A stitch in time

 

    Linda Gillard's latest novel, House of Silence, is one of those books you'll put everything else on hold for. Twice, I sneaked back to bed after breakfast just to read a few more chapters before the day proper began - I didn't want to put the story aside, I wanted to find out what would happen next.

    It's a very intricately plotted book, and I won't give you many details for fear of saying too much because part of the pleasure is just watching the story unfold, but it's about Gwen, a wardrobe mistress who works in film and television, who falls for Alfie, an actor. Gwen has no family, her mother dying young, her other relations then falling prey to their self-destructive, indulgent lifestyles, so when she gets the chance to join Alfie and his mother and sisters for Christmas at Creake Hall, their Elizabethan manor house in the depths of Norfolk, she's keen to go.

    At Creake Gwen gets on well with capable Viv, the eldest of Alfie's siblings, and with the enigmatic Tyler, the cello-playing gardener, and she finds a kindred spirit in good-natured Hattie whose love of textiles and needlework matches her own, but there's something a bit 'off' about the set-up at Creake, something normal family tensions and rivalries wouldn't explain. As Gwen and Hattie set to work to complete a complicated piece of patchwork, a project that's been in progress for quite some years, Gwen finds disturbing evidence of subterfuge hidden within the quilt itself. What this deception has to do with Alfie and his mother - the famous children's writer Rae Holbrook - is something she will discover as the Christmas visit proceeds, but suffice to say there are revelations aplenty as the stitches which bound the family to their past are unpicked one by one.

    You can rely on Linda for a highly readable book, a true page-turner which has a very neatly finished ending, and as I said, I didn't want to put it down. It's been described as "a country house mystery ... a family drama ... a gothic romantic comedy", and it's all of these; warm as one of Hattie's quilts, yet with a dark underside, its themes of memory, identity, and sense of self the layers in between, it's beautifully put together and enormously enjoyable (and it's an absolute bargain, to boot!).

(Edited to add: with reference to Liz's comment, and Linda's reply, if you haven't got a Kindle, you can still get the Kindle for PC 'app' which is free, and easy to download. Any Kindle books you then buy will appear on it, and while reading a book on a computer may not be ideal, it's not bad, and it enables you to search the book, highlight passages and make notes, just as on the Kindle itself.)

Comments

[Elizabeth]

This sounds just the sort of book I like, and especially just at the moment...I'm going to try Kindle rightaway! Thanks so much.

[Harriet]

Sounds right up my street. I've never heard of this writer but will definitely be on the lookout now.

[Harriet]

By the way there's an interesting interview with Linda on I Prefer Reading today. http://preferreading.blogspot.com/2011/04/linda-gillard-on-e-publishing-house-of.html?showComment=1302681386288#c8993934984213911994

[LizF]

Gosh this is irritating!
I was hoping for a Kindle for my birthday this month, but I suspect that my hints have fallen on deaf ears with the kids and there is no point asking the other half because he thinks that I have too many 'real' books already!
I will just have to hope that some publishing house has enough sense to snap up this book and issue it in printed form!

[Linda Gillard]

Thanks, Cornflower, for your great review. It's wonderful to have such sterling support from my blogging friends. :-)

I'm sure you have many readers across the pond, so I'd just like to mention that HOUSE OF SILENCE is also available as an e-book from US Amazon.

Thanks, Harriet, for linking to my article. I wanted to explain to readers why some e-books are so cheap. Readers are naturally suspicious, but the sad fact is I'm making a lot more selling HoS at £1.90 than I was when a publisher was selling my paperbacks at £7.99.

Authors aren't giving their work away, they are making money! It's publishers who are losing out.

[Linda Gillard]

Thanks, Liz F, for the kind words but everyone has already said no! HOUSE OF SILENCE isn't marketable apparently and my sales record was not sufficiently encouraging to make a publisher take a chance. Hence the e-book.

You can also download Kindle for PC, iPad, iPhone, Mac, Android and Blackberry. Does that help?

[B R Wombat]

I'm looking forward to reading this very much. I have to finish Dorian Gray first, though, and then Anita and Me for my non-virtual (would that be real?) book group.

[Lyn]

Cornflower, I agree with you, HOS is unputdownable. I loved it. Thanks Harriet for linking to my blog. I reviewed HOS yesterday & today there's a guest post from Linda about her decision to e-publish.

[Cornflower]

Liz, I read the book on my Kindle, but I also have the free Kindle for PC app which means I can read any Kindle books on my computer, too (see the note I've added at the end of the post).

