Laurie Penny shortlisted for the Red Women of the Year awards 2014

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Celebrated journalist Laurie Penny has been shortlisted for the Red Women of the  Year awards 2014 in the Blogger category. She is up against bloggers Carrie Barclay, Muireann Carey-Campbell, Charlotte O’Shea and Niamh Shields. The winner will be announced later this year.

You can view Laurie’s blog here.

Laurie’s new book UNSPEAKABLE THINGS was published by Bloomsbury last week. Clear-eyed, witty and irreverent, Laurie Penny is as ruthless in her dissection of modern feminism and class politics as she is in discussing her own experiences in journalism, activism and underground culture. Read an extract in The Guardian here.

Tim Baker highly commended for the Debut Dagger

New Blake Friedmann client Tim Baker has been highly commended for the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger for THE LONG OBLIVION, an extract from his novel FEVER CITY. Alongside the winner, he was selected as one of only two commended entries from hundreds of entries.

FEVER CITY is an upmarket speculative crime fiction novel which details how Hastings - a hit man with no heart but a lot of conscience - and Alston - a PI with plenty of heart, but whose conscience is running on empty – collide during a sensational kidnapping case in 1960s LA. Uncovering a sinister world of Hollywood blackmail, Big Oil paymasters, and a sadistic FBI agent, by the time their wild-eyed, wise-guy journey is over, both men will be forced to confront the roles they have inadvertently played in the JFK assassination.

FEVER CITY will be out on submission in the UK this summer, for more information contact Tom Witcomb. 

Six Blake Friedmann Books out today!

It’s a big publication day at Blake Friedmann with six books by our authors being published in the UK today!

Barbara Erskine’s latest novel THE DARKEST HOUR is published by HarperCollins. An epic tale of love and heartbreak set in World War II and the present, Lucy’s husband is killed in a bizarre car accident and a painting he was to have restored leads Lucy back to the life of the artist, Evie. Finding a painted-over figure of a WWII pilot behind Evie’s self-portrait, Lucy unravels the mystery of the two men in Evie’s life, and their relevance to Lucy’s own. Barbara Erskine is the author of the bestselling novel LADY OF HAY, which has been continuously in print for 28 years and sold in 26 languages.

No. 1 Irish bestseller Sheila O’Flanagan’s new novel IF YOU WERE ME is published by Headline. Stressful presentations are part of a day’s work for Carlotta, but this one was in 2 languages. Missing her plane home wasn’t part of the plan, and missing her future mother-in-law’s birthday party is just the first of a sequence of events that turns her emotional and work life upside down.  Headline have sold more than 6 million books by Sheila.

Feminist, socialist and associate New Statesman editor Laurie Penny’s new book, UNSPEAKABLE THINGS, is published by Bloomsbury. Publishers Weekly called the book “a feminist book for our time that burns with a wild light and deserves attention.” Clear-eyed, witty and irreverent, Laurie Penny is as ruthless in her dissection of modern feminism and class politics as she is in discussing her own experiences in journalism, activism and underground culture. Read an extract in The Guardian here.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE HANGED MAN is the latest novel in Ann Granger’s Victorian Crime series, published by Headline. When Inspector Ben Ross is called to Newgate Prison by a man condemned to die by the hangman's noose he isn't expecting to give any credence to the man's testimony. But the account of a murder he witnessed over seventeen years ago is so utterly believeable that Ben can't help wondering if what he's heard is true. It's too late to save the man's life, but it's not too late to investigate a murder that has gone undetected for all these years.  She has more than 5 million books in print in English and German.

Told in her trademark multiple first-person style, AN OPEN MARRIAGE is the new novel by Tess Stimson published by Macmillan. Mia Allen has never quite adjusted to living in England. Her husband Kit though, loves the sense of community and his job as a school teacher in a private school.  Like Mia, Kit's boss Charlie is also looking for more excitement in her life. When she and Rob are invited to dinner with Mia and Kit, she jumps at the chance to make new friends. One evening, the increasing attraction between them all moves up a notch, but it's not long before the seductive highs of these new friendships lead to desperate lows. Can any of their relationships survive this unconventional arrangement? 

Finally the paperback of THE SUMMER QUEEN, the first book in Elizabeth Chadwick’s stunning Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy, is published by Sphere. You can view a trailer for the book here. Choice Magazine called it “engrossingly written and well researched.”   Chadwick has delivered the manuscript for the second volume, THE WINTER CROWN and is now writing the final volume THE AUTUMN THRONE.  She is a New York Times bestselling author and according to The Historical Novel Review is “The best writer of medieval fiction currently around.”                                                    

Margie Orford elected President of South African PEN

Photo Credit: Brooke Fasani

Photo Credit: Brooke Fasani

Margie Orford has been elected President of PEN South Africa by the institution’s executive committee with effect from June 19. She succeeds Anthony (Tony) Fleischer, who was president for many years and died after a short illness on June 5 at his home in Cape Town. Margie was Vice-President of PEN South Africa for many years.

Margie is an award-winning journalist, photographer, film director, children's author and Fulbright scholar. Born in London, she grew up in southern Africa. She was detained as a student activist during the State of Emergency in 1985 and wrote her finals in prison. She lives in Cape Town, and is Patron for the children’s book charity, the Little Hands Trust and for SA RapeCrisis.

Her concern about violence against women is reflected throughout the Clare Hart series, published in the UK by Head of Zeus and Harper Witness in the US. It has also been published in France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Russia and the Czech Republic, and rights have also been sold in Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

Praise for Margie Orford and WATER MUSIC:

‘Margie Orford writes with great human insight, at times with poetic beauty, and always the ever-present deep, dark undertow of menace.’ – Peter James

'Orford plots so brilliantly that to stop reading is as harrowing as to carry on.' – Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph

‘Clare Hart is back, and she returns in style… the tension racks up, and up, and up… WATER MUSIC should see Orford win many, many more fans, and she’s not exactly short of them already. Read it.’ – The Big Issue

‘I loved the twists and turns of this book and the truly unknowable nature of the next chapter’ – Lizzi Thomasson, The Bookseller

‘Margie Orford gives genre writing swagger, she makes it look good…every detail in WATER MUSIC convinces. Every sentence is clipped, pared down, muscular, every emotion captured with poise and precision. WATER MUSIC is Orford’s best work yet.’ – Jonathan Amid, Slipnet

Follow Margie Orford on twitter

Visit Margie's website