Kate Furnivall, Author

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T06:43:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. Come on, let's make 2012 a good one, despite all the doom and gloom spilling like black treacle out of the media.

Here are my 10 New Year resolutions for 2012: I, Kate Furnivall, resolve to:-

1. Endeavour (yet again) to eat less chocolate, to take myself off to the gym with greater alacrity and to clip my cat's claws more often before she turns my stair-carpet into shagpile.

2. Regard my computer as my friend, rather than my taskmaster.

3. Get scenes down on paper immediately, instead of concocting them in great detail in my head and then finding that they have drifted away while I trotted off in search of that essential cup of coffee or just made a quick phonecall.

4. Make lists. And lists of lists, if necessary. That way my desk might stay tidy.

5. View each difficulty that trundles across my path as a challenge that will stretch me, make me stronger and give me a chance to open new doors.

6. Meet my publisher's deadline.

7. Meet my publisher's deadline.

8. Meet my publisher's blasted deadline.

9. Lunch less. Quaffing merlot with author-pals does not count as research.

10. Writing is huge fun. Remember to enjoy it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ps. Nothing I do will persuade this blog font to match previous entries, sorry about that. I have wrestled it to the ground and still lost. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that preparations are in place for my new all-singing website and this one is sulking!

Festive Frivolity

2011-12-20T02:41:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again - when everything is rushing like crazy and there is so much to do and so little time. I find myself juggling chestnuts and Christmas trees and emails, mince-pies and plotlines, while still trying to get that vital scene down on paper, as well as a belated letter to Aunty Betty in Australia.

But today will be my last day of work, (I can feel my brain muscles dancing with glee!), so tomorrow I can launch myself with a clear conscience into final wrapping and cooking preparations for the arrival of two sons, two daughters-in-law and four cats.

By the way, in the new year Little Brown is setting up an exciting new website for me - the same domain: katefurnivall.com, but there will be changes to the blog. So be prepared. I will let you know more early in January 2012, and post more info on my new book, THE WHITE PEARL, which will be published in UK on 16 Feb and in US on 6 March. .

But right now I want to take a few quiet moments to thank you for your support throughout 2011 and for the comments on my blog which I always read with relish. I wish you all a happy festive season and the very best for the new year. Have fun!

Export Publication of THE WHITE PEARL

2011-12-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

Today is special. The export edition of The White Pearl is published in countries worldwide, so I shall soon hear initial reactions and reviews. Always a nervy time. But I was thrilled to hear that in Australia they are doing an interesting offer:- Buy a copy of The White Pearl from any Whitcoulls store and enter a draw to win a Pearl Set from Pascoes Jewellers. Now that's what I call a promotion worth having!

Inspiration in the Desert

2011-11-30T12:19:00.000-08:00

I'm just back from a research trip to Egypt. It was an amazing experience. However many times I had studied pictures of it in books or on TV, nothing prepared me for the impact of stepping into my first ancient Egyptian tomb of a Pharaoh.

It is utterly breathtaking. The artistry, the exquisite beauty of the carvings, the mystery and the sense of timelessness are overwhelming.

Because of the political turmoil in the country at the moment, there are barely any tourists there, so I was privileged to see the great sights of Egypt without jostling crowds or impatient queues in the hot sun. Hatshepsut's temple, Tutankhamun's tomb, Saqqara and Karnak, the glorious antiquities inside the Cairo and Luxor museums, all lie quietly undisturbed by chatter or clicking cameras.

But what turned out to be good fortune for me is of course causing Egypt's economic downfall, as they badly need tourists to return with their dollars and euros. The Egyptian people are warm and welcoming, and I experienced no difficulties of any kind, despite being in Cairo during the protests in Tahrir Square. And I ended the trip with a real highlight - a hot-air balloon flight at dawn over the desert and its treasures. Now I can write my new book with the amazing inspiration and energy I drew from those ancient tombs.

THE WHITE PEARL

2011-10-20T04:31:00.000-07:00

The summer months flew by in a blur of broken knee, followed by trips to Italy (stunning scenery) and Germany (wonderful wedding), but now I am deep into research for another book - which I am loving. An inside peek for you - it will be set in Egypt.

But that's for the future. The big news at the moment is that my next book, THE WHITE PEARL, will be published in December in large format, and in usual paperback size in February 2012 in the UK and in March 2012 in the US. I am thrilled with the cover which says it all - the sweltering heat of Malaya, a young woman caught up in the danger of enemy airplanes and the passion of a love affair that changes the course of her life forever.

To explore Malaya (yes, I know it's Malaysia now but in 1941 when the book is set, it was called Malaya) was an exciting change after my last three books in Russia. I loved the challenge of learning to understand somewhere completely new to me, a different culture, a different world. I chose Malaya and I chose 1941 because it was a time when this astonishingly beautiful country was poised on the brink of catastrophe and when internal conflicts were preparing to tear the country apart as it tried to throw off the heavy yoke of colonialism.

So what's the story about?

Connie Hadley is my heroine. Warm and passionate but flawed. As the glamorous wife of a plantation owner, her life appears pampered and comfortable. But she is hiding a devastating secret that could destroy her marriage. Her world is blown apart on the day of the infamous attack on Pearl Harbour, when the Japanese army also invades Malaya. Connie takes the decision to flee on the family's yacht, The White Pearl, so she sails with her husband and son and a handful of friends in search of safety. But on the yacht, in constant danger, fear strips away good manners and anger causes divisions until .....

Enough, enough! I won't tell more. Don't want to let spoilers slip out.

This is always a difficult time for an author. The new book hangs in limbo, the writing finished, copyediting done, cover and blurb decided on by the publisher - just waiting for launch day. It's a nervy time. Early pre-publication copies have gone out to reviewers. Which magazines and newspapers will pick it up for review or even an article? And my head is still half in Malaya with Connie, but at the same time I am rummaging around with Howard Carter in Tutankhamun's tomb for the next book.

I try to be patient but I am itching to see THE WHITE PEARL on the bookshelves. Not long now.

On TWO shortlists!

2011-02-12T03:16:00.000-08:00

What a super jamboree the RNA can throw! Champagne at 10 o'clock in the morning in the simply stunning setting of the RAF Club in Piccadilly, London, to announce the RNA Awards shortlist. And what better historical venue in which to be selected for the shortlist for the Best Historical Novel of the Year, as well as for the Best Romantic Novel of the Year.

The Jewel of St Petersburg is flashing its scarlet skirts in celebration.

What I love about meeting other writers is their boundless enthusiasm for their books, like mothers with precocious offspring, which meant the party in the President's Room buzzed with energy. When you get a host of writers, publishers, agents and media together - as well as trayfuls of champagne flutes - you get so much fizz your ears start popping. I think writers just don't get out enough!

I am impressed by the competition that Jewel has to face, a formidable line-up of talent, but I was particularly drawn to a book that for me stood out from the rest - titled Amazir and set in Morocco. It enchanted me. Okay, I admit it might be the gorgeous author, Tom Gamble, who did a bit of the enchanting, but I promise you he's one to watch.

Lunch with my agent afterwards at the V&A gave the celebration even more zip, though the subject of what my Next Book will be about raised its querulous head! But the day belonged to The Jewel of St Petersburg and we raised glasses to wish it success on March 7th when the winners will be announced.

Highlights & Lowlights

2011-01-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

The highlight of this week has been the arrival in my son's home of Mishka (see above). She is a 13-week tabby-point Siamese kitten, but as her favourite game is 'fetch' with a fluffy ball and her preferred pastime is hurling herself up and down stairs while barking at full volume, I sense there is some confusion in that triangular little head of hers as to whether she is a cat or a dog!

The highlight of this month - and a great start to 2011 - is that The Jewel of St Petersburg has been longlisted for the RNA's Historical Novel of the Year Award, as well as its prestigious Romantic Novel of the Year Award. The shortlist will be announced in the splendour of the RAF Club in Piccadilly, London on Feb 10th. So watch this space.

And the lowlights? Still struggling with the end of The White Pearl. Endings are tough. I have some theories about this but will save them for a later post, as when I get started on discussing the pitfalls that lie in wait for a writer there is a distinct danger that there is no off-button!

I was recently asked by one delightful but misguided reader if I would offer him some thoughts and insights about writing. No reader should invite an author to hold forth about their thoughts and insights unless they are prepared to sit up all night listening! Writers are consumed by their characters and their stories - it's the only way they can ever get to the end of a book - and though writers try to look and act like normal people, their heads are seething with another life and another place. They sit smiling at you and nodding in the right places but don't be fooled! They learn to be cunning, so that you do not guess that their minds are far away, battling with the blank page that awaits them like a nemesis from their subconscious.

Maybe I'll get to the end of my current book faster if I learn from the kitten. Whatever lurks in the underworld of my mind needs to get out - even if it comes out as strange barks.

New Year

2011-01-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. It's that time again - an opportunity to get out the new broom, to make a fresh start, another chance to do everything better this time around. As optimism is my default mode, I number myself among that absurdly hopeful band who make new year resolutions and one of them this year is to give more time to my blog.

