The Upstairs Room by Kate Murray-Browne Blog Tour; The Books That Made Me

A gothic and chilling debut from Kate Murray-Browne about a young family; Eleanor, Richard and their two young daughters who have just moved into what should be their dream home in Litchfield Road. Stretched to the limit, the renovations have to wait and they decide to get a lodger in to rent the basement, so they can afford the repayments. Eleanor feels the strange atmosphere almost immediately and begins to suffer with chronic headaches and vomiting. Richard is also affected but he is channeling his unhappiness into a Masters Degree that he hopes will change his life, his career and help him find that spark that his current role as a solicitor doesn't give him. The lodger Zoe has quit her job to work in an art shop and left her long term boyfriend. She is hoping to write, or draw or something. She too is seeking change. The Upstairs Room is left empty. It's walls covered in scrawls and pictures from the little girl who lived there before. Eleanor asks the neighbours and they tell her there was an accident, something bad happened in that house. As Eleanor becomes increasingly ill and starts to see her older daughter's behaviour changing she knows she must do something. This is a dark and clever book which uses the tropes of the ghost story to examine the anxieties of three people worried about the cost of housing, about being trapped by marriage, by jobs, by reponsibilities. This book will be published by Picador on July 27th in e-book and hardback. Thanks to Don Shanahan for an e-ARC.

I asked the author to take part in my Books that Made Me Series and here are Kate's choices.


The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James – I first read this when I was seventeen, which is maybe why James’s young heroine ‘affronting her destiny’ appealed to me so much. But it stayed with me, and the ideas about choice, limitation and thwarted desire (not to mention the potential disaster of marriage proposals) all found their way into my first novel, The Upstairs Room.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters – I read this on holiday in Mallorca, basically the least spooky setting ever, and I was still terrified. I remember feeling very sad finishing it because I thought it was one of the best books I’d ever read, but there was no way I could read it again as it was so frightening. I have braved it since (during daylight hours) and found the evocation of the house and its inhabitants just as compelling and poignant, marvelling at how skilfully Waters manages the ambiguity of the haunting.

Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy – there are lots of wonderful things about this autobiographical essay, but the thing that stands out for me is the way Levy writes about motherhood – I thought about it a lot when writing about Eleanor, one of my protagonist’s, experience of motherhood. I’m incredibly excited about the forthcoming sequel, The Cost of Living (and I half-wanted to steal the title for The Upstairs Room).

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Sleeper's Castle by Barbara Erskine

Barbara Erskine's lastest book returns to the landscape where she set her debut novel Lady of Hay 30 years ago. Miranda, Andy to her friends has lost the man she loves and her home. After nearly ten years together her beloved Graham is dead and with no will his home that he shared with Andy is now the property of his estranged wife Rhona. Andy is left rudderless but she is offered a lifeline by an old friend; Sue is heading to Australia for a year and she needs a house sitter for her beautiful home in the Welsh Borders. Sleeper's Castle is old and full of shadows and secrets so Andy is really not surprised when she begins to dream about the past. In the early 1400s Catrin lived at Sleeper's Castle with her father a poet and a bard. Catrin also writes poetry but she must keep it secret for her father is a controlling man and Wales is in turmoil as shifting allegiances bring war to their door and it is a dangerous time to be a bard and a seer. As Catrin and her father are drawn into the rebellion of Owain Glyndwr and she begins to fall for a handsome English widower, Catrin's story seems determined to be told.
Barbara Erskine once again beautifully blends past and present allowing the tension and darkness to seep from the past into the present. Loyal fans will not be disappointed with this new book and new fans will be equally enchanted. If you have not yet discovered Barbara Erskine you are in for a treat. She cleverly weaves together mystery, history, romance and the gothic and will appeal to fans of Diana Gabaldon and Susanna Kearsley.
This book will be released on June 30th 2016 from Harper Collins who kindly sent me a proof copy to review.

Daughter of the House by Rosie Thomas

Daughter of the House is the eagerly awaited follow up to Rosie Thomas’s incredibly successful The Illusionists and although it is a sequel the book can quite easily be read as a stand alone novel. The novel tells the story of Nancy Wix; daughter of the great theatre impresario Devil Wix and his melancholic wife Eliza. Nancy discovers at a young age that she has psychic abilities but is at pains to keep “the uncanny” hidden from her family, though she struggles to do so when she is approached by another psychic after a boating tragedy. This man will haunt Nancy for many years. As the middle child Nancy is often the buffer in a house of large personalities: when her brothers go away to war, she must stay to hold her parents together. She joins the suffragettes and briefly finds work at a printing house and longs to find her own place in the world. Through her psychic abilities she finally finds it and begins to let go of just being a daughter and starts learning to be herself. This is a wonderful coming of age tale set in a time of huge upheaval and social change. It is a story of the lives of women and the choices they face and it is a wonderful evocation of the past. Thomas has made meticulous use of her research brilliantly bringing to life the end of the music hall era and the rise of spiritualism in the 1920s.  I highly recommended this smart, gothic and romantic page turner.

