December Girl By Nicola Cassidy #BlogTour

I am delighted to be taking part in the Blog Tour for Nicola Cassidy's debut novel December Girl. This is a gritty historical tale of family, heartbreak and secrets set in Ireland and London. The author was inspired by The Boyne Valley area where she grew up and where she still lives. This is an area rich in history and elements of the novel are inspired by real locations and events. The heroine of the novel is Molly Thomas a smart and independent young woman who's life is changed forever when her family is evicted from their home. The loss of her home, her father and her way of life hits Molly hard and following a shocking betrayal she travels to London to start again, but thrust into London's dark underbelly she faces heartbreak once again as her baby boy is snatched from his pram.
The hero of the tale is Henry Brabazon; the landlord's son. Henry and Molly move in different circles, but Henry does not want to to emulate his entitled, spendthrift father; he too faces crisis and must make hard choices, but in Molly he sees a bright and feisty character, someone who could perhaps be a friend. A graceful blend of timelines, mysteries and fine storytelling, December Girl seamlessly straddles the territory between saga and historical mystery, making this a perfect choice for fans of historical fiction and mysteries alike.
I was lucky enough to be a beta reader for this novel while Nicola was writing it and to see and read it in it's finished form is a real thrill. I loved the story from the beginning and in particular the two main characters; each on their separate and difficult journeys as their paths cross again and again. Nicola is an assured and talented writer and I'm delighted to have watched her journey to publication.

You can download the book from Amazon for only 99p right now. December Girl

December Girl is published by Bombshell Books and the Blog Tour continues details below.

Nicola Cassidy blogs at http://ladynicci.com/

The Red Ribbon by Lucy Adlington

Lucy Adlington is a writer and costume historian. I was aware of her non fiction books about fashion history such as the excellent Stitches in Time but I had not realised that she was also a YA author. Lucy has previously published a number of Young Adult books as L.J Adlington. This is Lucy's first foray into historical fiction and it is a fantastic story, deeply moving and full of intricate detail. The book is the story of Ella who must pretend to be old enough to work if she is to survive and as a talented dressmaker she is determined to work at the sewing workshop at Birchwood. We know it as Auschwitz. It is also the story of the people she meets; Marta, Carla and Rose. If, like me you believe in the importance of historical authenticity in children's fiction then you will really appreciate this book. It is painfully truthful about the horrific conditions that Ella and her friends endure. This is a story about friendship, survival and hope, about what it means to collaborate and to resist and about doing the right thing when everything around you is wrong. The writing is powerful and thought provoking. I found myself re-reading passages constantly and the characters stayed with me long after I finished. This is a book that I urge you to read; eye opening, shocking and inspiring. An incredibly difficult and yet hugely important read. Thanks to the publisher Hot Key Books and Midas PR for a review copy which I will treasure. 

Aphra Behn: A Secret Life

Aphra Behn: A Secret Life by Janet Todd illuminates the life of a fascinating 17th-century woman

LISA REDMOND

Janet Todd’s masterly biography of the first professional lady of letters has been reissued by Fentum Press 21 years after it originally appeared. In the intervening years Behn has become a regular feature of many English degrees. I asked the author how she feels Aphra Behn’s critical reputation has changed and one of the things Janet Todd is wary of is that on many English courses Behn is often examined without sufficient reference to her cultural and historical context. “She is securely taught in many universities now, in women’s and post-colonial studies and where Restoration literature is a course within an English degree. Only in the last is she put firmly within her historical and literary context. Critical work has tended to concentrate on The Rover and Oroonoko, discussing issues of interest to us now and often finding modern ideas of gender, race and class in her work rather than teasing out her meanings within her historical frame.”

Literary biographies are a fascinating read because they give us a new insight into the author’s works; in this case however Todd uses Behn’s works to open a window onto her life. Documentary evidence for Behn is scant but Todd’s research is painstaking.

Born Aphra Johnson in Kent in 1640, very little is known of her early years but Todd teases out family connections to Thomas Colepeper and through him to Lord Strangford and Lady Sunderland, which may account for Behn’s literary education. Certainly she was fluent in French and well versed in the classics.

