I’m delighted today to be joined by Susan Gandar, author of the stunning We’ve Come To Take You Home.  She is telling us all about the books and authors who have had an influence on her.

Which authors/books did you like to read as a child?

I was the oldest in my class and the last to learn to read. Rather than helping me, giving me extra tuition, my battle axe of a teacher banished me from her class. I spent hour after miserable hour trembling out in the corridor while my fellow classmates conquered Jack and his cat. So, it wasn’t that surprising that for me, as a child, reading wasn’t a pleasurable experience. In fact it was something to be avoided. But, then, and I think it must have been in my early teens, and I can’t remember any particular book, things changed. And, now, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m at my very happiest when head down in a book.

But to answer your question! My earliest memories of reading are Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales. I suspect it was more about the pictures because the book I remember was illustrated. I adored ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and was heartbroken when I reached the end. And then, in no particular order, ‘Ballet Shoes’, ‘The Little Princess’, ‘The Sword in the Stone’, ‘The Secret Garden’, ‘Paddington’, ‘Moonfleet’, ‘The Railway Children’ and endless Enid Blytons.

A rather conservative and somewhat worthy collection compared to the exciting range of contemporary fiction which is now available to children and young adults.

Were you good at English at school? Did you like it?

Yes, once I went to senior school, where I had some really excellent teachers, I fell in love with English, particularly English language. I have a memory of reading George Eliot’s ‘Mill on the Floss’ in class. Homework was to write an additional chapter for the book. I wrote it, no problem, really enjoyed the experience; the voices inside my head were clear and true. The words flowed easily. A week later my chapter was read out in class. And so it continued. I regret though that, both at home and at school, I was never ever encouraged to continue as a writer. Nobody told me of Malcolm Bradbury’s excellent Creative Writing Course which had just started at UEA. If only I had known.

What genres do you like to read? Have they had an impact on the genre you write?

The novels which I find most satisfying are usually those that are a mix of different genres. Which are the ones that publishers and bookshops often avoid as they fail to fit, neatly, onto any particular book shelf. But I do definitely lean towards historical fiction, literary rather than popular, which is also what I’m writing – at least at the moment.

If you were to write a different genre what would it be and why?

I’m happiest when writing a strong storyline so maybe it would be crime? Although I have to admit it’s not a genre I would read out of choice. I admired Anne Buist’s ‘Medea’s Curse’. It’s deeply rooted in contemporary reality and leaves you guessing until the very last page. Michael Russell is another crime writer I admire. ‘The City in Darkness’, his third Stefan Gillespie novel, is due out October this year. Michael’s style is far more literary than Anne’s and his storylines are set just prior to the Second World War. If I could write something which had a little of both, a bit of Anne and a bit of Michael, that would be great. But I don’t see it happening – at least not right now! And then there’s Rom Com. I’d love to have a go but the prospect of coming up with an idea as original and as intelligent, and as hilarious, say, as Graeme Simsion’s ‘The Rosie Project’ is, to say the least, somewhat daunting.

Did any author’s work encourage you to pick up your pen and write and if so who, what and why?

I have read hundreds, possibly even thousands, of books, fiction and non-fiction. And pretty much each and every one must have influenced me in some way – whether as a writer or as a person. But I particularly remember David Almond and most particularly ‘Skellig’. I love David Almond’s very sparse but poetic style combined with that huge imagination. And all his books have such a wonderful sense of place.
And then there’s Meg Rossoff. I’d never read any YA until I picked ‘Where I Live Now’ off an adult fiction shelf in a High Street bookshop. It introduced me to a style of writing, open, honest and actually quite brutal, even upsetting, I’d never come across before.
And Susan Hill. Her First World War novel – ‘Strange Meeting’ – is a particular favourite. If you had to read one novel about that particular time, that particular war, then that would be the one I would recommend. Along with Sebastian Barry’s ‘A Long, Long Way.’
But it was Marghanita Laski’s ‘The Victorian Chaise-Longue’, a book given to me many, many years ago by my mother, which really helped when I was writing the slips, from one life to another, in ‘We’ve Come to Take You Home’. The blurb on the back of my Penguin 1962 edition says, ‘In this short, eerie novel … a young mother who is recovering from tuberculosis falls asleep on a Victorian chaise-longue and is ushered into a waking nightmare of death amongst strangers.’

Are there any authors who, as soon as they publish a new book, you have to get it?

Anne Tyler, Susan Hill, Ian McEwan, Rose Tremain, A.S. Byatt, Rachel Joyce, Sebastian Faulks, Sebastian Barry, Kate Atkinson, Salley Vickers, there are so many authors it’s impossible to list them all.

