A friend has just pointed out my new novel, Queen Mum, has had a very nice plug in today's Times. (When I told you I don't read reviews, Emma, I was lying.)

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article1557378.ece


I'm made up.

Well done, Kate!

A
xxx

Nice one, Kate. My mum got a copy amazoned to her for mother's day. She was very pleased with it.

Congratulations! How satisfying when a reviewer really 'gets' what you were trying to do, and tells you you've succeeded!

Emma

Wow - right up there with Hyland and Atwood! I'd frame it

I'm more pleased at the association with Keyes!

Reading the Hyland at the moment, coincidentally.

Oooh!

How fantastic for you, well done! Bet you'll be smiling all week now!

Enjoy it!

B

She manages to do so without mawkishness within a comic novel, showing just how sensitively judged her writing is.

Kate, this is something i long to achieve and hope one day i do. There have been a couple of heartrending issues i have wanted to deal with in my novels but i always give up before i start because i can't get my head around it within the context of a comic tone. The reader of my Cornerstones report picked out some sensitive moments in my writing, but i don't feel capable yet of dealing with an entire sensitive subplot/plot whilst trying to overall raise laughs.

so well done, i think that is a real talent.

Casey

Brilliant, Kate. I'll have to get my mum to hurry up and lend me her copy!

Thanks. I didn't set out to write about an 'issue', it's just how the character came out. When I started to write about her, that was her past, and it was up to me to deal with it (if that doesn't sound too pretentious).

Just spotted this, Kate. Well done! What a great review.

I know what you mean about characters – it’s not pretentious at all. We start writing about them and then get to know them better, and discover they have secrets and histories we weren’t aware of.

Dee

And I see that Queen Mum's made it into The Bookseller's Top Twenty selling paperbacks...

Emma

Fantastic news. This must make all the angst and loneliness of writing so very very worthwhile..
Bask in it, Kate!

Great review, well done!!

Rosy.

I read the book 'Queen Mum' and also 'Bad mother's handbook'. I loved them.