Janet Gordon, who lives in Takeley, reviews best-sellers and debut fiction for the Indie…
It can be very difficult sometimes to get an enjoyable and engrossing novel out of your head. The characters and plot remain in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page.
And so it was with Six Days by Dani Atkins (Head of Zeus £16.99).
Back in 2013, my PA at London Bridge Hospital where I ran the London Liver Centre, and who lived in Bishop’s Stortford, told me about a good friend of her mum’s (both of whom worked at Herts and Essex High School) who had just had her first novel published. As a voracious tube reader, I sort of registered the name but, due to pressure of work, just never got around to even buying it.
Fast forward to 2022 when I was in bits reading Six Days, the author of which is local lady Dani Atkins – the very same lady my PA told me about. Six Days is her ninth novel – and what an idiot I am not to have read her before.
To make up for it, I invited Dani for a meet-up for coffee at Pearce’s, the lovely farm shop and café on the A10, and, with the sun really warm on our faces, we sat outside and talked books.
I’m sure we all know about writers who have a whole noticeboard filled with their characters’ foibles and the exact way in which the story is going to evolve, so I asked Dani whether she’s a planner or a plotter.
“I’m definitely not a plotter,” she replied. “But I suppose I am what I call a tidy writer, in that I edit my draft the day after I’ve written it so that it is hopefully the only draft I do.
“My characters live in my head and so, although I know vaguely where I want my story to go, I’m just carried along with the way in which the characters evolve, but yes I do keep notes about salient points. For instance, I don’t want to give my heroine blue eyes in one chapter and green in the next, but in reality they live inside me.”
And I can confirm that the Six Days characters really do live with you in this truly romantic weepie. Told in the form of a week in Gemma’s life, and with interspersing flashbacks, it’s wedding day for Gemma and Finn who are meant to be together. Or are they? Finn doesn’t turn up at the church and although Gemma is convinced that her beloved Finn wouldn’t do this to her, nobody else is really truly convinced. But Gemma knows – feeling it deep down in her psyche – that something terrible has happened.
When Gemma, rather than heading off for her honeymoon, goes round to Finn’s flat to find it completely and utterly empty, with even the clothes hangers in the wardrobe having disappeared, it’s so so difficult to keep on believing and, almost in despair, she speaks to the police who, although friendly, are not really very helpful.
Dani, who wears her 63 years very lightly, has two grown-up children and lives with husband Ralph, a soppy border collie and a very vocal Siamese cat in a tiny village just outside Stortford.
“I’ve always written,” she remembers. “I have at least half-a-dozen sort-of-written novels in a drawer at home that really aren’t suitable for publication.
“But when I finished Fractured, my first novel, my daughter Kimberley was quite determined it wasn’t just going to be shoved in a drawer. As she worked in publishing and was curious to see how self-publishing worked for authors, she volunteered to help me list Fractured with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) one snowy weekend in January 2013.
“To my surprise, when we put the book in a five-day free promotion a few months later it managed over 10,000 downloads. I must admit I thought when the promotion ended the downloads would probably drop off, but, by then, it was word of mouth that was carrying it along.
“And when I was contacted by an agent who offered to represent me and send my book off to a traditional publisher, I agreed, expecting not to hear anything for quite some time. But, within a week, I was offered a two-book deal with Head of Zeus, who are still my publishers. This was a dream-come-true moment.
“That’s when – after 20 years working at the school – I made the decision to go part-time so that I could fulfil my two-book contract.” Now, with several successful books under her belt, Dani writes full-time.
“Does husband Ralph read your novels?” I asked. “Well, no,” she admitted. “He’s a Lee Child fan, but I write every day and I don’t even let him get inside the door before I’m asking him if I can read to him what I’ve written that day. He does demand a cup of tea first though, and it’s a bit like teatime with Jackanory in our house.”
Fractured has now been translated into 18 different languages and has sold more than half-a-million copies since it was first published in 2013. And so successful has Dani become that, in 2018, she won the prestigious Romantic Novel of the Year for This Love, and just two weeks ago learnt she had won the Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year for A Sky Full of Stars.
Dani also has a date with Waterstones in Stortford on Wednesday April 13 at 7pm and tickets are bookable online now. She will be reading a passage from Six Days and also signing her sparkly-covered hardback which is published the following day. I would suggest that this is an event not to be missed.
COMPETITION
Especially for Indie readers, Head of Zeus have kindly offered three copies of Dani’s Six Days to win. To be in with a chance, answer this question: Which date is Six Days published on? Is it a) April 14, b) April 24 or c) May 14. See below for entry details.
The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths (Quercus £20.00)
Another prolific author is Elly Griffiths, and The Locked Room is the 14th instalment of her Dr Ruth Galloway series.
Set at the beginning of lockdown in her beloved Norfolk, all her familiar characters and animals are here again, this time grappling with the ins and outs of a complicated lockdown scenario.
Ruth is now settled in her lonely cottage out in the wilds, but this time she has a neighbour, a strangely familiar friendly face next door.
So atmospheric, so lockdown familiar – I loved this.
COMPETITION
Three lucky Indie readers can also win a copy of The Locked Room thanks to Quercus. All you have to do is answer this question: Norwich is in which county? Is it a) Suffolk, b) Norfolk or c) Essex.
For both the Six Days and The Locked Room competitions, send your entries to Book Competition, Bishop’s Stortford Independent, 12 North Street, Bishop’s Stortford CM23 2LQ or email letters@stortfordindie.co.uk with ‘Book Competition’ in the subject line. Entries close at 5pm on Tuesday April 12. Winners will be asked to collect their book from the Indie office.
from WordPress https://ift.tt/6TJ4FNC
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment