Last weekend, I took part in Crediton Library’s online World Book Night celebration. I really enjoyed reading from my new novel, Grace, and talking about my writing process.
You can watch the session here. Enjoy!
Christmas gift ideas 2021: Don’t buy plastic crap – buy books
Thinking about Christmas presents? Do you want to buy a loved one something faff-free, meaningful and joyful that isn’t made of plastic?
Buy them a book!
You can even support local bookshops and authors in the process (the links shared here are from bookshop.org, where possible.) It’s an absolute win-win.
Here are my recommendations, divided into sections, inspired by my awesome fellow debut authors:
Books for book club members
Obviously, I’m going to recommend my own book, aren’t I?
Patience, my debut, was named the Booksellers’ Association Book of Month for August, its month of release, which was a huge honour. It was also a LoveReading debut of the month and has a five star average on Amazon. It’s out in paperback next July, on the same day my second book, Grace, is released.
Other good options in this category:
The lovely This Shining Life by Harriet Kline.
Songs for your mother by Gordon Macmillan
The Illustrated Child by Polly Crosby
Books for crime lovers
Know someone who loves crime? Why not buy one of Marion Todd’s excellent, Scotland-based Detective Clare Mackay novels. See Them Run is the first, and Next In Line is the latest. Or sticking with the Scottish theme, how about Emma Christie’s Silent Daughter, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2021? Or if you know someone who likes gritty crime, Trevor Wood’s Man on the Street, winner of the CWA John Creaser Dagger and the Specsavers debut crime novel award, may well fit the bill. Or are you a Christie fan? Then try Victoria Dowd’s Body on the Island.
Books for lovers of historical fiction
If you know someone who likes reading historical fiction, treat them to a novel by Louise Fein. Her debut, People Like Us, was Shortlisted for the RSL Christopher Bland Prize and the RNA Historical Romantic Novel Award 2021. Her second, The Hidden Child, focuses on the eugenics movement in the 1920s, and is an excellent read.
Other good options in this category:
The Wolf Den, by Elodie Harper.
Leonora Nattress, Black Drop
Annie Garthwaite’s Cecily
AJ West’s The Spirit Engineer
Books for thriller lovers
Goodness, I have loads to recommend. In no particular order:
All in her head Nikki Smith
The Prank by LV Matthews
Sleepless Louise Mumford
Call me Mummy Tina Baker
My Perfect Sister by Penny Batchelor
Top drawer sagas
Sagas are perfect for chilly winter’s nights, and three women I’m honoured to call my friends have written some corkers. So, how about:
The Steel Girls by Michelle Rawlins
The Post Office Girls by Poppy Cooper
The Royal Stationmaster’s Daughters by Ellee Seymour
Feel-good fiction
Want to laugh, cry and feel all the feels? Then how about:
We Are Animals by Tim Ewins, The Paris Connection by Lorraine Brown or Everything Is Fine by Gillian Harvey?
Children’s and Middle Grade
Why not buy the child in your life a copy of Eve Ainsworth’s Kicking Off (perfect for a football fan)
or Hannah Gold, The Last Bear (excellent for the environmentally-conscious?)
Both authors have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and rightly so.
This post contains affiliate links.
Diary of a Debut Novelist – panel
Hello all! I wanted to share a recent Zoom panel I took part in – one of the brilliant sessions from the Diary of a Debut Novelist festival, the brainchild of thriller writer Emma Christie.
This one focused on what happens after publication – marketing, publicity and social media interaction – all of that stuff.
Enjoy!
Diary Of A Debut Novelist 2021: The Next Generation – October 27th, 2021 from EMMA CHRISTIE on Vimeo.
Patience: Publication week update
It’s just over a week since Patience went on sale, and it seems like a good time to take stock. It’s been an absolute whirlwind, feeling utterly unreal at times. I suppose that’s probably the inevitable result of achieving a lifelong dream – it’s been unobtainable for so long, your brain can’t quite compute it when it comes true.
Booksellers’ Association Book of the Month
The really huge news is that Patience is the Booksellers’ Association Indie Book of the Month for August. This is a very big deal. It means that a promotion is running in independent bookshops all over the country featuring my book. Last month’s Book of the Month title was Sarah Winman’s Still Life – the one before was Sunjeev Sahota’s China Room (which is up for a Booker!) To be in such company is simply incredible.
BBC Feature
On the day before publication, August 4th , a feature I’d written for the BBC News website about my sister and the inspiration for the book was published, and that kicked off an amazing couple of days of sales. At one point, the hardback of Patience was ranked at 400 of ALL BOOKS on Amazon – even cookery books, non-fiction, kids’ books, etc. Nuts.
Wrecking Ball event
At the same time, I was driving up to Hull to take part in my first ever author reading and Q&A at the lovely Wrecking Ball Music and Books. They were awesome, it was lots of fun, and we sold lots of copies.
I drove back down to Surrey on launch day, checking reviews and rankings every time I stopped, amazed at the wonderful things people were saying. By the evening of launch day I was absolutely exhausted after hundreds of miles on the road and not sleeping well for several weeks (adrenaline surge!) so I avoided the traditional booze and had an early night.
As luck would have it (!) it was my daughter’s seventh birthday on the following day, and that was helpful in many ways, as it stopped me obsessively checking Amazon, and reminded me about the things that really mattered. She had a lovely day, and a great party. My parents also came to help, which was SO wonderful.
Launch party
It also meant we were all assembled for my launch party on Saturday, which we held at Waterstones Walton-on-Thames. There were many times throughout the pandemic when I thought I’d never manage an in-person launch, so I was amazed and delighted that it went ahead without a hitch. Friends and family came from all over to see me, my wonderful agent Hannah Weatherill gave a lovely speech, the cake was divine (it felt wrong to eat it!) and I was the store’s bestseller that day (even beating David Walliams!) I also spotted Patience on the shelf between Elif Safak and Kazuo Ishiguro. Author goals…
New print run
Oh, and then the hardback sold out on Amazon! My publishers had to do a new print run, just two days after it went on sale. Amazing. And extraordinary. I hope it means good things for the future.
More interviews
I’ve recorded a couple of further interviews this week, with Talk Radio Europe and BBC Surrey, and I also took part in a Facebook live event for Hillingdon libraries, which was a lot of fun.
It’s really common to feel a little depressed after publication week. It’s natural to feel low after such a high, particularly when your book starts to slip down the rankings and your reviews slow down to a trickle. However, I’ve got plenty to distract myself with – I’m editing book 2 (out next Summer) and writing book 3, and we’re going on our first family camping trip next week. Help…!
If you’d like to buy a copy of Patience, I’d be delighted. Here are the links to lots of different bookshops: https://linktr.ee/victoria.scott
How does it feel when your debut novel is about to be published?
A good question.
After waiting 18 months since I signed my contract with Head of Zeus, my debut novel, Patience, will be published next week. It felt for a long time like it was never going to happen – each month felt achingly slow. And yet here I am, just seven days off that magical day where I can finally tick ‘become an author’ off my life list.
How am I feeling? Full of adrenaline, mostly. Getting to sleep is becoming tricky, and I feel like I’m a drug addict searching for my next hit every time I refresh Netgalley. I’m also pretty tired – there’s been a lot of promotional work to do, much of which will come to fruition in the next seven days.
I thought it might useful for other writers to see the kind of things I’ve been doing in the run up to publication, so here goes.
Interviews
I’ve been interviewed for five podcasts so far, each of them really fun to do. Honestly, talking to people about my book is now one of my favourite things. It is an incredible rush hearing people talking about their favourite bits in the book, their favourite characters, or the bits they particularly related to. Seeing my words take on new life in other people’s minds is thrilling.
Of the five podcasts I’ve done, only one is out already. It’s a very funny, very candid interview with the lovely Simon Minty and Phil Friend for their disability podcast, The Way We Roll. They both loved Patience (phew.) You can listen here – my bit starts at about 27 minutes in.
I’ve also spoken to the Write and Wrong Podcast, The Reverse Rett Podcast, Any More Tea and Off The Shelf. I’ll share them here when they’re available for download.
I’m also due to do two radio interviews next week to talk about the book – one with Radio WM, and one with Talk Radio Europe. I’ll add links here afterwards.
Reading reviews
I mentioned Netgalley above, and it’s been a source of a lot of joy of late (not always the case for authors, I know!) I’ve had a run of really wonderful reviews from really thoughtful people, and I’m so grateful.