The problem is that Work and Life have a nasty habit of getting in the way. Towards the end of 2010 Life got in the way big time, disrupting my schedules, so that instead of finishing The White Pearl by Christmas, I have yet again missed my deadline. Which makes me so cross I kick the cat. But now that Life is taking a backseat once more, I am up and running towards the finish of the book.

My publishers at Little,Brown UK and Berkley US have been angels, shifting publication and production dates to accommodate the delay in delivery. Nevertheless I still feel a heel about it. This throws up the temptation to take shortcuts, to reduce the number of scenes, to make them shorter, get to the point faster. Of course this kind of self-editing is no bad thing. It produces a better, pacier book. Altogether more focused. I advise all would-be novelists to practise writing a scene to a time limit because it's amazing what pressure can produce. A different part of the brain kicks in.

Finding the right balance is the difficult part, between thinking time and writing time, but my heroine, Connie, is giving me a quick rap on the knuckles. She's impatient to strut her stuff through Malaya and get out there on the bookshelves for all to see.

My other new year resolution? Not to be a slave to my characters who stomp around my head as if they own the place. I'm threatening them with a new broom!

Publication Day

2010-11-11T00:56:00.001-08:00

The Jewel of St Petersburg - today is publication day in the UK. A day of excitement and jangling nerves. A day for cruising the bookshops. Interviews, book-signing, photographs, talks - it's all part of the process of launching a new book. And my publisher, Little, Brown/Sphere, does it with style.

After a solid year of hard work - to be honest, in this case more than a year because I ran wickedly over deadline - it gives me a huge sense of satisfaction to see the book out there on the shelves in all its Russian glory. (On the cover, that's the white marble Jordan staircase from inside the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.)

I have an urge to hug it and pet it when I see its swathe of red on the display tables. But at the same time publication also brings a sense of closure. I can put it behind me and move on - which feels a bit like betrayal, abandoning one child and taking off with another.

I have been asked which of my books I like best and I know my answer will always be the same:- whichever one I'm writing at the moment. I fall in love with my characters and can't imagine my life without them - until the next lot come along. Such is the fickle nature of an author.

But it is also why I enjoyed writing a sequel to The Russian Concubine so much and now this prequel set in the glamorous tsarist times. It meant I could prolong my relationship with Valentina and Lydia and explore what it was that made them the people they became in the later books, as well as indulging once more my passion for Russia.

A flash of red dress and a flick of a page carry me straight back into that turbulent world, so that I have to struggle to detach my mind and immerse myself in the next book which is set in the tumult of Malaya 1941. But I have secret plans to return to Russia - at least one final time. Just don't tell my publisher yet!

Why a Prequel?

2010-08-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

This is the question I am asked by readers: if you intended to write a trilogy about the Ivanov family, why not write them in the correct historical order? Why write the first part of the story last?

A simple answer: when I sat down to write my first book, The Russian Concubine, I had no plans to make it a trilogy. You have to understand that the convoluted processes that go on in an author's brain are mystifying even to an author! I had no idea when I wrote it that Lydia Ivanova would come to play such a large part in my life or that I would fall in love with her beautiful damaged mother, Valentina.

So when I finished the second book - The Concubine's Secret(UK)/The Girl From Junchow(US) which follows Lydia's search for her father - two things kept elbowing out all others in my mind.

1) Firstly, how did Valentina Ivanova become the woman she did? What happened? What gave this private, secretive pianist such strength and yet such crippling weakness?

2) Secondly, what was Russia like to live in before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution? I had shown Russia during its grim repressive regime under Stalin's communism and now I wanted to show the other side of Russia. The glamorous side. The world of the Russian Court, the most extravagant and decadent in all Europe, with the final days of glory of Nicholas II, Emperor and Tsar of all the Russias.

It sounds a straightforward task, doesn't it? No such luck. I quickly discovered there are even more pitfalls in writing a prequel than in writing a sequel.

Throw-away references to the past in the other two books plagued me and had to be shoe-horned into the new one - which meant two characters both called Nikolai (argh!) and Valentina aged 15 years old when she first met Jens, not 17, as I needed her to be in Jewel (aargh!). Constantly I was tripped up. Harder still was planting in my portrayal of Valentina the seeds of the person she was to become.

Nevertheless I loved writing The Jewel of St Petersburg and exploring Valentina's world, displaying the magnificence of Russia as well as its suffering. Giving a glimpse of how the two are twined inexorably together. So now I shall sit back and keep a sharp eye on Valentina as she flashes her red skirts in the bookstores.

JEWEL's Publication Day

2010-08-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

It's here at last - The Jewel Of St Petersburg. My latest book's Publication Day in the US.

I wake with the soles of my feet tingling and my pulse beating too fast. It's a great feeling after a year's hard work, not just by me but by my whole team at Berkley - my editor Jackie Cantor, as well as those in Production, PR, Sales and Marketing. Thanks guys. I want to say a particularly big thank you to Berkley's design department who have done a fabulous job on the cover. It's truly sumptuous.

Good early reviews are coming in:

"Gripping, elegant and fierce, this is a classic war-torn love story, and Furnivall's best yet." Library Journal

"A delight for Furnivall's fans, and equally a joy for those new to her work." Publishers Weekly

"A memorable love story that will speak to readers' hearts and minds." Romantic Times Magazine

"A jewel of a book." Barnes & Noble.com

One thing readers are probably not aware of is the significance of Amazon at book-launch time. Amazon is the largest bookseller in the world and during the first few weeks of a book's life, you'd be surprised at how many publishers and authors keep a sharp eye on what comments are being posted on the Amazon website. It gives them a finger-on-the-pulse feel of public reaction to a book. If you like an author's work, take the time to say so. It's easy if you are signed up to Amazon, and authors honestly do appreciate it.

Communication with my readers is part of what makes this whole writing thing so rewarding for me. So hey, if you enjoy The Jewel Of St Petersburg, do me a favour and stick a comment on Amazon. And if you want to talk more, you can email me as well on katefurnivall@hotmail.co.uk - I promise I'll reply to every one of them.

Happy reading!

Showtime

2010-07-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

Trips up to London, website questionnaires, telephone interviews, magazine requests for articles and stories. Yes, it's that time again when I emerge from my cocoon. My new book The Jewel of St Petersburg is about to be published - August in the US and November in the UK - and the exciting process of putting my name about has started.

Last week I was wined and dined right royally by my publisher, Jo Dickinson, with a whole bunch of the marketing and sales bigwigs from Little Brown UK, along with fellow author, the lovely Bernadette Strachan. The venue was a classy restaurant on the Embankment in London overlooking the Thames - though we were downstairs in a private room. I think they were hiding us away in a wine cellar, not quite trusting authors to behave properly!

They are such a super team at Little Brown UK, I count myself lucky. I assure you that not all publishing houses are as warm and welcoming or go out of their way to make the experience easy for you. Bernie and I managed not to drop gravy over any of them or throw wine over our nextdoor neighbour - which was my cringe-worthy pièce-de-resistance last time I was at a restaurant in London.

Most of the year a writer keeps in regular touch with editors and PR, but it is rare to have the chance of a get-together with the marketing and sales teams. These are the people at the sharp end of book selling. It turned out to be quite an eye-opener at times. Like the fact that they get about one minute to sell your book to the supermarket buyers. Supermarkets are now major players in the book world and it's important to get them on board. But ... one minute?? That takes some pretty fast talking and an ability to push the right buttons straight off. I just had to hug these guys. They do such a fabulous job for me.

So while The Jewel of St Petersburg picks up its skirts and starts dancing, I am now deeply engrossed in Malaya where my next book is set. Fighting my way through steamy heat and jungle, sailing the Malacca Straits, lazing on colonial verandas and knocking back the gin-slings. Oh yes, and there's an occasional Zero or two on the horizon. A far cry from the snowy elegance of St Petersburg. That's the joy of writing - you never know what's coming next.

No Man ebook for Haiti

2010-05-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

No Man eBook for Haiti : I and other authors have contributed to an eBook called No Man, published by Little, Brown UK, and its publication marks the hundredth day since the earthquake occurred. There are stories by Alexander McCall Smith, Dorothy Koomson, Louise Candlish and Bernadette Strachan, among others, and all proceeds go to UNICEF’s Haiti Earthquake Children’s Appeal. It's for a desperately needy cause and everyone involved gave their services free of charge - the eBook costs just £4.99 from www.Waterstones.com. And if you've never downloaded an eBook on to your PC before, let me tell you neither had I. But it's simplicity itself. So give it a go.

Please, please, please buy and enjoy, while helping the victims of the earthquake.

Endings

2010-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe it's months since I said hi to everyone. Sorry about that.

I have been bogged down in a writing frenzy to finish and edit The Jewel of St Petersburg - already way over its deadline. For me that's the toughest aspect of writing, the need to meet your publisher's schedules, though I have to emphasise that both Little Brown UK and Berkley US have been sweetness itself in accommodating my tardiness. It's just that some books take longer to emerge than others and it's hard to know quite why that is. I met someone at the RNA Awards Luncheon in March who writes three books a year and I was nearly sick with envy at the speed of her writing!