This review originally appeared in HNR 73 see it online HERE

The Edge of Dark by Pamela Hartshorne

The Edge of Dark is the first Pamela Hartshorne novel I've read but it certainly won't be the last. This is a time slip novel, a genre that I adore. The two protagonists are Jane a butcher's daughter who makes an advantageous marriage in Sixteenth Century York and Rosalind newly appointed events director at Holmwood House. It is the restored Elizabethan townhouse in Micklegate that connects the two women. The echoes of the past are brought to life by the work being done in the house. As the house begins to look as it did in Elizabethan times and the staff are encouraged to dress as Elizabethans for the grand opening so the restless spirits of Jane and her family begin to overpower Roz and her colleagues. The time shifts between the two characters are expertly done leaving the reader dying to know more about both time lines and with both stories coming to dramatic climaxes. This is a fantastic page turner, filled with twists and turns and a great cast of characters. It is at times thrillingly dark as the title suggests and I can't wait to read the author's previous books. This novel will be perfect for fans of Tudor fiction such as Philippa Gregory and of course fans of time slip fiction such as that of Barbara Erskine.

Thank you to Louise Buckley of Pan MacMillan for a review copy of the book.

The House Where It Happened by Martina Devlin

This book has become one of my all time favourites because it's fantastically well written and a wonderful page turner but it also includes many of my favourite elements; witches, mystery, ghosts, history it's all here. It's set in 1711 and based on the real events surrounding Ireland's only mass witch trial. Just as the belief in witchcraft is beginning to fade, in a quiet corner of Ulster where superstitions and fear took root easily a young woman, a newcomer but a member of a respected local family begins to accuse one woman after another of torturing her through the power of witchcraft.
The author has fictionalised the events though the narrative remains essentially true to the actual accounts of the incident. The story is narrated by Ellen the 18 year old maid at Knowehead House where Mary Dunbar was a guest when she began to make her claims of being attacked by witches. As the community begins to fall under Mary's spell, Ellen is not entirely convinced however she cannot ignore the strange and brooding atmosphere at Knowehead and she is certain that the house is haunted. This is the story of two very different young women; one pampered and indulged, the other hard working and forced to grow up quickly. It's a story of class politics, religious fervour and how the echo of past wrong can reverberate through a community. Whether like me you are interested in the history of witchcraft or you simply enjoy a rattling good yarn then I highly recommend this book. The writing is wonderful, following the Ulster Scots dialect gives it an authenticity but it is not difficult to read. Placing Ellen at the centre of the story is a genius move as it means like her we watch the entire drama unfold. One of the best books of 2014.

Frost Hollow Hall

Frost Hollow Hall is a delightful debut novel from a talented new voice in historical fiction for children.

Despite the spooky nature of the tale – including the icy lake, the haunted halls and the crockery which moves across the room by itself – Frost Hollow Hall is a cosy and satisfying read. Emma Carroll has created a down-to-earth and assured narrator in Tilly, who is rescued from the lake after a skating accident by Kit Barrington – even though he’s been dead for ten years.

Tilly is sure there is a reason his spirit is not at rest, and she is determined to find out what. Betrayed by her own family's disbelief, when Tilly's friend Will Potter refuses to believe her, Tilly takes a job as a maid at Frost Hollow Hall and finds a house still in mourning after a decade of loss – as well as a vengeful spirit who frightens the staff. Tilly has a mystery to unravel and she’ll do it with or without Will Potter.

This is a charming story which, despite dealing with dark themes of grief, poverty and death, remains light-hearted and hopeful. With wonderful description and great characterisation, Emma Carroll is a real find and Frost Hollow Hall is a perfect ghostly mystery for fans of Eva Ibbotson, Ellen Renner and Marie-Louise Jensen.

