Just back from Readers' day at Guildford Book Festival last Saturday and what a great event!
Firstly, very nice organisation, a giant gazebo at the cricket club, which probably was not the best for sound, however it was furnished deliciously with a proper sofa and armchair (pink!) for the authors and bookshelves and chandelier. The buffet was gorgeous too!
Now to the important part; the authors (or authoresses, I must say!). What a pleasure to hear them talking about their new novels, how they became writers, how they piratically write, etc.
First on where two ladies - Polly Clark and Rachel Joyce - which novels are very different but one of the common theme is the community and the sense of or lack of it.
Polly Clark's Larchfield sounds amazing and I am very glad I discovered it as probably from the plot itself and the book cover I would have given it a miss. I thought it was going to be a slow, a bit boring book on a poet, instead it sounds witty and funny but also touching some themes that I feel very close to my heart such as maternity and all the feelings that come with becoming a mother. After having heard Polly reading a passage in the book, I could not resist buying it and getting it signed too!
Rachel Joyce is very well known and at her third novel - The music shop. I must confess that I do have The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry but I haven't read it as yet! anyway her books sound amazing and so does her last one, which is all about music and really listening to it and how music can help healing people. Rachel Joyce told us that the idea of the book came from the inspiration from a real bookshop where the owner suggested to her husband a CD to help him with his sleep issues.
Then was time to talk thrillers, with Fiona Barton and Lucy Atkins, both previously journalist and now both successfully queens in the genre called psychological thriller.
I recently read The widow from Fiona Barton and really liked it (read the review here), so I am really looking forward to read her latest novel The child, where Kate the journalist come back. And apparently she will be back for the third novel too, which Fiona is writing at the moment.
Fiona told us that she has always had the habit of cutting out from newspapers bits of news and then she uses them to take inspiration for her stories. She has also confessed that she writes in her bed, still in her pjs!
I have not read as yet any of Lucky Atkins' books, but I will for sure! She used to be a well-being/medical journalist so that's where she takes a lot of her inspiration. Her latest thriller - The night visitor - is all about dung beetles apparently! Well they figured in the book, which in reality is all about two women working together and their secrets!
After lunch, on the sofa was the turn of Veronica Henry and Kate Eberlen, authors of romantic novels, if we want to put them into a genre.
I liked Veronica Henry's How to find love in a bookshop, a very cozy, heartwarming novel. And I am very curios to read this latest book - The forever house - and also the novel she has written set on the Orient Express.
I never heard of Kate Eberlen before and again I am so glad I got to know her novel as it sounds very very pleasant so again I had to buy it and get it signed! It is all about a girl and a boy who keep missing each other - a kind of Sliding doors meets One day. Sounds exciting and it starts with a scene set in Florence!
Unfortunately the "star" of the show - Penny Vincenzi - could not attend the event for health reason. Disappointing as I love her books and I am reading her latest A question of trust at the moment.
However brilliantly the festival's organizers have managed to replace her with another brilliant lady, whose first novel made me laugh out loud (and the movie too!): Allison Pearson. She has just published the sequel of I don' know how she does it, with the title of How hard can it be? and the main character Kate is now dealing with teenager kids, menopause, going back to work and a husband in full mid-life crisis. The novel sounds hilarious, as the previous one was and the themes touched are so contemporary and actual. I actually read her previous novel before having kids so I really need to read it again now that I am going through what Kate was in the book!
It was a pleasant surprise at the end to receive a goody bag with a copy of Woman&Home - the sponsor of the event - and also two proof copies of novels!
I would highly recommend The Readers' day and I really hope to be able to attend it next year again!
The books presented at the Festival:
- Larchfield - Polly Clark
- The Music shop - Rachel Joyce
- The Child - Fiona Barton
- The night visitor - Lucy Atkins
- Miss you - Kate Eberlen
- The forever house - Veronica Henry
- How hard can it be? - Allison Pearson
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