Book after Book

By Tabatha Stirling Published by Unbound Digital Synopsis: Welcome to the black heart of Singapore’s maid culture, where a woman’s life is cheap in one of the richest countries in the world. Here are the voices of the unheard, of maid and employer, of village girl and city dweller. Follow Lucilla, Ma’am Leslie, Shammi and Madame Eunice as they strive, each in her own way, to exist in a country in which dark shadows lie beneath its pristine exterior. The lives of these women are woven together by a narrative which is always candid and often brutal, as it explores the effects of loss, madness, abuse and hope during a woman's life and in society as a whole. How did this book end up in my hands? I have read the online serialisation of this novel via The Pigeonhole . Was it a page-turner? Every day, for 10 days, I received a link to that day’s instalment with an estimated reading time of 25 minutes. Whilst this gave me time to savour the book, get to know the voices of...

Hi Tabatha! First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the upcoming publication of Bitter Leaves ! Can you please briefly tell us what it is about? A:   Bitter Leaves is a uncompromising examination of maid abuse in Singapore but one of the major themes is how women survive in very brutal circumstances – how that changes them and how it effects their relationships with other women.     Can you please describe your journey to publication? A: Loooooooong. It wasn’t until I was properly medicated for my Bi-Polar that I was able to focus enough to complete my first novel. Writing has become much easier since then and my published body of work has grown. I first put up an extract of Bitter Leaves on the writing platform, Authonomy, and met many writers who are still very good friends. From there I subbed to 4 agents (1 polite dismissal, 2 interested but not publishing ‘this’ sort of fiction and the other one I never heard from again!). Then I saw a frien...