She served as a spy for the court of Charles II in the 1660s through her connection to Thomas Killigrew: spy master, theatre manager and dramatist, but Todd is meticulous in putting together the puzzle of Behn’s activities throughout these years. She gives us a clearer picture of an adventurous young woman with an eye for detail and a fascination for learning and culture who had enough daring, wit and courage to take the risks necessary for the life of a spy and of course in pursuit of payment as well as excitement. Behn’s most famous novel and certainly the one that is most popular on undergraduate courses, Oroonko contains such a wealth of detail of the colony of Surinam and its inhabitants that she must have visited. Todd puts together the connections that took her there and the timeline of her travels. Using the settings of her fictional works, Todd is able to piece together an astounding tale of a woman who acted as an English agent in a variety of European cities. However spying was not a lucrative profession and Behn soon fell into debt. She returned to London to petition the King for payment to clear the debts she had incurred in his service but with payment not forthcoming she was arrested and spent time in debtor’s prison.

JANET TODD

Determined to earn her living by her pen, she worked as a scribe for both The King’s Company and The Duke’s Company, she translated works from French and began to write her own poetry, plays and prose. She had a number of her plays performed throughout the 1670s and 1680s including The Forc’d Marriage and The Rover and they helped to cement her reputation as a wit. Behn used her plays as a channel to attack those whose politics she disagreed with, often lampooning public figures, but they also display her interest in women’s lives and the obstacles they face, in love, marriage and the games that men and women play. In the 1680s Behn began to publish prose pieces and Love Letters Between a Nobleman and his Sister is one of the earliest novels in English. Behn wrote a great deal of erotic fiction and her open and unembarrassed attitude to sex and the female body made her unpopular in the prudish Victorian era. Her reputation was rebuilt by a number of scholars in the 20^th century and certainly Janet Todd’s is the most detailed and informative biography we have. I asked Todd if she would change anything were she writing the book today.

“I would apologise less for being speculative than I did then. I made it clear where I was speculating and I grounded my theories on what was already known but I would now make more positive claims for what I was doing. Biography-writing has developed in recent years … When revising the book, I wondered about cutting some historical context, but decided against it. Behn’s life is so rich, so multifaceted and embedded in other lives, that I think she needs to live in quite a fat book.”

Aphra Behn is acknowledged as an important part of the Restoration literary scene but Todd believes that her contribution to the creation of the novel is yet to be widely accepted. “I believe she should be held in as much critical esteem as an innovator and pioneer—but there is a long way to go …” but Todd is confident that scholarly study of Behn is improving. “A recent large British grant supporting study by a group of academics on Aphra Behn is likely to produce detailed scholarly work, especially about sources and historical links. This in turn will undoubtedly lead to further and more illuminating critical assessments. But not yet. For the present I must admit that Aphra Behn hasn’t become quite as famous as I expected. Maybe in another 25 years.”

Aphra Behn lived a life as full, as exciting, and in many ways as scandalous as any heroine, and whether you are in search of a biography of a fascinating woman or one of a hugely influential writer or seek a window onto the political, literary and cultural landscape of Restoration England you will find all three in this page-turning book.

This article was first published by the Historical Novel Society

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/aphra-behn-a-secret-life-by-janet-todd-illuminates-the-life-of-a-fascinating-17th-century-woman/

About the contributor: Lisa Redmond is a reviewer for the HNS. She loves to read and write historical fiction and is currently working on her first novel about 17th-century Scottish witches.

Jane Austen; The Legacy of a Lady

The Legacy of A Lady

'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife' Probably the most famous opening line in literature. The author was of course Jane Austen who died on July 18th 1817, so this year marks the two hundredth anniversary of her death. There are countless events being organised across the world to celebrate and remember a writer who is undoubtedly one of the most popular novelists of all time, when it comes to the classics Jane Austen is one of the few who is still regularly read for enjoyment and her stories have helped to create a whole industry; Austen-mania is big business.

I am the first to admit that I am a devoted Janeite and just recently attended a fantastic afternoon organised by Jane Austen Ireland in the splendid Georgian room at the Teacher's Club in Dublin. The event featured the performance of Regency music and singing including some of Jane Austen's own favourite pieces as well as readings from her work, an introduction to regency fashions and regency dancing. It was great fun and a fantastic tribute to the great lady.

The stories and indeed the characters that Jane Austen created are now famous beyond the books; in fact there are many who have never read a Jane Austen novel or sat down to watch an adaptation who nonetheless have an awareness of Mr Darcy of Pemberley or the Bennet sisters of Longbourn. Colin Firth will forever be Mr Darcy for a whole generation of Janeites who were treated to a wealth of adaptations during the mid nineties. 1995 was a bumper year with BBC adaptations of both Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion and the Hollywood treatment for Sense & Sensibility starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.

