Tour and Review : Troll by D.B. Thorne

The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to be part of the Troll by D. B. Thorne

blog tour.  With thanks to Kate at Atlantic Books (Corvus) for involving me in the tour and for an advance copy of the book.

Published by : Corvus Books

01 June 2017

Copy : Paperback provided by the publisher

The Blurb

Years ago, Fortune gave up on his daughter, Sophie, after a troubled adolescence.  Now she's gone missing, vanished without trace. And after weeks of investigation, the police have given up on her, too.

Driven by guilt, and a determination to atone for his failures as a father, he takes on the search himself. He soon finds that his daughter had been living in fear of a vicious online troll who seemed to know far too much about her. Could Sophie's disappearance be linked to this unknown predator? Fortune is about to discovers that monsters which live online don't always stay there...  

The Very Pink Notebook Review

If you want a psychological thriller of epic proportions then Troll by D. B. Thorne is a must read.

This novel starts unsettling and bit by bit gets darker and more twisted, but in a very real and also moving way.

Told in a two-fold narrative, the story is pinned together by Fortune, a 54 year old successful businessman, but failed father and husband and Sophie, Fortune's daughter who is missing, presumed dead.

It is difficult to try and review this book because I do not want to give anything away, so all I will say is the author has done an amazing job of deconstructing and reconstructing a very intricate and complicated plot in a way that will make it impossible to put down (Case in point - I read this in one day!)  It is so clever and well thought out, I would love to know, from a writers perspective, how the author went about planning and plotting for this one because I am not sure I would have known where to start.

I also said that although dark, this is a moving book.  And it really is.  It looks at the dynamics of dysfunctional families, the relationships between husband and wife, parents and children, in a deep way. 

The novel tackles several difficult themes - again I won't mention specifics because I do not want to hint or reveal anything, but just to say they are handled well, so you can feel the power of them but you are not left with a stomach turned.  Again, this is done through excellent writing by D. B. Thorne.

With it's clear and clever structure, flawless writing, strong characters and excellent use of locations this is definitely one of the best psychological thrillers I have read this year and I will certainly be making a point of picking up the other books by this author.

Troll by D. B. Thorne receives nothing less than a Very Pink Notebook rating of :

About the Author

D. B. Thorne has worked as a writer for the last 15 years, originally in advertising, then in television and radio comedy.  He has written material for many comedians, including Jimmy Carr, Alan Carr, David Mitchell and Bob Mortimer.  He was a major contributor to the BAFTA-winning Armstrong and Miller Show, and has worked on shows including Facejacker, Harry and Paul and Alan Carr : Chatty Man.  Troll is his fourth novel.

Follow the Tour

Review : Amnesia by Michael Ridpath

Published by Corvus (Atlantic Books)

04 May 2017

Copy - Paperback from Readers First

The Blurb

Alastair Cunningham wakes up in hospital with almost total amnesia. But he knows that something terrible happened in his past, something that haunts him still. A young family friend, Clémence is called in to help rekindle his memory. Retreating with Alastair to his remote cottage, Clémence finds a peculiar manuscript hidden away from prying eyes. Reading the prologue, she discovers a murder by someone very much like a young Alastair. The victim? Clémence’s grandmother, Sophie. Could this kindly old man truly be a killer? Clémence becomes determined to find out what happened all those years ago, even if she must risk everything to do so…

The Very Pink Notebook Review

This book starts in the thick of the action, immediately drawing you in and encouraging you to read on. Within the first few chapters the author establishes, very confidently and clearly, the two main characters, Clemence and Alastair who develop a clever and sometimes amusing, relationship.

Trying to regain his memory and piece together his life becomes a novel within a novel as the two read a seemingly autobiographic manuscript they find back at the cottage.  The reader is taken back to Alastair's life as a young man at University and the relationships he develops there which result in long reaching consequences.  A truly tangled web of deceit is woven involving love lost, money and murder.

At first it seems clear, the reader is being told the true story via the novel, but several elements do not quite make sense and Clemence is not convinced things are as straightforward as the book suggests, and indeed they aren't, thus you are then taken on a blind excursion of discovery to find out just what piece of vital evidence has been taken away and why and by whom...