I've loved the shift of mood in this book. So different from the harsher Stalinist regime of my last two books. I relished the delight of immersing myself for a change in the lavish lifestyle of the final glory days of the tsarist regime in Russia. It was an extravagant and decadent world of self-indulgence and gaudy excess, of Imperial balls, glittering diamonds and romantic sleigh rides - a sharp contrast to the privations of the underpaid workforce.

The Jewel of St Petersburg opens in 1910 with a catastrophic event in the life of young Valentina Ivanova and progresses to the moment when the Russian Revolution explodes throughout the elegant city of St Petersburg with the firing of the signal gun from the ship, Aurora, in 1917.

The book explores how Valentina, a privileged young woman and talented pianist, fights for her independence and falls in love with a Danish engineer, instead of the Russian Count her parents have planned for her. Valentina tries to protect her young sister from the tumult sweeping the city, as Tsar Nicholas, the Duma and the Bolsheviks are at each other's throats. But tragedy strikes and she is forced to look at her world and herself with new eyes. I could go on - but then you wouldn't bother to read the book! Suffice to say it's a story of passion and treachery set against a backdrop of danger, of secrets and lies interwoven into the fabric of a Russian society about to tear itself apart.

And isn't the cover gorgeous? As lush and lavish as the world it describes. Berkley have promised me a preview copy of it this week, and however many books I write, however many times I repeat the experience, holding that first copy of the book in my hands gives me a visceral thrill that doesn't dim. This business of writing is truly an addictive occupation.

Beginnings

2010-01-15T14:13:00.000-08:00

Because I was up to my eyeballs in rewriting chunks of my present book at the time, I omitted to mention what a fab Winter Party the RNA threw in London at the end of last year. Loads of interesting authors, all with agony stories to tell. I was delighted to find out that quite a number of them had tales of being 'advised' by agent/publisher to ditch the opening of their book when it starts with the heroine/hero as a child.

Why? I hear you ask.

Well, I have experienced this 'advice' myself. It came as an unpleasant shock but I understand the wisdom of it from a reader's point of view. They want the story to be in the here and now, not a load of back-story. But clearly it is part of the process by which a writer gets to know her/his own characters, to understand what rocks their boat and how they will react in the events that are about to unfold.

It's always hard to chuck out episodes that you sweated blood over but that's what agents and publishers are for - to make you ruthless with yourself. So having got your motivations and childhood traumas all worked out in the opening chapter, my 'advice' to budding authors is 'Bin it!', and get on with the story.

Back to the party. It was good fun and wonderfully incestuous with all the book crowd full of encouragement for each other, while wondering fiercely whose sales were topping whose. The proceedings were further enlivened when a charming agent I was talking to fainted on me in mid-sentence. I know authors yack on about writing till boredom glazes the braincells, but really!!

New Year

2010-01-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

I want to wish a Happy New Year to you all. It's got to be better than 2009, hasn't it? Here in Devon, UK, it has started with pure blue skies and a beaming blissful sun, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's a good omen for the year ahead. I heard on the radio today that it's official - we are to call it "twenty ten" rather than "two thousand and ten". Two syllables shorter. How lazy can we get?

I had a long and delightful Christmas with two weeks solid of family visitors and their three adorable cats. Charades, Pictionary and Articulate won hands down in the 'playing silly games after too much Sauvignon Blanc and Baileys' stakes, but even while performing an inspired ET charade with my finger pointed up in the air, my unfinished book haunted my mind. So now I am relieved to be back at work, hurtling towards the end with Valentina determined to make life difficult for me.

I want to say a massive thank you to my publishers, Little Brown UK and Berkley USA, for being so patient and so gentle in their enquiries as to when the book will be finished. If they're panicking, (which they undoubtedly are) they are showing no sign of it to me. I breathe easy.

Happy 2010 to you all.

Focus Pulling

2009-10-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

The last month has vanished in a blur of writing, interspersed with dashing down to the beach to ensure my legs still function, and the mandatory eating and sleeping (both badly). But a couple of highlights leap out at me. Firstly because they were fun and secondly because I learnt something from each of them.

The first was a meet-and-greet for myself and three other authors at our publisher's swish offices on the Embankment in London. It involved meeting a whole bunch of the team of Little,Brown UK who are responsible for making our novels appear on the shelves of the bookstores and supermarkets etc. Magically they transform a dog-eared manuscript into a bright and glossy book. I chatted with editors, copyeditors, cover designers, people in PR, in marketing, in UK sales, in overseas sales and many more. Plus, of course, the CEO herself, the impressive and charming Ursula Mackenzie. What a back-up team I have!

Sometimes when closeted in my study for weeks at a time, glued to my keyboard, writing feels a very solitary occupation, so it was good to be reminded that it's not. This lovely team of young people is bursting with commitment and energy to keep my books rocking and rolling. And they are used to authors. They understand our weird frailties. It's great to know there's a safety net out there - even if it is wielded with an occasional crack of the whip!

The other highlight was when I gave a talk at a Book Festival in Appledore. Dreamy blue skies, the sigh of somnolent waves and one of the prettiest little seaside towns on the north coast of Devon. The perfect setting. The Festival was warm and welcoming, expertly organised by Carol Saumarez and her band of enthusiasts. I had a great day out.

So what did I learn? That I need to get away from the shackles of my desk more often. I have a tendency to narrow my focus to my writing, a real bad habit. So I'm widening it - taking in the state of my kitchen cupboards and my cat's claws. Both are crying out for attention!

Which means I now have a new new motto: Just write - but hey, don't forget to lunch. Those authors I told you that I met at the meet-and-greet? Bernie Strachan and Louise Candlish. Together we're widening our focus on to a tasty crabmeat roulade and a colourful pinot in London's Covent Garden. Wish us luck.

Tempus fugit

2009-08-31T11:37:00.000-07:00

The days are growing shorter. The nights creep in, stealing more than their fair share of my hours, and summer is fading fast. I find this alarming. Not that I don't like autumn - I do. I love its muted colours, its smell of damp earth, and all the kids going back to school instead of clogging up my favourite bakery. But autumn heralds the dreaded D word. Deadline.

It is approaching at a frightening speed. Guilt has taken up permanent residence in my lap and if I skive off for the day to yomp over Dartmoor or amble across a beach to watch the cormorants' amazing feats of underwater breath-control, I suffer for it the next day. Not long ago I heard a successful crime writer say, 'I don't agonise over it. I just write.'

So that is my new motto. Just write.

Displacement Activity

2009-07-31T12:21:00.000-07:00

Displacement activity seems to be the order of the day. This morning I have been penning an interview for the Book Queen Club website about The Concubine's Secret/The Girl From Junchow. That means removing my thoughts from the pincer grip of my present book (title - The Jewel Of St Petersburg) and sliding them back into Lydia's convoluted mind. I know Lydia so well it is like falling into the arms of an old friend and I am enjoying pondering the interesting questions posed by Queenie C, my interviewer.

I've also just finished a short story that I was invited to write for a UK woman's magazine. As this was the first short story I had ever attempted, I found it a challenging exercise, vastly different from novel writing. This is just a sliver of time in someone's life. I especially adored the fact that I could see my way through the beginning, the middle and the end all in one day. Bliss! Can't wait to see it in print in September.

You see what I mean about displacement activity?

Glory Days

2009-07-26T01:49:00.000-07:00

Now that The Concubine's Secret/The Girl From Junchow is safely fledged and out of the nest, I am able to focus once more on the new book I am writing.

It is the prequel to The Russian Concubine - telling the story of the struggles of Valentina's young life during the glory days of tsarist Russia. The story of how she meets and falls in love with Jens Friis, a red-headed and red-blooded Dane, against the fierce opposition of her parents. At the same time the rumblings of the Revolution are growing louder in St Petersburg, as Tsar Nicholas II, the Imperial Duma and the Social Revolutionaries are at each other's throats.

So as you can see, it's still Russia I am addicted to. I'm having fun writing about a period of extravagant glamour and opulence as a change from the bleak austerity and grey harshness of the Stalinist regime. The tsar's court was an extraordinary hot-bed of intrigues, plots and rampant dissolution that made its UK cousin's court look positively monastic in comparison.

But the book is not going smoothly. I chivy myself with reminders: 'What book ever does?' and 'You've been here before!' Bitter crumbs of comfort. But it doesn't make it any easier. There is always a stage in a book when I get depressed, and right now, this is it. Little worms of doubt burrowing into my brain.

Do readers really think a book just flows out as smooth and creamy as milk from a cow? Don't they realise it's like slitting open your veins and watching your life-blood drip on to each page?

The Concubine's Secret

2009-07-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Today is Publication Day in the UK for The Concubine's Secret (titled The Girl From Junchow in US). I keep thinking I'll get used to this, the launch of my latest book, that I'll learn to take it in my stride as an author. But it doesn't get any easier.

