Tag: historical fiction

#6Degrees of Separation: From A Gentleman in Moscow to Winter in Madrid

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It’s the first Saturday of the month so it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and for my chain I’ve decided to make a literary journey across the capitals of Europe. Apart from anything else, it seems appropriate given what is currently going on in UK politics. Links from the book title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

I haven’t yet read A Gentleman in Moscow although it’s been in my TBR pile for some time. However, I know it’s set in 1922 and concerns Count Alexander Rostov who is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin.

For my first link in the chain, we continue the theme of imprisonment with The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford. It’s a powerful, compelling account of the fate of those who struggled for survival in the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War.

It’s the Cold War which is the backdrop to Prague Spring by Simon Mawer, set in the former Czechoslovakia during a turbulent period of its history. Although I haven’t read it, it’s been on my wishlist ever since I read another of the author’s novels, Tightrope.

Hopping across the border to Austria takes me to Vienna Spies by Alex Gerlis. Described as ‘a taut, tense masterclass in espionage fiction’ it’s another book I haven’t read but which I added to my wishlist having enjoyed the author’s previous book, The Swiss Spy. Vienna Spies takes place in the fiercely pro-Nazi city of the title in the final months of the Second World War.

On to Germany and The Man from Berlin by Luke McCallin, the first in his terrific historical crime series featuring German military intelligence officer, Captain Gregor Reinhardt.

Staying with World War Two, we’re taking a Night Flight to Paris courtesy of author David Gilman. Set in Nazi occupied Paris in 1943, the book immerses the reader in a world where danger, suspicion and fear is a constant companion.  I loved its mixture of atmospheric period detail, dramatic action scenes and compelling story line.

Finally, let’s cross the Pyrenees into Spain for Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom. Set in 1940 in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, it tells the story of Harry, a privileged young man traumatized by his experiences at Dunkirk, who is despatched to the ruined city of Madrid as a reluctant spy for the British Secret Service.

This month we’ve travelled across war-torn Europe from Moscow to Madrid. Where did your chain take you?

AGentlemaninMoscowThe Good Doctor of WarsawTheManFromBerlinNIGHT FLIGHT TO PARISViennaSpies

#BlogTour A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer @SarabandBooks @LiteraryMinded

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SuS_blogtourposter FINAL

I’m delighted to welcome author Angela Meyer to What Cathy Read Next today as part of the blog tour for her novel A Superior Spectre. You can read my interview with Angela below.

SUS_coverAbout the Book

Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories and grappling with shame, he runs away to a remote part of Scotland with a piece of beta tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to only use it three times, Jeff – self-indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – ignores this advice.

In the late 1860s, Leonora lives in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by nature. Contemplating the social conventions that bind her, her contented life and a secret romantic friendship with the local laird are interrupted when her father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh. But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions.

A Superior Spectre is a novel about curiosity, entitlement and manipulation. It reminds us that the scariest ghosts aren’t the ones that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul…

Format: Paperback (288 pp.)        Publisher: Saraband
Publication date:  15th August 2019  Genre: Crime/Thriller, Historical Fiction, Literary

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com
*link provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find A Superior Spectre on Goodreads

Interview with Angela Meyer, author of A Superior Spectre

Angela, welcome to What Cathy Read Next. Without giving too much away, can you tell us a bit about A Superior Spectre?

Hi Cathy, thank you for having me on your blog! A selfish, dying man abuses an experimental technology that allows him to invade the mind of a nineteenth century Scottish woman. And while the book contains some big ideas, people have been finding it a page-turner (which is nice!).

The book is described as ‘a novel about curiosity, entitlement and manipulation’.  What attracted you to exploring those particular issues?

We often talk about curiosity in a positive way, but curiosity is skewed by power, and dominant or cultural ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. A Superior Spectre asks questions about this on a large and small scale.

My character Jeff is someone who has grown up under capitalism, who is taught to feel entitled to indulge his curiosity, his thoughts and emotions, and he comes up against the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ of his context. He dwells on, and feels great shame about, certain desires, and yet he continually invades the mind of a woman, and also treats the thoughts and feelings of other women in his life fairly dismissively. He’s a product of patriarchal capitalism, and I guess the novel is fairly sceptical about the fact that even with a literal empathic experience (living in Leonora’s head) it is difficult to shift what’s embedded in behaviour, in the mind.

