One flew over the Cuckoo's nest - or did it?

 

The Cuckoo's Calling by - er - JK Rowling?

 

Congratulations to Orion's fiction editor Kate Mills  for admitting she turned down 'Robert Galbraith's' debut novel The Cuckoo's Calling. So she rejected the world's best selling author?  Well, good for her, I say, for having the  courage to admit it.

 

In a world of 'it wasn't me, Sir honest' when no-one seems to take responsibility for their actions, I found her confession quite refreshing.

One of my favourite examples of 'missing the genius' has to be the publisher whose rejection of George Orwell's Animal Farm  stated 'Animal stories don't sell in the USA.'

And then there's William Golding's original manuscript for Lord of the Flies.  An editor had attached a note to the top of the work stating  'This man will never make a writer.'

But back to the present. In the current 'Bookseller', a reviewer rates Julie Cohen's Dear Thing  'a cut above The Cuckoo's Calling.'  I've met Julie several times and she's one of those successful novelists who, as a tutor of creative writing, always encourages writers to follow their dream.

'It's a story that's close to my heart for so many reasons' she says on her website. 'I hope it touches you, too.'


    http://www.thebookseller.com/news/galbraith-reviewed.html


 

Getting Away With It...

One of my favourite authors is Julie Cohen whose books reflect her personality - warm, wacky and with a deep underlying concern for the emotional issues we all have to face.

Her latest novel, Getting Away With It, is the story of identical twins, one good, one bad, whose lives collide when their mother devlops a life-changing illness.

Written through the eyes of Lisa, a former stuntwoman in LA, it is set in the fictional English village of Stoneguard,where privacy is a word no-one understands. As Lisa takes on her sister's life, including her devastatingly handsome boyfriend, things get very complicated.

Getting Away With it is out now in paperback. A fun, sexy and thought-provoking read.