The use of the environmental setting, dark and brooding Scotland in winter, seems to be the perfect backdrop for the tone of the novel, as in looks can be deceiving. The beauty of Scotland can draw you in but be lethal if not handled correctly. Well written and paced this novel is gripping and enticing.  I had my suspicions about half way through of what may happen at the end and although it did there was also so much I did not see coming!  I have to say, the final two pages of the novel were brilliant and I loved what the author has done - it certainly made me smile. 

I will most certainly be reading more from Michael Ridpath.

Amnesia receives a must read Very Pink Notebook Rating of :

Review - Everything You Told Me by Lucy Dawson

Published by : Corvus

5 January2017

Copy - ARC received from publisher

The Blurb

You went to bed at home, just like every other night.

You woke up in the back of a taxi, 300 miles away.

You have no memory of the last ten hours.

You have a suicide note in your coat pocket, in your own writing.

You know you weren’t planning to kill yourself.

Your family and friends think you are lying.

Someone knows exactly what happened to you.

But they’re not telling…

The Very Pink Notebook Review

Lucy Dawson has a very distinctive writing style and her new novel, Everything You Told Me, sticks to this successful formula.  Earlier this year I read, The Letter You Sent, and spent my reading time with my heart beating that little bit faster, my eyes scanning the words and paragraphs and pages quickly as I tried to get to the bottom of the complete and utter muddle the protagonist found herself in - and I did exactly the same with this novel.

The protagonist is this novel is Sally.  An exhausted mother of two to Chloe and Theo and wife to Matthew.  Sally is happy with her life but with a pre-schooler and a six month old who refuses to sleep, combined with a stressed-out-with-work husband, sometimes she finds it testing.  However, Sally refuses to believe she tried to kill herself which is where the novel starts.

We are taken on the journey directly through the eyes of Sally via a first person narrative.  Whether she is a reliable narrator or not, is for the reader to decide themselves, but I decided she was, because although everything could been seen as very clear and straight-forward I did believe her version of events and her justifications for certain things.  Again, like the previous novel of Dawson's, events happen over a fairly short timescale and so are quite intense and although there is not a lot of action as such - Sally is just trying to make and keep everything 'normal' for the sake of the children - our protagonist is forced to try and investigate matters herself when no one seems to want to listen to a word she says.

Sally is surrounded by 'helpful' family members, all saying they want the best for her.  Who does really want this is anybody's guess as they all seem to have their own agenda.  Sally finds herself in a complete muddle, as does the reader, and ends up questioning everyone, including herself.  Sometimes I wished more information would come to light sooner, I found a few chapters a little repetitive but, having said that, they were quite helpful in reiterating / clarifying what had happened so far.

I did work out part of the ending fairly early on, but by all means not the entirety and depth of it.  I liked the character of Sally and Matthew, particularly given their stressful and quite common lifestyle, some of the other characters I found a little unrealistic but not so much to the point that it spoiled the book for me. 

If you like a muddling, nail-biter then you will enjoy this latest offering from Lucy Dawson.

The Very Pink Notebook gives Everything You Told Me :

Review : Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Published by : Atlantic Books

1 January 2013

Copy : Paperback - Reviewer purchase

The Blurb

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

The Very Pink Notebook Review

I didn't really know anything about this book until a trailer for the film caught my eye.  As per my usual rule, I will not watch the film until I have read the book and for this one in particular I am glad I stuck to it.

Wild, is a poignant, gritty and ultimately uplifting memoir from American, Cheryl Strayed.  The book has been written by Cheryl herself with the aid of her notes from the hike and the memories to which she holds dear.  I loved this book, it is a real warts and all account.  She does not try and hide the complete and utter devastation she suffered or caused.  She in no way tries to glamourise or legitimise anything that was done to her or she did to others and this made me have a lot of respect for this author. 

The book, I felt, has been written with real clarity from a hindsight perspective, which for the sake of the memoir is a good thing.  She has picked out and sewn together a brilliant, flowing and logical account of what happened, both within her life prior to, and on the actual months of hiking the PCT.

