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This week saw the launch of my tenth novel, Small Eden, which tells the story of Robert Cooke, who created a pleasure garden the the memory of his two infant sons. In keeping with the theme of nature and of gardens in particular, I’m delighted to welcome Hannah Powell, author of The Cactus Surgeon, to…
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In our back garden, almost on the boundary with our neighbour’s garden, stands a lone horse chestnut tree. It has been here longer than our house, and our house first appeared on an Ordnance Survey map in 1903. This is the time of year when the tree is just coming into leaf and, as they…
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I’m delighted to welcome Ivan Wainewright to Virtual Book Club, my occasional interview series in which authors have the opportunity to pitch their novels to your book club. Ivan lives in Kent with his partner, Sarah, and their neurotic rescue Staffie, Remi. Before moving to Kent, he lived in North London, Leeds and Singapore. He…
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The discovery that Mitcham – only three miles from where I live – was once the opium-growing capital of the UK made me decide that Small Eden’s leading man, Robert Cooke, should be a physic (or physick) gardener. The term has fallen out of use, but it means a grower of medicinal or healing plants….
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No eden, small or large, would be complete without birds. Several species feature in Small Eden. First, we have the songbirds in the hedgerows and the pleasure gardens. There’s Hettie’s grey African parrot Fairfax (a personality in his own right). And then we have the green ring-necked parakeets Robert buys for his pleasure garden. I…
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I felt very strongly that the cover for Small Eden should have a strong local anchor. The inspiration for my tenth novel was the cottage I have called home for the past twenty-one years, built (as far as we’ve been able to ascertain) as the ticket office for pleasure gardens which opened at the turn…
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I’m delighted to welcome JJ Marsh (Jill) to Virtual Book Club, my author interview series which gives authors the opportunity to pitch their books to your book club, be it virtual or real.  As an English teacher, actor, director and cultural trainer, Jill has lived and worked all over Europe. Now she’s a full-time author, publisher…
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Virtual Book Club has been socially distancing for a while but I’m delighted to be back with writer and broadcaster Christine Webber. We’ll be discussing her new novel, So Many Ways of Loving. Christine Webber tried various careers in her younger days – she was a classical singer, a Principal Boy in pantomimes, an undistinguished…
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I’m delighted to welcome Amie McCracken to Virtual Book Club, my author interview series which gives authors the opportunity to pitch their books to your book club, be it virtual or real. Amie McCracken edits and typesets novels for self-published authors and helps writers polish their work. She describes herself as an imaginist, with a…
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Why mix up historical and contemporary fiction when I would make my life as a writer a whole lot easier if I were to stick to one or the other? Because I don’t see a clear dividing line between the two. For me, when I think about my father saying, ‘I remember when all of…
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