Bookmark Spalding

Window on the world of Bookmark

Last Monday dawned squally.  As I drove to Spalding for the first signing session of Fair of Face, the leaves were being snatched from the trees, victims of whatever the latest Atlantic storm was called (I’ve lost track!).  As I approached Spalding, the rain arrived. (Lovers of pathetic fallacy, take note!)  However, once inside Bookmark, I was safe, as I knew I would be, enveloped by its usual high standard of hospitality, warmth and the provision of many interesting people to talk to.

Last year, when Rooted in Dishonour was launched – the staff at Bookmark have, magnificently, given me events for all my novels – the café was closed for refurbishment.  This year, I was delighted to find it open, with an enticing range of treats to choose from.  My husband, never behind the door when it comes to food, indulged in a farmer’s breakfast and, a few hours later, a massive slice of coffee and walnut cake. I confined myself to a cheese and tomato toastie (not as modest as it sounds: Spalding helpings are generous!).

I was there until 3 p.m., signing copies of Fair of Face.  Several old friends, readers I have met since In the Family was published in 2012, came in to see me.  I met new readers, too, some of whom wanted to buy all the DI Yates titles, starting with the first – though I made it clear to them, as I do to all new readers, that each novel is a standalone. As I’ve said before, I think it’s cheating to expect readers to have to read all the previous titles in order to make sense of the latest one.

On Tuesday, a radio programme followed the Bookmark signing session: Carla Green interviewed me on Radio Lincolnshire at lunchtime, asking some particularly searching questions about Fair of Face, and generously promoted the events at Spalding and Stamford (see below).

I was back in Bookmark on Thursday evening to give a talk and two readings to members of Bookmark’s reading group and some of its other customers, too.  An author’s dream audience, they were extremely lively and engaged and, if any of them is reading this post: Thank you very much indeed for a magnificent evening – you were brilliant in your response!  And huge thanks to Sam Buckley, Sarah Halgarth and all the rest of the staff at Bookmark for welcoming me again and working so hard to make great successes of both occasions there.

This coming week the wonderful Chris Hamilton-Emery, founder of Salt Publishing and the equally wonderful Emma Dowson, Salt’s PR Manager, have organised a blog tour for Fair of Face. Here’s the tour and I hope to ‘meet’ some of you there.  I’d like to thank all the bloggers who have so generously contributed their time and their oxygen to this.

There are several other events in the pipeline:

• 4^th November.  Signing session. Walkers Bookshop, Stamford.
• 18^th November.  Readings and workshop {‘Fair of Face but dark at heart’), Wakefield One.
• Date tbc, February 2018.  Readings and workshop, Lincoln City Library.
• 17^th February 2018.  Readings and workshop, Spalding Library.
• Dates tbc: Readings and workshop, University of Winchester

Review in Lincolnshire Life

There will be other events and reviews, too, which I’ll announce here when I have more details.  If anyone reading this is organising an event to which I could contribute, I should be very happy to hear from you.

Last but certainly not least, if you have bought Fair of Face, I should like to offer you my sincerest thanks: authors are not authors without readers and I want you to know that I feel greatly honoured knowing you have spent several hours of your precious time reading my book. I do hope that you enjoy it.

Despite all my good intentions (and I’m very grateful to Lisette Brodey, Laura Zera, Val Poore, Sylvia Peadon and Tamara Ferguson for the supportive empathy they have shown me over my failure to keep up to date with social media generally!), the summer mostly slipped away without my posting on this blog. However, I met some great people at literary events over June, July, August and September and want to share those occasions with you before they become distant memories.
On 16th and 17th June, I attended the Winchester Literary Festival for the fourth time, partly to conduct one-to-ones with twelve new authors, partly to give an updated version of the talk I first delivered last year (‘Whodunnit: how it’s done’), which, as last time, attracted a large and enthusiastic audience. Winchester has now become one of the most important dates on my calendar: it’s a brilliant festival, thoughtfully and imaginatively created by Judith Heneghan, who lectures in creative writing at the university, and efficiently organised by Sara Gangai. The guest talk that takes place first thing on the Saturday morning is always a treat. This year’s speaker was Lemn Sissay, the performance poet.

Lemn Sissay

Lemn’s talk was full of wit and unusual insights: for example, he said that every single day we are part of a privileged generation because we have the Internet. “We are at the most exciting time for words that there has ever been. So how can it be that the point of view that the Internet promotes rubbish is always held above that that says the Internet promotes beauty and genius?” And: “Every day I wake up and think of ways that I can promote writing other than the book. But the book is the greatest gift you can give any child or adult.” My own books were kindly stocked and sold, as always, by staff from P. & G. Wells at the festival book stall; they also gave me a signing session, when I met several new and a few old friends.
July 6th was the next big date for me, as the legendary bookseller Richard Reynolds had invited me and eleven other authors to participate in his summer evening of crime at Heffers bookshop in Cambridge.