The nineteen nineties may have seen Austen mania take over our televisions but interest in her stories had been building long before; Pride & Prejudice must be one of the most adapted novels of all time. There was a fantastic black and white film version starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier which appeared in 1940 and there were two TV mini-series in the nineteen fifties as well as countless stage versions. The BBC adapted all the novels into mini-series during the seventies and early eighties. However Jane Austen's stories were notably absent from our screens during the late eighties and early nineties so that a younger generation discovered her anew when the stories were re-imagined from the mid nineties. It was at this point that the popularity of Jane Austen and her stories really took off. These later adaptations played on the broad appeal of Austen's humour and there was an emphasis on detail so that costumes, hair and background were less gawdy and more authentic than the previous adaptations with their polyester gowns and wobbly sets.

I first discovered Jane Austen at school in the early nineties and went on to study her again during my English degree and I loved her narrative style, her wit and the glorious silliness of many of her characters. So having read all of the novels, I was an avid viewer of everything Austen. The late nineties and early noughties saw a huge growth in works; films, books and other formats that were inspired by Austen books rather than direct adaptations, these include the 1995 movie Clueless which is an updated version of Emma set in a Los Angeles high school. Two years later the first of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones books appeared featuring Mark Darcy. These books have gone on to become a huge film franchise in which Colin Firth once again features as Darcy. The following decade saw a number of popular Bollywood versions of the stories; I Have Found It (2000), Bride & Prejudice (2004) and Aisha (2010). Jane Austen is hugely popular in Asia as the recurring themes of arranged marriages, dowries, and inheritance laws which favour sons over daughters are part of everyday life for many in India and Pakistan making the stories both relevant and easy to adapt.

This decade also saw the beginning of the boom in Jane Austen fan fiction both online and in published form. Sequels to Austen's novels and works inspired by her plots or her characters are nothing new Emma Tennant and Joan Aiken both wrote “Austen” novels in the nineteen eighties and nineties and she was a formative influence on popular historical fiction authors throughout the Twentieth century in particular Georgette Heyer and those who imitated her. But after 2000 there was a flood of books based in Austen's world and featuring her characters that range from tales of class and social commentary such as Jo Baker's Longbourn (2013) which retells Pride & Prejudice through the servants eyes to murder mystery in P.D. James Death Comes to Pemberley (2011) to comedy horror with Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) there are even spin offs which are inspired by the Jane Austen fandom itself Austenland which features an American fan visiting an Austen theme park hit the bestseller lists in 2007 and cinema screens in 2013 and the gloriously funny Lost in Autsen made by ITV in 2008 has a modern London girl do a life swap with Elizabeth Bennet. There are also a growing number of websites and blogs were people can share their own fictional accounts of their favourite Jane Austen characters.

Jane Austen's critical reputation has grown and grown and there have been a number of biographies and re-examinations of her work which have not only established her firmly within the cannon of English Literature but dismissed any earlier notions of cosiness or a conservative or limited world view. These include Jane Austen The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) The Making of Jane by Devoney Looser (2017) and Paula Byrne's The Genius of Jane Austen (2017). Our obsession with Jane's own story has also been growing with popular films such as Becoming Jane (2007) based on an earlier book which posited the idea of a doomed love affair between Jane and her neighbour's nephew Tom Lefroy both the film and the book seemed to suggest that Lefroy was the inspiration behind Darcy and while that idea was popular with Janeites it was less so with the critics.

Nonethless the productions, books, films, podcasts and theories continue to appear. What is it that draws us to Jane Austen and her world? A nostalgia for a different era certainly, a life of balls and music, dresses and dancing, but I think what really makes us long to be part of that world is the characters. Jane Austen created people that are recognisable and real we can spot ourselves and others amongst her creations and we can laugh at their foibles as she did. Nowadays we can buy Jane Austen mugs and tea towels, take a Jane Austen tour or re-enact a regency dance but I believe Jane Austen's real and lasting legacy is in those carefully drawn characters and her cutting remarks. I would urge anyone who has only ever seen adaptations or updated versions to pick up her books, go back to the source and see what a talented and funny writer she was.

This article originally appeared on the Books Ireland Blog 

https://www.booksirelandmagazine.com/the-legacy-of-a-lady/

Lisa Redmond is a writer and reviewer. She blogs about books, writing and women in history at lisareadsbooks.blogspot.com.

