One of the great benefits of being a writer is that one encounters other writers from time to time.  I now have the privilege of occasionally knowing the writer as well as the book.   It's a really interesting thing.  Often when I've read the book first, I am surprised and intrigued on meeting its author.  I think I fall into the trap of imagining the author as one of the characters in his or her work.  Once I get to know the writer however their book seems to become a part of them rather than the other way around.  I thought I'd write here about some of the writers I know and their books.

The Year-God's Daughter

by Rebecca Lochlann

The Year-God's Daughter is still a manuscript.  I met its author on a website for aspiring writers .  So entrancing was this story that I shamelessly set out to make friends with the person who wrote it,  in some sort of star-struck literary fan thing.  Rebecca Lochlann and I have been friends ever since, though we've never met.  It's literary friendship based on a common love of writing and an honest admiration of each other's work.  We've traded emails through all the "trying to find an agent/publisher" stuff, supported each other through rejection letters and cheered every minor success.  We've taken up a lot of cyberspace discussing style and technique.  The more writers I meet the more I realise how valuable these kinds of friendships are.  As it turned out my manuscript found a publisher first but I am certain that it is only a matter of time before Rebecca's manuscript is siezed by the publishing  world.

The Year God's Daughter is the story of Aridela, a princess of ancient Crete, who dances with bulls.  It is the story of two brothers, a warrior prince and a king's bastard.  It is the tale of loyalty and love, of treachery and conspricacy on the grandest scale.  Impeccably researched, beautifully written, it is absorbing and moving.  But don't take my word for it....see for yourself....

You'll find Rebecca Lochlann's website here

and the first two chapters of The Year God's Daughter here. 

The Half-Child

by Angela Savage

I first met Angela Savage, author of The Half-Child at the Crime and Justice Festival in July last year.  As a person, Angela is honest, and open and fun.  She's witty and discerning ,and she knows the best places to eat.  I could say the same for her books.  Both Behind the Night Bazaar and The Half-Child bring  a cross-cultural insight and empathy to the genre of crime fiction.  They are both thought-provoking and intriguing.  Jane Keeney, Angela's expatriate heroine who investigates on the mean streets of Thailand, is complex and funny...and she knows the best places to eat.  

You'll find Angela's website here.

Nowhere Man

by John M. Green

John M. Green is the author of Nowhere Man.  Interestingly, whilst Michael Hunt, the "nowhere man", is enigmatic and unknowable, John is personable and warm.  I met him first as a publisher, my publisher (Pantera Press was founded by the Green family).  At the time I didn't realise he was a writer, but knowing now the respect and consideration with which Pantera treats its writers, it makes sense.

Nowhere Man is a futuristic thriller, but it has a literary derivation from an old classic (which I won't mention because it would spoil the ending).   It presents the reader with dilemmas of both financial and personal ethics.  Additionally, John brings to his novel an insight into the financial markets, which he writes in a manner that puts you right on that rollercoaster of gain and loss that triggered the GFC. 

You can read more about John on the Pantera website here

You can read the first chapter of Nowhere Man here