It's still as nerve-racking as the first time, this whole process of letting one's beloved brainchild take its initial tottering steps. And I cannot shake my addiction to popping into book stores to check that it's on display, to loiter around the front tables, seeing who is - or more worryingly, who isn't - picking it up. The temptation to thrust it into shoppers' hands is strong, but I resist.

WHSmith is doing me proud with a special promotion of The Russian Concubine and The Concubine's Secret in a pack together and I love the idea of both Lydia's stories going out hand in hand. They belong together. Writing a sequel was a risky step, but I learnt a lot while doing it.

One of the main delights for an author when writing a book is getting to know the main characters, watching them develop and feeling them grow. You inevitably fall in love with them with all the passion and heady excitement of a new relationship. But when I came back to them for the sequel after a year's break, it was different. We were old friends by then, had been through a lot together, so our relationship had changed.

It's a bit like having children and one day you look at them and realise they've grown up, no longer 'trailing clouds of glory'. You have to adjust. Form a new relationship. And that's what I did with Lydia, enjoying seeing her mature but grieving the loss of her childish innocence. I needn't have worried though. She still led me on a wild and convoluted chase, took me to places I hadn't planned for, and swept me up in the intensity of her love for Chang An Lo.

I loved writing The Concubine's Secret but the time has come to let go. That's what I'll be doing when on Saturday (4th July) I'll be signing books at Torbay Bookshop, Paignton, Devon.

Publication Day

2009-05-30T06:54:00.000-07:00

Great excitement. My new book, The Girl From Junchow (titled The Concubine's Secret in UK) is published this week in the US by my lovely publisher Berkley - and yes, at long last it IS the sequel to The Russian Concubine. Lydia is back!

As the sequel to an already successful book, The Girl from Junchow carries a weight of expectations on its shoulders. But I think fans will enjoy this complex story, seeing Lydia grow up and mature during the course of this book. The story portrays her attempts to seek out her father in Russia, but she is driven by much more than just the need to be reunited with him. New characters emerge in her life and old characters leave. Is one of them Chang An Lo?

Hah! You'll have to read the book to find out.

I love the cover that Berkley have created. The pastel palette is exquisite. Berkley has used the same model as on the cover of The Russian Concubine, but turned her round to face out - clothed this time! There is a delicate virginal quality to it that captures something that lies at the heart of Lydia herself - however much her wayward spirit drives her on to hunt out the challenges in her path. I'd pick this cover off a shelf myself.

Getting the cover (and title) right is a fine art. Publisher's agonise over it. A cover can make or break a book. It's the first point of contact between the writer and the reader. No time to make a second impression. A fleeting moment to seize the attention and persuade the buyer to pick it up. Then it's over to me, as they browse the first few lines. But don't fret, Lydia is there, waiting for them. I wish her luck.

London Bookfair

2009-05-04T12:25:00.001-07:00

I sneaked a break away from my desk and enjoyed a day at the London Bookfair at Earl's Court. My first time at a Bookfair and what an eye-opener! Let me assure you these agents and publishers work like beavers. They earn their pound of flesh. The place was humming with industry.

Downstairs were the publishers' stalls, but upstairs in the Rights enclosure there were hundreds of tables set out in rows where agents met up with publishers and foreign agents and scouts from all over the world. A non-stop schedule. If any of them had a voice left by the end of the three days, I'd be surprised.

But it was fun too. My agent, Teresa, introduced me to a great bunch of foreign agents who deal with my books abroad. Lovely to put faces to names. The highlight was lunch with my wonderful American agent, Patty - a delicious Indian buffet within the hall.

From there I moved on to tea and carrot cake with my UK Sphere publisher, Joanne. She got me on a high because of the preparations for the launch of my new book The Concubine's Secret (The Girl From Junchow in the USA). Publication day is 2nd July (2nd June in USA). Not long to go.

By the end of the day I fell into the train, buzzing. Head full of plans, stomach full of food. Makes a change from banging my head on my desk all day!

Magnolia madness

2009-03-31T11:35:00.000-07:00

Spring is here and I am looking out at my magnolia tree in full flower outside my study window. If that scrawny old tree can produce such magnificence, then hey, so can I! Where's my pen?

Spring is my favourite time of year. Not only does the garden look glorious but also, after the lazy, sluggish, dead days of winter, the blood starts to flow faster. The heart beats stronger. Each year I find this is my most prolific period of writing.

The new book is well under way - I can't tell you too much about it yet, but suffice to say it is one final outing into Russia. This time under Tsar Nicholas II. So it's all grand balls and fancy dresses, a radical change from the miseries of the Stalinist regime.

This will probably be my last book to take place in Russia because I'm already planning to move on to pastures new with the following book. But notice that I said 'probably'. Never say 'never again'!

The wrist is well on the mend, though still on a strict physio schedule, and the new bicycle that caused all the problems is up for sale. Good riddance!

Out and About

2009-03-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

Last week I was out and about - wrist in a splint - meeting and greeting my readers in Kent and in London. In Sevenoaks Library I had the huge pleasure of sharing the platform with a fellow Sphere author, Nina Bell.

We discussed and compared our inspiration for starting a book and how we go about our research, avoiding pitfalls and blatant errors. Nina has set her book, The Inheritance, in the horsey world of eventing, so her experience of research is very different from mine. It was both amusing and enlightening. We had a great evening with a keen crowd of readers. For the signings at the end I had to strip off my splint and apologise for the wobbliness of my signature.

The next evening in Westminster Arts Research Library Nina and I were joined by the historian Mackenzie Ford, whose first novel The Kissing Gates is set during World War I. He sat between us, bringing an impressive gravitas to the occasion, and together we answered questions from our audience and from the enthusiastic Dr Sasha who was in the chair.

What struck me forcibly was that however much we differ as individuals, how similar are our work routines and techniques in the way we get ourselves to the end of a book. It's obvious really. Basic self-discipline and gritted teeth. A publisher cracking a whip encouragingly in the background also helps!

I always tell would-be writers that it's not starting a book that counts, it's finishing it. The world is littered with first chapters hiding at the back of drawers, gathering dust. Set yourself achievable goals along the way - and go for it. The most satisfying words in the English language are The End.

Bones & Books

2009-02-05T12:56:00.000-08:00

Time for an update on the Broken Wrist versus Writing situation. I think the Writing is winning. But I whisper it softly.

It has been an interesting and at times laughable few weeks as I've struggled to make sense of the daily frustrations, and I have made good use of my own personal Dragon. This Dragon - for those who aren't familiar with it - is a speech recognition programme for computers and it has enabled me to read out my left-handed scribbles to my computer. It produces on screen either something approximating what I'm saying or something that bears absolutely no resemblance whatever, depending on its mood at the time.

The best thing is that Dragon does save on the chore of typing, but first I still have to write my words by hand. Fortunately the bionic metal-plated wrist is strengthening as each week passes, and I can now balance a precarious pen between fingers and thumb to produce a just legible scrawl. So I have no excuse. Time to chain myself to my desk once more.

But wait. I am relishing this extra unanticipated thinking time. I find myself reluctant to abandon it yet. Instead of plunging head-first into the story immediately after the Christmas break, I have had time to re-evaluate plot lines, to discover further research avenues, and - this is the big one - to delve deeper into my characters, taking them apart, layer by fragile layer.

So, Broken Wrist versus Writing? Writing is definitely the winner. And so am I!

Disaster 2009

2009-01-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

As I prepared to launch myself into the new year, I was determined to buck the trend towards doom and gloom. All around us the news is grim. So I was intending to talk cheerfully about the way book sales will boom as people seek out cheaper forms of entertainment and escape. How books will boost morale.

Hah! So much for my good intentions. Instead it turns out that I could do with some morale boosting myself. What a way to end 2008! On Christmas Day I took a nosedive off my new bicycle and shattered my right wrist. My RIGHT wrist. My writing wrist.

So I am now a right-handed writer unable to write. What good is that? Of course I know I can peck at a keyboard left-handed as I am doing now or use a dictaphone - or digital voice recorder as the techies now call them. I can even teach my computer to use a voice recognition programme. NO, NO, that's not how I write. For me the creative process works in a mysterious and unfathomable way as the words flow from my head, down my arm and into my right hand. They spill on to paper from the tip of my pen. I even think more clearly with a pen in my hand. Yes, I know there's all that stuff about use of your left hand stimulating a different part of the brain. I'll be extremely interested to see what comes out of it.

So as you can tell, 2009 has arrived with a new and totally unexpected challenge, a demand that I adapt. Okay, that is my New Year's resolution. Adapt. With a scary metal plate in my wrist and intense curiosity in my head as to how I'm going to set about it, I venture forth on my new book. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is actually Good News, not bad.

I'll let you know. Happy new year.

Happy Christmas

2008-12-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

I just want to wish all my readers a happy festive season and to thank them for the support they have given me throughout 2008.