I relished meeting the colourful (and not so colourful) characters on her journey, the vivid (but not boring) descriptions of her landscapes and the equally amazing and dire conditions she found herself experiencing on this, her journey of a life time.  Often I found myself desperate to read on just to know she made it to her next postal point so she could collect her next box of supplies.

This is a book about not quitting.  About not listening to those who think you can't do something.  It's about the amazing things our bodies and minds can be pushed to do, when we think it would never be possible in a million years.  Would I want to do the things Cheryl did in order to get to this point in her life where she needed such clarity?  Never.  But will I ever think I can't do that again?  Not so much.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed receives a Very Pink Notebook ...

 

Review : If I Forget You by T.C.Greene

Published by : Corvus - Atlantic Books Ltd

01 September 2016

Copy - Paperback - Received from Atlantic Books in exchange for honest review

The Blurb

When Margot and Henry meet, they fall deeply in love.  And then they lose each other.

But Henry can't forget Margot and Margot is haunted by her memories of Henry. They live in each other's minds.

Twenty-one years later, they meet, by chance, on a Manhattan street. And that's where their story truly begins...

If I Forget You is a beautiful exploration of what it means to find the person you are destined to be with, but then spend a lifetime apart

The Very Pink Notebook Review

When any book lands on my doorstep and has the beautiful New York skyline on its cover I am always going to be excited to read it.  If I Forget You did not disappoint me.  A story centred solely on the love story of Margot and Henry, it was gentle but not kitsch. 

T. C. Greene has written in present tense, which puts the reader really up close and personal with the two characters and as I read further along I became more and more involved with them, entangled in their rush of emotions.  The story starts in the present day, when a chance encounter between the two stirs up so much emotion in them it just can not be left.  We are then given chapters, interchanging between past and present, from both points of view - which I liked very much - and we discover the delicious history the two have together.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the plot.  As I read I thought the book was just going to tell of the love story, a pattern of longing and circumstance, so was quite pleased with the twist in the tale at the end.

I have to say, I loved Henry, but did not care so much for Margot, but I think this is what made it a captivating love story rather than a cringe-worthy one.  I liked that they were flawed characters and the realism that sometimes 'real life' does get in the way of love. 

Beautiful prose paired with exceptional and vivid imagery of New York I thoroughly enjoyed getting embroiled in the world of Henry and Margot, and their love story.

If I Forget You receives a hearty :

With much thanks to Alison at Atlantic Books for a review copy of this book

Review - What a Way To Go by Julia Forster

Published : Atlantic Books

7 January 2015

Copy : Paperback - Received signed copy from author

The Blurb

1988.

Twelve - year - old Harper Richardson's parents are divorced.  Her mum got custody of her, the mini and five hundred tins of baked beans.  Her dad got a mouldering cottage in a midlands backwater village and default membership of The Lone Rangers single parents' club.  Harper got questionable dress sense, a zest for life, two gerbils, her Chambers dictionary - and the responsibility of fixing her parents broken hearts...

Set against a backdrop of high hairdos and higher interest rates, pop music, puberty, divorce and decrepitude, What a Way To Go is a warm, wise and witty tale of one girl tackling the business of growing up while those around her try not to fall apart.

The Very Pink Notebook Review

I didn't know what to expect from this book, but I was looking forward to reading it and taking a little break from psychological thrillers.  I wasn't to be disappointed, I found it to be a gentle, beautifully written story, with really likable and funny characters.

 

The reader is told the story through the eyes of the eyes of twelve-year-old Harper, who I adored.  Julia has managed to bring to life a real character here - capturing perfectly a 1980's 'nearly' teenager.  There was no cartoon-like mannerisms to her, everything Harper says and does I could really relate to someone of her age thinking and believing.  Her personal little asides made me laugh out loud, quite literally, probably more so because I would have been about her age when the novel is set, 1988, so many of the things she mentions, longs for, does I was mentioning, longing for or doing. 

