The Books that Made Me by Sinead O'Hart

Today I am delighted to have a guest post from Irish author Sinead O'Hart. Sinead's debut novel Eye of the North is published by Alfred A Knopf in the U.S. It is aimed at Middle Grade readers and is currently enjoying some rave reviews on amazon and goodreads. The novel tells the story of  Emmeline, when her scientist parents mysteriously disappear she must take ship to a safe house in Paris. On board she befriends a scruffy orphan boy; Thing but before she reaches safety Emmeline is kidnapped by Dr Bauer and Things sets off to rescue his new found friend. It's a fantasy adventure which will appeal to fans of Shane Hegarty, Dave Rudden and E.R. Murray 

The Books That Made Me

THE CHILDCRAFT LIBRARY/WORLD BOOK: When my brother and I were kids, back in the distant 1980s, our parents invested in the best encyclopedias they could afford. I loved them, particularly the sturdy, colourful Childcraft books; some of the illustrations in my most-read volumes remain bright in my memory to this day. I first encountered Beowulf and Gawain and the Kalevala here, along with the work of Snorri Sturluson - this probably lay behind my decision to study medieval literature at university, many years later, as well as shaping the kind of stories I love to read and write. 

ELIDOR, by Alan Garner: My older cousin gave me her copy of Elidor when I was about eight, and it was the first book I remember reading which pinned me to the pages and refused to let me go. It settled into a corner of my mind and has lived there ever since. Feeding into my budding love for mythology, folklore and medieval-ish things, this is a book I still read at least once a year, and which I recommend to everyone!

THE LITTLE PRINCE, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: The book which inspired me to create my first story (a sequel, complete with my own illustrations, which is probably best lost in the murk of my childhood), this beautiful, meditative story is one which helped to form my way of thinking about love, words and the world. It will always be precious.

A WRINKLE IN TIME, by Madeleine l'Engle: I recently re-read this (along with another childhood love, THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH by Norton Juster) and, while it hasn't aged very well in some respects, in others it reminded me why it was, and is, such a pivotal book. It showed me the power of a strong heroine, the breadth and depth of a timeless story, and opened my mind to science-fiction and speculative fiction. I will always go back to it for inspiration, and to relive the wonder I felt when reading it for the first time. (It's also the first book I remember buying for myself, with my own money, and it cost the grand sum of three pounds ninety-nine pence!)

THE HOUNDS OF THE MORRIGAN, by Pat O'Shea: This was a present from my father when I was eleven, and there aren't enough words to describe how profoundly it shaped me, both as a reader and a writer. Its vivid imagery, perfectly realised characters and dialogue - which are so authentically Irish, yet somehow universal, too - and fantastic use of mythology, folklore and history, not to mention its absurd hilarity, meant it became one of the foundations of my mind. 

WYRD SISTERS, by Terry Pratchett: I could choose any (or all) the Discworld novels here, but I mention this one because it was the first one I read. I saw its amazing cover art, by Josh Kirby, some time in the late 80s, and made my dad buy it for me despite his misgivings. I read it, cover to cover, and didn't understand a word - but I knew I liked it, and that one day I would understand, so I put it away until I grew up a bit. I read it again when I was older and loved it so much I collected everything Sir Pterry wrote, and he became my biggest literary influence. 

Thanks so much to Sinead for taking part. You can keep up to date with the author at her blog    https://sjohart.wordpress.com/


Buy the book HERE

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).

The Blog Tour continues see banner for details

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).

Widdershins Blog Tour The Books That Made Me

As part of the Blog Tour to celebrate the release of Helen Steadman's first novel I asked Helen to tell me about some of her favourite books as part of my new series The Books that Made Me. Helen responded with three of her favourites from her teenage years and insists that she must have been a contrary young reader as they are rather surprising choices for a writer of historical fiction, nonetheless as the wonderful Meg Ryan said in You've Got Mail "When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does" So on with the books.

The Books Made Me: Helen Steadman The Teenage Years

1984 by George Orwell

‘Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.’

This was the most striking book I had ever read, and I don’t think any other book has ever had the same effect on me since. It was the first time I’d read a book underpinned by such enormous ideas. Sinister concepts like thoughtcrime and newspeak were terrifying, as was the totalitarian setting. This book made me think about the world in a different way. It should be compulsory reading for everyone.

Mort by Terry Pratchett

‘Alligator sandwich,’ he said. ‘And make it sna—’

One Saturday afternoon, I found a Discworld book lying in a puddle of beer in the Haymarket, a much-missed Newcastle watering hole. I was a bit bored, and it didn’t seem appropriate to whip out my knitting, so I read the book. It was hilarious and I was immediately hooked on Terry Pratchett. Of all his books, I have a soft spot for Mort, because I love Death as a sandwich artist. Finally, I owe Terry Pratchett because it was in his Discworld books that I first heard the word ‘widdershins’.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

‘Man, when you lose your laugh, you lose your footing.’

This book broke my heart when I first read it because it was so shocking that people should suffer like this, and it was my first real inkling of there being such a thing as mental illness. Beyond the shocking and upsetting subject matter, though, was Kesey’s writing. It was unlike anything I’d ever read previously, making me feel as though I was inside the head of someone mentally ill. He also captured language perfectly, so it felt very real and immediate.

In case you missed my review of Helen's outstanding book you can find it HERE

Thanks so much to Helen for taking part in The Books That Made Me 
Helen's book is published by Impress Books and thanks to Natalie for an early reading copy
The blog tour continues details below.