Patronage: the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. (Or, as Samuel Johnson put it less helpfully: “one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help.”) The Statute of Anne, 1710, (the first real…
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If you love them, set them free… Tomorrow, two of my novels will be going travelling by Underground. Alone. On the Northern Line. Books on the Underground is the brainchild of avid reader, Hollie. Like a library, but without the late fees. The concept is simple: you find a book, read it and then leave it for…
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It might have ended so differently – in court, for example. You spend nine long years writing a book about your idol (‘An extraordinary odyssey of orgiastic obsession,’ according to the Guardian), the first three of them settling on the structure.  And then, on the brink of landing a publishing deal, you think: I wonder,…
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If anyone asks me what happened to the summer of 2013, I shall know exactly how to answer. It coincided very conveniently with our holiday in Yorkshire. Ten glorious days starting on 1st June, my over-riding memories of which will be the scent of wild garlic, fields of buttercups, and stone, both fashioned and destroyed by man…
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To celebrate the paperback release of my two new novels, I am giving away 10 copies of each via those wonderful people at Goodreads. Click here for These Fragile Things and here for I Stopped Time. The clock is ticking…  

I’m not sure how many people can cite a visit to their hairdresser’s as a useful source of intelligence. Yesterday I found myself sitting next to the doctor to the English Rugby Team (long straight hair, enviable vibrant red) who had just overheard a conversation in which I described my recent experiences of proof-reading and all…
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A quick search on Google this morning resulted in this find: A song called ‘I Stopped Time,’ said to be a tribute to H G Wells.   

The bookish equivalent of Desert Island Discs, yesterday’s episode of My Life in Books (BBC2, first shown in 2011) was a delight. Baroness James of Holland Park, known to her readers as P D James offered proof that reading and writing will keep you young (to hear her read Austen was a pleasure), while Richard Bacon was…
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I wonder how many other authors find themselves staring at another book cover and thinking, You know, that looks awfully familiar… In today’s issue of Shelf Awareness there was an advertisement for Nicole Baart’s recent release, (Admittedly, the photograph fits her title perfectly.) And here is the cover design for Half-Truths and White Lies…  

The key-note speaker at the Digital Minds Conference was author, Neil Gaiman. Gaiman grew up at a time when books – at least the books he wanted to read – were relatively scarce and hard to find. He would take bus trips into the wilds of West Croydon, sometimes even as far as Streatham, to source what…
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