I loved how 'ordinary' the other characters were and what they were doing too.  The story covers normal, everyday life, very realistic (ok - so maybe I personally have never known anyone to buy their coffin, put shelves in and use it as a book case until they need it - but, that isn't to say it doesn't happen!) and all of it a nostalgic nod to the grand old 1980's when chain smoking indoors was quite accepted, booze runs to France were the highlight of the year and shell suits were cool, although ridiculously flammable.

Although there are no big showdowns, explosions or highly gripping cliff-hangers, what this book is full of is emotion.  Harper is highly sensitive to the feelings of everyone around her and goes to great lengths to protect others, from her parents to the elderly neighbour in the village. This is mostly done quite humorously, after all a lot of people cope with stress this way, but the plot is piqued with one or two sad and serious issues and as much as I did laugh with this book I did also shed a tear (or two hundred) towards the end and that was when I knew how involved with the book and its characters I was. 

I can only imagine this book was a real joy for Julia Forster to write and I hope, one day, we might see how Harper is doing as a grown up...

I give this book a thoroughly well deserved

and highly recommend everyone spends time in the company of Harper and her, slightly mad, family.

 

 



Guest Post : My Typical Writing Day by Catherine Ryan Howard author of Distress Signals

Distress Signals author Catherine Ryan Howard shares a tongue-in-cheek guest post with The Very Pink Notebook into her writing day...

 

 

MY TYPICAL WRITING DAY

A Guest Post by Catherine Ryan Howard

23:00(ish)    My writing day typically begins the night before, when I get notions about being super organised and doing all those 263 Things Successful People Do Before They Even Wake Up malarkey. I organise my desk, open my WIP on my computer and set the coffee machine to start brewing just in time to have my first cup of coffee at six o’clock the following morning. The smell, noise and promise of caffeine will get me out bed. No, it totally will.

Next day

06:00    Alarm goes off.

06:01    Turn off alarm. Fall back asleep.

07:15    Wake up again.

07:16    Fall back asleep.

08:45    Wake up for real. Ugh, I’ve slept in! AND wasted a bucket of coffee. No point rushing now, I suppose. Find phone. Quick check on Twitter before I get out of bed...

10:30    *buzzer goes* Crap. That’s the postman with the huge amount of superfluous stationery I ordered online a few days ago when I was procrastinating by shopping online. *mad scramble to put on Outside Clothes* Well, at least I’m up now.

10:35    Obligatory playing with stationery.

11:10    Okay, enough messing about. You’ve LOADS to do. Time to get down to work. But first, coffee.

11:25    Finally sit down at desk. But who starts work at twenty-five minutes pass the hour? Only a crazy person! I’ll start at noon. Until then, I’ll just do a quick round of email-Twitter-blog comments-Facebook-Instagram...

12:45    Well, that’s lunch. Practically. May as well watch a couple of Friends episodes while I’m eating.

14:00    Okay, seriously. SERIOUSLY. Work now. Open WIP. Where did I leave off yesterday? There? Are you sure? Better go back to the start, 30,000 words ago, and read it again from the beginning, just to be REALLY sure.

14:30    Hmm… Am I using that big word right? I’ll just quickly check the definition. And now, since I’m online, I may as well just check Twitter...

15:10    Tom Hiddleston is rumoured to be going out with WHO?!

15:15    Tom Hiddleston was in that movie? Really? I don’t remember him at all. Maybe there’s a clip on YouTube..

15:25    Ted Talks and more coffee.

15:45    Back to reading what I wrote so far.

17:45    Finish reading what I wrote so far. Discover I’d left off exactly where I thought I did. There really was no reason to go back and read the whole thing... Now it’s almost Friends re-run o’clock (again), and then I’ve to make dinner, and then Master Chef will be on so... Oh well. Tomorrow’s another day.

23:00(ish)    Tomorrow I’m going to get up early, ignore social media and write 10,000 words. Yes I am yes I am yes I am. Organise my desk, open the Word document that my current WIP is in on my computer and set the coffee machine to start brewing just in time to have my first cup of coffee at six o’clock...

 

 

I think a lot of aspiring writers will be thrilled to read they are not alone in procrastinating!  Also, I must invest in a coffee maker I can programme to start itself in the mornings!  Thank you Catherine for guest posting with The Very Pink Notebook and congratulations on a fantastic novel. 

