Crushing Those Feelings....Eve Ainsworth

Last week my second book, Crush, was published.

This was important for me for a few reasons:

1) It was my second book. I wanted to prove I could write something else; that my writing was still valid.

2) It was a difficult book. I had to write it during a period of grief and I went through a difficult period of not being able to write at all.

3) The theme of crush - toxic love - was something I wanted to write about for a very long time.

I guess we all have it in us, a story that we've always wanted to tell. The one that has bugged and bothered us for such a long time and for me it was this. Destructive and toxic love. Love gone wrong. A love that can crush you.

As a teen I saw two of my closest friends change overnight due to bad relationships. As an adult I've seen a male relation go through hell in a same sex relationship that controlled and isolated him. As an employee I saw my students swept up in bad kinds of love that they accepted as 'ok'.

Now I can tell Anna's story. A vulnerable, young girl who meets a charismatic older boy. At first things seem perfect. But then we see Will's true character emerge, his controlling and destructive ways. And through Will's short narrative, perhaps we can understand why these traits have developed.

Crush is important to me because it is telling a story that I've seen repeated so many times. It is showing how easy it is to fall under a toxic spell and then become trapped. I hope, through this novel, we can open up more discussions about what a healthy relationship actually is.

And more importantly, why the first person you need to love is yourself.

 

 

Under Cover by Julie Sykes

In the good old days if you’d asked me what I was reading I would give you the title of my current book. Ask me the author and I’d know that, too. Ask me the publisher and you’d have yourself a hat trick.

   

Fast forward to now. Ask me the title of the book I’m currently reading and I would have to think about it. I might remember eventually. Then again, I might not. I would struggle to tell you the author and as for the publisher. No chance.

So what’s changed, apart from my age - and seriously, I’m not anywhere near old enough to start blaming that for a poor memory.

Well, I think it’s the way I’m reading. In the good old days I bought books. Lots of them. My guilty pleasure was to have a stack of books, lying horizontally on the shelf, all waiting to be read.

These days I read on a Kindle. It’s SO transportable. When I go on a journey I can take as many books as I like and all in the one handbag. It’s much easier to buy books. I finish one and can purchase and download the next, immediately. And (I’m VERY ashamed to admit to this – probably a post for another blog!) e-books are cheap.

And here lies the problem with my poor memory. When you put a book down the cover is there, waving. Goodbye. It winks each time you pass it. Remember me? We were having such fun together. When are you coming back? It shouts LOUDLY at you when you finally pick it up again. Yay! Knew you couldn’t resist me.

The author’s name plays along. On the cover, nudging you gently. Whispering in your ear. My name’s…..Can we be friends?

The publisher’s name is there, too, a little more discrete, often on the spine, but still a presence. Ahem, excuse me for butting in, but did you know that The Little Fox Paw Printing Press brought you this story?

There are many excellent things about the e-reader, but trust me, the cover isn’t one. For a start, unless you read on a tablet or something similar, the cover is grey. It’s also very shy. You see it once, at the start, and sometimes not even then if the book automatically opens on the first page.

So here’s a challenge to any clever inventors or techie types out there. Design a cover for an e-reader that displays the book currently being read and in colour. Can it be done? Is there a market for it? What do you think?

ps My current reading book is a real one. Bits of its lovely cover are shown here in the text. If you haven’t guessed by now, then it’s I’ll give you the Sun by Jandy Nelson, published in the UK by Walker Books.

I knew all that without having to think about it!