Author Archives: Simon Appleby

Here are some answers to the questions I’m asked the most. If your question isn’t here do email me via the contact me page. I will do my best to get back to you.

When is your next book coming out?

My next new novel, Tell Me Your Secret, will be on sale in June.

What order did you write your books in?

My books were published:

The Cupid Effect (2003)

The Chocolate Run (2004)

My Best Friend’s Girl (2006)

Marshmallows For Breakfast (2007)

Goodnight, Beautiful (2008)

The Ice Cream Girls (2010)

The Woman He Loved Before (2011)

The Rose Petal Beach (2012)

The Flavours Of Love (2014)

That Girl From Nowhere (2015)

When I Was Invisible (2016)

The Friend (2017)

The Brighton Mermaid (2018)

Tell Me Your Secret (2019)

Did you have any say in the TV adapation of The Ice Cream Girls.

None whatsoever! I’ve written this piece called The Two Ice Cream Girls to explain my feelings on the TV adapation and the changes made.

Where can I buy your books in the US?

At present only My Best Friend’s Girl, Marshmallows For Breakfast, Goodnight, Beautiful and The Ice Cream Girls are available to buy in the US. The Woman He Loved Before should be released sometime in 2013. In the meantime, the only way I can think of you to get my other books over there is to order them from a UK website, or ask anyone who’s coming over here to get them for you.

Has anything in your stories happened to you or anyone you know?

In general, the answer is no. I draw on elements of other people’s stories and personalities to create my books, but my work is fiction. I am not any of my main characters – they tend to have much more exciting lives than me. My ideas come from life, from talking to people, from overhearing conversations in public, from wondering how I’d handle myself in certain situations. Like I say, I write fiction so I make up plots and characters but the original situations that I draw my ‘what ifs’ from are based on real life.

Will you read my work/help me get it published?

Finding out what I think is very unlikely to help you get published. Your best bet is to keep going with your writing, get it into as excellent shape as you think possible and send it off to agents and publishers. If you do get rejection letters try not to let it dent your confidence too much, just keep writing. Being published is fantastic – and it’ll be all the more amazing if you’re published for doing something you love.

Despite what many people say, it’s virtually impossible to predict what publishers will love and will reject so, it’s always best to write what you love and send it out there in the best possible shape.

Can you endorse my idea/website/book/project?

One of the most important things I learnt from being a journalist is to be honest about the things you endorse or say. It makes whatever you do endorse all the more credible because you do genuinely think it’s amazing. Unless I’ve tried something, read it or gained something from it, I’m not able to say I love it. At the moment, I have so little time, it’s very difficult to read or try anything new. So, apologies, I can’t at the moment endorse anything.

How do you find the time to write?

I make the time. I’ve had two jobs (full-time journalist and novelist) for so long that I had to find whatever little time I could to write. I used to write on the train to work, in front of the television, in the middle of the night when everyone on my side of the globe was asleep. It was what I had to do to write my books and pay my bills. In my experience, you have to do a lot of non-novel work to be able to write books. The idea that you get a huge advance on the first go is wonderful. . . and mostly the stuff of fiction. If it happens to you, then fabulous. If it doesn’t happen to you, then try not to feel discouraged, keep going. Also, having another job is great for researching stories to write about.

Do you know of any good creative writing courses?

I haven’t taken any creative writing courses and I wouldn’t recommend any without having tried them. A good place to start would be the Society of Authors who might have a list or would be able to point you in the right direction. You will have to be a member, though. Also try asking at your local library or local adult educational institute. If I was signing up for a course, I’d do a little research on the tutor to see what qualifications and pieces of work they’ve had published.

Will you write a sequel to My Best Friend’s Girl?

I’m not one for writing sequels, so I doubt very much I’ll write a sequel to My Best Friend’s Girl (I really think the story of Tegan and Kamryn has been told) nor any of my other novels. I do sometimes speculate about what happens to my various characters after the story has ended, but I don’t think my speculating would make good enough books. . . Having said that, you never know what the future holds, but at the moment, I’m not planning on writing any follow-ups.

Will you reply to my email?

Please don’t take offence if I don’t reply to your emails, I love getting them but until I am given access to a cloning machine where I can duplicate a Dorothy Koomson who can answer emails, I am unable to reply to each one personally.

 

Hurrah! Read an extended extract of my 14th novel.  Click on the image above or here on THE BRIGHTON MERMAID.

And this video is of me reading an extract from The Brighton Mermaid.

 

Dorothy Koomson reads from The Brighton Mermaid

 

It’s here! The first read of  The Friend. Click on the image above or on THE FRIEND EXTRACT to read the first few pages of my 12th novel.

