The List of Suspicious Things

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The topic of leadership fascinates me. But I believe many of us have a closed opinion of who our leaders are. I decided to seek out learning – where could I go? Who was the best? I read and studied and let everything sit. Then, one day I was walking Rocco in the Somerset countryside when an idea came to me. By the end of the walk, I had a title and plot outline. It was the most creative 20 minutes of my life. During my degree my parents separated and my mum became homeless. It was during the recession, when things were just awful.

As a child of the 80s and a born and bred Yorkshire lass, as soon as I read the first line of this book, I knew I was going to love it. It invoked childhood memories of growing up in Yorkshire - the dialect, the accents and growing up in a small community.

Featured Reviews

Newman perfectly captures the beauty and burden of caring for someone in their final moments while showing the gift of Edi and Ash's once-in-a-lifetime friendship. A warm and remarkably funny book that will make readers laugh through their tears. KIRKUS On paper we shouldn’t be friends. Firstly, we are from totally different generations, secondly our novels are entirely different. But we are friends, good friends and it’s made me doubt everything I know about building connections in my life. Our top tips for writing and nurturing your writing friendship: It gave me the courage to follow my true North. And it’s not just for artists or writers. When we get to a certain age or stage in life, it can feel as though our path is set. This can be a real impediment to doing/being somebody different. Humans are elastic so whatever age/stage you have the capacity to be something completely different. Never write off the ability to follow your dreams. After making the decision to ‘press pause’ I gave myself space to decide what I wanted to do. ‘I’m going to write a book’ floated into my consciousness and I decided to give it a go.

Think about film and television too – it’s all writing – and who wouldn’t want to read Succession in book form (for example). My current WIP has a Happy Valley vibe to it, and I’m very happy with that. This is an interesting one. As far as I know there aren’t any. But there are some agent preferences, guidelines, and some common sense, which often morph into ‘rules’ when they appear on social media enough times (see also how many social media followers’ writers need to have). I could probably write a list of why I thoroughly enjoyed this book: I'm from Yorkshire (not far from Dewsbury), I was around the same age as Miv when the Ripper terrorised the streets, I too had a pretty friend who boys were attracted but she wasn't as nice as Sharon so there the similarity ends. However the main reasons are the plot, the characters and the dialogue of this great first novel.Interestingly, I’ve always said I’d be an author, since childhood. I feel as though I had an inner knowing about where I was meant to be and what I was meant to be doing. My biggest lesson has been to really strip away all the ‘shoulds’ and the things that society expects of you, for example “you should focus on your career”; “you need to make money”.