The Literary Sofa
Books
Guest Author – Wendy Wallace on Setting a historical novel in a foreign country
When Wendy Wallace appeared on the Literary Sofa in June 2012 as my first ever Guest Author, it was a great start to what has since become one of the most popular regular features on the blog. Wendy and I now know each other in real life too, so I am doubly pleased to welcome … Continue reading
My American Holiday TBR 2013
My Top Summer Reads 2013 has attracted a lot of interest and it’s great to be getting positive feedback from readers who’ve discovered titles they loved amongst my selection. Of course I’ve already read them, so when it comes to my summer trip I relish choosing what else to read. I find the books I read … Continue reading
Guest Author – Lydia Netzer – Writing about Being Different
* UK GIVEAWAY WINNERS ANNOUNCED – SEE END OF POST * One of the greatest challenges faced by any writer of fiction is to create characters the reader will find relatable and recognisable but, at the same time, to make them unique individuals and not stereotypes. Lydia Netzer’s quirky and original debut features protagonists who aren’t remotely like … Continue reading
The Online You and Me
This week marks two years since I joined Twitter. Within months, I’d started the Literary Sofa blog and the rest is… amazing! Now, wherever I go, people talk to me about things they’ve read or discovered here. That makes me very happy. I’m often asked ‘how I’ve done it’, especially by would-be or reluctant bloggers. … Continue reading
Guest Author – Barry Walsh on Writing fiction from your own life
This morning I had the pleasure of catching up with Wendy Wallace who was my first ever Guest Author on the Literary Sofa just over a year ago. I’m delighted at how popular this regular slot has become; the ‘one-question interview’ formula produces thought-provoking pieces every time. I read the novel and ask the author … Continue reading
Sex Scenes in Fiction
2021 UPDATE: Since writing this post many years ago I have had two novels published which include plenty of sex scenes, including same-sex in my new novel Scent. This is the 100th post on the Literary Sofa and the subject of sex hasn’t come up much beyond the occasional mention in a review. Last week’s piece on … Continue reading
XX or XY? Do readers care about gender of author?
This piece started out as a review of A M (Amy) Homes’ novel May We Be Forgiven, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013. I’m a fan of her writing and rushed to read the book back in the autumn when it was released in the UK. It’s tremendously enjoyable and memorable, but I soon realised … Continue reading
Let’s all talk about GONE GIRL
Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl isn’t the kind of book I read very often, and this isn’t going to be one of the reviews which take me six hours to write. I thought I’d write a blogpost because each of the three times I mentioned the novel on Twitter, there was a flood of replies from people dying to … Continue reading
Short Fiction: Family Snapshots eBook Singles
Name your favourite family novel or story and you could win the amazing First Prize of ALL the individual collections by the authors in the Family Snapshots series. Closes on Fathers’ Day, 16 June – see end of post for details. Life is never boring on the Literary Sofa. Proofs, finished copies, e-mails and press releases compete … Continue reading
Book Review – All That Is by James Salter
NOTE: This article makes reference to sexually explicit material. In the run-up to publication of James Salter’s sixth novel, All That Is – and no doubt long before – he was hailed as one of the great American novelists, unknown to me, perhaps because he hadn’t published a novel in 30 years. I read All … Continue reading
My new novel SCENT – out in paperback on 19 May 2022
The Literary Sofa 