PRIZE-winning author Anne Fine says the publishing pipelines have been unblocked after the pandemic – with three of her books coming in a month.
“Through Covid most publishers were working from home which effectively meant everything was horribly delayed,” said Ms Fine, of Barnard Castle. “So now, a bit like after the long wait for a bus, I have three books coming along within one month.
“Shades of Scarlet goes into paperback. Collins publish a small book for early readers of six to eight, called Scared of a Rainbow. And on February 8, Old Barn Books are publishing my new novel for older readers, Aftershocks.”
The book tells how a family mix-up means Louie has to tag along with his engineer father as he heads for a routine job in the farthest flung and most neglected province of the Federation.
A massive earthquake, with ensuing tsunami, devastates the entire coastal region, laying bare the other-worldly manner in which the silent and strange Endlanders deal with both life, death, and the hinterlands of memory and loss.
Their curious and unsettling ways raise ghosts for Louie, who has recently lost his own brother. This modern fable – part ghost-story, part coming-of-age novel and part astute social and family observation – explores the ways in which grief can affect, not only individuals, but communities at large.
Given the distressing last couple of years Ms Fine was asked if this was a “Covid novel”.
“No, not at all. Most of it had been written before. I’d been asked so often to tackle the subject of grief in a novel for young people, and never seen how I could possibly approach it, even after a horribly untimely death in my own extended family,” the former Children’s Laureate explained.
“That was at one remove, but I am very close indeed to one of those who suffered most. And then I read an article about the strange ghostly happenings in Japan after the huge tsunami of 2011, and felt that shift of some gear in the brain that writers seem to have that makes them realise, “but I could do it this way.”
Ms Fine admits it’s still a grim subject.
“But it’s one that affects a lot more young people than we care to think.
“The book’s emotionally honest, even raw in places. But Louie is a robust character, there’s lots of exciting action, and the book does leave the young reader with the sort of optimism about the future that I always want to offer.”
Aftershocks is published by Old Barn Books. Hardback £11.99. For children aged 10-plus. ISBN 9781910646779.
