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18 May: European Writers’ Festival at the British Library – Andrey Kurkov in conversation with Luke Harding

Andrey Kurkov, author of Our Daily War, is the Special Guest at the 2024 European Writers’ Festival. The Festival takes place on the 18th and 19th of May at the British Library.

On the 18th of May at 6pm, Andrey will be in conversation with Luke Harding, the Guardian’s senior international correspondent, to discuss writing and war.

Tickets can be purchased from the British Library at https://www.seetickets.com/tour/european-writers-festival.

The full festival programme is available to view at http://europeanwriters.co.uk/events/.

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Orenda Books signs Essie Fox’s decadent, captivating historical thriller Dangerous

Orenda Books signs Essie Fox’s decadent, captivating historical thriller Dangerous

Karen Sullivan, publisher of Orenda Books, is delighted to announce the acquisition of World English Language rights for Essie Fox’s Dangerous, in a deal negotiated with David Headley at DHH Literary Agency.

The book opens in 1819, when the disgraced Lord Byron is living in exile in a palazzo on the Venetian Grand Canal with his menagerie of pets and an illegitimate daughter, revelling in the freedoms of the city. But when he is associated with the deaths of local women, found with wounds to their throats, and then a novel called The Vampyre is published under his name, rumours begin to spread that Byron may be the murderer…

Already convinced that his life is cursed, Byron is further dismayed to read the book and realise that the blood-sucking villain of the title has been based on his own tarnished reputation. As events escalate and tensions rise – and his own life is endangered, as well as those he holds most dear – Byron is forced to play detective, to discover who is really behind these heinous crimes. Meanwhile, the scandals of his own infamous past come back to haunt him…

Karen says, ‘Lord Byron is unquestionably one of the greatest-ever poets, his life marked and marred by scandal, as he defied societal norms and unapologetically pursued passion, his troubling misogyny as shocking then as it is today. And yet he remains a figure of some allure, his decadent lifestyle still paradoxically fascinating. Essie has dropped us into his opulent world, a lavishly described piece of historical fiction that is as dark and seductive as the reputation of the poet himself. The canals of Venice come alive, as Byron struggles to clear his name, and to find a murderer – or is it a vampire? – implicating and impersonating him.

‘Rich in gothic atmosphere and drawing on real events and characters from Byron’s life, Dangerous is a riveting, dazzling historical thriller, where fact and fiction collide, audacious crimes are committed, revenge and vampiric myths take centre stage, and passionate love affairs, imprisonment and the strange story of a mummified corpse on the monastery island of Lazzaro all build to a crescendo of suspicion and high-stakes mystery.

‘Byron’s character is uncannily drawn, his Venice both visceral and sumptuous, and Essie drops the reader straight into the heart of an extravagant mystery, a perilous investigation, and the threat of the supernatural hanging low over it all. Her language is elegant, pitch perfect, completely and utterly redolent of the age, of the man. I was transported, angered, saddened and entranced and completely gripped by this extraordinary book, with its unexpected flashes of wit, and on the 200th anniversary of his death, I can think of no better time to announce its publication.

‘Despise the man or adore him, readers will be enchanted by this fictional portrayal of an astonishing period of Byron’s life, and it is, quite simply, a masterpiece.’

Essie says, ‘I’m so delighted that Orenda will be publishing my first historical crime thriller – a fiction based on fact – and one that also reflects my passion for the gothic. It was a dream to imagine a memoir that reveals secrets of Byron’s life in Venice, in which his personal connection to a novel called The Vampyre threatens to trap him in a web of murderous deceits.’

David Headley says, ‘This is a timely book, a beautifully told story focusing on a strange and intriguing period of Byron’s life in Venice, reimagined as a truly captivating fictional mystery. In Essie’s hands, it’s simply magical.’

Dangerous, by Essie Fox, will be published in glorious hardback by Orenda Books, in April 2025. For more information, please contact Karen Sullivan: Karen@orendabooks.co.uk.

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The Collapsing Wave: Doug Johnstone tells us about the epic sequel to his bestselling novel The Space Between Us

The Collapsing Wave is the sequel to The Space Between Us, my first-contact science fiction novel published last year. The Collapsing Wave picks up six months after the end of the previous book, and examines the lives of all the same characters and the connections that have been made and broken in the meantime.

Most of the book is set in New Broom, a makeshift U.S. military base built up the coast from Ullapool on Scotland’s west coast. The base is a mix between a scientific research station and a prison, and Lennox and Heather are being held there, while Ava is on trial for murdering her husband. But soon the three are reunited, along with Sandy, the alien creature they bonded with so strongly in the first book.

But, this time, the human threat to the Enceladons is much more severe. The authorities consider the aliens to be an existential threat, despite the fact that they’re really just refugees from their home world, looking for some peace and safety. But they don’t find it here on earth.

In The Space Between Us, I was mostly concerned with the individuals and their connections with each other and with Sandy. For this sequel, I wanted to look more closely at the nature of community and refugees, about how humanity in general treats other people, animals, plants and the environment so badly. We are all trapped in a capitalist machine that dehumanises people, destroys the planet and treats animals disgracefully. And there has to be another way. 

I wanted to look at how other societies or consciousnesses might view things differently. The Enceladons have evolved in a benign and non-threatening environment in their under-ice seas of one of Saturn’s moons. And that clearly affects their outlook on life. They simply can’t understand the hatred and violence of the human mind, yet they have to get some grasp on it by the end of the book, in order not to be destroyed.

Since these books are about connection and community, I wanted to bring new characters into the story to support my central three. There is a camp of people up the coast from New Broom who have been drawn there by a strange desire for connection with the alien creatures. And while that does eventually happen, they also make connections with Lennox, Heather and Ava, and find their family of like-minded people in the process.

This book, like its predecessor, is a fast-paced thriller with lots of twists and turns. But ultimately, I feel like these are hopeful books about how society works and how it could be improved, about how we can better connect with the people and environment around us. I’ve certainly found myself feeling more positive about humanity and the future as I wrote them, and I hope they have the same effect on you, the reader, too.