A Pearl for My Mistress by Anabel Fielding Blog Tour

An enchanting first novel from author Anabel Fielding, A Pearl for my Mistress is the story of Hester a bright, ambitious working class girl who longs to escape the dreary Northern town where she grew up. Her sister, a singer with a jazz band has already escaped to London and Hester too dreams of the bright lights and the chance to find love and to be herself. Hester believes that a job as a lady's  maid will offer that escape. She finds employment with the Fitzmartin family, accepting a tiny salary for the chance to find excitement as lady's maid to their wild and unpredictable daughter Lucy. This is 1934 and many aristocratic families are living in straightened circumstances and a life in service doesn't appeal to the majority of young women but Hester is soon caught up in the whirlwind of Lucy's exciting, aristocratic life and entranced by Lucy herself. but her loyalty to Lucy will be tested when she realises that her Mistress is involved in a dangerous game. Lucy has begun to write to supplement her meager allowance and to express her political opinions which are very different from her parents'. Lucy falls under the spell of Mosley and the Blackshirts and that begins to have very real consequences for Hester. Leaving the young maid with a dilemma can she put aside her own views for love?
A perfect novel for fans of Downtown Abbey, Love in a Cold Climate or I Capture the Castle this wonderfully researched story evokes a bygone era of debutantes and London seasons, of shooting parties and smoky Jazz clubs. The contrasting lives of upstairs and downstairs are brilliantly drawn and the language is spot on for the era. If like me you love reading about The Mitford Sisters then this little gem will be right up your street.
Published by HQ Digital. Thanks to NetGalley and the author for a chance to read this book. You can download this book now for only £1.01 or $1.36 in the USA, making it a perfect comfort read for a wet and dreary afternoon, follow the links below.
Amazon UK
Amazon USA

The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor

Hazel Gaynor's fourth novel is based around the amazing true story of Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths; young cousins in Cottingley Yorkshire who in 1917 claimed to have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden. The girls take the photographs for their own amusement but nothing stays a secret in Cottingley for long and soon the whole village is talking. In the aftermath of war people need something to believe in and soon the girls and their photos and the Yorkshire fairies are the subject of newspaper and magazine articles and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sends them cameras to take more pictures, but what is the truth? Hazel Gaynor weaves this true story with the fictional tale of Olivia Kavanagh in 2017, who inherits her grandfather's bookshop in Howth. Olivia discovers a manuscript at the bookshop written by Frances which tells the truth of the Cottingley Secret. Olivia is captivated by the story and getting caught  up in the mystery means she can avoid having to make decisions about her future. She is due to be married in a few weeks time, her fiancee, her job and her life are all in London but the pull of the bookshop, her ailing grandmother, her childhood home in Howth and the mystery of her mother's death are all keeping her from moving forward. This is a beautifully written book, both strands of the story are utterly compelling. Hazel Gaynor is a fantastic storyteller. The Cottingley Secret will appeal to fans of Kate Quinn, Tracy Rees, Katherine Webb and Gill Paul.
This is one of my most anticipated books of the year and finally this Thursday September 7th it goes on sale in Ireland. Published by Harper Collins who kindly sent me a copy for review.

Madwoman in the Attic #7 Elizabeth Dorothea Cobbe

Elizabeth Lady Tuite was born in Dublin in 1764, the daughter of Colonel Thomas Cobbe and Lady Eliza Beresford. She married Sir Henry Tuite the 8th Baronet in November 1784. She was a poet and a writer for children. She was the great aunt of Frances Power Cobbe and was said to have been a great influence on her. Lady Tuite's husband died in 1805 and she spent much of the rest of her life living in Bath. Lady Tuite's poetry was considered to be in the romantic style. She was one of the set who attended the literary salon of Elizabeth Rawdon; Countess of Moira who was also a relative. Her poetry was included in an anthology "What Sappho would have Said " by Emma Donoghue. She died in 1850.
Further information can be found in A Dictionary of British and American Women Writers 1660-1800 by Janet Todd and The Cambridge Companion to women's Writing in the Romantic Period by Devoney Looser. 

Celebrating 200 years of Jane Austen

The 18th July this year will be the two hundredth anniversary of the death of a literary icon. Creator of some of the most memorable characters in English fiction, Jane Austen was a master storyteller. There will be celebrations among Janeites all year and all over the world but this weekend sees a celebration commence closer to home, in Limerick in Ireland which will continue until December. I am including the full press release below.

