Curious Arts Festival - author event - Renee Knight

by Maryom

For my third event of the festival - and bear in mind this is still only Saturday lunchtime - I went to see Renee Knight, author of psychological thriller Disclaimer, who'd whizzed down from Harrogate Crime Festival to chat with fellow author SJ Watson (Before I Go To Sleep, Second Life).
Disclaimer is the story of a middle-aged woman who one day idly picking up a book discovers that the tale told within it bears a remarkable similarity to something that once happened to her... It grew out of a previous, unpublished story which drew heavily on real life events, during the writing of which Knight began to see how awful it must be to pick up a book written by a stranger but based on your life ... and Disclaimer was born.

It's the sort of 'domestic noir' novel that seems to romp up the bestseller charts and Disclaimer is currently No1 in the Sunday Times bestsellers list, and has been translated into 30 languages. Both authors' novels fall into this bracket, of thrillers which are set firmly in seemingly happy domestic situations; the 'chill factor' being that readers can easily imagine themselves transported into such a situation, normal and happy on the surface but with secrets lurking underneath, and, after all, how well do we really know anyone? Both agreed though that 'dometic noir' is not a new genre as such but has been around for a long while - Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Patricia Highsmith's novels being cited as earlier examples.
Asked about influences on her writing, Renee Knight named Lionel Shriver, Zoe Heller, and Colm Toibin, and is currently reading The Circle by Dave Eggers.

The discussion moved on to their fairly similar routes to publication - the first bad novel now hidden in a drawer, the better one that gets published, the usefulness of writing courses (for getting an agent or maybe just for encouraging the budding author to make time to write), and, when all this has paid off, suddenly having to learn to write to publishers' deadlines. The life of a successful author doesn't just involve sitting in solitude writing - there are signings and book events such as this one to attend; fortunately both authors have discovered them to be surprisingly enjoyable - they certainly are for the audience.

Second Life by S J Watson

 review by Maryom

Julia has a seemingly perfect life - the lovely house and caring family that most aspire to - but she's about to put it all at risk. When her sister Kate dies in mysterious circumstances, Julia finds herself trawling internet dating sites for clues to Kate's last movements. Soon though she finds herself attracted to one of the men she meets there....and living a double life.

Now, S J Watson's debut  Before I Go To Sleep was a stunner - and left wondering how he could ever follow it. BIGTS had a special 'hook' -  the mere thought of waking up each morning with a memory wiped clean is terrifying  - which is missing this time. Second Life is, should I say, a 'normal' thriller - but even so it's brilliant!

It starts a little slowly and it's not obvious at first which way the plot is going (and I'm not going to tell you) plus, in the way of the best thrillers, some truths only come tumbling out of the woodwork at the very end. But give it a chapter or two and it will have you hooked - much as Julia is!

 I got the impression from the very start that Julia was a little bit bored with her safe respectable husband, the guy who 'saved' her from her younger more wayward self, so she was ready and willing to stir things up a bit and get some excitement back in her life. What she finds, though, is an obsession or addiction taking over her life, leading her on to increasingly risky behaviour that could end up with her losing everything and everyone she holds dear. I was reminded in part of Deborah Kay Davies novel of obsession True Things About Me but Second Life has an additional hook - who killed Kate? was it an almost motiveless attack or did something more sinister lie behind it?
 I'm glad to say that Second Life lived up to all my expectations - a tense, mesmerising thriller that you'll want to read in one sitting, with an ending that stunned me!

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars

Publisher - Doubleday

Genre- adult psychological thriller

Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson - re-read

post by Maryom

As I was taking my copy of Before I Go To Sleep up to Edinburgh Book Festival, hoping to have it signed by S J Watson, it seemed only sensible to read it again. I was a little curious about how well the story would work second time round as I now know all the plot twists and I also wanted to take into account some of the criticisms I've read from non-fans.

Second time through I found the story just as compelling as the first. I thought there were hints and clues to be picked up along the way that I'd missed first time and in some ways knowing how everything would end increased the tension. I don't want to run the risk of spoilers but I felt at times like shouting "he's behind you" or some such warning to Christine.

As for criticisms I've heard. Someone actually found Christine's wearing of tights under trousers to be a major credibility-fail. It isn't for me as I know women who do this. More worthy of consideration is that some readers didn't believe in the feasibility of Christine's diary - of how she could maintain it. In part, even first time round, I was prepared to accept this with a little suspension of dis-belief. After all, it's mainly a plot device to tell the story through Christine's eyes - if a different character had told it, all the plot twists would have been given away on the first page! And the up-coming film with Nicole Kidman? I think it should work well. As I re-read I tried to envisage Kidman as Christine and found myself thinking of her role in The Others - a very creepy ghost story with a twist at the end that completely alters all that went before, much like Before I Go To Sleep in that respect.


