discomfited to find she is drawn to the Hall's handsome gardener, Marek, slightly older and of Scottish-Polish origin.  He is a man of few words but of surprising depth and sensitivity, and it appears he has a few secrets of his own.  When Gwen and Hattie set about working on a patchwork quilt that has been languishing unfinished for years, Gwen discovers proof of the family's deceit and begins questioning Alfie's part in it until the lies begin unraveling.

House of Silence isn't exactly a tale of suspense, and it's not exactly a romance either, though it has elements of both.  It is to some extent a family drama, though the family is quite idiosyncratic.  Part of the problem Linda has had in finding a publisher for this book (and why she chose to self-publish it) is it doesn't fit easily into one category, and certainly this does cross genres.  I found it all the more appealing for this reason.  Gwen is an entirely likable young woman who though well grounded discovers she still has ghosts of her own to exorcise.  Linda's books are consistently well written, entertaining novels and if there is a common theme it is that she doesn't shy away from writing about people who are often damaged in some way or psychologically hurting.  And she does so with grace and humor and always in a hopeful manner.  I very much enjoyed House of Silence (and would be hard pressed to choose a favorite of her books now), and should mention I loved the references to needlework (they made my own fingers itchy to pull out a needle and thread), which you don't often find in novels! 

I've previously enjoyed Linda's novels, Emotional Geology and Star Gazing, which are available (along with House of Silence) in the US through Amazon as (very economically priced) ebooks (for both Kindle and PC or other mobile devices).  You can check out her Amazon page here.  Linda's newest book Untying the Knot, has just gone on sale at Amazon (here and in the UK).  Check back tomorrow for the first of two guest posts by Linda.   

For other thoughts on House of Silence:
I Prefer Reading
Cornflower
Random Jottings
Booksplease        

August 28: Reading Notes

I was going to post about what I'm reading now, but it's been sort of a bad reading month for me so it might be more apropos to tell you what I've not been reading! Or what I wanted to read but didn't finish.  Not that I'm counting or anything, but I always have in mind a few books I'd like to read during an upcoming month, and this month I didn't manage to accomplish very much.  September is just around the corner, so I'll be optimistic that it will be a better reading month for me!  And of course I've already got in mind a number of books I want to read.

Let's see where to start.  Maybe with a finish or two.

I've just finished Linda Gillard's House of Silence, which I quite enjoyed.  Linda has successfully published this recent book in ebook format for the Kindle (she was kind enough to send me an electronic copy for review as it is unfortunately not available from B&N for the Nook).  I'll be writing about it tomorrow.  Linda will also be sharing her experiences as a genre-defying author and the challenges she has had getting published.  Do drop by on Tuesday and Wednesday, particularly if you're interested in the current state of the publishing world and what authors are up against these days.  I've had a peek at her posts (she'll be guest posting here) and it's interesting stuff.

I'm making good progress on Georgette Heyer's Bath Tangle.  It's been a fun read.  The heroine is quite independent and feisty.  The man she jilted is named the trustee of her fortune upon the death of her father.  Serena and Ivo, the Marquis of Rotherham (I don't think I've paid attention but are any of Heyer's heroes regular guys?  They always seem to be Lords or Dukes or titled in some way...) are more often than not quarreling over something, but you know there must be a spark there--if they are such good quarrellers they are probably going to be good lovers, too.  Only it's going to take a few hundred pages to sort it all out, and that's the fun of Heyer's novels.

I'm also moving along at a nice clip in Mary Stewart's My Brother Michael.  Why didn't anyone tell me it's such an entertaining, page turning read?  Oh wait, I think you did, but it always takes a while for books to squeeze themselves into the reading pile (you know how that mental queue works).  This particular story is set in Greece some years after WWII (it was published in 1959).  The story opens with Camilla Haven sitting in a cafe writing a letter to a friend lamenting how nothing ever happens to her.  This is an invitation to fate to cause some trouble.  More about this and the Heyer later.

Now on to my less successful reading attempts.  I'm reading Elsa Morante's History for Caroline's readalong.  She has already written about the book, but I am only a third of the way through.  I'm enjoying it with a few reservations (some of the same ones Caroline writes about in her post).  It's a chunkster of a book and I find that I can only read a bit at a time.  I'm at a point where I have to keep reading to find out what happens, however.  I don't seem to be able to finish anything in a timely manner lately (for readalongs that is), so I'll be writing about this one well after the discussion.  

