"A GIRL MADE OF DUST" IS AMONG THE 200 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS FOR 2017

The upcoming film adaptation of Nathalie Abi-Ezzi’s acclaimed novel A GIRL MADE OF DUST is among the “200 most anticipated films for 2017” list on the Ion Cinema Website.  

A GIRL MADE OF DUST is produced by Alliance de production Cinématographique,  and the screenplay is written by Steve Hawes and Monica Solon.  The film is directed by Hiam Abbass. Abbass is a criticially-acclaimed actress who made her directorial debut with INHERITANCE, which competed at Venice and Karlovy Vary.

 The film is also among the 25 projects selected for the 7th edition of Les Arcs European Film Festival’s Coproduction Village.

In the novel eight-year-old Ruba lives in a village near Beirut, in 1980s Lebanon, as civil war divides her country. Her father’s depression threatens their livelihood, and her brother runs wild with boys with guns. As Ruba decides she has to save her family, Israeli troops invade and danger comes ever closer, but in the end love and family prevail.

Zakes Mda’s LITTLE SUNS on the rise in South Africa

Zakes Mda will be in South Africa in February to talk about his striking new novel LITTLE SUNS.  Among other events, he’ll take part in a discussion with Nakhane Touré as part of the Literary Crossroads series at the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg on 9 February, sure to be a fascinating and lively evening.

 LITTLE SUNS begins in 1903. A lame and frail Malangana – 'Little Suns' – searches for his beloved Mthwakazi after many lonely years spent in Lesotho. Mthwakazi was the young woman he had fallen in love with twenty years earlier, before the assassination of Hamilton Hope ripped the two of them apart.

Intertwined with Malangana's story, is the account of Hamilton Hope – a colonial magistrate who, in the late nineteenth century, was undermining the local kingdoms of the Eastern Cape in order to bring them under the control of the British. It was he who wanted to coerce Malangana’s king and his people, the amaMpondomise, into joining his battle – a scheme Malangana’s conscience could not allow.

Zakes Mda's fine new novel LITTLE SUNS weaves the true events surrounding the death of Magistrate Hope into a memorable story of love and perseverance that transcends exile and strife. 

Penguin Random House’s Umuzi imprint won a heated auction for Southern African rights to LITTLE SUNS, and have produced a beautiful edition. You can read an extract from the novel here.

Zakes Mda’s previous novel RACHEL’S BLUE won the University of Johannesburg Prize 2014, and you can learn more about that and read the first chapter of the novel here.  It is published in South Africa by Kwela, and Seagull Press will bring out an edition for the UK and the US in February.

Zakes Mda was born Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda in the Eastern Cape in 1948. He spent his early childhood in Soweto and finished his school education in Lesotho, where he joined his father in exile. His forebears were also exiled from Qumbu to Lesotho after the assassination of Hamilton Hope. Mda has studied and worked in South Africa, Lesotho, the United Kingdom and the United States, and is a prolific writer of plays, novels, poems, and articles for academic journals and newspapers. His creative work includes paintings, and theatre and film productions and several of his novels like WAYS OF DYING and THE HEART OF REDNESS are much-loved South African classics. His memoir SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID was published by FSG in the US and Penguin in South Africa in 2011.

Zakes Mda is a recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga and is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University’s Department of English.

Zakes also has a great following on social media – you can join his +77,000 followers here.

Theatrical production of Peter James' THE PERFECT MURDER to begin tour in February 2016

Award-winning actors Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace star together on stage for the very first time in the ingenious and critically acclaimed stage hit of Peter James’  best-selling thriller, THE PERFECT MURDER.

Victor Smiley and his wife Joan have been married for a long time. But their marriage has reached crisis point and Victor has decided that there is only one way to get Joan out of his life forever... but he’s about to get a nasty surprise. As a young Detective Roy Grace starts to investigate his very first homicide case, dark forces intervene and he begins to realise that nothing is quite as it seems…

Have you ever wondered how to commit the perfect murder? This highly entertaining dark comedy thriller, directed by Olivier Award-winner Ian Talbot, might just be your answer!

Television and stage stars Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace have famously appeared together in EASTENDERS for more than a decade. Their magnetic partnership has won them both critical acclaim and multiple awards including ‘Best On-Screen Partnership’ at the British Soap Awards.

Praise for THE PERFECT MURDER: 

"PERFECT ENTERTAINMENT: DEVILISHLY CLEVER AND, ABOVE ALL, TERRIFIC FUN!" - Chicester Observer

"IT’S A NIGHT FOR EVERYONE, WITH HORROR, INTRIGUE, MYSTERY AND YET PLENTY OF COMEDY"  - British Theatre Guide

You can buy tickets  following this link: 

 http://theperfectmurder.co.uk/buy.html

The tour kicks off on the 2nd February. Dates and locations listed below: 

Tuesday 2 - Saturday 6 February
Cheltenham Everyman Theatre
Box Office: 01242 572573
 

Monday 8 - Saturday 13 February
Churchill Theatre, Bromley
Box office: 08448 717 620
 

Monday 15 - Saturday 20 February
Bord Gais Theatre, Dublin
Box Office: +353 (1) 677 7999
 

Monday 22 - Saturday 27 February
Theatre Royal, Newcastle
Box office: 08448 11 21 21
 

Monday 29 February - Saturday 5 March
Kings Theatre, Edinburgh
Box office: 0131 529 6000
 

Monday 7 - Saturday 12 March
Theatre Royal, Brighton
Box office: 0844 871 7650
 

Monday 14 - Saturday 19 March
Northampton Derngate
Box office: 01604 624811
 

Mon 21 - Sat 26 March
Cambridge Arts Theatre
Box Office: 01223 503333
 

Mon 28 March – Sat 2 April
Coventry Belgrade Theatre
Box Office: 024 7655 305

FEVER CITY, Tim Baker's 'stunning debut thriller' published 21st January with Blog Tour starting today!