At this time of year things get hectic and it can be hard to keep focused. But I am dutifully combing through the copy-edited manuscript of the Sequel to The Russian Concubine - (to be called The Concubine's Secret in the UK and The Girl from Junchow in the US) - while I chop chestnuts with one hand and dangle chocolates on the tree with the other. Already plans are pouring in for 2009 - a new book cover being designed, a tour of the UK in February, a research schedule and, of course, a new book to write. As if I could forget that!

But times ahead are looking tough for 2009 in every part of the world, so I hope we can all find respite in the books that give us pleasure.

Happy reading and happy Christmas.

Romantic Novelists Association Party

2008-12-06T13:35:00.000-08:00

Now that I have finished my latest book (the sequel to The Russian Concubine - in the bookstores summer/autumn 2009), it's time to get out and about. The other week I hopped on a train up to London and went to the RNA winter party. I had a great time, meeting up with other authors, editors and agents.

As a writer it's very easy to forget, when closeted in my study and immersed in my characters' lives, that the real world consists of more than just a keyboard on my desk and a cat curled up on my lap. There are other authors out there who wrestle with the same problems, utter the same moans and revel in the same ecstatic delight when it all goes right. In the glorious setting of the IMEC library, I was relieved to see in many eyes the slightly manic gleam of puppies let off the lead for the first time - the gleam I knew was bright in my own eyes. The RNA and its magazine does a great job of keeping authors in touch with what is going on in the publishing world.

Under a Blood Red Sky has made a great start. Already on The Times and WHSmith's bestseller lists which is exciting to see. I have spent time going round signing books and enjoying giving talks to readers about why I wrote the book and how I did my research. I'm doing another talk at the Palace Hotel in Paignton this week and in February 2009 my publisher is lining up a tour of events in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Devon and Kent. Can't wait! A great way to start the new year.

Launch Party

2008-11-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

Great launch party for Under a Blood Red Sky yesterday - many thanks to everybody who came to support me. Particular thanks to Catherine Duncan at Sphere who has done a fabulous job with the PR. I'm looking forward to getting out there now and meeting readers, hearing their responses and often their own personal stories of Russia in the 1930s. Today I was doing a radio interview at Palm Radio and as I left, the lovely young newsreader in the studio told me about her own grandparents who were White Russians too. The story seems to create a connection with people that I find deeply moving and that indicates what an extraordinarily diverse society we live in.

Publication Day

2008-11-06T00:20:00.000-08:00

Today is Publication Day for Under a Blood Red Sky in the UK. It is set in Russia 1933 and is the story of a powerful friendship between two young women and how it shapes their lives.

I am very much looking forward to the launch party tonight at Torbay Bookshop in Paignton, Devon, and I will also be doing book-signings there on Saturday morning, 8th Nov at 10.30am and at Brixham Library on Nov 26th at 2pm. I want to thank Matthew and Sarah Clarke who own Torbay Bookshop for their enthusiastic and invaluable support - I am fortunate indeed in having such an active independent bookshop to rely on.

It is an exciting moment seeing Under a Blood Red Sky take its first steps into a life of its own. I love walking into shops and seeing its beautiful cover on the shelves calling to readers. But it's a strange experience in some ways because I am aware that people who read it will learn a lot about me. It's part of the process that all authors have to adapt to.

When I sit writing at my desk revealing the intimate thoughts and emotions of my characters, it inevitably reveals a certain amount about myself. Readers know me but I don't know them. That's one of the reasons why it's great to hear what they have to say - either here on my blog or by email and at signings. It makes a connection, rather than writing into a void.

But I am excited to know already that good reviews are coming in and that Reading Groups are selecting it as their pick for debate. I love to think of my characters, Sofia and Anna, being discussed in groups all over the world, prompting heated debate over their motivations and the moral choices they make. This is deeply satisfying to an author. So thanks to all my readers. Enjoy this one.

Deadline

2008-09-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Son's Burmese cats visiting.

Apologies for the long gap between this and my last post. I like to maintain the illusion of being an author in control, a writer whose life is calm and runs to a well-ordered schedule - with the word count flowing smoothly on to paper each day, talks and book signings effortlessly slotted in, deadlines hit with days or even weeks to spare.

Hah! Not quite. That's the trouble with illusions - they tend to shatter when you throw a brick at them. The brick, in this case, was a fast-approaching deadline, plus my son's wedding to the lovely Liz and a visit from a bunch of family and pets over in UK for the wedding. Total meltdown. Mixing metaphors, I know, but that's exactly how my brain felt. Mixed. Scrambled. Too much going on in there to even think about writing. Delays and distractions.

But at last here I am, emerged like a butterfly, fluttering my gaudy writing wings once more and hoping to dazzle my publishers so that they won't even notice what the date is.

The book I'm working on at the moment is the sequel to The Russian Concubine and is due out in the stores in June 2009. It has been enormous fun being back with Lydia again, exploring where she'll take me this time. Watching her grow up and struggle to discover what it is that she wants her life to become. The end is very much in sight and I know I shall miss her when she's gone. It's like losing a beloved friend. Though, I admit, she can be so darn wilful when she chooses! Always shooting off in directions I hadn't planned and leaving me to pick up the pieces.

As soon as I hand over the manuscript, I shall be delighted to leap into the launch of my new book Under a Blood Red Sky, published by Littlebrown/Sphere on November 6th 2008 in UK and Australia. (It was published by Berkley in June 2008 in the USA under the title The Red Scarf - yes, I know it's confusing. Talk to my publishers about it, not me!)

So an exciting time coming up. After all the recent self seclusion, I shall enjoy going round talking to readers about Under a Blood Red Sky, finding out their reactions and listening in on their discussions. I'll keep you posted about some signings and talks. But it's always great to read your responses here too.

Cover success

2008-07-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

I was delighted to learn recently that The Russian Concubine's cover won the Historical best award for 2007 in Cover Cafe's bookcover competition (http://www.covercafe.com/). Many thanks to everyone who voted for it and also a big thank you to the art department at Berkley Publishing for designing it.

I think both US and UK covers for my new book The Red Scarf/Under a Blood Red Sky are great pieces of artwork that will jump off the shelves right into readers' hands. I have enlarged versions of them pinned on my study wall and am still baffled how two such different designs can both convey the atmosphere of the book so unerringly.

It is interesting to consider how important a cover is in attracting buyers. What draws the eye of one person might have quite the opposite effect on another, so publishers spend a huge amount of time, effort and talent on creating the perfect cover for each of their titles. Just take a look at a display table next time you're in a bookstore and notice which ones catch your eye. Take a moment to wonder why. Some covers just work, some don't. But it's a fine line to walk. So I count myself very fortunate indeed to have such talented teams creating covers for mine.

Thank you Berkley and Sphere - and foreign publishers for all the excellent cover designs for my books abroad, especially those in the Netherlands (thank you, Unieboek) which are truly beautiful.

First Week

2008-06-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

It is great to know that The Red Scarf is receiving good reader-response in its first week on sale. To hear from one reader that it leapt out at her in Toronto airport and from another that she is starting a book club with it keeps my nerves from jangling.

The Red Scarf is a complicated and convoluted tale of love and loyalty set against the backdrop of 1933 Russia. It's a vivid and intense moment in history that is unfamiliar to most readers. I want people out there to get involved, to be discussing the book's ideas, to be gripped by the story, arguing over the rights and wrongs of the moral questions posed within it. And, above all, to fall in love with the characters. But isn't that what every author wants?

My intention in writing The Red Scarf was to lead my readers into a different, difficult and demanding world to see how ordinary people react under pressure. And I would like to think some of the images will linger in a reader's mind, prompting further thought, further questions. I hope so.

But the strange thing is that here I am, watching over this book's first steps, worrying and fretting over it, when at the same time I am deeply engrossed in writing the next one, a sequel to The Russian Concubine. All authors suffer this. A kind of mental tug-of-war. Pulled in two directions. One book on the bookstore shelves demanding attention with interviews and the whole PR circus, while another totally different story is clamouring for space and thought-time in one's head. Is this what it's like having twins?

But hey, who ever said novel-writing was a walk in the park? I'm fascinated by the process that builds a story in a person's head and love to know what effect it has on others. That's why it's so satisfying to receive feedback from readers. So keep it coming.

Publication Day USA

2008-06-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the Big Day!

The publication of The Red Scarf in the USA. This is an exciting moment and I am holding my breath while I await initial feedback on responses from booksellers and bookbuyers. It's a story I fell in love with as I wrote it and I hope readers will too.

THE RED SCARF

2008-05-24T12:45:00.001-07:00

Bliss! This week I received an advance copy of my latest book The Red Scarf from my American publisher, Berkley, and it looks gorgeous in its striking cover.

It's an emotional moment - like the birth of a child. But a nerve-wracking one also, because next month (24 June) it will be going on sale in the bookstores and it's like watching your beloved offspring walking into school for the first time. Will it go well? Will people be friendly? Or turn a cold shoulder?

All that writers can do at this stage is to believe in what they've written and trust that others will do the same. Initial reactions have been good and some top flight media in the US are lining up to review it, so I am optimistic.

