Voting has begun for the People's Bestseller Dagger in the ITV Crime Thriller Awards.
There's also a competition to win a box set of DVDs (Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection, Poirot Collection 8, Lewis Series 5, A Touch of Frost Series 15, Marple Series 5, Vera Series 1, Cadfael Complete Collection, Cracker Complete Collection & Prime Suspect Complete Collection) by answering a simple question here.
Delighted to see this brilliant review in the Telegraph today for my friend Richard Trinder who is currently playing Vince in Alan Ayckbourn's Way Upstream at the Salisbury Playhouse:"Richard Trinder’s masterful performance as the interloping Vince - sporting an indecently tight pair of white shorts and generally rippling alpha-male assurance - challenges us to consider at what point we would mutiny against creeping authoritarianism."
I'm giving away one Amazon gift card worth $15 or £10
I had a fantastic launch party for ALISON WONDERLAND last night, with a fortune-teller, a close-up magician, lots of booze, pizza and cake.
There's a great review for ALISON WONDERLAND over at For Books' Sake:
Alison Wonderland was published on 16th August and has already hit the bestseller lists in the Kindle stores in the UK and the US.
Thank you to everyone who came along to Paul Burston's literary salon, Polari, at the Royal Festival Hall last night, where I was reading with Maureen Duffy, North Morgan, Justin David, Jonathan Kemp and Mark Simpson. The five books on the shortlist for the Polari First Book Prize were also announced.
It was a real honour to be on the line-up for such a prestigious event at this beautiful venue. The audience at Polari is made up of a mix of regulars and newcomers who come along to hear from new and established writers - some of them award-winners, some of them debut novelists, some of them internationally-acclaimed writers visiting from abroad - and these audience members, and host Paul Burston, always ensure that readers at Polari are given a warm, friendly reception.
I reviewed Deborah Reed's Carry Yourself Back to Me for the Kindle Post yesterday. You can read the review here. It's a lyrical, beautifully-written novel and I recommend it highly.
Polari at the Royal Festival Hall ~ Monday 19th September
Literary events and salons are a brilliant way to discover new writers or new work. Paul Burston is a novelist and the editor of several anthologies of short stories, as well as an editor at Time Out London. The Independent on Sunday has called him "Gay London’s Jane Austen". Jonathan Harvey has called him "the nearest thing the UK has to Armistead Maupin". He is an efficient and entertaining host at Polari and a great supporter of other writers - as you can see from the photo on the right: he even took ALISON WONDERLAND on holiday with him so he could read it on the beach in Greece.
I belong to an online community of women writers called She Writes. Meg Clayton has organised a 'blog hop' this week. What is a blog hop? It's just a way of finding new blogs to visit.
WONDERLAND, which got to no. 1 in the US Kindle chart on Amazon shortly after it was published a couple of weeks ago.
Today's Book Grocer column in The Londonist mentions two events where I'll be reading in London this week and next:
I'll be reading at the Literature Lounge at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden on Thursday 15th September with the New Libertines, the first time we have read together in London since our sell-out show at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival in June.
After her spouse leaves her for other woman, twentysomething Londoner Alison Temple impulsively relates for a work at the really P.I. definite she hired to entice her philandering ex. She hopes it will be the change of stage she so desperately needs to pierce on with her cracked life.The page includes a Q&A about the book and my writing in which I attempt to sound earnest, modest, witty and wise:
Her interaction with them all turn caught when she joins Taron for a thoroughfare outing to the strand and stumbles in to a mischance of epic proportions!
Question: The intelligent pretension of your book is a send anxiety to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. How has that book and its genre of smart, well read “nonsense” shabby your writing?It contains a few words of advice for anyone who might wish to write a novel, which I'm happy to stand by:
Helen Smith: we precious Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when we was a child. we desired the intelligent wordplay, the unreasonable situations, and the unusual characters–not all of them sympathetic. we have to inform Lewis Carroll fans that any send anxiety to his work in my book starts and ends with the joke in the title, but we have no skepticism that we have been shabby by all we have ever read, inclusive his books. we was fortunate that we read a supernatural amount when we was younger
Q: Alison Wonderland has been praised for its unique throw of characters. Are you quite lustful of any a character, and what was your motivation for him or her?
HS: we similar to all the characters, even the baddies, but Alison is the a I’m most lustful of. She likes to regard she has the portion of everybody else, but she doesn’t have ample perception about her own situation. She’s injured but funny–a grumpier chronicle of me.
Q: The thought of genetically changed food is a small intimidating and has been in the headlines a lot. What drew you to use that process as a backdrop is to plot?
HS: Most of my characters are on a assignment of a few kind. I’m tender by people who are drawn to a cause, so we was really meddlesome when we read about young people protesting about genetically …
For any person who is considering about essay a book, getting more information is the most appropriate way to pick up how to do it.
I haven't yet heard back from my ward but then she is an orphan in Sierra Leone, perhaps still in danger from the business associates who poisoned her father to death, and Mr M.H. is a powerful and efficient businessman; a senior executive in a bank. It's hardly surprising that he has got back to me so quickly (though I confess I was slightly surprised that he had already contacted his attorney to get things moving along).