JANE AUSTEN200 - LIMERICK

CONTACT: ROSE SERVITOVA

EMAIL: roseservitova@gmail.com

WEBSITE: www.facebook.com/janeausten200limerick

A SERIES OF EVENTS FROM JULY TO DECEMBER 2017 CELEBRATING JANE AUSTEN’S BICENTENARY & LIMERICK’S GEORGIAN HERITAGE

July 16th Austen Afternoon Tea & Talks at No. 1 Perry Square sold out. This event included an introduction to the select teas for the event provided by local tea-merchants, Cahills of Limerick. Serving of Afternoon Tea delights. Historian, Sharon Slater, gives a talk 'Tom LeFroy - Jane's Limerick Beau'."A few words about tea from Emma's friend, Miss Bates of Hampstead" performed by Vanessa Hyde. Presentation and talk from Sinead Ryan Coughlan of the Irish Historical Costumers on Regency Fashion (with model, Sinead Finegan). Melissa Shiels will sing two Irish airs that were found amongst Jane Austen’s music collection.

Other events include;

Culture Night, September 22nd(8pm) at Friarsgate Theatre, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick – a free workshop Historical Costumer & Workshop Presenter, Melissa Shiels, will give a very entertaining and informative talk entitle “Georgian Clothing, Customs and Material Culture”. Melissa will have many examples and recreations at hand for what promises to be a great evening.

September 23rd (2pm) at No.1 Pery Square – Austen Afternoon Tea & Talks – Speakers include editor & journalist, Tim Bullamore on “The Joy of Jane”, Kim Arnold presents a talk “Obstinate Headstrong Girl!: Maxims & Manners in the novels of Jane Austen” and we will have a presentation of men's fashion in the late 18th and early 19th century by the Irish Historical Costumers all accompanied by delicious afternoon tea treats and an occasional song. Attendees will also receive a customised keepsake.

October 5th sees two events facilitated by world-renowned period costume designer and Limerick woman, Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh. Eimer worked as costume designer for “Becoming Jane”, “Love & Friendship”, “Brideshead Revisited” and “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” amongst many others. Eimer will visit her former college, The Limerick School of Art & Design, to present an informative talk to students on working in theatre and film. That evening, at a public event, Eimer is guest at “An Evening with Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh” at the intimate drawing rooms of No. 1 Pery Square (7pm). Here she will have some of the costumes from “Love & Friendship” and partake of a Q&A session.

October 23rd 7.30pm– Oscar-nominated movie director and screenwriter, Whit Stillman will join us for a screening of Austen adaptation, the comedy “Love & Friendship” at the University Concert Hall, Limerick. Niall MacMonagle will host a Q&A session with Whit Stillman directly after the screening.

November 3rd (Friarsgate Theatre, Kilmallock) & November 9th (Belltable, Limerick) host New Zealand woman Penny Ashton’s world tour of “Promise & Promiscuity” in a humourous show as she tackles all of Austen's characters with song, dance and appalling cross-stitching. 

Other events include;

• a talk by Sandra Lefroy on family connections to Austen and William Wordsworth hosted by the Limerick Chapter of the Irish Georgian Society.
• a collaboration between Sound Heritage Ireland and the Irish World Academy of Music & Dance which will see a musical event of the era re-enacted in a Georgian setting.

For further details please check out our facebook page www.facebook.com/janeausten200limerick where links to events/tickets/websites will be available once finalised.

The curator of Jane Austen 200 is Rose Servitova the author of the Longbourn Letters and I asked Rose to tell me about why Jane Austen is such a big influence, why she decided to write a Pride and Prejudice inspired novel and why she felt that Limerick was the perfect place to celebrate 20o years of Jane. This is what she said.

How Jane Austen Inspired Me?

It was at my grandmother’s house on the foothills of the Ox Mountains in Sligo, during summer holidays, that I discovered my love of reading and there, I found all the classics including the works of Jane Austen. I fell in love with her writing and it has stayed with me since. For years, Pride & Prejudice was my comfort blanket - the book I went back to time and again whenever my life sucked for some reason or other. It was like being held, rocked and soothed. The familiar never bored me instead I sought it out whenever the bottom was falling out of my world and it held me together.