As you can see from the photo above, my copy of Before I Go To Sleep is a rather special one with padlock and key sent out by the publicist to reviewers. It's now extra special as it's been signed by S J Watson himself. It was great to meet him at last, even if only briefly as he had quite a long line waiting to have books signed. I'd chatted to him before via Twitter and was curious to know if he'd at last seen 50 First Dates. He had - and said he thought his novel was more like that would be as Drew Barrymore's character aged, than my theory which is that Before I Go To Sleep is what would happen if Adam Sandler were evil!


Original review  25th May 2011
Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Transworld
Genre - adult, crime/thriller

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012

This year we timed our annual holiday so as to spend a week in Edinburgh to take in events at the festival as well as meet people and step outside a bit and enjoy fringe events too.

The first week was to be our week and we set aside just 3 days to attend the festival but what we didn't realise is that the festival is actually addictive and that we quickly changed that to 6 days, so if you plan on attending the festival at all then be warned!

We met and made a lot of friends and attended events and book signings and here are but a few.

i) Alan Bissett - Maryom chatted about Pack Men and how it is not just for male football fans. We also saw Alan at the Festival Cafe (a BBC Scotland radio show) where he talked about and performed a brief excerpt from his one man fringe show for arachnophobes - extremely funny, catch him if you can.

ii) Barry Hutchinson - We talked with Barry and other Scottish authors about the difficulties caused by branding books as 'Scottish' and how buyers in England avoid such books for some reason perhaps in the belief that they are "all haggis and tartan".

iii) Linda Strachan - We chatted about many things and had a sneak preview of the cover for Don't Judge Me, her next teen novel to be published by Strident in Autumn.

iv) Keren David and Cat Clarke talked about motivations for writing, methods of writing and other things and read from their latest books and The Mole discussed with Cat Clarke the character with which she identifies and although we disagreed on choice her father was in agreement with The Mole.

v) Keith Charters  - We chatted at length on many subjects surrounding publishing and many NOT publishing related.

vi) Matt Cartney - We chatted about several things... but more on this meeting in a later post.

vii) Edward Wilson talked of his route to writing spy thrillers and read from his  book.

viii) James Mayhew - We saw him story telling and painting in a way that he does so well.

ix) S J Watson signed Maryom's copy of Before I Go To Sleep and chatted about it and the publicity campaign surrounding it.

And one of the great things is that at the festival you can meet so many people by chance..while in the yurt, apparently Neil Gaiman walked past and we missed him, we brushed passed and chatted with Nicola Morgan in the bookshop and we met and chatted with Victoria Campbell as well as brushing past an Archbishop.

The problem is that you cannot do everything you want to do and we missed many people. There were also so many authors and friends we would like to have met in the second week, but sadly due to the GCSE results day in England then it had to be the first week only.

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson

A Clean Slate
review by Maryom

Christine wakes one morning in what she believes to be a stranger's bed, but it isn't. She is at home, in her own bed, the man beside her says he is her husband Ben and that they've been happily married for many years. Christine remembers none of it - absolutely nothing after an accident 18 years ago, every night her memory is wiped clean and each day started with a blank slate. Husband Ben has a scrapbook full of photographs and memorabilia to help fill the long gap, but something doesn't feel quite right. When Christine discovers a diary, kept secretly without her husband's knowledge, recording the events of the past few weeks and the flashes of memory that have occurred, she becomes more certain that somewhere, somehow, Ben is hiding the truth.

I'd had 'tasters' of the first chapter arriving over several weeks and was frustrated at not being able to read more, so when the actual book turned up for review I lost no time in sitting down and getting on with it. Before I Go To Sleep definitely lives up to the hype going round the web about it. SJ Watson has captured how absolutely terrifying it must be to have no memory of so many years, to have no way of being certain that people are telling you the truth. Through the diary, the reader shares Christine's dilemma of wanting to accept the things Ben tells her, of wanting to believe his reasons for not sharing everything, everyday, when it will all have to be repeated the next, but finding that what he says doesn't match her intermittent memories or the diary she's started to keep.
The gradual unfolding of Christine's life makes for a tense, atmospheric thriller that drags you in and compels you to read. I was very tempted to quickly peep at the ending but just managed to resist and was glad I did!

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Transworld
Genre - adult, crime/thriller

Other reviews; Subtle Melodrama   
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