One of the coolest things about being a book blogger is the
awesome community - especially all the fab UK bloggers around. I was about to
write a list of brilliant bloggers I met last week at Faber and OUP events
(okay, ANOTHER really cool thing is meeting authors - Jeff Norton! Nikki
Sheehan! Joss Stirling! NATASHA FARRANT!!!) but I have a horrible feeling I'll
leave someone out and feel hugely guilty about it, so I won't.
Anyway, as I was saying, the book blogging community is
amazing. And updating my spreadsheet of YA contemporary releases means I'm
paying even more attention than normal to all of the fabulous reviews out there
from British book bloggers. The only tiny, tiny downside, is that I end up
reading so much about some books that a) I have an idea what to expect from
most things I read and b) sometimes really hyped books that everyone else likes
feel like a letdown if I'm not so keen.
So it can be really cool when I stumble upon something I've
never heard of before in a bookshop and end up thinking it's great. This has
happened to me not once but twice in the last fortnight (side note: are you all
suitably impressed that I've read two books that soon after buying them, rather
than doing my usual thing of putting them in my TBR pile and never getting
around to them?)
A few days ago I bought Rachel Caine's Prince of Shadows, a
Romeo and Juiet retelling from the point of view of master thief Benvolio. It's
an intriguing read with a brilliant narrator, some great supporting characters
- Mercutio and Rosaline being the best - and it's really cleverly tied into the
original play.
As good as that was, though, it wasn't a massive surprise as
I've always enjoyed Caine's writing before (although I'm miles behind on
Morganville!) I don't think anything beats the feeling of randomly discovering
a brilliant book by an author I hadn't even heard of previously, but that
happened to me as well! The weekend before last, I visited the utterly gorgeous
Tales on Moon Lane - more about this fabulous shop on Saturday - and picked up
a recent release that had passed me by previously, Romily Bernard's Find Me.
I read the first chapter in the shop, was so engrossed that
I just about remembered to pay for it before leaving, and managed to somehow
find my way to a bus stop without actually taking my eyes off the page. (Public
safety announcement: THIS IS STUPID. Yes, I know you're all too sensible to do
that - and in fairness the bus stop was really, really close - but just thought
I'd mention it.)
I then got the bus to the Southbank centre, grabbed a drink,
and sat in one of my favourite places in London reading an excellent book. God,
I love living down here. This was so good that I nearly managed to stay off
Twitter for the two hours or so it took me to read it! (Yes, I was obviously
never going to COMPLETELY stay off Twitter, but the only tweets I actually sent
were variants of "OMG you guys, am reading Find Me by Romily Bernard -
it's awesome!") I won't go into too many details of this clever, tense
thriller - I have to save some for my recommendations post later this week (it's
Highly Recommended, by the way!)but I'm fairly sure that most of my readers
will really enjoy the book in general, and narrator Wick - a tough but troubled
computer hacker trying to keep her kid sister safe - in particular. She's an
outstanding character with a brilliant voice. (And on another side note, this
is a great year for female narrators already! We've got one here, another in
Tess Sharpe's Far From You, a third in Natasha Farrant's The Diaries of
Bluebell Gadsby: Flora in Love and TWO
in Helen Eve's Stella!)
When sending those tweets, I hadn't realised that as well as
being a brilliant author, Romily Bernard is also an incredibly generous person.
She got in touch with me to discuss the possibility of a giveaway. I was
thrilled when she suggested it and even more thrilled when she said that yes,
she did know that I and most of my readers were in the UK and she was prepared
to send books over here - how AMAZING is that? So, we ran one giveaway via the
Bookbag yesterday - good luck to everyone who entered that; I'm eagerly waiting
to see who wins! Another will be given away on the brilliant Snuggling on the
Sofa blog. And to try and get your hands on the third, UK readers just need to
RT the tweet embedded below before 11:59pm GMT on Thursday 6th June!
Find Me by @RomilyBernard is fab - & she's given me a SIGNED copy for a UK #giveaway! Follow me & RT before 11:59pm Thurs 6th Feb to enter.
— Jim Dean (@Yayeahyeah) February 4, 2014
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