For at least ten years, the idea of writing some kind of tribute to Pride & Prejudice had crossed my mind but I had absolutely no idea what to write. Occasionally, Mr Collin’s diary sprung to mind and when I eventually sat down last year and commenced writing, I knew immediately that it would be disastrous. How could anyone read more than a few pages of his self-importance, deluded gibberish? Instantly, the solution came to me in the form of my other favourite character, Mr Bennet. Four letters existed between these two men in Pride & Prejudice so I would merely have to fill in the gaps and continue until it reached a natural conclusion. They contrasted with each other perfectly and gave me the opportunity to write some great dialogue and witty interaction. That is how The Longbourn Letters came about.  I laughed so much when writing it and I hoped that others would too. Because I love Austen so much and find her minor characters so brilliantly drawn, there was no need for me to go off-track but to stay loyal to her portrayal and hopefully add a bit more detail. Her clever, witty dialogue has influenced my writing greatly – it is what I seek out in other novels and hope to emulate in my own.

How I got involved in Jane Austen 200 – Limerick

Before The Longbourn Letters was published, I began connecting with Jane Austen fans and groups all over the world. I was amazed to see how many were organising celebrations for her bicentenary and, in particular, I was amazed that cities that did not exist 200 years ago were having dances, plays, talks etc… I thought ‘well done, guys’. I always felt that Limerick was a perfect spot to host a Georgian festival as we have the largest Georgian quarter outside of Dublin but when I looked into the Jane Austen angle, I found that we also had many connections with the author. As a qualified event manager and without wanting the bicentenary to pass unacknowledged, I decided to organise an afternoon tea and talks event to mark the occasion. A number of weeks later, I found myself curating a whole series of events running from July to December that include theatre, fashion, music, dance, literature, screen, talks/workshops and tea!! It’s great to see that other parts of the country are doing likewise with events  being held in Dublin, Cork and elsewhere.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Longbourn-Letters-Correspondence-between-Collins/dp/1911013750/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1499774930&sr=1-1

Rose's book continues the story of the Bennets of Longbourn and Mr and Mrs Collins of Rosings through the letters between the two cousins; the taciturn Mr Bennet and the silly Mr Collins. It is a fitting and joyful response to the original. The perfect book to read this weekend as we celebrate Jane Austen and her legacy.

The Irish Women writing YA Fiction and Making it their own

I wrote a piece which Children's Books Ireland kindly featured on their website, on the fantastic Irish Women who are writing Young Adult fiction. And as Louise O'Neill moves to riverrun the new upmarket crime imprint of Quercus Publishing, I mused who might take her place on the awards and bestseller lists. There is certainly no shortage of talented women to add to your reading lists. This article has been shared quite a bit on facebook and twitter so I  am delighted if it spreads the word. You can see it at the link below.

http://childrensbooksireland.ie/features/21950

The Books that Made Me M.L. Rio

Today I welcome M. L. Rio to the blog to tell us all about some of her favourite books in this week's edition of The Books That Made Me.

The first book I have distinct memories of is The Hobbit. My mother read it out loud to me and my brother when we were too young to read it ourselves. It was what we did after dinner instead of having dessert, and we looked forward to it the same way other kids probably looked forward to ice cream or Oreos. I still have a soft spot for Tolkien, because he was the first author who really captured my imagination and invited me into a new world. Middle Earth, with all its mythology and all its tangible detail, was where I lived and got lost in the long afternoons of elementary and middle school. Sometimes I still go back to visit.
Around the same time I embarked on The Lord of the Rings on my own, I discovered Shakespeare in my parents’ library. The first play I read was The Comedy of Errors, and though it’s not the best play, I immediately wanted more. I tore through the Complete Works, and by the time I turned thirteen I had read every play and every poem, most more than once. A year later I appeared in my first Shakespeare play—I was Feste in Twelfth Night—which only fueled the fire of Bardolatry. I was captivated by the language. It’s so rich and complex that ten years later I still discover new things hidden between the lines every day. You might say Shakespeare is my muse. His works have not only been the focus of my graduate degree but the inspiration for my first novel, If We Were Villains (which takes its title from my favorite play, King Lear). Miraculously, I’m not any less in love with Shakespeare now than I was when I read him for the first time.
Like Shakespeare, John Knowles had a significant impact on my reading and writing habits. I first read A Separate Peace in a sixth grade English class (I was eleven), and then proceeded to re-read it almost every year that came after. It was my first campus novel, my first war novel (in a way), and the first novel that really upset me. Up until then, I hadn’t realized that fiction could be so unfair. I had grown accustomed to happy endings and moral absolutes and Knowles ripped the rug out from under me. It is a brutally beautiful book, and it will always have a place on my shelf, wherever in the world I may be.

M.L. Rio is the author of the phenomenal thriller that everyone is talking about this summer If We Were Villains, it's been compared to Donna Tartt's The Secret History and has won widespread critical and popular acclaim. Available now from Titan Books (UK).