I loved living with this book. I walked every step of the way with my characters - Sofia, Anna and Mikhail - through 1933 Russia. It's an intense love story that portrays not only the deep passion between a man and a woman, but also the powerful bonds of friendship between two women. It explores how love entwines with - and sometimes distorts - people's beliefs, and to what extent those beliefs can be imposed from the outside by an enforced political system. A story of strong emotions and rigid rules. It's when they clash that life explodes in ways no one anticipates.

That's what I love about writing. Becoming entranced in a world and a life that otherwise would never come within reach. And of course that's why we read books - for that pleasure of experiencing a whole new existence. So it is with excitement that I pat The Red Scarf on the head, kiss its rosy cheek and wave it goodbye. And good luck.

It will also be published by LittleBrown/Sphere under the title Under a Blood Red Sky in July in other English-speaking countries and in the UK in November. More news about that to come.

Cover Credits

2008-04-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

A piece of exciting news!

A website called Cover Cafe runs a contest each year in which readers nominate and vote for their favourite book covers of the year. And guess what? The cover of The Russian Concubine was named as one of the best covers in the Historical category and so is now a finalist.

You must admit it's a gorgeous piece of artwork, designed by Richard Hasselberger. So thank you, Richard, and thanks also to my publishers Berkley US and LittleBrown UK. It's a terrific honour.

Anyway, the competition voting should be up and running by early May, so check out the website: http://www.covercafe.com/. And get voting!

In the meantime, I'll get working.

Keep Them Coming

2008-03-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

Though the weather outside has turned stormy, at last a period of calm has descended in my house. Which is exactly what I need. So far, this year has been full of distractions and diversions, all productive and necessary, but not particularly helpful towards the book I am currently working on.

So now I've slipped back into a comfortable writing rut and hope to stay entrenched in it for the next few months. It's important for writers to become totally immersed in the world they are creating if the final construct is to ring true, so as I write historical fiction, I eat, drink, sleep and read nothing but the time and place I am writing about.

I continue to research while I write, frequently discovering new facts that trigger an idea for a scene or an unexpected plotline. That is part of what makes the whole process fun - like discovering about the Krokodil, the Russian Communist propaganda aircraft in the 1930s that was painted to look like a crocodile. I used it, of course. As if I could pass up on such a great image!

You just never know what you will stumble across or what is coming at you next. This element of surprise helps keep the writer - and hopefully, the reader - engaged in the story and adds to the sense of adventure that lies at the heart of books.

So while the rain beats down outside, the wind battering my magnolia and threatening to tear my roof off, I remain calmly oblivious because I'm far too busy struggling through the snows of northern Russia right now.

But I do want to mention, even as I sink deeper into my writing-cocoon, how much I value the responses of readers - in comments here on my blog or in email contact. So thanks, guys, keep them coming!

Book Covers

2008-02-16T07:51:00.000-08:00

As always, the book-cover departments of Sphere (UK) and Berkley (USA) have done me proud. Though the images on the jacket of Under a Blood Red Sky (UK) and The Red Scarf (USA) are very different, both are very striking. Both should jump out at you on the bookstore shelves.

I have the two covers pinned up in my study and I try to look at them objectively, but fail. Instead I see my characters moving through the scenes depicted. I hear their voices and smell the Russian pine forests or catch the sound of St Petersburg's church bells.

When you have spent months, even years, creating the world in your book, sometimes it's hard to let it go.

Disaster and Delight

2008-02-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

February started with a disaster.

My computer crashed. Those are the three words every writer dreads. But because I am totally paranoid about losing material and don't trust myself not to wipe my whole world off the hardrive with the touch of a wrong button, I back up everything of importance.

So the new book is safe. Sighs of relief. That's the good part. The bad part is that I have wasted hours and hours on the stupid machine and eventually we parted company with much ill feeling!

Despite that setback, progress on The Red Scarf/Under a Blood Red Sky is steaming ahead. In January both Berkley (USA) and Sphere (UK) provided copyedited manuscripts for me to check through. This is a process some writers regard as tedious, but I actually enjoy it. After so many months away from it, working on other projects, it is interesting to return to the book with fresh eyes - and with a big fat red pen.

This was my last chance to alter anything before it is set in stone for the printer. So I took my time trimming and tightening. I defy any author to read his/her own work without wanting to alter something - even when it's the final published book in their hands. But at some point you have to say Okay, that's enough, and hand it all over to the publisher who, by this time, has a tight schedule to lock it into.

That's when your work stops and your publisher's work starts. So I am eager to hear initial responses from sales force etc as the finished book passes through more hands prior to publication.

This is when the excitement begins to build - and the nerves kick in!

My Next Book

2008-02-01T03:52:00.000-08:00

2008 is well under way now, so it's time to talk about my new book which will be published this year.

It's called The Red Scarf in America and Under a Blood Red Sky in the UK.

The reason for this is that my two publishers couldn't agree on one title. Apparently it's quite a common occurrence - look at the great Phillip Pullman with Northern Lights also called The Golden Compass. Annoying for an author? My lips are sealed.

Let me say first that my new book is not a sequel to The Russian Concubine. That one is coming out next year, in 2009. But The Red Scarf/Under a Blood Red Sky is also a sweeping epic story. It is set in Stalin's Russia in 1933. At its heart is an intense love story but it is also driven by the powerful bonds of friendship between two young women, Sofia and Anna. It is a mix of tsarist glamour, gulag suffering and rural life in a Urals village which Stalin's fist is slowly squeezing ever tighter. In this book I explore the extraordinary strength of the human spirit and tell a story of love, escape, revenge and redemption.

The Red Scarf will be published in June 2008 in the USA. Under a Blood Red Sky will be published in November 2008 in the UK. I'm very excited about it.

NEW YEAR 2008

2008-01-11T03:48:00.000-08:00

A photo of visitor kittens - Loki & Jellybean - getting their claws into my Christmas.

A new year, a new start - so on with the new book.

After the indulgences of the festive season, it's hard to strap on the hairshirt of self-discipline once more, but it's astonishing how a deadline does focus the mind. My English publisher, LittleBrown/Sphere, asked me to write a piece for their monthly Newsletter and it set me thinking about New Year Resolutions.

To resolve or not to resolve?

Are they a waste of time? Who sticks to them?

Yet New Year Resolutions are part of the extraordinary optimism that is hard-wired into the human psyche, the triumph of hope over experience. And I love that. We can – and we will – improve ourselves, even if we need the January 1st deadline to make it happen. It’s the deadline factor that makes all the difference. A bit like writing really.

Writers will wait until a deadline is about to loom on the horizon and then start to panic. Don’t get me wrong. Having a deadline is a wonderful thing. It means that a publisher is ready and eager to read your latest work. The problem comes from the fact that, to start with anyway, deadlines are a long way off, then one day you wake to find you still have 20,000 words to write and only a morning to write them in.

So this coming year I have resolved to stick to my writing target each week , so that I’ll complete my manuscript early. Time to sit and enjoy the garden. To visit friends and family. To relax. Only that’s not going to happen, is it? Like everybody else, I 'll fall off that moral high ground. As nights grow shorter and days grow warmer, other activities will tempt me away from my desk. For even writers are human.

Over the years I’ve made lots of resolutions – to give up my sudoku addiction or to trim my cat’s claws more often (you should see my sofa!). At the time they all seem achievable. But now I think we should try making resolutions at a different time of year. After all, it’s very easy to think about giving up cakes or chocolate or alcohol when you’ve spent the last ten days doing nothing but eat and drink and be merry.

So that’s my resolution for 2008 – I’m not going to make any until the end of June. But by then of course, when the lazy days of summer arrive, I will decide to leave it all until next Christmas - like everybody else!

Yes!

2007-12-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

A dismally wet weekend here in the UK was transformed by fantastic news from my editor, Jackie, at Berkley in the States. It had me doing a Gene Kelly tap routine down Torquay High Street - umbrella and puddles included.

The Russian Concubine has hit the New York Times (extended) bestseller list. Admittedly it's not yet in the Top Twenty (a hallowed position to achieve), but still well and truly there at # 34. This is every author's dream. Christmas come early.

I have printed out a copy of it and pinned it to the wall above my computer to urge me ever onwards and upwards. I know that on days when I sit at my desk in front of a blank page and wonder what on earth is going to fill the word-quota today, the sight of The List will keep me going.

The enthusiasm of readers for the book has had a profound impact on me and drives me on to want to fulfil my side of the bargain with my new book - to provide a story that touches the heart, that entertains, yet raises questions and informs. Now I am working on the sequel to The Russian Concubine and I feel pressure to satisfy each and every reader who enjoyed the original. Sometimes that pressure freezes the pen in my hand. But at others it kicks in with such force that the words flow like last weekend's rain. That's a good place to be.

So is # 34 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Mayo Magic

2007-11-23T10:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's me and Helen Dunning getting friendly with a Dalek.

Why?

Well, Simon Mayo has chosen The Russian Concubine as his Book Of The Month on Radio Five Live and I was invited to go on his show with a panel of reviewers to talk about it. So off I trotted up to London again to the BBC at White City, which is where I bumped into the Tin Terror.

Simon Mayo is an icon. A radio giant. And there my book was in all its glory on Radio Five Live's homepage - just me and the football. (We won't talk about the football disaster - crashing out of Europe. Aaargh!)

On the journey I tried to prepare myself for what kind of reception The Russian Concubine would receive from this impressive panel of reviewers, though I hoped that the fact that it was Book Of The Month indicated that my judges might not be too harsh. And it turned out that I didn't actually need that calming camomile tea beforehand after all. Instead of getting dissed, I was greeted with generous comments and thoroughly enjoyed talking with Helen Dunning, Sarah Harrison and Boyd Hilton about how I'd come to write the book and its connection with my mother's White Russian history. And Simon Mayo made the whole experience of doing a live radio show a breeze. Nerves? What nerves?

Lovely Tamsin, my PR person at LittleBrown/Sphere, came along for morale boosting and did a great job. Thanks, Tamsin. As elegant and supportive as ever.

And to top it all, sitting next to me at the recording table was the Pultizer Prize winner, the brilliant American author Richard Russo. He's a real charmer and I just love his new book - The Bridge Of Sighs. Give it a try.

But only after The Russian Concubine, okay?

Book signing

2007-11-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

Book signing at Torbay Bookshop in Paignton with friend Ann. It turned into a mini party as so many people came to support it.

Two high points of the morning for me were:

1) A woman came to buy a copy of The Russian Concubine because she'd heard me on Palm Radio the day before talking about my mother's White Russian history. It turned out that this woman's own White Russian grandparents had also suffered tragically at the hands of the Bolsheviks. A deeply touching story that stays with me.

2) Another woman arrived to buy the book because she has the same surname - Furnivall. Not a common name. So we're going to compare notes and see if our families are connected somewhere along the line. A new cousin?

Many thanks to all those who came to the book signing to support The Russian Concubine. It made it special.

Publication Day dawns in Devon

2007-11-02T06:36:00.001-07:00

The Russian Concubine is out there.

I did in fact spot it first in WHSmiths as I arrived in Paddington Station in London. What better start to Publication Day? Their Read of the Week.

And yes, I confess, in the Charing Cross Road branch of Borders I did actually walk in and fiddle with the display, so that the lovely cover was facing outward on the shelf instead of just the spine. Well, it's The Russian Concubine's birthday, for heaven's sake, so it's the least it deserves.

Seeing it there in the shops makes me realise how much I love this book. How anxious I am for it. Like a mother on her child's first day at school, a mixture of pride and nerves and that churning feeling in the pit of the stomach. You want them to come home with five gold stars.

A book is an extension of an author, no matter how much they claim that the story is fiction and the characters are figments of an over-active imagination. Writers distil a vital part of themselves on to every page, as much into 'bad' characters as into the 'good' ones. In an odd kind of way, it's a bit like being a stripper because you have to be willing to expose so much of yourself to the gaze of total strangers. That can be daunting, but I believe it's what makes a book work, that emotional connection with the reader. It's crucial.

The LittleBrown/Sphere team gave me and my agent, Teresa, a great launch lunch party at Moro's and drowned my nerves in champagne. They are a brilliant group of people, hugely professional but at the same time tremendously supportive and great fun. I am very lucky to be working with them.

And flowers. They sent me flowers as well. What more could I ask for?

Good reviews.

Publication in UK

2007-10-27T12:50:00.001-07:00

Finally Publication week for The Russian Concubine is here in the UK. I am ecstatic. It satisfies something very fundamental in me to have my book published in my own country.

I can't wait to be wandering down the High Street into the bookstores or pushing a trolley round the supermarkets and have The Russian Concubine jump out at me. I think the cover is beautiful - thank you, Sphere and Berkley.

Will I rush in and rearrange the displays to feature mine more prominently? I might. I know it happens! And can you blame an author, after all that blood, tantrums and tears?

Sphere have been fantastic about keeping me posted about sell-in to retailers and which magazines and newspapers will be doing reviews. (That kind of update really helps the nerves.) So far it's looking good, with the major supermarkets taking it, as well as the major booksellers. I shall definitely be rushing into the bookshop at Paddington Station when I travel up to London this week and scouring its shelves, like a mother lion seeking out her cub. I might seriously have to restrain myself from thrusting it into shoppers' hands.

Reviews. The dreaded word. That's the next hurdle to leap. I shall be reading them from behind a cushion and with a glass of Pinot in hand, like my son used to watch Dr Who - without the Pinot of course!

But there are already exciting glimmers of hope. Marie Claire has named it Book of the Month in December and WHSmith Travel has chosen it for ROTW (that's Read of the Week) this week.

What a Publication Day present that is!

Flying High

2007-09-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

Where did the summer go?

I was away at Duxford Air Show in Cambridgeshire only the other day, revelling in warm sunshine and Merlin engines, but today even here in Devon the north wind takes my breath away as I make my dash to the village post-box and back. It's depressing. I'm not ready for winter.

To cheer myself up I have posted a picture of me in a custard-yellow Tiger Moth biplane about to take to the skies. Huge fun.

I came dashing home from that high point determined to throw myself headlong into the new book, only to find:-

a) numerous email interviews awaiting my attention and filling up my time. I know they're essential as Publication Day in the UK approaches (1st November in case you haven't noticed) but they divert my attention away from the book (it's way too easily diverted).

b) a Buick-size rat putrefying under a cabinet - a tit-for-tat game my cat Misty is expert at to teach me not to go away.

c) a lazy summer-mind seems to have been slotted scarily into my skull to replace my writing-mind while I was on hols. Hmm, not a good way to start a book.

d) I like being home again.

e) Nowhere is more beautiful than Devon.

Okay, okay, time to pick up the pen and start writing.

On Target

2007-09-11T04:17:00.000-07:00

Fabulous news!

From my editor Jackie in America. In the USA a huge store-chain called Target (1500 stores) has selected The Russian Concubine to launch its new dual Book Club. With front-of-department prominence, internet promotion and a mind-numbing 20 million circulars to get the ball rolling.

So hey, dreams do come true.

I feel honoured. For an author to have the deep satisfaction of knowing that so many people will be reading and talking about the book is profoundly rewarding. To make that connection with the minds and imaginations of so many readers is a privilege.

The Russian Concubine is about the bonds that form between people as they struggle to survive in a harsh world, and now the book itself is forging bonds. With its readers.

Thank you, Target.

Publicity machine

2007-09-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

The publicity machine is beginning to hum. I like the noises it’s making. My UK publisher, LittleBrown, is starting to give The Russian Concubine a good push in national and local press, radio, magazines etc.

This is exciting for an author. After all the blood, sweat and damn hard grind of giving birth to a book, it is heartbreaking if it is then left to fend for itself in a vast sea of other books, all fighting for space and spotlight in the bookshops, jostling each other for the book-buyer’s attention.

That’s where the magic words ‘front-of-store’ come into play. One of the facts I’ve gleaned recently is that a huge percentage (I can’t recall exactly what the figure is but I know it’s indecently BIG) of would-be purchasers never get further than the first ten feet of the shop. Too much of a rush? Too bemused? Too bored? Too something anyway. They just grab one of the first books they see and run. Therefore, for ‘front-of-store’ read ‘gold-dust’.

So you can see why a bit of Publisher Pressure is vital. That’s where Joanne, Tamsin, Louise, Emma and their cohorts at LittleBrown come in. They are working hard to raise awareness of The Russian Concubine before its launch in November, aided by a great review in The Bookseller – the UK trade mag that can open bookshop doors.

My lunch with the LittleBrown team was hugely enjoyable – in Joe Allen’s in Covent Garden, a cool place to eat – and they weren’t scary at all, just full of enthusiasm for The Russian Concubine and its progress so far. And patient when bombarded with questions. We got through lots of good stuff and serious discussions about titles and sequels. You can see a picture of us, raising a medicinal glass of something – hmm, I notice it seems to be quite a theme of the photos on this blog!

But afterwards, instead of the dutiful hours I’d intended to spend in the British Library – seizing the opportunity for more research – I popped into its hallowed halls only briefly. Instead I was seduced into buying a new Zara jacket and going for a lovely drink with my agent, Teresa. Devon is a gorgeous place to live and I adore its sea, sand, rivers and moors galore, but it is not much good at shops. So when in London, how could I resist?

Right, that was fun-time. Now it’s work-time.

Summer writing

2007-08-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

Summer is a rubbish time for writing. Or is it just me?

Too many distractions. If the sun is out, the beach is only a hop, skip and jump away and then I’m no good at staying chained to my desk, or even to a pen and paper for that matter. Which is why I’ve been so lax about posting notes here. Sorry about that.

As the sun grows hotter, I become more cunning at displacement activity. I stare blankly out of my study window seeking inspiration and suddenly spot a begonia or rose that absolutely must be dead-headed right there and then, on pain of death. But once I’m out there, that’s it. I’m done for. It’s only a short step to the woods. To the badger set. To the tennis court. To the ice-cream seller on the beach. (My special favourite: honeycomb dripping with Devon clotted cream. Mmmm.)