 

 

 

ABOUT DISTRESS SIGNALS:

 

Standalone crime/thriller

 

Published May 5 by Corvus/Atlantic in Ireland and the UK, June 2 in Australia and New Zealand. Details of North American publication later in 2016 coming soon.

 

Did she leave, or was she taken?

 

The day Adam Dunne's girlfriend, Sarah, fails to return from a Barcelona business trip, his perfect life begins to fall apart. Days later, the arrival of her passport and a note that reads 'I'm sorry - S' sets off real alarm bells. He vows to do whatever it takes to find her.

 

Adam is puzzled when he connects Sarah to a cruise ship called the Celebrate - and to a woman, Estelle, who disappeared from the same ship in eerily similar circumstances almost exactly a year before. To get the answers, Adam must confront some difficult truths about his relationship with Sarah. He must do things of which he never thought himself capable. And he must try to outwit a predator who seems to have found the perfect hunting ground...

 

Advance praise:

 

“Pacey, suspenseful and intriguing … [A] top class, page turning read. Catherine Ryan Howard is an astonishing new voice in thriller writing.” — Liz Nugent, author of 2014 IBA Crime Novel of the Year Unravelling Oliver

 

“An exhilarating debut thriller from a hugely talented author. Distress Signals is fast-paced, twisty and an absolute joy to read.” — Mark Edwards, #1 bestselling author of The Magpies and Follow You Home

 

Read a preview of the first three chapters here:

 

https://catherineryanhoward.com/access-your-exclusive-preview/

 

Amazon.co.uk link:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Distress-Signals-Incredibly-Gripping-Psychological/dp/1782398384

 

ABOUT CATHERINE:

 

Catherine Ryan Howard was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1982. Prior to writing full-time, Catherine worked as a campsite courier in France and a front desk agent in Walt Disney World, Florida, and most recently was a social media marketer for a major publisher. She is currently studying for a BA in English at Trinity College Dublin.

 

http://www.DistressSignalsBook.com

 

http://www.CatherineRyanHoward.com

 

Twitter: @cathryanhoward

Instagram: @cathryanhoward

Facebook: facebook.com/catherineryanhoward

 

 

 

 

Review : Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard

Published by : Atlantic Books / Corvus

5 May 2016

Copy : Received from publisher for honest review

 

DID SHE LEAVE OR WAS SHE TAKEN?

 

The Blurb

 

The day Adam Dunne's girlfriend, Sarah, fails to return from a Barcelona business trip, his perfect life begins to fall apart.  Days later, the arrival of her passport and a note that reads 'I'm sorry - S' sets off real alarm bells.  He vows to do whatever it takes to find her.

 

Adam is puzzled when he connects Sarah to a cruise ship called the Celebrate - and to a women, Estelle, who disappeared from the same ship in eerily similar circumstances almost exactly a year before.  To get the answers, Adam must confront some difficult truths about his relationship with Sarah.  He must do things of which he never thought capable.  And he must try to outwit a predator who seems to have found the perfect hunting ground...

 

The Very Pink Notebook Review

 

Catherine Ryan Howard has produced a brilliant, clever and gripping psychological thriller in Distress Signals with a high body count, wealth of unreliable characters and clever use of maritime law to muddy the investigative process to such a level I am pretty sure I will never be boarding a cruise ship in my lifetime. 

 

Hooked from the very first page, where our narrator, Adam, is plunged into the dark depths of the sea I found myself needing to continue to read and discover.  I loved the way this novel was written, mostly in the first person voice of Adam, the long term boyfriend of the missing Sarah but punctuated with the third person narrative, almost as a completely separate story, of both Corrine and Romain.  I knew the three would eventually come together but until they did I could only guess as to how.  All three viewpoints were intriguing and at times heart-wrenching - particularly those of Romain and Corrine.

