Our Stop

Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams

Published by Avon Books

August 2019

Nadia gets the 7.30 train every morning without fail. Well, except if she oversleeps or wakes up at her friend Emma’s after too much wine.

Daniel really does get the 7.30 train every morning, which is easy because he hasn’t been able to sleep properly since his dad died.

One morning, Nadia’s eye catches sight of a post in the daily paper:

To the cute girl with the coffee stains on her dress. I’m the guy who’s always standing near the doors… Drink sometime?

So begins a not-quite-romance of near-misses, true love, and the power of the written word.

Our Stop is Laura Jane Williams' first foray into the fiction market following the successful publication of two non-fiction titles (both of which are very good by the way) and I think it is probably set to be THE beach read of the summer, and probably a film to boot - Reese Witherspoon are you listening?!

Nadia and Daniel both get the 7:30 train every morning without fail - well Daniel does, Nadia's dependability is sometimes hampered by events of the night before, but this time it's different, she's starting her new life, one where she will be glamorous and organised and healthy, oh and on time too!  One morning when she has actually managed to catch the train, her best friend sends her a text showing her a message from the Missed Connection section in the daily paper.  She's convinced it's been written about Nadia, but our heroine isn't convinced; I mean who on earth on her train would write to her?

Encouraged by her friends, Nadia responds and so begins our written romance - drawing with it it's own hashtag #ourstop as people in the online community follow the back and forth dialogue of two strangers on the same train.  As you may imagine, the path of true love never did run smooth and there are lots of near misses and close encounters as the book progresses.  Will Daniel and Nadia ever get it together?

Well reader, I can't possibly divulge that information online, you are going to have to get yourself a copy and find out for yourself (and if you have a kindle, you can get it now ahead of its paperback release date currently for only 99p). What I will say is that Laura Jane has written a fantastic novel, I couldn't stop reading it and loved both Nadia and Daniel and the journey that they embark on through these pages.  Seriously - big screen here they come!

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x

Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not by Claire Allan

Published by Avon Books

May 2019

I disappeared on a Tuesday afternoon. I was there one minute and the next I was gone. They’ve never found my body…
 
It’s six in the morning during the hottest summer on record when Elizabeth O’Loughlin, out walking her dog, comes across Clare, a victim of a horrific knife attack, clinging onto life at the side of the road.
 
Clare dies minutes later, but not before whispering her haunting last words to Elizabeth.
  
When it becomes clear that Clare’s killer has more than one murder on his mind, Elizabeth has to take drastic action or face losing everything.
 
But what if she can’t stop a killer determined never to be forgotten?

Walking her dog early one summer morning, Elizabeth O'Loughlin discovers the body of a young woman with horrific injuries.  She is alive, but barely and as they wait for the ambulance to arrive, her final whispered words are "warn them".  But who does Clare mean for Elizabeth warn; they haven't even met before.

Clare has two best friends, Rachel and Julie and their lives are torn apart when they learn of her horrific death. To make things worse though, the police think that the killer may have a grudge against them too as a seemingly innocent bunch of forget me nots, sent to Julie, seem remarkably similar to a bunch that were left where Clare died and the messages on them aren't those normally associated with flowers left to remember the dead.

Laura isn't sure who she can turn to, her husband has been very distant of late and her lover Michael is growing impatient at their lack of time together. When a man approaches her youngest daughter at her nursery school she realises that things might be a little more serious than first anticipated.

Elizabeth tries to bury the discovery of Clare's body in the back of her mind but the persistent calling of a journalist for more information about that day opens up a can of worms into the suicide of her own daughter Laura.  What she doesn't expect to happen is to discover that Laura went to school with Clare - can there be some strange connection between what happened to her daughter and the murder of Clare?

Forget Me Not has lots of twists and turns, leaving you wondering which character's to believe or which to suspect.  I was wrong in my assumptions by the way!  I think this book definitely calls out to appear on television - it would make a great mini series!

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x

In conversation with Anna James

Today I am in conversation with Anna James, author of an exciting new series of children's books called Pages & Co.

Your first novel is set in a world of books, was this important to you?

Books are so much a part of me and my life that I don’t think the first time I wrote fiction it could have been any other way to be honest. It wasn’t so much a conscious decision, as a natural and instinctive thing to write about what I love. I also really enjoy reading books about books and writers and libraries and I think it’s important to write something you would love to read. On a more specific level and once I had the basic idea sorted, it was really exciting for me to hopefully be able to introduce some young readers to some older books such as Anne of Green Gables and A Little Princess which I think have absolutely stood the test of time.

Why did you choose to write a children’s book as opposed to a book for adults?
Again this wasn’t really a conscious choice and I think often the idea you have dictates your audience. I actually wrote about a page of a book that was very loosely the start of Pages & Co but it didn’t work at all. I love children’s books; I think that usually the books that have the most formative effects on us as those we we read at around the age of 10 and so it’s a huge privilege to write for that age group – if Pages & Co means what my favourite books meant to me to even just one reader then I feel I’ve done my job. On a more technical perspective, I also felt the story would benefit from the sense of whismy and adventure and lack of cynicism that MG allows for.


What were your favourite books as a child and are they still favourites now?
I read voraciously as a child and it’s hard to pick out favourites but among them were many that are still my favourites; Anne of Green Gables, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, Momo by Michael Ende, Eva Ibbotson and Diana Wynne Jones. I still reread these books.


Any advice to anyone dreaming of becoming an author?
It’s the most common advice but I think that’s probably because it’s the best; read. There’s a level of storytelling you have to have inside you to write fiction that I think you just soak up and learn from reading for pleasure. I would also write what you love to read, try not to think about what you think other people want to read.


Where do you get your writing inspiration from?
Primarily it’s books; obviously not stealing ideas or anything, but I’m inspired by reading things that I love, that change me, that challenge me, that test and play with what fiction can do. I often read before I start writing – nothing similar but something that reminds me of the power of writing and how it can make you feel. It makes me want to get as close to that as I can in my work. There’s also just the beautiful serendipity of ideas and how a phrase or a picture or anything at all can be the seed of a new idea.


What are you working on next?
I’m currently at the latter stages of editing Pages & Co 2, which is called Tilly and the Lost Fairytales and comes out in September this year. It’s a direct sequel to the first book, and sees Oskar and Tilly visit Paris, and do some bookwandering in fairy tales, where things aren’t quite what they’re expecting. There’s a sneak peek of the first chapter in the paperback edition of Tilly and the Bookwanderers which comes out in June.

If, heaven forbid, there was a fire, what possession would you grab first to save?
I am generally not too sentimental about books as physical objects but there are a few that are incredible precious to me; books that my grandparents gave me, a signed first edition of my favourite book, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, a signed copy of Wolf Hall, my dad’s childhood copy of Momo by Michael Ende. So I’d try and grab as many of those as possible!


What five people, living or dead, would you choose to invite to a dinner party?
Ever since reading Royal Bodies, Hilary Mantel’s extraordinary essay for the London Review of Books (https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies) I would say I would invite Anne Boleyn, Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle, and Hilary Mantel to discuss said essay and its ideas, and I would invite Virginia Woolf as my fifth because I think she’d have a really interesting take on it too!

Thank you Anna for taking the time out to chat with me about your books.  The first book in the Pages & Co. series, Tilly and the Bookwanderers is out now!

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x