This review originally featured on welovethisbook.com

Friday Feature Author Emma Carroll

Apologies for missing last week but I have returned to feature a wonderful writer for children the very lovely and very talented Emma Carroll. I have to say I love Emma's book choices. You can get both of Emma's brilliant books in paperback in all good bookshops now and you can read my review of Frost Hollow Hall HERE

When she isn’t writing, Emma Carroll teaches English part-time at a secondary school in Devon. She has also worked as a news reporter, an avocado picker and the person who punches holes into filofax paper. She graduated with distinction from Bath Spa University’s MA in Writing For Young People. ‘Frost Hollow Hall’ is Emma’s debut novel for Faber and won the North East Book Award. Her second novel, ‘The Girl Who Walked On Air’ is set in a Victorian circus. In another life she wishes she’d written ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne Du Maurier. Emma lives in the Somerset hills with her husband and two terriers. You can find out more about Emma at her blog http://emmacarrollauthor.wordpress.com/

Emma's Top Five Writimg Tips

In no particular order (and said with no great authority as I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to write)

1. Use pictures or film to help you visualize places or settings.
2. Set yourself a do-able daily word count and STICK TO IT.
3. Don’t expect every writing day to be the same: few are almost effortless, most are hard work.
4. Write down ideas immediately they occur- otherwise you’ll forget them.
5. Vary where you write- I tend to move from room to room during the day, just to shake things up!


Emma's Top Five Books (Historical)

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
2. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
3. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
4. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
5. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Emma's Top Five Historical Fiction Books For Children and Teens

1. Witch Child by Celia Rees
2. I, Coriander by Sally Gardner
3. the Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pulman
4. The Mysterious Misadventures of Clemency Wrigglesworth by Julia Lee
5. The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson

Friday Feature Author Martina Devlin

Martina Devlin is an Omagh-born author and journalist. Her eight books range from historical novels – The House Where It Happened and Ship of Dreams – to non-fiction including Banksters and The Hollow Heart. She writes a weekly current affairs column for the Irish Independent and has been named columnist of the year by the National Newspapers of Ireland. Short story awards include the Royal Society of Literature’s VS Pritchett Prize and a Hennessy Literary Award. Martina's latest book is The House Where it Happened published by Poolbeg's Ward River Press.
Her website is www.martinadevlin.com


Q&A with Martina Devlin


1. Do you plan the story first and then do the research or does reading and research spark ideas?
The research sparks ideas for me. I have a general idea of plot, themes, and so on, but I have to hunt for the characters and wait for them to flesh out.

2. Do you think historical fiction is enjoying a resurgence and why is that?
It never went away, for some of us fans of the genre. But yes it does seem to be having a moment. The past fascinates some readers because we can see where wrong turns were taken but are powerless to shout: Not that way, this way! The end result is already cast. Or is it because we like to replay what-ifs and wonder how they might have changed the course of history? Perhaps it’s nostalgia. Or that we learn while we read. There could be any number of reasons.

3. What draws you to writing about the past?
I’m a history buff. Researching these novels enthralls me. For some bizarre reason, I like to know how much a stamp cost in 1711, and whether or not a servant girl was allowed a half-day off a week.

4. Do you have a typical writing day?
Where possible, I try to write in the morning because my brain is less cluttered and I have more energy, consequently the work is better. It doesn’t always pan out that way, but that’s the ideal. I’ve been adopted by a tortoiseshell cat, who comes and lies in the sun near where I work, and I find her presence soothing. And she seems to find the click-click-click soothing, too. So it’s mutually beneficial, a useful combination.

5. What are you working on now?
Another novel, speculative fiction, in which the protagonist is an outsider trying to make sense of a strange world. I didn’t set out to write speculative fiction, I just wrote the story as it came to me – and was somewhat surprised, at the end of the first draft, to discover that’s what it was. Makes me sound like a hapless channel for stories, doesn’t it? I usually have a short story on the go, too.


Martina's Five Favourite Books

In no particular order, and I could change my mind about the list tomorrow:
1. Samuel Pepys’s diaries, which he kept between 1660 and 1669. He was so fascinated by life. So fascinated by himself. So fascinating to me, hundreds of years later. He blended the personal and the panoramic, and his diaries are a porthole into the social history of his era, the English Restoration.
2. Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor because he blends detective and historical fiction to produce a cracking read of Dickensian dimensions. His character Pius Mulvey is compelling. So, too, is his famine narrative.
3. I find myself returning to Seamus Heaney’s poetry: the vividness of the imagery, the strength of the narrative, the love underpinning the portraits of his family – peeling potatoes with his mother, “Never closer the whole rest of our lives”; watching his aunt make scones, “And here is love/Like a tinsmith’s scoop”; the pen pictures of his father in old age. The Economist compared his death to a great tree falling.
4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte – a revenge story, a love story, a sad story, a masterly story. And it’s set on the haunting Yorkshire Moors. What more could a reader ask for?
5. As a child I was entranced by the Anne of Green Gables series, about an orphan girl sent by mistake to a farm in rural Canada owned by a middle-aged brother and sister. I admired how LM Montgomery refreshed the orphan-made-good formula. However, I should point out that I may have had subjective bias because the heroine had red hair and so do I.


