Category: Summer read

10 BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS FOR ‘THE SPANISH HOUSE’

~ Cherry Radford ~ Leave a comment

Juliana makes a modest living as an ‘ethnic’ TV/film extra – even though the only connections with her Spanish heritage are her cacti, Spanish classes, and some confused memories of a Spanish mother she hasn’t seen since she was seven.

When her beloved Uncle Arturo offers her the chance to discover her roots while housesitting his coastal home in a quiet corner of Andalusia, Juliana can’t believe her luck. Especially when he reveals that the house will be hers if she fulfils ten life-enhancing ‘Conditions’ within 90 days.

Redecoration of the house and a visit to the old film studio where her mother used to sew costumes seem ridiculously simple tasks for such a wonderful reward. But little does Juliana realise that there are family secrets and inherited rivalries awaiting her in sunny Spain, and the condition that she has to ‘get on with the neighbours’ – who include a ruggedly handsome and moody artist – may be harder than she thinks. 

1. Cultural Identity 🇪🇸🇬🇧

When the genes were handed down to her, they somehow managed to create a totally English woman trapped in a dark and incongruous Spanishness. A Spanishness that came from nowhere – or so it felt, having not seen Mama since the age of seven.  (Chapter 1)

‘I’m English and Spanish,’ Juliana replied, not thinking, but decided to adopt this from now on, in preference to the usual half this and half that description that made her sound both conflicted and cobbled together. (Chapter 27)

How does Juliana become so much more comfortable with her cultural identity? Did you sympathise with her feelings about this?

2. Arturo and the tomato 🍅

‘You are not an “extra” here in Spain. It’s not enough to just turn up; you have to start involving yourself – ripen from the inside out like the Raf. Only then will your time here be truly special – and the house become yours.’

As one reviewer remarked, Juliana goes from being an ‘extra’ – in both her working and personal life – to being the star of her own show. How did you feel about eccentric Uncle Arturo’s influence in her development? Would you like an Uncle Arturo in your life?

3. Mama in the cemetery 💐

Condition No. 4: Make a weekly visit to your mother Antoñita’s nicho in the cemetery. Talk to her.

I’ve read that Spaniards tend to believe that their deceased loved ones continue to live on in spirit and are still very much a part of the family. Certainly some of my Spanish friends in the village feel this way.

Did you feel Juliana’s growing ‘closeness’ with the memory of her mother helped her? Should the English have an annual ‘All Saints Day’ to visit family graves, like the Spanish and other countries do?

4. JOSEMI 🐻

Early on, Josemi is rather unfairly described as a bit of a grumpy, bear-like creature. Would you have liked to hear his side of the story?

5. Almería 🏜

The sort of hills a child would pat into shape with their hands on a beach, or draw with a crayon and then cover with tufts of grass. That’s what these hills had – clumps of tough grass dotted over them, making distant and larger hills delightfully fuzzy in appearance.

I’d worried that my adored but barren, semi-desert Cabo de Gata Natural Park area of Almería wouldn’t go down well with readers, so I’ve been delighted to see how often reviewers have said how much they enjoyed ‘being here’. 

Did you feel the unusual setting contributed to the story? What place in the novel would you most like to visit (Níjar with its ceramics, rugs and Cactus Nursery; the arty ex-mining village of San Rafael (Rodalquilar, in real life); The Tabernas spaghetti-western film set; the wild volcanic beaches near San José?)

6. Spotify Music Playlist 🎵

Josemi started to play. A simple three-note tune, but developing, and achingly sad… it was ‘The Summer Knows’, theme to an old film she couldn’t remember. His eyes were almost closed, he was totally inside the music, swaying, fingers twitching sensitively.

Music is so important in the story, I couldn’t resist putting a Spotify list together so that readers could listen to the tracks during the chapters in which they occurred. Do you think all novels should have one?

7. More or less? 👍👎

Who – or what – would you like to have seen more (or less!) of in the story?

8. THE ENDING 🤗

Were you happy with the ending? If not, what would you have liked to have happened?

9. Who would play the film roles? 🎬

If The Spanish House became a film, who could you imagine playing the roles? I’d suggest Javier Bardem and Pénelope Cruz in the lead roles, if we could timeslip them back 15 years.

10. Return to Almería! ☀️🌵🍅🦎🏖😌

Which minor characters in The Spanish House would you like to see appearing in my next two novels set in this unspoilt corner of Almería? Sign up to the website for news of these!

If you have enjoyed The Spanish House,  please let others know by leaving an online review on Amazon 🙏😊  

(See my ‘Write an Amazon Book Review – in 5 Minutes’ post, March 2018) 💻

THE BOOK COVER – HAND OVER YOUR BABY!

~ Cherry Radford ~ Leave a comment

Nannies, daughters-in-law and book covers – can they ever be good enough for your baby?

I was cautiously optimistic; even at the time of offering for the book, the publisher had shown me covers of other novels as examples of what they had in mind. Later, I’d been invited to send images of local houses and scenery. All this was reassuring, when I recalled the appalling stories of author friends: a heart-warming, beautifully written character-led story was given a cover she felt suggested erotic fiction; a thoughtful and moving memoir about some harsh realities of moving to the countryside was given a twee cover totally at odds with the book’s message. In comparison, I told myself I really had nothing to worry about. I just had to get used to the fact that my Spanish house was unlikely to look quite the same as I imagined, and not all my images – ‘essential’ Almerian semi-desert plants, locally specific ceramics, goats and a particular type of tasty but ugly tomato – were likely to be in it!