Reading at Heffers

I was particularly pleased to meet Barbara Nadel, whose books I have read with real enjoyment. We were each asked to describe ourselves and read, in not more than two minutes, a short extract from our latest novels (Richard’s assistant had a bell and said that she was “not afraid of using it”!). This actually worked very well: it’s surprising how much you can get across in two minutes if you think about it beforehand and try hard.

Richard Reynolds, in rapt concentration during the readings

Afterwards, there was a drinks reception at which all of our books were on sale. The audience numbered more than one hundred (Cambridge is a real Mecca for crime enthusiasts!) and we all sold lots of copies.

Busy at Heffers

Wednesday 12th July followed hard on the heels of the Heffers event. I had the good fortune to be invited to a Houses of Parliament reception (held by the Booksellers Association, Publishers Association and the charity, World Book Day) for authors and booksellers, with MPs and peers.

Before the bell was silenced!

There I met several booksellers who have supported me by stocking my books, including Sam Buckley, from Bookmark in Spalding, who over the years has generously given me a launch event for each of them. The event was hosted by Dame Margaret Hodge, who emphasised the civilising influence of both books and booksellers on our society (a sentiment about which I need no persuading!).
Last but not least, on 15th July I was invited to give ‘A Morning with Christina James’ at Spalding town library. This was a round-table event, at which I read a couple of excerpts from In the Family and Rooted in Dishonour and then talked to the audience about how I came to write the novels, my own Lincolnshire roots and, most important of all, their views on fiction. I was delighted to be able at last to meet Sharman Morriss, the librarian, having been told at one of the Bookmark evenings that she tirelessly promotes my novels to her customers. Sharman then put me in touch with Alison Wade, her colleague at Boston town library,

Boston Stump (the library is just the other side of it)

which has been holding a month-long crime-writing festival during September. Alison very kindly asked me to open this on the afternoon of September 1st, when I talked to the audience about my own books and what they like to read. I was really pleased to have been able to meet readers and new writers on this occasion.

Alert readers at Boston!

Fair of Face, the sixth novel in the DI Yates series, will be published on 15th October.

I’ve diligently been updating my Twitter header and posting the new novel’s cover here and on Facebook! Bookmark in Spalding is providing a signing session on the afternoon of 16th October and an evening launch event on 19th October and I know both will be memorable moments for meeting friends old and new. If you would like me to come and talk at your local bookshop or library, or to your reading group, just let me know.
Oh, and hello again to all my readers here!
[An apology to Spalding Library – I’ve temporarily mislaid my SanDisk – a picture will follow!]

I must apologise for my long silence to all the readers of this blog and to those very, very wonderful Twitter and FB friends (You know who you are!) who have continued to tweet out for me – I’ll be doing my best to make amends very soon now. Your kindness is phenomenal!

I do have excuses for not having posted much recently (a year like no other for me), but I realise I can’t justify my silence when so many of you manage to keep up your own posts and timelines and support me and others on top of doing your ‘day jobs’.  However, by way of explanation, my own day job has taken me abroad several times this year (to the USA, twice, Seoul, Barcelona and Dubai), and whilst I realise how incredibly privileged I am to have visited all these places, I know that some of you will understand that long-haul travel is very disruptive to a writing routine, and the work resulting from those trips even more so.  There have been some family challenges, too. As a result of all this, I was way behind with the latest DI Yates, the deadline for which was also brought forward slightly and I’ve been both-candle-ends burning for quite some time.  Anyway, I’ve now finished the novel and should like to tell you a little bit about it, as well as, to start with, some landmarks of my writing year so far.

First and foremost, I’m delighted to be able to tell you that Salt has a wonderful new team to support its books.  Chris and Jen Hamilton-Emery and all Salt authors are now being supported by Adrian Weston (selling rights), Hannah Corbett (in charge of PR) and Medwyn Hughes and Julian Ball, of PG Distributors.  I had the privilege of meeting everyone at a lunch in June.  It is the most stellar team Salt has ever had and I’m sure will do a wonderful job.

The Salt team

For the third year running, I attended the Winchester Literary Festival at the end of June.  This year, as well as giving as yet unpublished authors some one-to-one advice, I gave a talk on crime writing (Whodunnit: how it’s done), which attracted a much bigger audience than I’d anticipated and I think was probably a success.

