Date Archives March 2012

Great review for On the Holloway Road

On the Holloway Road 7 Comments

Nivedita Barve has just posted a really insightful review of On the Holloway Road – click here to read it. And I don’t call it insightful only because it’s positive 🙂  She describes the book well, and makes some very interesting points about the characters and themes. I really like the way she describes the tension between the way Jack and Neil are portrayed in the book and how she as a reader reacted to them. Neil is idolized by Jack and everyone around him, while Jack speaks of himself… Read More

“The Brothers” by Asko Sahlberg

Reading 4 Comments

The Brothers, by Finnish writer Asko Sahlberg, is the first in Peirene Press’s series of the “Small Epic”. The publisher also draws comparisons with Shakespeare and William Faulkner. No pressure, then. Surprisingly the book did not disappoint. It’s only 122 pages but does pack in a lot of story, including among other things warring brothers, family betrayal, sexual tension, death, illness, gambling debts, bankruptcy, attempted fratricide, blackmail, prostitution and the 1809 war between Sweden and Russia. And yet it never feels like a very dramatic book. The elements of the story… Read More

The future of book talks

Literary events 6 Comments

There was a time, way back in 2011, when a book event used to consist of an author standing in a dusty library or bookshop and droning on about himself and his work, followed by a book signing and a free glass of cheap red wine. No longer. I have seen the future, and the future is digital. The Background A few weeks ago I gave a talk on the art of effective story-telling to an audience of BP marketing executives gathered in some corporate venue in London. The hosts, from… Read More

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

A Virtual Love 20 Comments

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, and often exist more in terms of what others think or expect of us than who we really are. The main character in the book, Jeff Brennan, exists in this online world and juggles multiple… Read More

On the Holloway Road £1.09 Kindle promotion

On the Holloway Road 2 Comments

I’ve just noticed that Amazon is currently promoting the Kindle version of my novel for £1.09. The normal price is about five times higher, so if you’d like to try it, please click here. You can even get a free sample first, if you’re not sure about spending your £1.09 🙂 These offers usually seem to last only for a day or two, so I can’t guarantee how long it will last. Please note, this is on the Amazon UK site only. If your Kindle is registered to a different Amazon site… Read More