I also didn't finish my last postal reading group book, which I had to mail on to the next reader.  I am so thankful for libraries, as my library owns a copy and I plan on finishing it as well.  I already have the next book on my pile (there are a dozen or so of us in the reading group and we each choose a book that we want everyone to read--the books move down the list, so every two months we get a new book and mail the next one on--eventually each of us will have read all the books--very fun).  I don't want to get too far behind as the books make their steady way through the list.  The next one is waiting for me and giving me beckoning looks.

And my poor short stories.  They've gone on the back burner temporarily.  I have every intention of finishing them (and have been sorry not to pick the book up of late), but there have been a few obligation-type reads demanding my attention.

Despite feeling a little adrift I am looking forward to next month and hopefully will be able to concentrate a bit more on my books.  July was too hot and August too stressful, but I have a feeling September is going to be a good reading month.  Carl should be announcing RIP VI soon and I've been thinking a little about which books I might choose to read.  The Slaves are reading The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon, the next book up for Caroline's readalong is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, and my postal book is going to be a reread.

And then a few of the books that are at the top of my TBR pile and I might well start reading very soon: The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by Elizabeth Speller, something by Agatha Christie (fall is good cozy-mystery reading time in my book), Sun Storm by Asa Larsson (have heard many good things about her new book and think it's time I tried her), and House of the Hanged by Mark Mills.  Since I see once again I'm on a steady mystery/crime/thriller diet I'll add On Canaan's Side, by Sebastian Barry to the list as a token 'serious literature' read.  I just brought it home from the library on Friday.

With such a variety of good books at my fingertips I'm bound to have a good reading month.

Lost in the Stacks: The Dark Island

Although Vita Sackville-West is very well known and likely still much read, when I passed this pretty spine on the shelf I had to pull it out and take a peek at it.  My library has a number of books by Vita and several that have this same spine design, but I thought perhaps The Dark Island would be less well known to readers.   I've yet to read Vita.  She's one of those "I mean to read" authors and I've collected several Virago editions of her work, though I think this was never a Virago title?  It was published in 1936 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.

There's one lone Amazon (five star) review by a reader who names this her "favorite romance ever" which "beautifully portrays the mind and responsibilities of a British woman in that time".  I've done a little digging and not found many other references to it.  The ever handy New York Times, however, did see fit to give it a positive review.  It sounds as though the story centers around a strong protagonist called Shirin (pronounced Sheereen) who falls in love almost as deeply with an island as with the man who inhabits it.

"It is a wonderful picture of an unusual woman that the writer has produced in this distinguished work.  There are three other people in the book whose minds and souls are dissected minutely and whose visual characteristics are splashed on the canvas of the novel in vivid and arresting colors; but Shirin is depicted, as far as any personality can be, in her essence.  To come so near to the thought that motivates a fellow-creature can only happen, in literature, when an author and subject are joined in perfect sympathy."

I'm afraid I've cut off the map that's opposite the title page, but the wild coast of savage austerity is where the Wilson family took their vacations.  How's this for an opener:

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilson too their children away every year to the same place for their summer holiday.  That habit began the trouble which ended in two persons losing their lives and in one criminal receiving  an expression of sympathy from the coroner instead of a death sentence from the judge."

It makes me want to read on, and I might just do so.  Also on hand by Vita I have The Edwardians, All Passion Spent, Family History and The Heir.  I have a feeling I might like her very much, and now I just need to squeeze one of her books into my reading pile.  Considering just what a difficult time I'm having with my reading at the moment, one of these might actually be just what I need right now.

The Reading Woman

"Old Letters and Dead Leaves" by Claude Andrew Calthrop (English, 1845-1893), Christopher Wood Gallery, London

(This also happens to be the cover illustration for one of my favorite Wilkie Collins' novels, The Law and the Lady).

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Have you ever read a book where you've felt like you were inhabiting the character's world?  A world you didn't want to leave?  I think I want to be Katey Kontent.  She's intelligent and beautiful and clever--I especially like the clever part.  She's whip-smart and articulate and always ready with an astute answer or comment in whatever situation she finds herself.  She's self-confident in a way that I never have been but wish I could be.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of Amor Towles' Rules of Civility when I first started reading.  It's a story where loads happens but at the same time not much at all, but it grew on me so much as I read that I hated to finish it.  Even more I hated giving the book back to the library.