A couple of weekends ago, I was invited back to Harlow Carr Gardens to participate in a series of signing sessions which Juliet Allard, the lovely bookshop manager, had organised to celebrate the summer.  As on the last occasion, I really enjoyed the ambience there and the buzz of being in a really good bookshop – one that is supported not only by the local community, but by visitors who come from many miles away to see the gardens.

Juliet Allard has invited me back for another signing session after Rooted in Dishonour, the next DI Yates, is published in November.  I’ve been offered a launch signing session/evening event for the novel at Bookmark, in Spalding, a bookshop with which I have a very special relationship and which has supported all the Yates novels magnificently ever since In the Family was published, and another signing session at Walkers Bookshop in Stamford.  I’ll post and tweet the dates nearer the time.  At present, I’m taking bookings for other events around the publication date, including library and bookshop events and talks to reading groups, so if you are interested I should be delighted to hear from you.

So, on to the novel.  This is what it’s about (apologies for using the publisher’s blurb, but I did write it myself):

Eighteen-year-old Ayesha Verma disappears from her home in Spalding just a few days after her parents have introduced her to the cousin they’ve arranged for her to marry.  There has been a nation-wide police campaign to raise awareness of ‘honour killings’.  Conditioned by this, DI Tim Yates and Superintendent Thornton are convinced that Ayesha has been murdered for refusing the arranged marriage.  Tim throws himself enthusiastically into preparations for a trip to India to interview the cousin.  He first travels to London to visit his rather louche old friend, DI Derry Hacker, at the Met.  Hacker introduces Tim to DC Nancy Chappell, an unconventional expert on honour killings.     

When Tim arrives at King’s Cross he thinks that he hears the voice of Peter Prance, a confidence trickster whom he last encountered when he was investigating the murder of Kathryn Sheppard several years before.  He’s unable to follow the man because he’s suddenly taken ill.

Tim’s wife, Katrin, has just returned to work as a police researcher after the birth of their daughter Sophia. DC Juliet Armstrong, who is far from convinced that Tim is right about the reason for Ayesha’s disappearance, arranges for Katrin to meet Fi Vickers, a social worker who helps women to escape from forced marriages and violent male relatives.  She hopes that Fi will introduce Katrin to some of the women in her care so that Katrin can build a picture of the likely circumstances of ‘honour killings’.  Juliet herself is feeling aggrieved because she thinks her career is going nowhere.  Tim and Superintendent Thornton have announced their intention to appoint a Detective Sergeant to the team, but Juliet is convinced that she won’t get the job.

DI Hacker arranges dinner in a restaurant for Tim with a ‘surprise’ guest, who turns out to be Patti Gardner, the SOCO who was his girlfriend before he met Katrin.  Derry is called away to a reported gangland beating shortly after they’ve begun to eat. Tim remains à deux with Patti, escorting her back to her hotel at the end of the evening.  There he’s taken ill again, and is so incapacitated that he spends the night in Patti’s room.   The victim of the gangland beating has been spirited away by the men who attacked him, but from Tim’s description Hacker is convinced he is Peter Prance.

Katrin has received a visit earlier that evening from Margie Pocklington, a teenager working for her child-minder. Margie asks Katrin to employ her as a full-time nanny, and when she gets a cautious response flounces out of the house.  Next morning, she fails to turn up for work.  She has vanished.

Juliet Armstrong is convinced that Ayesha’s and Margie’s disappearances are linked.  She has begun to investigate when Tim returns to Spalding earlier than expected, with Nancy Chappell in tow. He puts her in joint charge of the investigation while he is in India.  Sparks fly.

I hope that you will find this intriguing. You’ll see that the ‘cast’ includes some old acquaintances, but, like all the Yates novels, it stands on its own: you don’t need to have read the others first.

Thank you again for all your support and interest. I have some amazing friends out there!

A warm welcome from Christine Hanson, owner of Bookmark

The Crossing seems fated to attract stormy weather! Recently, I described travelling through squalls and heavy rain to reach the pre-launch event at Harlow Carr. Yesterday, the day of the launch proper, a dual event organised by Bookmark in Spalding (Christine and Sam were wonderful as always!) dawned bright and clear, but by the time I’d arrived in Spalding it was starting to rain. The showers rapidly exploded into a torrential downpour which deterred all but the most stalwart shoppers, even though it was market day. By the evening, the rain had slackened but been replaced by gale force winds.

