Astral Travel dubbed 'intricately beautiful and abruptly brutal'

That period when your book is just out and you're waiting for your first review is always somewhat nerve-wracking. I always try not to think about it too much - I've been getting on with painting a bedroom and turning my mind to a new writing project - but there's always the worry that what you felt at one time was good enough to send off to your publisher is just not going to pass muster after all, or that however good it is it just won't please others. So I was thrilled and hugely relieved to switch on my alerts and discover a really wonderful first review of Astral Travel from Amy Riddell for Bookmunch. She calls the prose 'intricately beautiful and abruptly brutal', and is clearly gripped by the story. She says: 

'I greedily consumed every paragraph, and yearned for more free time when I had to put the book down to do something inconsequential like work or sleep ... I can’t remember the last time a work of fiction aroused such sympathy and indignant anger in me ... one of the most memorable and brilliant books I’ve read this year.'

I'm very grateful to Amy and to Peter Wild, editor of Bookmunch, and in celebration I'm off to make some bread while my next novel brews in the greater space the relief has created in my head.

The full review is here. (And Astral Travel is available here.)

Astral Travel finally published.

 

Well, here's Astral Travel, finally officially published, after all the delays and stops and starts of lockdown. What a history this book has had. I conceived it many years ago now, and, as I think I've explained before, although none of the three or so drafts I wrote took me much time to write, it was a long time before I found the form the book needed - a complicated story about a buried secret and buried pasts - and there were long periods between drafts while I had to put it aside. (I've written a blog post about that process for the Salt website, which should be appearing soon.) Then of course, when the book was about to be published in the early spring, lockdown was upon us, and Salt sensibly postponed publication. Ah well, it's here now, and can be bought from the Salt website 

Astral Travel goes live.

Astral Travel, my long-promised novel - postponed due to the lockdown in March - is now available from the Salt website - two weeks before publication date! Those who put their names down for it on the site in February, should now be hearing that they can get it at last. Ah, well, all good things come to those who wait, my Welsh Nanny used to say (mainly because I was a very impatient child!), and I just hope that those who have waited for Astral Travel, do find it worth their while!