Jonathan Lee
Jonathan Lee is an English author. Who is Mr Satoshi? is his debut novel. We had a chat with Jonathan to find out a little about him and his novel, as well as his writing habits…..
Have you always wanted to write?
I spent quite a long time wanting to be a writer. The only thing I wasn’t so keen on was the actual writing. It’s a bit like that Mark Twain quote about a ‘classic’ book being something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. I wanted to skip the pencil buying, back ache and paper cuts and have the finished novel in my hands. When I got to university I started penning terrible autobiographical bits and pieces, but I was too preoccupied with other things to have a serious stab at developing any kind of craft. I did a lot of reading, though. With hindsight, that helped me learn some of the tricks a novelist needs.
What was your route to publication?
I’m 29 now. When I was around 25 I had a kind of quarter-life crisis. It wasn’t anything particularly dramatic. I didn’t buy a Porche or run off with anyone inappropriate. But I was sitting in an office in the City all day, wolfing down soggy sandwiches at my desk, and I realised that I hadn’t made any inroads into this niggling ambition of mine, this desire to be a writer. So I started to write more seriously. And then a twenty-something friend of mine published a novel and it did well. The sense of envy probably gave me the final push I needed. I ended up taking six months off work to write full-time. At the end of that period I sent the first three chapters off to a few literary agents, and I was fortunate that Clare Alexander liked what I had sent. We worked together on getting the full manuscript into shape and, a few months later, Jason Arthur called and offered me a two book deal with Random House. I’m skipping over the rejections and the days when things seemed genuinely bleak, but the truth is it all happened very quickly and I was lucky in all sorts of ways.
by 
Nanny Returns by Nicola Kraus & Emma Mclaughlin
Nanny Returns
Nicola Kraus & Emma Mclaughlin
Simon & Schuster (April 2010)
Review by Laura Parish.
Ten years after the fateful night when Nan was fired, she returns to New York with her husband, HH. Finally settling in to build a permanent home and get her consulting business off the ground, Nan’s plans are derailed by HH’s sudden desire to start a family – and her surpisingly strong resistance to the idea. Matters are further complicated by a late-night, drunken visit from a now fifteen-year-old Grayer, who’s stumbled upon the nanny-cam tape Nan made on her last night in his mother’s employment – and wants some answers. Racked with guilt and struggling to find a way to help Grayer and his seven-year-old brother, Stilton, through their parents’ vicious divorce, Nan finds herself getting sucked into the Upper East Side world of wealth, power and dysfunction all over again. Continue reading
by Lynn Shepherd
Lynn Shepherd is the author of Murder at Mansfield Park. Novel Kicks had a chat with Lynn to ask her, amongst other things, what her route to publication was and what advice she has for new writers.
What was your route to publication?
I already had an agent (Ben Mason, now at FoxMason), so I did get a lot of support through the writing process, but we were really unlucky to end up pitching the book to publishers in January 2009, at just about the worst point in the recession, when no-one wanted to take a chance on any author without a cast-iron track record. But my agent was incredibly persistent and determined, and we eventually got an offer from a lovely indie publisher in London, Beautiful Books. And that seemed to open the floodgates. First we got the US and Canada with St Martin’s Press, and then Allen & Unwin in Australia and New Zealand, and there’s a Spanish version in the works now too.
Have you always wanted to write?
Absolutely – having Murder at Mansfield Park published is a 24-carat lifetime dream-come-true. Writing is something I always wanted to do, but I only sat down and started to work on it properly 10 years ago. That first attempt was a modern mystery story based round the discovery of a long-lost manuscript of Mansfield Park, and included my first attempts at Austen pastiche (in fact I re-hashed quite a lot of it for the latest one). That one didn’t quite make it, but it was an invaluable apprenticeship in the craft of putting a novel together. Like a lot of would-be writers, I studied English at university, but it’s a long way from there to writing something decent of your own!
by Spotlight by Ilana Fox.
Spotlight – Ilana Fox
Orion Books – 29th April 2010.
Review by Laura Parish.
‘A fallen star. A runaway bride. They’re about to be pitted against each other by a very powerful man. Madison Miller has everything – beautiful, talented and just a little bit naive; she’s the small-town girl who swept to victory on America’s hottest talent show to become the nation’s sweetheart. She’s also head-over-heels in love with the man who’s masterminded her career – the head-spinningly powerful, lethally attractive Beau Silverman. But there’s trouble in paradise… Jess has bolted from her approaching wedding and a dead-end job in London to chase dreams of being a fashion designer in New York. But she’s finding life in the Big Apple tough, until she meets a man who makes her an offer she can’t refuse. It means a taste of a life she’s never had – glamorous parties, paparazzi, haute couture – but at what price? Sweeping from the hotspots of LA to the coolest bars of New York, SPOTLIGHT cuts a gloriously fun swathe through the world of celebrity and glamour, with a page-turning story at its heart.’ Continue reading
by Katie Fforde
Katie Fforde is the author of sixteenth published novels. Her latest ‘A Perfect Proposal’ is due for release on 10th June 2010. We had a chat with Katie and asked her questions including what her route to publication was and her top five tips for writers….
What was your route to publication?
My route to publication was through the Romantic Novelists Association. They have a New Writer’s scheme whereby unpublished writers can submit their novel to the association where it will be read by a published novelist and a report written on it. The organiser of the scheme that year was a scout for a new literary agent. The organiser was Dr. Hilary Johnson, who is now a book doctor, and the agent was Sarah Molloy of A. M. Heath. Sarah found me a publisher before the book I wrote after meeting her was finished.
Have you always wanted to write?
I wasn’t aware I always wanted to write until I was in my twenties but I realise I lived so much of my life in my imagination and so was a bit slow on the uptake.
Do you have a planning process before sitting down to write a book?
I do plan my books a bit, but I often start before I’ve finished planning properly because I just can’t wait to get on with the story.
by June’s Book
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who involuntarily travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trip that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love.
by Book Club