If you want to read more, you can sign up for my booky letter at: By Your Shelf and you’ll be emailed the passcode so you can read an extra 20 pages.

Don’t forget, you can order The Friend here: ORDER THE FRIEND.

 

 

So, I went to the National Literacy Trust midsummer’s party last night.

I am a huge supporter of their work and how they aim to help to lower and eventually eradicate the high levels of illiteracy in this country.

It’s only when you hear the patrons of the charity talk that you’re reminded how so many people don’t have access to books – especially with what has been happening to libraries in recent years. But you know my feelings on that.

 

At the event, held in London at the Hatchette building with amazing views of London, I had one of those moments. You know, one of those moments, when you look across the room and spot Malorie Blackman and your heart stops because you’re looking at one of your writing heros. And she’s talking to another author you admire – Chris Riddell – and you realise that this is one of those few moments when you can go and make a total show of yourself in front of them and NOT ACTUALLY CARE.

So that’s what I did. I told them I was in awe of them. And Malorie said she’d read my books (swoon) and Chris said we should meet for coffee because he lives in Brighton (swoon again) and I sort of do, too. And I wished that I wasn’t on a self-imposed social media break because I so wanted to tell the world. I settled for telling my husband who was more impressed than I was, if that was possible. (And didn’t even mind me waking him up to tell him about it.)

Do have a look at the work the National Literacy Trust do if you get the chance. They are doing some brilliant stuff and they could always use people to help out. For example, you could host a Tales and Teapots party to raise funds for the National Literacy Trust. Me, I’m so counting down the days until it’s acceptable to hit Mr Riddle up for that coffee by the sea…

It’s a little-known fact that my readers often make me cry. They do so by telling me how my books have deeply moved them.

With The Ice Cream Girls, I have had numerous emails from people all over the world telling me how the book changed their lives or the life of someone they know. Such as the 60-year-old woman who said the book reflected her experiences in a way that she had never been able to share. Such as the domestic violence perpetrators outreach worker who said the novel had shown a man in her class that he was an abuser and that his wife had been right to leave him. Such as the woman who, after reading the story, finally plucked up the courage to see her relationship for what it was and to leave. Those are just three examples from all the powerful emails I’ve had.

When I write a book I feel an enormous sense of responsibility to tell accurately and sensitively the stories of the people I speak to, which is why those emails bring tears to my eyes: not only has something I have written touched someone, but I have managed to accurately portray the realities of people’s lives.

I have to admit, when I first started researching for The Ice Cream Girls I didn’t know or understand that all abusive relationships are rooted in emotional manipulation – I thought it was all about the physical violence. I found out that without the psychological control, the violence wouldn’t happen more than once. Having learnt this, I told the story of The Ice Cream Girls knowing that anyone, including ‘nice’, ‘ordinary’, ‘normal’ girls from two-parent families can and do find themselves manoeuvred into the situation that Poppy and Serena were in.

The TV drama that is based on my novel doesn’t seem to agree with what I learnt from my research and it seems to fall into the trap of regurgitating the stereotypes believed by those who have no experience or knowledge of domestic violence. While watching the drama I couldn’t help thinking that, while the people who made it had liked the basic idea of my book, they decided that abusive relationships and girls being groomed into sexual relationships by older men simply didn’t happen in the way I had written about them.

After the second time I outlined my concerns over the potentially damaging messages in the TV drama, the show’s executive producer admitted that their drama ‘tells a slightly different story with slightly different characters and different motivations’. Which is true, there are two versions of the story called The Ice Cream Girls: both have protagonists called Serena and Poppy, both have Poppy and Serena accused of killing an abusive man called Marcus.

The Serena I created was a shy, clever-but-naïve young girl manipulated into a relationship by her teacher who then went on to brutalise her; the Poppy I wrote about was a young girl, close to her father who thought the older man she was involved with loved her even when he abused her. My Ice Cream Girls were trapped in a nightmare situation not of their making and they couldn’t work out how to escape.

My Ice Cream Girls, as many people from all over the world have told me, were loveable, likeable and deeply sympathetic to the point where readers were torn about who they thought had murdered Marcus.
So, essentially, there are two versions of the story called The Ice Cream Girls – the research-based novel that I wrote and the TV version.

I’m sure a lot of people enjoyed the TV version – the actors did a great job with the material they were given. But I hope the viewers questioned whether those situations play out in real life as they did in the TV drama, and that they consider how very different my book, the original story, might be to that version.
A further difference between the two is that the TV version had a different ending and a different killer. For those asking: I didn’t have any say or input into any of the changes including the ending.

 

To whet your appetitie for my tenth novel That Girl From Nowhere, I’ve penned this short prequel called FromThereToHere.