The setting is New York in 1938 and like the gorgeous photo on the cover of the book the city shines through with elegance and sophistication.  The story revolves around Katey and her friend Eve and a man they meet on New Year's Eve.  The two will both define her world and change it.  Both women work in an office typing pool and live in a boardinghouse with strict rules and early curfews.  Theodore Gray, or Tinker as he's known, happens into the bar where the two women are nursing drinks and trying to make their cash stretch.  Tinker is handsome and exudes an air of wealth and assurance and sweeps both women off their feet.  Although they are best friends something of a rivalry erupts.

Though Tinker favors Katey just a tad bit more, a freak accident that leaves Eve scarred and injured causes Tinker to show his grief, since he was driving, in a way that will exclude Katey.  Still, Katey, who is the daughter of Russian immigrants gains entrée into a society she would not otherwise have known.  She takes it all in stride and blossoms.  She finds work at one of Condé Nast's very cosmopolitan magazines and rubs elbows with with the rich and decadent.  And she always does it with panache, yet her life isn't as perfect as it might sound.  She may move in blue-blooded circles but she is still every bit a New York girl with a working class background.  She has just the right amount of moxie to succeed and find happiness despite the obstacles set in her path.

The story is bookended by two scenes looking back on that life altering year.  Almost thirty years later Katey and her husband attend an exhibit of photographs by Walker Evans which were taken on the subway unbeknownst to the subjects.  Evans captures the sensibilities of those he photographs, and by chance Tinker is one of his subjects.  He appears in not one but two of the photos, one at the height of his career and the other showing a drastic reversal of fortune.

Amor Towles does an exceptional job of painting a portrait of Depression era New York--both the glitzy New York of the 21 Club and the more sobering New York of flophouses and dive bars.  All through the story you can hear the sounds of jazz music and martinis swishing in silver shakers.  The smart, classy prose entirely matches the story and makes this a pleasure to read.  And the literary references (from Thoreau to Hemingway to Agatha Christie!) help set the tone.

"I read a lot of Agatha Christie that fall of 1938--maybe all of them.  The Hercule Poirots, the Miss Marples.  Death on the Nile.  The Mysterious Affair at Styles.  Murders...on the Links...at the Vicarage, and...on the Orient Express.  I read them on the subway, at the deli, and in my bed alone."

"You can make what claims you will about the psychological nuance of Proust or the narrative scope of Tolstoy, but you can't argue that Mrs. Christie fails to please.  Her books are tremendously satisfying."

"Yes, they are formulaic.  But that's one of the reasons they are so satisfying.  With every character, every room, every murder weapon feeling at once newly crafted and familiar as rote (the role of the postimperialists uncle from India here being played by the spinster from South Wales, and the mismatched bookends sanding in for the jar of fox poison on the upper shelf of the gardener's shed), Mrs. Christie doles out her little surprises at the carefully calibrated pace of a nanny dispensing sweets to the children in her care."

"But I think here is another reason they please--a reason that is at least as important, if not more so--and that is that in Agatha Christie's universe everyone gets what they deserve."

Life is not quite so easy in Katey's world.  Fortunes rise and fall, characters come and go, but Katey remains true to herself.  I thought this was beautfully done.

Teaser Tuesday: Nothing Daunted

Looking back on my teaser posts I think I must jinx myself.  Almost all my recent teasers have been from books I've set aside (or not yet finished reading).  Do I dare share a teaser today, especially since it is a from a nonfiction book and I've got an even worse track record when it comes to reading (and more--finishing) anything short of a novel or mystery these days.  We'll just put it down to my year of uneven reading and leave it at that.   

I did finish reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which is technically nonfiction, though it must surely fit squarely into that 'creative nonfiction' category since it reads like a very good novel.  It's a really excellent book and gripping but I also found it quite disturbing as well--and extremely sad.  While I mull it all over (thanks to Litlove, who wrote about the book here, for giving me a gentle push to finally read the book which has sat for years on my bookshelves), I think I need something a little gentler and more optimistic to follow it up.

I very much like the sound of Dorothy Wickenden's Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West.  She writes about two friends, who in 1916 decide they'd prefer to travel west to Colorado and work as teachers rather than live the boring life of society women.  The author, who is the granddaughter of one of the women constructs her biography from the letters the women wrote home.

Since I am literally just finishing one book and picking up another I've not yet properly started reading, so my teaser is just the opening paragraph.

