Author Archives
Historical Novels – Bridges Across Time
Any author owes a big debt to their readers. Not just because they’ve chosen their book amongst so many others, but because they have spent time reading it. There are so many competing forms of more “instant” entertainment now, and time is precious. The cover and blurb and opening page may be what initially appeals, but a writer has to earn their readers’ time by creating characters that they will care about and by devising a plot that will make them want to keep turning the pages.
But the historical novel, perhaps like science fiction, demands something more. It requires the reader to suspend their disbelief, to ignore everything around them, and to imagine that they are living in another place, another time. For a writer that’s where the research comes in. A writer has to understand what life was like in another time – fashions, transport, medicine, work, education…
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Some bright early reviews for Paul Lynch’s Red Sky In Morning
The arrival of a first novel by an Irish author which has been the subject of a multi-sided, multinational publisher auction doesn’t happen every week, so Paul Lynch’s first book, which arrived on shelves on Thursday, is a pretty big deal.
Lynch, a former film reviewer with the Sunday Tribune amongst others, saw Red Sky In Morning bought by Quercus for Ireland, the UK and Commonwealth territories 14 months or so ago. The US edition, another big deal, will be published by Little, Brown later in the year.
Lynch spent a good chunk of his childhood in Donegal and he returns there in part for the setting of Red Sky In Morning, although it won’t have been overly familiar ground as the book is set in 1832 between Donegal and America.
The plot concerns Coll Coyle, a farmer whose family are on the verge of eviction, and the apparently…
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Overwhelmed
OMG I love my new book! Of course I’m supposed to say that but I am genuinely having the best time writing it! every time I start I find in almost impossible to stop and I feel as if I’m on this terrifying adventure with them!
These characters are becoming so very real to me, partly because i created them but mostly because several of them are based loosely on different parts of my own personality and as they grow I feel as if I am growing with them. It’s an amazing and overwhelming experience like nothing I ever though possible. I am so anxious to get to the end, re write half of it, and edit it a million times so I can share it with you all! I am seriously excited by this book. Above The Limit got my blood pumping but Don’t rock the boat has all…
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