I’ve also been reading my first professional reviews – one from NB magazine (below), who have made Patience their recommended book for August, and one from LoveReading, who have made Patience one of their Debuts of the Month, and also one of their recommended bookclub picks.
They both said really lovely things, and I’m delighted.
Writing features and short stories
I’ve written a long feature for the BBC, which should be published next week, about my relationship with my sister, Clare. I’ve also written a short story set in an airport (I miss travel!) for the Express magazine, S. I’ll post links for both of these when they’re up.
Choosing the actors for the audio book
I’m very lucky that WFHowes are bringing out an audio version of Patience in just a few weeks’ time. I’m also lucky that they asked my opinion about the actors who are reading it. The two we’ve gone with – Bronwen Price and Imogen Comrie – are awesome. I can’t wait to hear it. You can pre-order here.
Admin for live events
Excitingly, I’m actually going to be able to have live launch events, something that didn’t seem likely in the darkest days of Covid.
I was invited up by Wrecking Ball Books in Hull to do a live reading and Q&A, which is tremendously exciting. I’m heading up there next week – the event is at 7pm on August 4th and tickets (which are FREE) can be got here. I’m having to do a mad drive across the country to drop my kids with my parents for a couple of days to be able to get there, but it’s all good. The joys of school holidays!
I’m also planning my own launch party, which will be held at Waterstone’s in Walton-on-Thames on Saturday August 7th 2021, at 3pm. If you’re in the area, do swing by! I’ll be signing copies of the book.
(I’m also planning a 7th birthday party for my daughter the day after launch, which is driving me a little bit mad, but never mind.)
Right, I’d better get back to it. I have a pass the parcel to wrap! If you need me, I’ll be knee deep in sticky tape or madly refreshing Amazon… (pre-order links are here!)
Video trailer for Patience by Victoria Scott
I’m delighted to share this trailer for my debut novel, Patience, which will be published on August 5th this year.
You can pre-order the hardback or Kindle version from Amazon:
or from bookshop.org here.
PATIENCE cover reveal
I’m delighted to reveal the cover for my forthcoming novel, Patience, which will be published in hardback, e-book and audio book this August.
As many of you know, it was inspired by my amazing sister Clare, who has Rett syndrome.
You can pre-order the hardback or Kindle version from Amazon:
or from bookshop.org here.
Here’s what to expect:
If you were offered the chance to be ‘normal’ would you take it? Do we even know what ‘normal’ is?
The Willow family have been through a lot together. Louise has devoted her life to her family and raising her disabled daughter, Patience. Pete now works abroad, determined to provide more, even if it means seeing less of those he loves. And Eliza, in the shadow of her sister, has a ‘perfect’ life in London, striving to live up to her mother’s high standards.
Meanwhile, Patience lives her life quietly, watching and judging the world while she’s trapped in her own body. She laughs, she cries, she knows what she wants, but she can’t ever communicate this to those who make the decisions for her. Patience only wants a voice, but this is impossible.
When the opportunity to put Patience into a new gene therapy trial to cure her Rett syndrome becomes available, opinions are divided, and the family is torn.
The stakes are high, and they face tough decisions in the hunt for a normal life. But is normal worth it? What do we even consider normal? Is Patience about to find out…?
My two-book publishing deal with Head of Zeus
I’m so delighted to announce that I’ve signed a two-book deal with the fabulous Head of Zeus. My first novel, Patience, will be published in hardback, audio book and e-book in August 2021, with another novel to follow.
It’s all a bit surreal – I’ve gone from typing “The End” to getting a publishing deal in less than 10 months. I’m incredibly excited, and I can’t wait for you all to read Patience. It’s about a funny, clever disabled woman with Rett syndrome whose family go to war with each other over an experimental gene therapy trial. She has a lot to ‘say,’ if she could only speak.
Here are a few tweets that came out following the announcement on Friday 21st of Feb:
Feature for Ideal Home magazine
This summer I wrote a feature for Ideal Home magazine about publicist Firgas Esack and family’s big move from town to country. It was accompanied by some beautiful photos taken by her partner, Rich.
Copywriting for Mandarin Oriental
I was recently asked to write the Doha destination guide for Mandarin Oriental, who are just about to open their first hotel in Qatar. You can read it here.
Victoria Scott 