 

Although there are quite a lot of characters within the story it never got confusing, and they all had a hint of the unreliable in them so I was never quite sure who I should be trusting - is Rose really 'telling all' given she is Sarah's best friend and not Adam's, or does Adam's best friend Moorsey have an ulterior motive given he has recently started dating Rose and everyone says how alike she is to Sarah?  Then of course there is the mysterious Ethan and the staff at the cruise company who are clearly lying... let's just say my detective skills were sent in all sorts of directions and I didn't work out what the end result was going to be which made the finale all the better.

 

Beautifully paced and with a fascinating suggestion of the darker underworld of the cruise industry, Distress Signals is a compelling read that not only looks at the 'who done it' but also the 'why'.

 

A must read and therefore I give it ...

 

Tomorrow - Distress Signals author Catherine Ryan Howard shares a guest post with The Very Pink Notebook.

  

 

 

Review : The Truth About Julia by Anna Schaffner

Had Julia been seduced and corrupted by someone?

Was she simply evil?  Had her character been spoiled

and damaged by bad parenting?  Or was there a cold,

perhaps even sociopathic streak in her personality?

 

Published by : Allen & Unwin (Atlantic Books)

7 April 2016

Copy : Paperback - Received from Publisher

 

The Blurb

In June 2014, Julia White - a beautiful and intelligent young woman - blows up a coffee shop in central London, killing twenty-four people before turning herself in to the police. Apart from publishing a potentially ironic manifesto, she refuses to explain the reasons for her actions.

Clare Hardenberg, an investigative journalist, has been commissioned to write a biography of Julia but at the start of the novel she is on her way to prison herself. What has brought her to this point?

The Very Pink Notebook Review

 

This is a stunning debut novel by author Anna Schaffner.  I received an early copy of this book, along with a press release from the publisher.  After reading just the PR I could not wait to get started and I was not to be disappointed.

 

Throughout this book, we are taken on a journey with investigative journalist, Clare Hardenberg.  In actual fact we are taken on two, her own personal one and that which the title suggests, her search for The Truth About Julia, the young women who has committed a devastating act of terror.

 

Clare narrates the story by way of manuscript to her colleague (and ex-lover) George.  We discover she is writing it, at first, from a hospital mental ward, where she has been admitted prior to her transfer to prison.  Two huge plots then merge, gracefully into one tell-all story.  

 

It works brilliantly well.  The point of Clare writing the manuscript is to try and order everything in her own mind.  It lays the plot out, fully and simply, so George, her sister Amanda and niece Laura, can try to understand what brought her to the point in her life that made her commit a crime that has lead to her incarceration - she wants to provide the evidence so they can at least come up with their own version of the truth, because, as Clare eloquently points out : there are only ever versions of the truth.  And this is just one of the many things about the book the author does so well.  

 

From the outset I loved the way this novel was written, it is highbrow, intellectual (because the characters are all from such backgrounds) but not in a way that was hard work.  Anna Schaffner uses a myriad of rich language but not once did I find it overbearing or superfluous to the plot, never once did I find long words for the sake of long words, or the political / ethical / moral issues debated within the dialogue boring.  It moves along at a great pace and with such fluidity I found myself half way through the book in the first sitting.

 

Anna Schaffner has created characters who seem very real, I strangely felt like I knew each one better than I did - I got the feeling the author had spent a lot of time with them, thinking about each individual life, their history, their unique and personal viewpoint and Schaffner certainly managed to get that across, however small their part.  There are a lot of complex, sensitive issues and topics the plot covers and they were all done so with confidence and ownership.

 

I thought book on the whole was really quite unique and I thoroughly enjoyed what could have been an uncomfortable and gruelling read, but instead what insightful and thought-provoking.

 

I look forward to more from Anna Schaffner in the future.

 

I highly recommend this book and as such give it :

 

 

 I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

 



Q & A with Anna Schaffner - Author of The Truth About Julia (published 7 April 2016)

Anna, thank you so much for answering some questions for my blog about your amazing upcoming debut novel - The Truth About Julia (published by Allen & Unwin – 07 April 2016).

Q : Firstly, could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself and what enticed you into writing a novel, is it something you always wanted to do?