July 27, 1916

"A passenger train pulled into the Hayden depot at 10:45 P.M. with a piercing squeal of brakes, a long whistle, and the banging of steel shoes against couplers.  The ground shook as the train settled the tracks, releasing black plumes from the smokestack and foggy white steam from the pipes.  The Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway, popularly known as the Moffat Road, had reached Hayden just three years earlier.  Until then, Colorado's Western Slope was accessible only by stagecoach, wagon, horseback, and foot.  Despite the hulking locomotive, the train didn't look quite up to the twelve-hour journey it had just made over some of the most treacherous passes and peaks of the Rocky Mountains.  It consisted of four cars with an observation deck attached to the end.  Inside the parlor car, several passengers remained.  Hayden was the second-to-last stop on the line."

"Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, seasoned travelers in Europe but new to the American West, peered out the window into a disconcerting darkness, unsure whether it was safe to step outside."

This looks promising to me, and I hope it is a good fit or else it might go the same way as so many other books this year.

Just out of curiosity (and I might need some good nonfiction suggestions), what has been your favorite nonfiction read of the year?

Studio 69 by Liza Marklund

I'm not quite sure what I think of Liza Marklund's character Annika Bengtzon.  She is a study in contrasts and perhaps that is why, though I might occasionally shake my head in exasperation at her, I find her so interesting to read about.  I first met her when I read Marklund's Paradise.  It's something of a challenge to get your hands on this book as it is out of print and fairly scarce and expensive to buy (I borrowed a library copy via ILL).  Add to that challenge is the fact that Marklund has written Annika's story (there are a total of eight books now, though not all translated into English) out of order.  While Paradise was the first book she published, it isn't actually the first book about Annika chronologically.  Studio 69, which I quite enjoyed (again with a very few reservations) actually begins Annika's adventures as a tabloid journalist.

In Paradise I learned that Annika was the victim of domestic abuse and had been involved in the death of someone close to her.  She is a sub-editor for the newspaper Kvällspressen in Stockholm, and in Studio 69 the events that are hinted at in Paradise are finally fleshed out.  Annika is not close to her family, she and her mother especially butt heads, but she has a close relationship with her grandmother to whom she returns when life is particularly weighing her down.  She has a steady boyfriend but he's mostly absent during the story as he still lives in the small town where he and Annika grew up.  She has come to Stockholm as a temporary, rookie reporter.  She has the summer to make her mark and hopes for a permanent position or will have to return home.  Annika wants nothing more than to succeed and is fairly fearless when it comes to going after a story, but being a novice she makes mistakes which also plunge her into a welter of self-doubt.

When someone calls in with a tip that the body of a young woman has been found in a local cemetery, Annika and another, more seasoned reporter set off to investigate.  The victim often crossed through the area on her way home from work, so she was only steps away from safety.  Annika's story begins to take shape as she interviews the dead woman's neighbors, friends and former classmates.  Each offers a different reality of the woman's life, a woman who was beautiful and smart and stuck in a job as a stripper at the persuasion of her jealous boyfriend, who Annika implies is the most likely culprit.  Initially Annika does well with her first investigative piece, with multiple stories appearing in the newspaper some on the front page. 

The newspaper's top editor is impressed with Annika, calling her an alert young woman who can turn things around fast and with a completely different approach in her thinking--only she goes too far sometimes.  When a new suspect emerges, contrary to Annika's line of enquiry, things blow up in her face.  The story takes a more complicated turn as a politician high up in Sweden's government is discovered to have entertained German politicians at the strip club where the victim worked.  More damning, he apparently has rooms in the same apartment building as the woman.    

Liza Marklund was inspired by actual events in Sweden involving illegal spying not only on other governments but on Swedes who were considered security risks.  She wraps the story of a young murdered woman up nicely with a political slant (here lies one of my reservations as some of this political detail was a little over my head not being too familiar with this aspect of Swedish history).  Not only does she wrestle with the questions of domestic abuse and pornography but she also ties it in with illegal activity on the part of the Swedish government, a theme which carries over into Paradise.  As the frenzy of the press and the possible involvement of a government official threatens to boil over, Annika notes that Josefin, the dead girl, is completely forgotten in this mess of political scandal.

Liza Marklund included a very helpful and interesting author's note at the beginning of the book (I should have read it first to avoid some of my confusion) that sheds a little light on why she writes about a character who is a tabloid journalist.  My perception of tabloids is that they tend towards scandalous (and maybe not usually true) stories.  Marklund notes that until the 1980s nongovernmental broadcasting was forbidden by the Swedish government.  They had state run TV and radio and broadcast news programs "have always been strict, official, and uncontroversial.  Investigative journalism and groundbreaking news have usually been found in the tabloids."

