Novelicious.com | The Women's Fiction Blog for Readers and Writers

Novelicious Natters: Is Fiction as Good as Time Travel?

Great works of fiction have been allowing readers to travel through time for many years. The likes of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and the Brontë sisters have taken us to a time, society and place completely out of sync with our own.

However, fiction is not always about going back in time – sometimes authors are brave enough to throw the usual linear timeline out the window and create something new and exciting that flips time on its head.

The reason I'm thinking about this at the moment is that I have just finished reading The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. This bold new novel looks at what would happen if – after you died – you woke up exactly where you began your life with all the memories of your previous one. A daring premise on which to base a novel, but one that certainly works in North's favour. The more lives Harry August lives through, the more he begins to question our reason for being, the existence of a deity, and what our purpose on this planet really is.

Novelicious Natters – Autism in Fiction: Opening Our Eyes to a New Way of Thinking

Reading Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project sparked something in me that made the book an absolute delight. There is something about finding a novel where the author taps into a completely different way of thinking that just grips me and Don Tillman certainly looks at life in a different way to most. Simsion himself says: 'Wherever he [Don] goes, he creates disruption and humour – and perhaps gets us to consider other ways of looking at familiar situations and behaviour.'

When describing him to friends (and telling them how badly they needed this book in their lives!), I described him as a combination of Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Sherlock Holmes – brilliant, clever, socially awkward and often wildly inappropriate. There is something so charming and captivating, after all, about a character who says things the way he sees them, who cannot comprehend phrases like 'water under the bridge' (what bridge?). There is brutal honesty and, in that, Simsion finds romance, which is just as honest and completely intoxicating.

Of course, Simsion isn't the first author to explore this different way of seeing the world. Mark Haddon did it with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time without actually labelling it as Aspergers or Autism. He simply wanted to explore that different mindset and, in doing so, opened up the reader's perspective at the same time. I should know, the book changed my life!

Novelicious Natters – Will E-readers for Young Children Suck the Magic Out of Reading?

Do children still love reading? According to an advert I saw recently, they do – but only on a Kindle! I love my Kindle, but I find it quite upsetting that companies are now advertising Kindles for children. Where has the magic gone? Do children of primary school age really need to be reading on a computer screen? What’s wrong with giving them an actual book?

Novelicious Natters – Escaping into Reality

Over the last few months I have been travelling off to the worlds of Jane Austen and Elizabeth Woodville. Has the Doctor finally picked me up in the TARDIS and taken me through time? Sadly not. I have – like so many others – been watching the BBC adaptation of The White Queen. I also delved into Austenland by Shannon Hale.

Novelicious Natters – Fifty Shades of Adaptations

The Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptation finally has its Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim, Queer as Folk) and Dakota Johnson (21 Jump Street) have been cast as the sex-loving couple made famous in EL James's novel of the same name and the film is due to arrive next summer in cinemas.

The book was, of course, a phenomenon. The story's popularity swept across the globe, proving such a success as a Kindle novel that it just had to be published in print too. Love it or hate it, the now infamous tale of S&M and dominance is here to stay.

Novelicious Natters – How do you choose your next read?

A lot of importance has been placed on the perfect cover. After all, it's the first thing we see when we browse books. But is the cover the thing that makes us pick up our next read? Or is it something else?

When a new novel comes out, there's often a lot of publicity around it, describing the plot and the biography of the author. Authors like Dan Brown, JK Rowling, Sophie Kinsella and Jodie Picoult have a reputation which already precedes them so when they release a new novel, a legion of pre-existing fans are likely to go out and buy their latest offering without much persuasion.

Novelicious Natters – What is the best book ever written?

I know, I know. It’s like choosing which of your children you love more. Right? Or which of your small circle of amazing friends is your very best friend. But this is a question I am asked often. My friends know I read a lot so they ask for recommendations. It’s all well and good when they ask ‘Read anything good lately?’. There’s always something fresh in my mind and I’m never short of ideas (if any – I offer far too many!). However, when you get down to the best book ever written, or top five favourite books of all time, it gets a little more complicated.

Novelicious Natters – Style Over Substance

‘Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn’ ― Orson Welles

Most books have a beginning – middle – end dynamic and offer a main protagonist to follow. Of course not every book follows the same pattern. Some are written in third person, some in first. Some are linear whilst others jump back and forth through time. Some are written in the standard narrative style, others in letters or emails. So what is the best style to really grab a reader? It’s great to break new ground but not if it is too jarring and makes for awkward, uncomfortable reading.

Novelicious Natters - Happy to be miserable

‘Laughter through tears is my favourite emotion’

Dolly Parton delivered that line after a rather emotional scene in Steel Magnolias, when the group of friends were stunned out of their misery by one moment of hilarity. Viewers by that point had had a good cry (well if they hadn’t I’d be surprised!) and it was time to lighten the mood.

Novelicious Natters – The Great Divide

I always remember a History class I had at school because the teacher's response to my comment was so shocking, it rooted itself in my memory forevermore. We had been discussing Queen Elizabeth I and why it was so difficult for her to get any laws passed. I suggested it was because she was a woman and therefore nobody paid her any attention – which, given the era we were discussing, seemed a valid answer. The response? ‘Quite the little feminist aren’t you?’ From a female teacher no less.

Novelicious Natters – Judge a book by its cover

The saying goes that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. It's what's on the inside that counts, right? Of course, when it comes to actual books, the cover is the first impression - the difference between you oozing charm and charisma that lures people over to talk to you or the sneeze in the drink and glass-shattering laugh that makes people run for the hills. The book cover is what makes you stop browsing in a bookshop and pick a book up.

Novelicious Natters – Sun, Sea and the Perfect Summer Read

The perfect holiday read is so important to book-lovers that publishers actually use it as a marketing tool. They understand the value of the last minute airport purchase and the novel that can be dubbed the perfect escapist read to take along to the beach. The front cover is often drenched in sunshine, sea and sand and promises fun, intrigue, romance and heat! Though some take place across the UK coastline, many of our favourite summer novels take place on foreign shores, under a burning sun and with the added excitement of new languages, food and customs.

Novelicious Natters – Why Do Men Run the World (of Fiction!)?

In many ways, women have come a long way since the days when female authors published their books under male pseudonyms because nobody would publish a book written by a woman. However, if the results of the recent Vida survey are anything to go by, we certainly still have a further way to go.

According to the survey, male authors and reviewers make up a massive portion of those writing across the world in numerous publications including The New York Review of Books and Harper's. It seems, too, that little has changed in recent years. But why are male authors, writers and reviewers given so much more coverage than female ones?

Novelicious Natters - Chick Lit Readers are Stupid

Love reading chick lit? You must be stupid then. No intelligent person would bother reading that fluffy, mindless rubbish. They'd be off reading Dickens or Tolstoy, reciting the entire works of William Shakespeare. Right?

How often have you been judged for reading chick-lit? Or any genre for that matter. You read erotica, you must not be getting any. Get a kick out of reading crime novels? You're probably mildly psychotic or perhaps a bit violent. Fascinated by Sylvia Plath? Obviously a man-hater.