I had wanted to become a writer ever since I was a teenager, but then I got sidetracked and became an academic instead. I often came up with plots for novels, but kept hesitating, and never put any of it to paper. Now that I look back on it, it’s clear that there was a part of me that must have known when the time would be right for me to sit down and write. It was only in my early thirties. A few years ago, I wrote a novel about a female artist – a painter – who lived through many of the most extraordinary events of the twentieth century, but when it was finished I decided to put it to one side. Quite soon after that I had the idea for The Truth about Julia and, when I was about half way through it, I enrolled on a Faber and Faber writing course. This course was enormously helpful, as I received wonderful feedback on my early drafts.

Q : You work at the University of Kent as a Reader in Comparative Literature, how did you find the time to write a novel – can you give us a ‘typical’ writing day?

I generally write for about two to three hours in a day, and I try to write every day. I am at my best in the mornings, and try whenever possible to write from 9am to about 12, as these are my most alert and creative hours. But the recent arrival of my 10-month old daughter has complicated this a bit further. During the day, when I teach and deal with admin and other university things, my characters stay with me and develop further in my mind. I often write little ideas in a notebook that is always in my handbag.

I also write non-fiction, and enjoy switching between creative and academic writing, which are entirely different beasts but feed into one another in unexpected ways. When I am stuck with one project, I can always turn to the other, until the blockage dissolves. While I wrote The Truth about Julia, I was also working on a cultural history of exhaustion. The strong sense of political and spiritual exhaustion that Clare feels, and her anxiety that all her life’s work has been in vain, are definitely indebted to my other work.

Q : How did ‘The Truth About Julia’ develop as an idea into a novel? The subject matter of The Truth About Julia is very prevalent in current society, did you find it a sensitive or tricky subject to research and write about?

Ours is the age of terrorism. A few years ago, I found myself intrigued by the ways in which commentators tried to explain the growing number of Western youths joining ISIS, and why it is that people from educated and seemingly stable homes can become radicalized to such an extent that they end up committing terrorist atrocities. I felt that the various explanations for political radicalization ultimately remain limited and unsatisfactory. Political disenchantment, bad parenting, cultural alienation and socio-pathological tendencies, as well as ‘corruptor’ figures praying on the vulnerable – these only ever illuminate aspects of what is a highly complex problem.

ISIS and the premises of radical Islam, however, are so utterly alien and unacceptable to Westerners that I wanted to explore these questions in a way that makes them more relatable. Julia White, the terrorist in my novel, does the wrong thing for (potentially) the right reasons. She crosses a line, and drags someone down with her who has become dangerously disenchanted with the conventional ways of bringing about political change. Clare Hardenberg, who narrates Julia’s story and interviews her friends and family members, is an investigative journalist who feels increasingly angry and frustrated that her writing has not led to political change. As a writer and an academic, I, too, often worry about whether any of what my colleagues and I are doing is meaningful and impactful even in small ways, and I fear that it may not be.

I grew up in Germany, and vividly remember ‘Wanted’ posters pasted all across my hometown when I was a child. These posters displayed the photographs of a number of intimidating-looking female terrorists associated with the left-wing Baader-Meinhof gang. The figure of the female terrorist – women who kill for their political beliefs – has fascinated me ever since.

Finally, I also teach and write on modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka and William Faulkner. I have always liked the wider implications of multi-perspectival narratives, the idea that there is never just one definitive ‘truth’ out there but only different ways of seeing the world.

Q : You recently completed a Faber Academy writing course, do you feel the course helped The Truth About Julia become a reality?

Absolutely! It was extremely motivational. We were taught by a fantastic editor at Faber and Faber and a literary agent, and benefited enormously from our tutors’ insider knowledge. Although I have been working on literature all my professional life, the course introduced me to a completely different aspect of the literary world. I felt a bit like a restaurant critic who for the first time ever tries to cook a meal herself, and realizes just how difficult and complex that is.

Q : What will you be doing on publication day (07 April 2016) to celebrate?

Have champagne and go to the seaside!

Again, thank you Anna for taking the time to share your thoughts with The Very Pink Notebook and congratulations on a fantastic, different and thought – provoking novel.