I don't know how much it would cost to bring this young woman to England and pay for her education. She may also need counselling to help her deal with the murder by poisoning of her father by his business associates and that won't be available on the National Health as she's not a citizen of this country and hasn't been making National Insurance contributions.
Dear [redacted]
Thank you for your email. I was very sorry to read about the death of your mother and father - it seems your father died in particularly horrible circumstances.
I don't want a share of your fortune but I would like to help you in some way. It seems you would like to come to this country as my ward, to further your education. How old are you? What are you hoping to study?
Please let me know
Best wishes
Helen Smith
From: [redacted]
Good Day,
I am Mr. [redacted], Director of Operations of the [redacted] Bank Ltd.Hong
Kong.I have an obscured business proposal for you.
Contact me through this email if interested.Email: [redacted]@gmail.com
Kind Regards,
Mr. [redacted]
The universe is practically flinging money at me. On Wednesday night, on the way home from Jazz Domino Holly's book launch - which was wonderful, and included craft-making stations, an all-women choir, women DJs, beer, champagne, the Shoreditch Sisters, sandwiches with the crusts cut off and home-made cake - I saw a £5 note blowing on the floor towards me as I got to the top of the escalator at Clapham Common tube. I picked it up and called out to the woman in front of me, "I think you dropped this? Is this yours?" I was so quick-thinking! That £5 was actually travelling quite fast and I caught it! The woman was unimpressed. She glared at me as if I had insulted her by trying to poke the point of my umbrella between the cleft of her arse-cheeks (which I hadn't, by the way). She took the money without saying anything. I still don't know if it was hers or not. Perhaps, after all, it had been meant for me?From: [redacted]
Abidjan,Ivory Coast
West Africa
My Dear,
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you.
I got your contact and I prayed over it and selected your name among other names due to its esteeming nature and the recommendations given to me as a reputable and trust worthy person that I can confide on and by the this recommendation I must not hesitate to confide in you for this legal, truethful and Godly relationship .
I am [redacted] from Sierra Leone the only daughter of late Mr and Mrs [redacted]. My father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant , my father was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outings on a business trip .
My mother died when I was a baby and since then my father took me so special. Before the death of my father in a private hospital here he secretly called me on his bed side and told me that he has the sum of Five million five hundred thousand United State Dollars. US($5.500,000), left in fixed / suspense account in one of the international bank in Africa,he used my name as his only daughter for the next of Kin in depositing of the fund.
My late father Instructed me to seek for a foreign partner in a country of my choice where I will transfer this money and use it for investment purpose such as real estate management or hotel management .
Sir, I am honourably seeking for your assistance in the following ways:
(1) To provide a bank account in which this money would be transferred to .
(2) To serve as my guardian and of this fund since I am not capable to handle it.
(3) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education.
Note: I am willing to offer you 15% of the total sum as compensation for your effort/ input after the successful transfer of this fund to your nominated bank account. please make sure that you write me very fast, it is urgent.
Anticipating to hear from you soon.
Thanks and God bless.
Best regards,
[redacted]
Thanks to everyone who signed up for the Back to the Books Giveaway. The winner of a signed copy of Alison Wonderland has been chosen using random.org and contacted via email. Congratulations to Darlene G.
Alison Wonderland was published on 16th August and has already hit the bestseller lists in the Kindle stores in the UK and the US.
Literary Lounge at the Poetry Cafe
Alison Wonderland got to No. 1 in the US Kindle bestsellers list on Saturday (and is still there at the time of writing), and was selected as one of the monthly picks for September by Alan Caruba, a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle. Three Sisters has also been selling very well and is currently No. 1 in the British Detectives category on the Kindle bestsellers lists in the US. If you're reading this and you have bought one of my books, thank you.
Events
Alison Wonderland is available at Barnes & Noble, the Book Depository and at Amazon. If you have an ereader you can find it in the Kindle stores in the UK and the US and it's currently on offer in paperback in the UK for only £4.19 or $8.37 in the US.
Happy Labor Day Weekend to all my American friends. It's sunny and lovely here in London and I'm thinking of you because my book has been selected for a special price promotion of 99 cents and it's the Kindle Daily Deal today. I know that lots of you are buying it because it's racing up the Amazon charts towards the bestseller lists. Thank you! Enjoy the weekend, whatever you're reading.
Jazz Domino Holly's brilliant crafting, stitching and baking book Queen of Crafts is published by Penguin today. I know Jazz and I saw some of the projects at Christmas when she was testing them for the book - they're charming and very inventive, just like the author.
Andrew Kaufman's novella, The Tiny Wife, is also published today in the UK. I don't know Andrew but I read All My Friends are Superheroes and loved it.
I'm taking part in the Back to the Books Giveaway. I'm giving away a signed copy of Alison Wonderland. The winner will be chosen at random after midnight on 7th SeptemberAlison Wonderland was published on 16th August and has already hit the bestseller lists in the Kindle stores in the UK and the US:
