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.
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Saturday, 24 May 2008
THE RED SCARF
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.
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Cover Credits
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.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Keep Them Coming
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!
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!
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Book Covers
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.
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.
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Disaster and Delight
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 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!
Friday, 1 February 2008
My Next Book
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.
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