Martina's Top Five writing tips

1. Re-write, re-write, re-write. Cut and polish. No substitute for it.
2. Don’t wait for the muse to strike. Just do it. Start writing. Even if ‘writing’ is a euphemism for staring at a blank screen. Eventually the words will flow.
3. Ask yourself, how would I tell my story in one sentence? Have a clear idea what it’s about.
4. Know your characters inside out: their motivations, their speech patterns, their back story. Make them flawed – nobody is perfectly good or irredeemably bad.
5. Be selective about TV viewing – no need to give it up entirely but be conscious that it can suck you in for hours, so only switch on for specific programmes. Ditto with rummaging round on social media and the Internet. Those lost hours could be spent writing.

The Medici Mirror by Melissa Bailey

This is a haunting historical mystery set in three different time periods. Beginning with Catherine de Medici, Queen of France who cuts a lonely figure as a jealous wife, she begins to dabble in the black arts. Then travelling to present day London where recently divorced architect Johnny is commissioned to redesign an abandoned shoe factory into a designer split level home. Johnny discovers a hidden room in the basement, there he finds a long forgotten Venetian mirror. Spooked by his encounter with the mirror Johnny feels the dark presence that had been locked away in the hidden room spill out into his own life impacting on his burgeoning relationship with Ophelia, both are drawn to the mirror and the secrets it holds. Johnny begins to research the mirror's history and discovers a link to a tragic death which took place in the factory many years before. Is it possible that the mirror is haunted?
This is a wonderful piece of storytelling in the vein of Barbara Erskine, Rachel Hore, Kate Mosse and Helen Moorhouse, with fantastic characters and a thrilling denouement. I enjoyed the way that Melissa drip fed the three story lines throughout the book never revealing too much or too little. I look forward to this author's next book and highly recommend this to fans of the ghostly, the historical and the time-slip.

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

It's a number of years since I first read Diane Setterfield's debut The Thirteenth Tale and I enjoyed it so much I have recommended it to many others since, friends, family and customers alike I even listed it in my top five reads of all time which believe me was not an easy list to compile.
So of course I jumped at the chance to read an early review copy of her next book Bellman & Black which will be published by Orion this October in time for Halloween. I dived straight in to find a glorious slice of Victoriana layered with gothic suspense and mystery. The story opens with the last dying moments of William Bellman as his life flashes before him. He remembers being a ten year old playing in the cemetery with his friends and firing a stone at a rook with his catapult. He knocks the bird to the ground and instantly feels that he has crossed a line. Death has entered William's young life and it follows him through the years. The image of the rook, of the cemetery of the mourning clothes and all the trappings of the Victorian cult of mourning recur throughout the story and lead William to open an emporium of mourning, the first department store dedicated to funerals; black hats and gloves, coffins, black edged stationary can all be purchased at Bellman & Black. This novel is a glorious return for a wonderful and talented writer.

The Chronicles of Cadaver College: The Book of Ornis by Olive Mooney

This is the First book in a thrilling new fantasy adventure series from Irish author Olive Mooney. The story begins with Simon de Bruin our unlikely hero who finds himself at a pair of tall, ivy clad, iron gates and cannot remember how he got there. As Simon asks to be let in through the gates he is asked for his D.O.D. date of death and as the hell hounds lunge out of the darkness ready to drag him away twelve year old Simon realises that he is in fact now a ghost. Simon wakes up to find that he is now a resident of Cadaver College and as the last in a long line of de Bruin warriors it falls to him to defeat the sea witch Halbizia who has cursed the college. It’s a lot for young Simon to take in but as he learns more about the college and makes some friends including Fi the pirate Princess, Augusta the suffragette librarian and Sir Syl the crusading knight who writes awful poetry Simon begins to prepare for the coming battle.

This is an ideal read for children aged 8-11 and great to read aloud. Perfect for fans of Emily Mason’s ghost detectives and younger Derek Landy fans.

Olive has had great fun reading the book at a number of Primary schools and will be taking part in Kildare libraries Children's Book festival this autumn. Keep up with all her activities and competitions by liking the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Chronicles-of-Cadaver-College/471999882852387

You can purchase the book from all branches of Dubray Books (Dublin, Bray, Kilkenny and Galway) and all branches of The Book Centre (Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny, Kildare) or directly from Olive's website http://chroniclesofcadavercollege.com/