The day-time signing session had been as successful as possible under the circumstances. I enjoyed talking to some interesting people and was fascinated by what they had to say, but I was very nervous about the evening event. Though I knew the shop had sold a lot of tickets, I doubted that many members of my audience would want to venture out. Some, I knew, would have to travel quite a distance to get there.
Inexcusably, considering my antecedents, I had reckoned without the influence of true Lincolnshire grit! Everyone who had bought a ticket showed up, and there were a few on-spec visitors as well. No-one even bothered to mention the weather. The audience was among the best I have ever had: lively, engaged, perceptive and eloquent. Several of them had already bought The Crossing, even though it was first displayed in the shop only on Monday, and many more bought it at the event (and some of my other books, as well). I was impressed by the stamina shown by Peter, a member of Bookmark’s flourishing book club, who had sat down to read The Crossing solidly all day, finally finishing it a couple of hours before the event, so that he could talk about it.

Peter, having read The Crossing in a day!

I was both delighted and grateful to learn that the book club has chosen The Crossing as its next title, apparently the second time it has opted for a DI Yates novel.

A couple of readings

I told them a bit about how I’d come to write the book, especially the real-life event on which the opening chapter is based.

Background to the story of the first chapter

I think I’ve already mentioned it on this blog, but, for new visitors, here are a few details: When my great aunt was the crossing-keeper at a remote hamlet called Sutterton Dowdyke, there was a terrible railway accident. The Peterborough to Skegness train, in heavy fog, ploughed into a lorry standing on the crossing, derailing some of the carriages, which crashed into my great aunt’s tied lodge-house and turned it round on its foundations. She was physically unhurt, but her mind was affected for the rest of her life. In the novel, the accident is the catalyst for the whole chain of events that follows. A strong theme throughout is imprisonment and how a person’s character is affected when completely subjugated to someone else’s will: what integrity compromises must such a prisoner be obliged to make in order to survive?

The Bookmark audience and I talked about this. We also discussed memory, place, old Spalding, what sort of research I carry out when writing the books, books in prisons, other books we like to read and the relationship between fact, memory and fiction. We concluded by discussing significant events in their lives that perhaps they’d like to write about.

add

One very enjoyable moment stands out: a question from the floor to put the speaker on the spot! “What do you like to read?” Now I simply can’t resist buying books when I find myself in a bookshop and, since I had my purchases from Bookmark tucked under the table, I enjoyed sharing my tastes with a group of very like-minded people – interaction doesn’t get much better than that.

I’d like to say how grateful I am to everyone who came yesterday evening, both for braving the elements and for all your wonderful contributions to the conversation. And heartfelt thanks, of course, to Christine and Sam.
I shall be popping in to Bookmark briefly again to sign a few more books on 17th December, if any of my readers is interested. If so, I look forward to meeting you then.

In this extraordinary Sausage Hall launch week, which I am enjoying so much and for which I am very grateful, I’d like to pay tribute to two amazing bookshops.

Bookmark, Spalding

The first is Bookmark, Spalding’s very distinguished bookshop (the CEO of the Booksellers Association, Tim Godfray, has even been known to serve behind the till there on occasion). Bookmark very generously offered to host the Sausage Hall publication day party, which took place in the evening of November 17th, after the day that I spent at Spalding High School. The event was masterminded by Christine Hanson, the owner of the shop (who is both practical and imaginative – she fixed both a toilet roll holder and a broken table joint within minutes of my arrival, while the shop itself, resplendent with its Christmas stock and decorations, achieved a standard that I’d have dearly liked to replicate in my bookselling days), and Sam Buckley, also a former pupil of Spalding High School, who organises author sessions at the shop. Equally generously, the launch party was sponsored by Adams and Harlow, the local pork butchers, who supplied sausage rolls for the occasion.

Having fun at Bookmark

This event was attended by members of Bookmark’s lively reading group and some old friends of my own. I was astounded to see Finola, a day-job friend – she had driven for more than an hour from Cambridge in order to support me. I was also staunchly supported by Madelaine, one of my oldest friends, and her husband, Marc, who have both offered me hospitality every time I’ve returned to Spalding as Christina James and also bought many copies of my books as presents for everyone they know who might enjoy them.

