Book after Book

By Chris Womersley Published by Quercus Bereft is the second novel by Australian journalist and literary reviewer Chris Womersley. As the author explained in an exclusive piece written for Book After Book , inspiration for him is “ a series of small insights that coalesce over several months – sometimes years – into a bunch of characters living in a particular time and place, each of them with their own set of problems ”. In Bereft , the sense of time and place is particularly clear. The year is 1919, the Great War has ended and the Spanish flu epidemic is raging across Australia as Quinn Walker returns to his hometown of Flint, in New South Wales. His return from war, however, is not anticipated with joy and elation. In fact, nobody is waiting for him. Apart from the fact that he is believed to have died at the front, Quinn hasn’t set foot in Flint since he was accused of the murder of his younger sister ten years earlier. In town he is known as “the murderer” and even his own father...

Inspiration is a curious concept and when it comes to the writing of a novel it is, at least for me, not a singular thing. The etymology of the word ‘inspiration’ harks back to notions of inhaling something from without - a spiritual influence, a divine force. For those of us who are queasy about notions of divine visitation (how would God taste, after all?), it is still useful to think of such matters in this way, for it relieves us of the burden of genius. After all, a preparedness to fail is perhaps one of the writer’s most essential qualities; it’s always handy to have someone to blame for a lousy reception - as long as you’re also willing to share the credit should things go well. For me there is rarely a single moment of inspiration but, rather, a series of small insights that coalesce over several months – sometimes years - into a bunch of characters living in a particular time and place, each of them with their own set of problems. These characters, the setting and their proble...

By Isabelle Grey Published by Quercus The book opens with the daily life of the Hinde household: Patrick, his wife Belinda and their little boy, Daniel. Their routine is somewhat disturbed by a visit of Patrick’s parents: anxious and fretful, they have the ability of pushing their son to the edge. They work him up in such a state that, after he says goodbye, Patrick is not quite himself as he drives to drop off Daniel at the childminder’s en route to his homeopathic clinic. In retrospect, Patrick won’t be able to say what happened. Except that it shouldn’t have happened. Five years later, an Englishwoman working in a small French village comes across a fascinating man. He’s a homeopath from England but he goes under the name of Patrice. Taciturn and introvert, he leads a fairly solitary life. Leonie is instantly attracted to him and, guessing that his reticence must derive from a traumatic past, she is not put off by his unwillingness to talk about himself. Likewise, fascinated by her ...

To celebrate the release of Out of Sight - published this month by Quercus Books - author Isabelle Grey kindly agreed to answer a few questions on Book After Book . Enjoy... Hello Isabelle! First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the release of Out of Sight . Can you tell us what it is about? A: Out of Sight is a novel of psychological suspense. Patrick Hinde is a good man whose coping strategy is to compartmentalise and ‘forget’ the things that upset him. Following a difficult visit from his parents, his failure of memory causes the death of his beloved son, Daniel. Struggling to accept his wife’s forgiveness, his avoidant behaviour becomes worse, leading him to hurt those closest to him. The novel is also a love story; in France five years later he meets Leonie, who cherishes the romantic belief that love can heal his damage. But will Patrick be able to change his destructive behaviour? This is your first work of fiction after a series of non-fiction books written as Isabe...

By Ester Verhoef Translation from the Dutch by Alexander Smith Published by Quercus Publishing Plc Esther Verhoef is the author of Rendezvous , a book that can only be described as unputdownable. A term that I don’t particularly like but that is the only way to define this 345-page-long hardback. The story opens in prison, where a desperate Simone is being held in a cell waiting to be questioned for what we’ll later find out is a case of murder. Unable to talk to anybody, she starts going through the events of the past year in her mind, trying to understand how she lost everything she had. Everything had started when, together with her husband Eric and their two children, Simone had left behind the hectic city life of Amsterdam and moved to a little village in the south of France. On impulse, they had bought an 18th century house with the intention of turning it into a successful B&B. Between the present and that idyllic future, however, the renovation works posed a big obstacle fo...