Tag Archives | legend press

Author interview – J.R. Crook

I reviewed J.R. Crook’s debut novel Sleeping Patterns on this blog a few weeks ago, and thought I’d follow up by asking the writer himself some questions. If you’re not familiar with the book, click here to read my review, or have a look through the brief description below. Or just skip straight to the [...]

Read full story · Comments { 8 }
Andrew Blackman, author of On the Holloway Road

As if by magic…

A sharp-eyed Amazon-watcher just emailed to let me know that my next book, A Virtual Love, has been listed and is available for pre-order. Now don’t worry, this isn’t a sales pitch – I wouldn’t ask you to go and order a book about which there’s no information, not even a cover photo. I just [...]

Read full story · Comments { 15 }

Sleeping Patterns

The latest winner of the Luke Bitmead Award, the prize I won myself back in 2008, Sleeping Patterns is an intelligent, intriguing and ultimately rewarding book. It’s experimental in nature. The author, J.R. Crook, stated in an interview with his publisher that “the most obvious influence on Sleeping Patterns was probably Roland Barthes’s (in)famous essay [...]

Read full story · Comments { 11 }

Introducing “A Virtual Love”, coming to a bookshop near you in Spring 2013

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but I finally finished my second novel and it has been acquired by Legend Press with a publication date of spring 2013. It’s a story about the fluidity of identity on the internet, how we present different faces in different situations, can rip up or change an identity at will, [...]

Read full story · Comments { 20 }
Cover of The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy

“The Generation Game” by Sophie Duffy

An interesting premise: the book starts with a woman in hospital talking to her newborn baby girl. She starts to tell the story of her life, beginning with her own birth in St Thomas’s Hospital in 1965 and going right up to the present day. “I’ll tell you my story. Our story. Because there’s nothing [...]

Read full story · Comments { 10 }

“Ashes” by Matthew Crow

The opening image of Ashes is a powerful one – a group of kids trying to stone a cat to death. The reason? “Something to do”. The tone is set for the rest of the novel. Bleakness, lack of hope, pointless violence, misdirected anger, innocent victims. The setting is Meadow Well council estate in North-East [...]

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Prize draw to win books

OK, I haven’t done any self-promotion on here for a while, so here goes: BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! Thank you. The reason for this outburst is that my publisher is running a special promotion today – if you buy On the Holloway Road through their website, you get entered into [...]

Read full story · Comments { 3 }

Sleepless

It’s past four in the morning and I can’t sleep. Haven’t slept all night. I tried reading for a while, but that didn’t work – I couldn’t focus for more than a few seconds at a time. All that I have been able to do is lie in bed for five hours with my eyes [...]

Read full story · Comments { 4 }