Which books have you read that have made you think ’Wow, I wish I had written that’ and what was it about the book?

Anthony Doerr’s ‘All the Light We Cannot See’, a hauntingly beautiful page turner, set in France and Germany during the Second World War, which manages to be epic in narrative scale but, at the same time, emotionally focused and deeply intimate. I just loved and admired everything about it, enough to really want to give it a second read.
Have any of your plots/characters been influenced by real life events/people? (Be careful, I don’t want you getting sued!)

It was while I was working as Script Consultant on ‘Casualty’ that we decided to focus an episode on organ donation, specifically looking at it from the donor and the donor’s family point of view. Plus the experiences of the doctors and nurses trying to get a family to agree to donation. Sam Snape researched and wrote the script – ‘Living Memories’.
Less than six months later, I found myself sitting beside my unconscious mother, in the back of an ambulance, blue lights flashing, siren blaring, as it weaved its way through the traffic towards the nearest hospital. When the ambulance screamed to a halt, the back doors opened and I found myself staring into the faces of the A & E department’s crash team, what had been TV fiction became a living reality.
Two hours later, my mother was admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit with a suspected brain haemorrhage. One hour later the diagnosis was confirmed. This is pretty much what Sam goes through in ‘We’ve Come to Take You Home’ only the parent is her father rather than her mother. A nurse in the intensive care unit asked me to take my mother’s hand. I couldn’t. The same happens to Sam. But, unlike me, Sam is given a second chance.

About Susan Gandar

My father, John Box, was a film production designer, working on ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, ‘Dr. Zhivago’, ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘A Man For All Seasons’ and the musical ‘Oliver’. (Click here for more on John ) Our house was always filled with people, usually eccentric, always talented, invariably stroppy, discussing stories. My mother put my father’s four Oscars to good use as toilet roll holders, doorstops and hat stands.

A major chunk of my childhood was spent loitering around on film sets. Who needs an ‘English education’ when you have the polystyrene-coated streets of downtown Moscow, ten miles outside of Madrid, to explore?

But then the years of ‘Who Will Buy My Sweet Red Roses’ came to a rather abrupt end. Reality knocked on the door in the guise of the Metropolitan Line to Shepherds Bush and the BBC. Working in television as a script editor and story consultant, I was part of the creative team responsible for setting up ‘Casualty’. I became known for going after the more ‘difficult’ stories at the same time successfully racking up viewing figures from 7 to 14 million.

I went on to develop various projects for both the BBC and the independent sector. The period I enjoyed most was working with Jack Rosenthal, a wonderful writer, on the series ‘Moving Story’ – ‘That’s a situation, a good situation, but now you need to make it into a story.’

Martin, my husband, was made an offer he couldn’t refuse and we left England to live in Amsterdam. ‘Ik wil een kilo kabeljauw, alstublieft’ will, if all goes well, buy you a piece of cod – I decided to concentrate on my writing rather than my Dutch pronunciation.

Links

susangandar.com

Twitter @Susan_Gandar

Amazon author page

We’ve Come To Take You Home is out now!

You can read my review here!

A huge thank you to Susan for taking part!

This week the lovely Tracey Sinclair is joining me to talk about her author influences.  Author of Bridesmaid Blues and the Dark Dates series, Tracey tells us about her favourite books and authors.

Which authors/books did you like to read as a child?

I read widely – and often wildly inappropriately – when I was young, so don’t have a memory of reading many children’s books, but I liked a lot of sci-fi (interestingly, ‘hard’ sci-fi, which I hardly ever read now, such as Robert Heinlein, and Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat books), and I loved superhero comics – which I still do.

Were you good at English at school? Did you like it?

I was – and I loved it! I wrote stories from a very young age, and I loved being given things to read.

What genres do you like to read? Have they had an impact on the genre you write?

I do think you need a familiarity with a genre to write it – we’ve all read terrible books by so-called literary authors who decide they can ‘improve’ on a genre but actually don’t understand it! I’ve read pretty much every genre, as I have quite catholic tastes, so I feel quite comfortable writing in most of them, though I think I’d struggle with the hard science of really good speculative fiction, and I am way too lazy to do the kind of research historical novels require. I’d also struggle not to swear, which probably means I should give children’s fiction a miss. I really admire genre writers, though – I think they tend to be very underrated, especially if they are women, but it takes a lot of skill to make something read like it was easy to write.

If you were to write a different genre what would it be and why?

So far I’ve done contemporary fiction, romantic comedy and urban fantasy so I’d like to have a go at hard sci-fi, and crime.

Did any author’s work encourage you to pick up your pen and write and if so who, what and why?