With Madelaine at Bookmark

Madelaine’s contribution to my writing is acknowledged in Sausage Hall. I was also delighted to see Sarah Oliver, whom I first met at the Priory Academy last spring and who came with her husband. The book club members, who lived up to their reputation for being engaged and vivacious, were shrewd and perceptive: as well as listening attentively to two readings from Sausage Hall, they launched into an animated discussion about all three DI Yates novels. Everyone present bought at least one of the books, some more than one. (Sam Buckley later this week let me know that one member of the audience, who had not read any of the novels and took away with her In the Family, returned within forty-eight hours, having read it, to acquire Almost Love and Sausage Hall as well!) And, of course, I couldn’t myself resist making a few purchases in this fairy-tale bookshop.
Having spent the night with my son and daughter-in-law at their house in Cambridgeshire, I arrived in good time on Tuesday November 18th for a signing session at Walkers Bookshop in Stamford. Although I first met Tim Walker, its owner, last year (he’s currently President of the Booksellers Association), I had not visited one of his bookshops before, The one in Stamford is in a listed building in the town centre; he also owns another in Oakham. I was particularly impressed by the huge range of stock in this shop, both the cards and gifts downstairs and the extensive range of books upstairs. Tim and the manager, Jenny Pugh, were respectively at the other shop and taking holiday, but everything had been set up for me and Mandy, the assistant manager on the book floor, couldn’t have made me more welcome.

Signing Sausage Hall for Elaine and Sheila at Walkers, Stamford

Bookmark and Walkers are two fine examples of thriving independent bookshops, packed with atmosphere and individual charm and led by brilliantly creative people who understand how to serve their communities very well indeed. It was a privilege and a pleasure for me to have been able to enjoy what they had to offer and I’d very much like to thank Christine and Tim for hosting Sausage Hall events this week.

Walkers, Stamford

I am extremely grateful to you, the readers of this blog, both those of you whom I’ve met in person and those from countries around the world whom I’ve met ‘virtually’, for the huge welcome that you have given Sausage Hall.  Thank you very much indeed.

As many of you know, Sausage Hall will be published next Monday, November 17th.  My wonderful publishers, Chris and Jen Hamilton-Emery at Salt Publishing,
their equally stellar PR consultant, Tabitha Pelly, Faber (which now represents Salt titles) and my bookselling and librarian friends have combined to make happen a series of celebration events.

The first of these is today, Thursday November 13th, when Nicola Gilroy will be interviewing me live on Radio Lincolnshire at 14.05. I hope that you will be able to listen; if not, I think the interview will be on iPlayer for twenty-four hours after broadcast.

Monday November 17th is a very special day indeed. I’m spending much of it at Spalding High School,

where I was once a student (Facebook doesn’t know this, having inexplicably assigned me to Wycliffe Senior School and Sixth Form College!  I don’t intend to disabuse it!).  I’m giving a young writers’ workshop and talking about how I came to write Sausage Hall, but first of all I’m being taken on a tour of the school by Adrian Isted, the present Head of English.  I’m really looking forward to this, and especially to meeting the students.

Also on November 17th, in the evening, Bookmark, Spalding’s very distinguished bookshop,

is hosting the official launch event. This will begin at 19.00.  I’m delighted to be able to announce that it is being sponsored by Adams and Harlow, the pork butchers, who will supply sausage-themed canapés.  Wine will also be served. As well as signing copies of Sausage Hall, I’ll be giving some readings and talking about all the DI Yates novels.  I’d like to offer my thanks in advance to Christine Hanson and Sam Buckley, who have supported all the novels as they’ve been published.  In conjunction with Spalding Guardian, they’ve also arranged a DI Yates competition, the prizes for which will be four sets of the DI Yates titles.

On November 18th, I’m travelling to Walkers Books in Stamford,

where I’ll be signing copies of Sausage Hall and talking about it informally between 11.00 and 13.00. I’d like to thank Tim Walker and Jenny Pugh for all their support.  More about this may be found here.

Wednesday November 19th finds me back at wonderful Wakefield One, where Alison Cassels has organised Tea at Sausage Hall, an informal talk-and-signing session, with refreshments, that will start at 14.30.  Regular readers will know that Wakefield One has been a particularly magnificent supporter of mine.  Books will be supplied by Richard Knowles of Rickaro Books, another staunch supporter.

Rickaro Books, Horbury

There is more about Tea at Sausage Hall here.  If you live in the Wakefield area or are visiting, it would be great to see you at this event.

On Thursday November 20^th the Waterstones bookshop in Covent Garden is giving a London launch event.  As Adams and Harlow are sponsoring this, too, there will be sausages as well as wine!  This reading and signing session will begin at 19.00 and continue until the shop closes.  It has already attracted a large audience, so it should be quite a party!  The store’s brilliant manager, Jen Shenton, and I would be delighted to see you there.  More information can be found here.

And Friday 21^st November?  At present, nothing is planned, so this will be a rest day…  but I’m open to offers!