[Harriet Smart]

Thanks for drawing attention to this! Shall give this one a go for sure - and I am so pleased to see the author is doing well with it. It's very encouraging to see that the new model can work for us established writers (said as one who is giving a go too.)
I read a piece on the LBF (http://bit.ly/gTRW4A )this morning where a trad publisher basically dismissed all self published efforts as dreck but this, with all those glowing reviews on Amazon proves this most definitely isn't the case.
Very much looking forward to reading this!

[Linda Gillard]

I read that too, Harriet S, and I thought the man made himself look very foolish. Does he think readers are stupid? Of course a lot of e-books are the delusional ramblings of the semi-literate and they are very easy to spot. He is choosing to ignore the fact that many disgruntled mid-list authors are re-publishing their backlist and other popular but dropped authors (and we are legion) are going independent because we have the time, the nouse and the will to get our stories out there.

Of course publishers & booksellers are going to rubbish cheap e-books because they undermine the current marketplace where the lion's share of a book's RRP goes to the book retailer. Since publishers can't sell direct to readers, they need the retailers and so are held to ransom by the supermarkets demanding punitive discounts and cover re-designs.

I'm afraid we shall have to listen to a lot more apoplectic denunciations of e-publishing as the publishing Canutes demand that the waves of progress retreat.

[Harriet Smart]

Linda,
Very comforted, in a depressed sort of way, to hear that dropped midlisters are legion! Certainly the more of us doing this the better the image of self-pubishing will become. I also think more and more established, still trad published authors will start to chose to do it rather than go the conventional route.(I know of one such decision already, but it is in confidence!)
Interesting to look at your other remarks on the this subject linked to by the other Harriet. I too am exploring the costs of doing a small print edition of my historical crime novel, The Butchered Man as I think the costs and quality of short run printing now make this viable. To have a solid state version of a virtual product is very useful in marketing terms - we discovered this when we brought out Writer's Cafe, our story development software toolkit. The downloads have always outsold the boxed cd rom, but having the boxed version was incredibly useful in terms of raising profile, etc. I think this model will work for books too.
Good luck with it all. Looking foward to House of Secrets now, but must do some of my own writing first...

[adele geras]

Congratulations, Linda....that is brilliant news and the book sounds wonderful.

[Margaret Powling]

As I've said on other blogs so might as well add my two penn'oth to this, Cornflower: Well done Linda! Can't you hear me shouting from Torbay? Jolly well done, and sucks to all those publishers who didn't take up the opportunity of your book, they are the ones losing out!

[Sandy]

Well this sounds a great read and my Kindle is looking at me with a twinkle in it's eye....

[Ann]

Looks like another one to add to my list.
Ann

[Ann]

I dropped the prices of my e-books to $2.99 this month and sales have shown that readers are looking for good books at a lower price. Self Publishing is not as frowned upon these days. I think many authors are just fed up with hearing "no" when we know we have a marketable product.
Ann

[Harriet]

I got onto Amazon yesterday, downloaded Kindle for Mac, paid my £1.90 and have already read about a quarter of the book. And I am loving it. All this is really inspiring and looks to me like a very positive way forward (though I'll never stop loving real paper books).

[Linda Gillard]

Bless you, Harriet. You will perhaps be pleased to know I've already earmarked my first e-book royalty cheque for membership of The Folio Society. ;-)

[Barbara MacLeod]

I have done the same today. For being my first 'go' at this new technology it proved to be very straightforward!

[Linda Gillard]

Glad to hear you found it straightforward, Barbara. To begin with I disliked the grey screen and snorted that it was nothing like looking at a book (which is what the hype had claimed) but I soon got used to it. I find the enlarged print a blessing and love the way books suddenly appear on the device, as if by magic. :-)

[Simon T]

Ok, it's no good, I'm going to have to download Kindle for PC. Part of me wants to wait around for a POD version, but I'm going to see if reading on a laptop is unannoying enough to read a good everyone's raving about...

[linda gillard]

Gosh, Simon, the weight of responsibility hangs heavy on my shoulders... Glad you finally caved! And hope you aren't disappointed. I'm braced for the backlash. ;-)

[ramblingfancy]

I've just finished reading this book and I loved it. I don't have a Kindle yet either, but found it very easy to read on my laptop and am now a convert! Will definitely be looking out for more of Linda's books now. Thank you for the Kindle for PC/Mac tip!

[Barbara MacLeod]

Later: To put the book on my iPhone I downloaded the (free) Kindle App for iPhone (but not the book again) onto my Mac computer. To transfer the book from the Mac to the iPhone, you do it in iTunes. First highlight your iPhone in Device in the left-hand column, then click on the Kindle App. Then in Kindle Documents click on "Add" and add the book. Then click "Sync". Yes ... it is all there!