I can’t think of anyone who encouraged me as a child, which was when I started writing – I think it was just a more amorphous love of books and stories – but certainly there are authors whose style influenced me: I lived in Glasgow for a long time, and a lot of my influences when I was writing there were Scottish contemporary authors like A L Kennedy.

In terms of how I write now, I’d say my influences on the romantic comedy side were Marian Keyes – since she has a bit of an edge – and on the paranormal side, Jim Butcher. Most of my influences are actually from TV or film: Bridesmaid Blues was influenced by While You Were Sleeping – the plots have nothing in common, but the film’s honest sense of urban loneliness really appealed to me, and I think a lot of romantic books gloss over that. Dark Dates was heavily influenced by self-aware, snarky, smart shows like Buffy, Supernatural, The X-Files and early Vampire Diaries.

Are there any authors who, as soon as they publish a new book, you have to get it?

Loads! I love a series, so Lee Child, John Connolly, Ian Rankin, Tess Gerritsen, Rob Thomas’ Veronica Mars spin-off books, Jim Butcher, Dennis Lehane, Donna Leon, JK Rowling (also as Robert Galbraith). Previously Terry Pratchett was my absolute must buy. I cried when he died!

Which books have you read that have made you think ’Wow, I wish I had written that’ and what was it about the book?

Oh, god, so many! Despite my love of a good series, probably those exquisite standalone novels that seem to come along every few years. I remember, for instance, reading Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – which I loved so much I literally told strangers to buy it – and I ached to be able to write something so moving and beautiful.

Have any of your plots/characters been influenced by real life events/people? (Be careful, I don’t want you getting sued!)

Ha, ha! Well, let’s just say me and my friends are a constant source of inspiration – but I try to avoid straight copying, in case they get offended or I have to kill them off…

About Tracey Sinclair

Tracey Sinclair is an author and freelance editor and writer. Her books include the romcom The Bridesmaid Blues and the Dark Dates/Cassandra Bick series, the latest of which, Angel Falls, is out now.

www.darkdates.org

Twitter @thriftygal

Amazon author page

Angel Falls is out now!

A huge thank you to Tracey for spending time with Bloomin’ Brilliant Books today!

 

I am really happy to be joined today by Kathleen McGurl, author of The Daughters of Red Hill Hall, who is going to tell us about her author influences. 

Which authors/books did you like to read as a child?
Enid Blyton! I read everything by her I could get my hands on. Also loved CS Lewis (Narnia books), Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons) and Noel Streatfeild (Ballet Shoes).

Were you good at English at school? Did you like it?
Yes, I was pretty good at it. I was an all rounder and good at most things. I enjoyed writing stories. However, sadly I did not have a very good English teacher at school, so gave it up in favour of sciences at 16.

What genres do you like to read? Have they had an impact on the genre you write?
I will read most genres, but tend to prefer historical and I absolutely adore dual timeline novels. So yes, they’ve had an impact, as it’s dual timeline novels that I write!

If you were to write a different genre what would it be and why?
I would write pure historical novels, because I love them. But at the moment I’ve no plans to change from the dual timelines.

Did any author’s work encourage you to pick up your pen and write and if so who, what and why?
No one particular author. I always intended to become a writer one day, and it was only ever a question of when I’d actually sit down and start writing. I did try to start a novel when on my first maternity leave but then the baby was born and he had different ideas about how I should spend my time. So it all went on hold until my children were school age.

Are there any authors who, as soon as they publish a new book, you have to get it?
Yes, Kate Morton, Kate Atkinson, Katherine Webb. Love them all!

Which books have you read that have made you think ’Wow, I wish I had written that’ and what was it about the book?
Anything by the above three writers! I love the way those three authors can weave a story with such amazing, beautiful prose. If I had to pick one, it’d be Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. What an amazing idea for a novel!

Have any of your plots/characters been influenced by real life events/people? (Be careful, I don’t want you getting sued!)
Not especially, although I’m inspired by all sorts of things, so tiny snippets from real life can make their way into my novels. But I try to make sure that people and events are fictional enough that they could not be recognized.

About Kathleen McGurl

Kathleen McGurl lives in Bournemouth with her husband and sons.  She always wanted to write, and for many years was waiting until she had the time.  eventually she came to the bitter realisation that no one would pay her for a year off work to write a book, so she sat down and started to write one anyway.  Since then she has published several novels with Carina UK and self-published another.  She has also sold dozens of short stories to women’s magazines, and written three How To books for writers.  She works full time in the IT industry and when she’s not writing, she’s often out running, slowly.

Links

kathleenmcgurl.com

Twitter @KathMcGurl

Amazon author page

The Daughters of Red Hill Hall was published on 14 April 2016

A huge thank you to Kathleen for joining me today!