I was delighted when the first image arrived, except that they’d planted an Agave Americana right by the front door. It’s stunning and locally emblematic, but also a vicious invasive beast, with toxic sap giving agonising contact dermatitis! Luckily the publisher patiently let me do some re-planting.

So, here’s the final result – and I’m happy to say I really feel it does my baby proud.

You can now pre-order The Spanish House and its friendly pot plants on amzn.to/x9GvcW

FINALLY, UNBELIEVABLY: THE ‘HOW I GOT MY AGENT’ BLOG POST!

~ Cherry Radford ~ 2 Comments

Childbirth, Ikea, and submitting a novel to literary agents for representation: things I swore I’d never do again. Particularly the latter; if you’ve read MY POTHOLED PATH TO PUBLICATION, or ONE TO ONES, I’VE HAD A FEW, you know why. And those posts haven’t aged well; dear God, how smug I was, thinking I’d never need to run the agent gauntlet again!  But that was before my small friendly publisher decided to stop publishing fiction; unless I could somehow make my new novel into non-fiction – a bit of an ask, for a seventy-year family saga – I was back to square one. Un-agented, un-published and back in the muddier-than-ever submission trenches.

Out came the Writers’ Yearbook, the laptop and the sickening realisation that I was about to lose a sizeable chunk of writing time. Come back faffy postal submissions, all is forgiven. These days, most agents expect you to have Googled their client list, favourite novels, festival interviews, whacky Wish List (airport romance, anyone?) and their submission requirements designed to be just that bit different to that of whoever you last subbed. Honestly, it’s time to bring in some kind of UCAS-like process, rather than this fawning agent-fan fiasco; if they want new clients, how about they open a website and look for us, eh?!

Anyway. The new novel was the thing. I loved it, and wanted to give it the best possible start in life – which unfortunately meant going to the ‘publishing gatekeepers’.  Even though, after having gone through this process three times before, I felt a default loathing for these people. Once again, I rejigged the Submissions Spreadsheet of Shame, with its colour code highlighting of yellow for Submitted, orange for Full MS Requested, and a disgusting dark brown for Rejections. And once again, the spreadsheet soon started to look like a pile of poo.

But then the jolly orange Full MS Requests started to arrive. I got cocky and started subbing some of the Big Cheese agents I hadn’t bothered with – and a couple of them also turned (Red Leicester) orange. After a few months, I had 9 (NINE) Full MS requests; writing friends said I had it made, and I began to believe them. But the months started to pass, several agents asked for more time… and Doubt set in.

It was torture trying to get through more than half an hour without tapping the email button on my phone. I unsubscribed from nearly everything – even my darling White Stuff Clothing – to cut down on annoying non-agent-news notifications. There was that time I heard the whang of an email and was convinced, felt it in my bones, that it was going to be good news – only to find it was my son’s phone with a match on Bumble. Then a London number flashed up and I got The Agent Call – except it was an agent chasing up because their full MS request email had somehow bypassed my scrutiny and gone straight to junk mail.

Then the first rejections started to arrive. They were kindly and helpful, and I highlighted the agents in a sad but respectful grey. Maybe I should have coloured them a dawning-on-me pink, because what started to emerge is that I’d written a book they really liked but couldn’t sell. Eventually there was just one agent left on the wall, riddled with indecision, and I put her out of her misery with a little nudge. I submitted the novel to a few independent publishers, but they were similarly nonplussed.

It was very painful, this book bereavement, this need to put a whole world I’d created and lived in for two years in a digital drawer. I literally went through denial, anger and then acceptance – that it didn’t obey the insane but irrefutable marketing laws of genre. There was only one possible cure for me, and here in a nutshell is how I got my agent: I decided to write something new that did.

This coincided with the first lockdown and, missing my Spanish home, I got an idea for an escapist holiday read. But before I flew off with my usual obsessions, I spent a month reading similar books, to get the hang of what interested people who read this genre. The Spanish House was less literary than The Pier, but my heart was soon just as invested in it. With minimal wing-clipping, I soon had a new novel I loved and really believed in.

No Yearbook this time. I only sent ‘invitations to look’ to fifteen agents; anybody who hadn’t shown any interest at all in my beloved The Pier could go hang. Several weren’t looking for this genre or already had too much of it, but there were soon three Full MS requests, including a Big Cheese. Quite quickly this time, I got my answers: Big Cheese saw the novel going in a different direction; the second agent was overburdened, and once she asked about and approved of the agent who’d made me an offer, conceded. The third… was Kiran Kataria at Keane Kataria.

We didn’t have The Call, we had The Zoom – because it was August and I’d moved out to my own Spanish house and, going through the Spanish residency process, wouldn’t be in the UK for a while. Obviously, I’d already Twitter DM’d some of her authors – all of whom were ecstatic about her. But to finally hear somebody talk about the characters of your book as if they’re as real as they are to you, to have someone so believe in your writing that they’re happy and looking forward to working on the story and finding it a home… I’m still pinching myself, to be honest.

Six months on, and Kiran’s been everything I dreamt of in an agent: an insightful and painstaking editor; a calm but no-nonsense soother of my angsty author moments; and then a superb negotiator – of my three-book deal with Aria Fiction (Head of Zeus)! My only worry is she’ll see this and find too many I-don’t-think-this-is-the-word words.