I’m drawn to these themes because I’ve always been fascinated by the ways individual psychology is shaped by our social, political, cultural context (not just our immediate upbringing). There’s another layer to all this with the tech itself, and how readily we accept and incorporate new (commercially driven) technology into our lives.

In the book, Jeff ignores the advice to use the piece of experimental technology three times only. Is there a wider message there about our use (or misuse) of technology?

Tying in with the above, it’s quite a classic sci fi trope, really, but as relevant now than ever. The most incredible things are being done in neurotech. I just learned the other day about Elon Musk’s neuralink, for example. It’s all supposed to help people with devastating illness and disability. But they also say the tech will ‘enhance’ human ability. And who is going to have access to that first? Elon Musk. The one per cent. Who will also feel ‘entitled’ to enhance their abilities, to become superhuman? All of us in the West are taught we deserve such things…

A Superior Spectre is partly set in Scotland. What made you choose that as a location?

The simple answer is that it was just always set there. The idea itself was tied in with the place. I have spent a lot of time in Scotland and I love it deeply, like a person. I am not Scottish. I am part-Norwegian. I feel at home in these Northern landscapes. But my character, Jeff, is Australian, as I am. And it is his lens through which we see Scotland (partly or fully? Or at all? Readers decide when they read it).

Part of the book is set in the 1860s. How did you go about creating a picture of life in that period?

A combination of research, immersion in the places I write about, and some very ‘method’ writing which involved being holed up in isolated parts of Scotland with no electricity. I even stayed in Barnhill, George Orwell’s house, on the isle of Jura. Because so much of my writing is about sensation, about being in the body (or someone else being in your body!) I find that being or having been in the place you’re writing about, even if the past is just a ghost over the landscape, is helpful. But maybe I also, simply, feel entitled to my curiosity…

You’ve published award-winning short fiction.  Are the challenges of writing a full-length novel different and, if so, in what way?

So many years! And also structure. A novel has to have multiple threads, has to have tension, has to have a satisfying payoff (in a plot and/or character sense), has to contain so much and keep the reader interested for so long. It’s a huge challenge. Short stories are difficult, but you can play, abandon, start again. A short story could be ‘about’ the mood, the rhythm of the sentences, the voice – not just the story. But to write one that works, that is resonant, is also a huge challenge. I want to keep getting better in both these forms.

You’ve worked in publishing.  Did this help with the experience of seeing your own novel through to publication?

In Australia, because I am known in the industry, I think publishers did read it quite quickly, but it didn’t mean they picked it up! That took a year. What has been very helpful is understanding the publishing process. I know how hard it is to get published, how hard people work at all levels in publishing, and how limited the opportunities are for authors to have their books seen, read, talked about. I’ve truly been grateful for every opportunity, every stage of the process, and the fact that I get to go through it all again with A Superior Spectre now coming out in the UK.

Which other writers do you admire?

So many. Deborah Levy is a big one at the moment. Kafka has always been a favourite. John Cheever’s Diaries have been a wonderful companion in the last few years. Janet Frame. Australian writers Jane Rawson and Krissy Kneen. So many more…!

What are you working on next?

The next release is my Mslexia Award-winning novella, Joan Smokes. And I’m working on another novel, slowly…

Thanks, Angela, for those fascinating answers to my questions.

Screen-Shot-2019-05-13-at-13.34.13-wpcf_345x237About the Author

Angela Meyer’s Joan Smokes won the inaugural Mslexia Novella Competition in 2019. Her short fiction has been widely published, including in Best Australian Stories, Island, The Big Issue, The Australian, The Lifted Brow and Killings. By day she works as a publisher for Echo Publishing, an Australian imprint of Bonnier Books UK, and in this role has discovered and developed a range of award-winning, globally published and bestselling talent, including global number one bestselling author Heather Morris. A Superior Spectre, Angela’s debut novel, is already shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards.

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