But today I have answered an email magazine interview, hunted out the pages on Stalin’s Five Year Plan from my mile-high pile of notes, and written a first personality sketch of one of my new characters. (When you start putting details of a character down on the page, instead of just chatting to them in your head, they suddenly acquire a stubborn life and will of their own which can be quite disconcerting.) This burst of activity is because I’m bunking off tomorrow.

Tomorrow provides me with the perfect guilt-free displacement activity. I can skive off for the whole day without a single twinge of conscience because I’m going up to London by train to meet with my lovely LittleBrown editor, Joanne. But there are Good Things and Bad Things concerning this:

Good Things:-
a) Three travel-hours each way of uninterrupted reading for pleasure.
b) A yummy lunch.
c) Wine.
d) Joanne’s delightful company.
e) Meeting others from LittleBrown for the first time who deal with PR, media etc (I envisage them all scarily Armani suited and with sharp haircuts).
f) Hearing lovely plans for The Russian Concubine launch in the UK – on 1st November - in case you haven’t heard.
g) Talking cover-design, blurb etc for my next book.
h) More wine.

Bad Things:-
a) Have you seen the cost of rail tickets to London???
b) Suffocating on the Underground in blistering summer heat. Nooooooo!
c) No ‘real work’ done.
d) Traipsing up and down St Martin’s Lane hunting for the model-car shop in the hope of getting my mitts on the Schuco my husband craves.

So just to make the day feel more like ‘real work’, I’m planning on a visit to the British Library to get in a couple of hours research. At least it’ll be cool in there. I’ll post the results!

Research and imagination

2007-07-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, back to how. How I could write a book about China without going there.

Actually I am surprised that people seem to find it so extraordinary. The answer is, of course, imagination and solid research. The world I was writing about no longer exists in China, the controlling web of International Settlements is gone, though of course the cities like Shanghai (once an International Settlement) are still there but they have changed dramatically from the 1928 versions of themselves.

I was extremely fortunate that a whole stream of books has come out of China in recent years, following Jung Chang’s wonderful Wild Swans, that gave me an intimate insight into the detail of domestic life in China, both pre and post communism. These helped enormously. I adored doing the research and found that the magic of that extraordinary vast country flowed like Yangtze floodwater under my skin. Honestly, it was easy to fall in love with the place and its people.

But then I’m a sucker for research. I admit it. I could go on burrowing in books forever and have to kick myself to say enough is enough, it’s time to get down to writing the book! It was the same with my next book – set in 1933 Russia. But more of that later.

U.S. Tour extra pic

2007-06-27T04:11:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles

Launch day!

2007-06-27T01:24:00.001-07:00

Today is the Big Day. The Russian Concubine is published in the USA.

I’m holding my breath!

U.S. Tour Pictures

2007-06-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

San Francisco
Seattle
Boston
Washington

San Francisco

Los Angeles

U.S. Tour

2007-06-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

Back home again. The book-tour of America was an amazing experience – despite the lack of sleep. I’ve at last stopped falling into a doze while my family are still talking to me.

As I zoomed from city to city (just so you know, it was London to San Francisco to Seattle to Los Angeles to Washington to Boston) I met a great bunch of people, mainly booksellers, and their wonderful warmth and enthusiasm for The Russian Concubine was so exciting, I could have travelled round the States without the aeroplanes, I was flying so high.

Check out my website’s American Tour 2007 if you want the details, but here I want to share a few impressions that stuck in my mind.

1) Booksellers in Los Angeles have to shake the sand out of their books before handing them over to customers, if their stores are near the beach. Isn’t that a great image?

2) In Seattle, the Pike Place Market. A crazy warren of stalls that sells everything (I bought two cute Classic Car models for my husband - to soothe my guilt-pangs at abandoning him for a week back in England), And its piece de resistance – the ritual of throwing the salmon. Don’t ask! Suffice to say I saw a whole (dead) salmon flying through the air as if it had grown wings.

3) Nodding Donkeys. Between LA airport and the city itself the landscape is covered in hundreds of these small oil pumps (called ‘Nodding Donkeys’) that look like it’s been colonised by the wobbly-headed plastic dogs you see on the rear shelf of a car. That is so weird.

4) Cosmo cocktails in Washington. Wicked.

5) Alaska Airways. Who is that guy whose face beams out from each plane’s tail?

6) A conversation with one of the drivers of the whisper-quiet, black-glass Town Cars that chauffeured me so courteously around the cities. The driver fancied himself as a bit of a philosopher, full of bright sayings, and when he learned I was on a book-tour for my publisher, Penguin-Berkley, he cracked a grin at me in the rear-view mirror.
Driver: So you’re enjoying the trip because you’re on opium.
Me (stunned): Pardon? Did you say ‘on opium’?
Driver: I did.
Me: Uh? (Were my eyes rolling in their sockets?)
Driver: Got you thinking, haven’t I? That’s what authors are
meant to do, think.
Me (brain addled): I give up. Why am I on opium?
Driver: (speaking slowly, as to a particularly dumb child)
O..P..M. You’re enjoying the trip because you’re on
O..P..M. That’s - Other People’s Money.
We both roared with laughter. I loved him.

7) Another driver in another city played a CD of sorrowful Russian songs to me the whole time I was in the car, laboriously translating the lyrics of each one in a strong Armenian accent.

8) Washington. A beautiful city, bursting with energy. The frustration of being in a hotel in the gorgeous Georgetown area and not having even one minute to go out to explore it.

9) Washington. A night-time drive round the city. Unforgettable.

10) Clydesdale horses and a beautiful blond Penguin representative with a passion for breeding and riding them. Have you seen these animals? They’re huge. In a photograph she looked like a butterfly perched on its broad back.

11) Amy’s table decorations with framed pictures of my mother and grandmother in pride of place. They knocked me out.

12) Standing in front of Nighthawk at an exhibition of paintings by Edward Hopper in Boston – a 20th century icon that in one picture says more than most authors in a whole book.

13) Talking and talking about my book, The Russian Concubine, without stop for a week to groups of people who are into books in a big way. Bliss!

So now it’s back home and back to work. What do I miss most from my coast-to-coast tour of America? A maid to come in each day to clean the bathroom for me!

Festival and book tour

2007-06-14T01:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve just come back from the Du Maurier Literary Festival in Fowey, Cornwall. There was a special buzz there this year as it is the centenary of Daphne Du Maurier’s birth and her beautiful delicate face looks out at you from everywhere in the town. It’s great to see her independent spirit lives on.

Some good stuff today. I heard the venues of my book-tour of America to promote The Russian Concubine – San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Washington, Boston and New York. Exciting or what? Hard work, of course, and more aeroplanes than I care to think about, but after sitting closeted in a dark room with a keyboard and screen for months, to get out there and meet some of the guys who will be selling and buying my book will be a real thrill. Informative too, to see what turns Americans on – bookwise, I mean!

First post

2007-06-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Well, here goes. My first ever blog. It’s a bit of strange activity for a sane adult really. What to put in and what to leave out? But if you stick around, I’ll get the hang of it. Fingers crossed.

The first thing I want to say is why I’m starting this. My novel The Russian Concubine is the reason. I wrote this book about love and death and survival in an International Settlement in 1928 China, and strange things have been happening to me since.

The story of a young girl struggling to survive, who falls in love with a Chinese guy, just gripped me and wouldn’t let go. Lydia is her name. I wanted her to look at the China of that time (1928) with fresh eyes, to see its beauty and its violence (hell’s teeth, was it violent!) and to learn from it. But learning is hard. I loved writing it and fortunately for me an agent and publisher loved it too.

Why China? Good question. It’s the one I’m always asked, how I could write a book about China without going there. Or, more to the point, why? So here’s why.

My mother was a white Russian. They’re the ones – in case your history is a bit rusty – who fought against the Communists after the Revolution in 1917. My mother was two years old at the time in St Petersburg and fled with her Russian mother across Siberia (have you actually seen how enormous it is on a map?) and down into China to the city that was then called Tientsin. There they were stuck with no papers and no money – until her mother came up with the bright idea of marrying an Englishman to become ‘respectable’.

What a story. How cool is that!

I grew up in the UK, enchanted by tales of cheongsams and rickshaws, of markets with songbirds by the thousand, of snakes that slithered into bathrooms. Looking out at the dull Welsh rain when I was young, I used to dream myself into that exotic world, and all these years later writing about it came with surprising ease.

Interestingly, I couldn’t have attempted it before my mother’s death in 2000. It was as though until that moment the story still belonged to her and only after her death did it pass on to me. My inheritance, in a weird sort of way.

But hey, don’t get the wrong idea, or I’ll be in bad odour with my siblings. The setting of The Russian Concubine comes from my mother, but the actual story is totally my own. Lydia – who in the book is a thief and a liar – is a creation from my mind and is definitely not my mother. Thought I’d make that crystal clear!

Okay, sis? Happy now?