If you are a fan of Swedish crime novels and have yet to try Liza Marklund, do look for her books.  Her stories are less mysteries (you may discover the truth in reading, but that doesn't mean the real culprit is going to be brought to justice) than suspenseful tales that shed light on social issues or the inner workings of Swedish society.  Despite the unevenness of Annika's character (I'm curious to see if and how she changes over the course of other stories), I thought this was a more tightly written story, better plotted and with a more assured voice in the storytelling.  Next up is Prime Time, which looks like it will be another book that is difficult to find! 

Maxine at Petrona has written about the character of Annika Bengtzon here.  You can also read more reviews of Studio 69 at Reactions to Reading and Yet Another Crime Fiction Blog.  Studio 69 was translated from Swedish by Kajsa von Hofsten. 

The Return of Captain John Emmett

The years surrounding World War I are fascinating to me for a variety of reasons.  Before the war, particularly in England there was a sense of being in a golden age--the Empire was at its height, it was a period of wealth and abundance.  While this is likely a false perception (depending on which class you were part of anyway), the war was so catastrophic for an entire generation it literally changed the world and helped usher in a new era of modernity.  So much happened and so much changed for so many people, I never tire of reading about the period.  There've been a spate of mysteries set in the years just after the war, and recently Elizabeth Speller has joined their ranks taking a fresh approach to the subject.  She combines not only an interesting perspective but exquisite writing and storytelling abilities making The Return of Captain John Emmett one of my favorite reads so far this year.

The story begins in November 1920 as a train pulls into a station carrying the body of an unknown soldier which will be interred in Westminster Abbey.  The body is to stand for the millions of lives lost on the battlefields of France and Belgium, but John Emmett is a soldier who didn't die in the war but years afterwards.  For the men who survived the war to return home normalcy wasn't something easily acquired, and John Emmett, already somewhat estranged from his family had a difficult time adjusting to life back in England. 

After an apparent suicide John's sister Mary asks Laurence Bartram, and old school buddy, to look into his death.  John had been recuperating in a veteran's hospital, and while seemingly on the mend he left the hospital grounds and shot himself.  Mary is hoping that Laurence will discover something about John's life that will explain what happened.  Before the war he had been living in Germany and was involved with a German woman but as soon as it became obvious war could not be avoided he enlisted.  Mary has only a photograph to give Laurence to go on and the fact that he bequeathed a number of large monetary gifts to individuals whose relationships with John are uncertain.

Laurence Bartram is himself leading a melancholy life after the war and while not exactly a natural detective (though a dogged one he will become over the course of his 'investigations'), the return of John Emmett into his life also will alter it.  The day Laurence went over the top into vicious combat was the day that his wife and child died.  He survived the war only to come home to an empty home.  Now he lives alone in rented rooms and works on a book about London churches.  As he begins asking questions he realizes the photo was taken during the war right before an officer was executed for not following orders on the battlefield.  And now he must suss out how those in the photograph are related to those who were named in John's will.

Uncovering the truth behind the photo leads Laurence on a rather circuitous route and one that becomes increasingly dangerous.  He's joined by his oldest and indefatigable friend Charles who has a deep appreciation for the novels of Mrs. Agatha Christie combined with an unerring sense of direction and a large circle of well-connected friends which makes him indispensible.  John Emmett was involved in the execution of a fellow officer, a man who had risen in the ranks, but everything went off badly.  It was a complete fiasco and John carried the burdon with him.  Was it the guilt that caused him to kill himself or was it a matter of revenge?  As more of the men in the photograph turn up dead, it seems as though the truth Mary is seeking about her brother is linked to something altogether darker and even a little sinister.

The Return of Captain John Emmett is a finely executed mystery with a true puzzle at its heart but also a story about the after effects of the war.  Both Laurence and Charles are likable characters, intelligent but not without flaws.  Laurence was especially well drawn, however.  He seemed very real and earnest in his wish to help Mary.  This is a story that simmers for a while before it comes to a rolling boil.  It's more thoughtful than edge-of-your-seat sort of stuff, but that did not in any way take away from the pleasure I had reading this story. 

I'm not in the least surprised to hear that Elizabeth Speller won the Orange New Writers Prize earlier this year and was shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award for her first mystery.  Although my copy The Return of Captain John Emmett came by way of Netgalley as an ebook, I am happy to already have The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton on my reading pile, which I do hope to pick up soon.  It has not actually been published yet in the US, but I see it is listed on Amazon for purchase.  You can check out Elizabeth Speller's website here.  And do take a look at the video I've attached to my post as she speaks about her research and the background of the book.  Fascinating stuff all!