‘…the natural successor to such hallowed crime writers as Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy.’ – Stylist Magazine

Violent, vivid, visceral: Faber & Faber will publish FEVER CITY in the UK at the end of the week amidst a host of rave reviews. Baker will also be participating in a two-week blog tour to celebrate the release of his debut novel (dates and locations available below) And Tim will be appearing alongside fellow Faber authors Sarah Pascoe & Brix Smith Start at their Spring 2016 launch event in Clerkenwell on Thursday 20th January.

FEVER CITY is a searing counter-factual conspiracy thriller with three intertwining narratives. Nick Alston, a Los Angeles private investigator, is hired to find the kidnapped son of America's richest and most hated man; Hastings, a gun-for-hire in search of redemption, is also linked to the case. But both men soon become ensnared by a sinister cabal that spreads from the White House all the way to Dealey Plaza and the assassination on JFK. Decades later in Dallas, Alston's son stumbles across evidence from JFK conspiracy buffs that just might link his father to the shot heard round the world.

FEVER CITY is a high--octane, nightmare journey through a Mad Men-era America of dark powers, corruption and conspiracy.

Praise for Fever City:

‘Dense and complicated thriller with a fictional crime at its heart delves into the JFK assassination with walk-on parts for real-life figures from Marilyn Monroe to Richard Nixon. Half a century on from Dallas, the son of a 1960s LA private detective tries to piece it all together. An inventive take on the great American conspiracy theory...’ The Sunday Times, Crime Club Newsletter January Picks 2016

‘Sprawling, ambitious and atmospheric Fever City moves from the early Sixties to the present day via the bizarre abduction of a hated billionaire’s son, this debut author is the natural successor to such hallowed crime writers as Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy. Hard-nosed private eyes, cynical femme fatales and heartbroken hitmen jostle for space against a backdrop of some of the 20th century’s most iconic names…’—Stylist UK

'Tim Baker paints a lurid, sinister portrait of mid-century America, skilfully layering fact and fiction in a way that will forever change the way you think about the Kennedy assassination. An impressive debut.' – Peter Swanson

‘Another mighty impressive debut by a British author despite its sprawling American background and themes. Baker has the audacity to revisit the web of conspiracies surrounding the JFK assassination and despite the sterling previous contributions to the fictional subject by James Ellroy, Don De Lillo and even Stephen King, comes up trumps.’ – Maxim Jakubowski, LoveReading.com

‘Phenomenal. It's a brilliantly conceived and executed thriller that deftly combines smack-you-in-the-mouth intensity with imagery and prose to die for. It's beautifully stark, brutal when it needs to be, and thoroughly engrossing. There have been some truly great books written about the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination, and Fever City can stand with any of them.’ – Rob Reynolds, author of THE DARK INSIDE

About the author:

Born in Sydney, Australia, Tim Baker moved to Italy in his early 20s and lived in Spain before moving to Paris, where he wrote about jazz. For over 5 years he was the director of consular operations at the Australian embassy in France, supervising offices in Paris, Rabat and Algiers and liaising with international police, judicial and intelligence authorities on numerous cases involving murder, kidnap, child abduction, hostage-taking, terrorism, suicide, assault, and disappearances. Follow him on twitter.

Blog Tour and Dates:

18th January http://lizlovesbooks.com/

19th January http://www.thrillerbooksjournal.com/

20th January http:/www.tripfiction.com/

21st January http://www.milorambles.com/

22nd January http://orendabooks.co.uk/category/blog/

25th January http://crimepieces.com/

26th January https://ravencrimereads.wordpress.com/

27th January http://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk

28th January http://upcoming4.me/

29th January http://grabthisbook.net/

1st February http://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.co.uk/

2nd February http://shazbooksboudoir.blogspot.co.uk/

3rd February http://crimethrillergirl.com/

4th February http://melissa-sargent.com/

5th February http://bigcountrybookclub.com.au/blogs/

8th February http://acrimereadersblog.wordpress.com/[TW1] 

JOSEPH O'CONNOR'S RADIO PLAY THE VAMPYRE MAN SHORTLISTED FOR THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS TINNISWOOD AWARD 2016

THE VAMPYRE MAN by Joseph O’Connor is one of three plays shortlisted for the prestigious Society of Authors Tinniswood Award

Deft, inventive, consummately elegant, dark and light, here is a play that is both gripping and thought-provoking. With a cast of multi-layered characters, it asks questions about time, art and the bond of friendship. It will stay with us for a long time.

Joe’s dramatic work encompasses radio, film and stage work. His novels include COWBOYS AND INDIANS (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize), THE SALESMAN (in development with Tiger Aspect for ITV) and STAR OF THE SEA (currently being developed as a feature by Parallel Films).

The Tinniswood Award was established by the Society of Authors and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain in memory of Peter Tinniswood and to celebrate high standards in radio drama. Previous winners include Stephen Wyatt, Murray Gold, Morwenna Banks and Christopher William Hill. The other nominations are: FAR SIDE OF THE MOORE by Sean Grundy, DREAM OF WHITE HORSES by Linda Marshall Griffiths, FUGUE STATE by Julian Simpson and TOMMIES: 14th October 1914 by Nick Warburton

The Tinniswood Award is presented annually to the best original drama script. The judges this year are Mike Bartlett, Rachel Joyce and Nell Leyshon. 

The winner will be announced at the BBC Audio Drama Awards on the 31st January 2016