It basically tells the story of what the main character Clemency ‘Smitty’ Smittson’s life was like there in Leeds and how she ends up here in Brighton, where most of the present-day story is set.

I really hope you enjoy the short story and that it inspires you to buy the book to read Clemency’s whole story. Let me know what you think of the story on email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

You can read the short story by clicking here: FromThereToHere and you can buy That Girl From Nowhere from all good bookshops and online at these various places.

At the end of 2013, to celebrate 20 years of working to improve literacy skills, The National Literacy Trust launched a national  search for Literacy Heroes – people who have overcome problems with reading and writing, or helped inspire other people to improve their literacy skills.

I’m a supporter of the National Literacy Trust and their aim to encourage and inspire people, especially children, to read, so I was really excited to be selected as one of the judges of the campaign.

As the National Literacy Trust says: ‘Anyone can be a Hero. A young person or adult who’s overcome challenges; an author who’s inspired people to read; a teacher or librarian; a volunteer in your local community; or even a celebrity.’ The group of celebrity judges included Cressida Cowell, the author of the bestselling How to Train Your Dragon series, columnist and author Lucy Mangan, and business entrepreneur Levi Roots. We were asked, in our choices, to consider:

1. The impact and contribution a nominated Literacy Hero has made to the literacy or reading lives of others and/or themselves. 2. How a Literacy Hero’s contribution reflects the overall aims of the National Literacy Trust in promoting literacy and reading to as many people as possible and in supporting literacy as an essential tool for life. 3. The creativity and resourcefulness of the nominee, and personal challenges that they may have had to overcome.

Click here to find out who the literacy heroes in the picture above are and why they won.

Photo credit: National Literacy Trust website

My literacy hero

I have several people I could nominate as my literacy hero, but the one I’m going to choose for now is Oprah Winfrey. I’ve long admired her for the way she has brought several important issues to the forefront of people’s consciousness, but it was what she did globally for reading that has established her as one of my enduring literacy heroes. When she began her television book club in 1996, selecting a book to read every month with her viewers and then discussing it on the show, she helped to transform reading across the world. Many people in lots of different countries were inspired to start their own public and personal book clubs realising that all they needed to do so was a good book and people to talk about it with. Reading is one of the best things to do and anyone who makes it accessible, desirable and most importantly, possible for other people, is a hero to me.

A couple of years ago, when I was starting to flesh out the story for my tenth novel, That Girl From Nowhere, my husband mentioned a story he had read on babies sleeping in cardboard boxes.

I’d being thinking a lot about babies being left in cardboard boxes on the steps of churches and hospitals from my search for the story which centred a lot around adoption and children’s homes. After talking at cross purposes for a while, my husband explained to me about the Finnish baby boxes, where the Finnish government provides every new mother-to-be with a box full of baby essentials (clothes, toys, books, nappies, etc). The box also comes with a mattress so that the baby can sleep in the box for the first few weeks of their life.

The practice for giving these baby boxes originated in the 1930s for low income households as a way for them to be able to provide everything they need for their children and in 1949 it was extended to all Finnish families. My husband had mentioned that young Finnish women who lived abroad were asking their mothers to send them similar boxes, and that this story was a popular read because then the Finnish government sent a baby box to the young royals Kate and William for their first child.

This story came at a perfect time for me because I’d been searching for a way to link the main character of That Girl From Nowhere, Clemency AKA Smitty, with her birth mother. I wanted an unusual way for someone who had no knowledge at all of their birth family to have an everyday connection with her birth mother. There was the option of the birth mother having left jewellery (Clemency is a jewellery maker) for her to be given on her 18th birthday, but I wanted something that was always there throughout Clemency’s life.

I’ve mentioned before that the original incarnation of That Girl From Nowhere was a book called Where I Found You. That story was centred a lot around Clemency’s obsession with butterflies – she had recurring dreams about them and was obsessed with pictures of them in every-day life. When I had the conversation with my husband about the Finnish baby boxes, another piece in the puzzle that was creating the character and background of Clemency fell into place: I decided that her birth mother had known a Finnish woman who told her about the baby box tradition and so she decided to create a box for her baby and decorate it in butterflies. This box is quite important to Clemency, who keeps her most precious photographs in the box throughout her life, and when she finally meets a Finnish person who seems as obsessed with butterflies as Clemency she realises she has accidentally stumbled across the person who knows all about the butterfly box she used to sleep in and what happened to her birth family.

 

I kept this butterfly box (above) around while I was writing the book as a reminder of the story. The butterfly box in the story looks nothing like this box, of course. As Clemency describes it in the book: ‘All the butterflies on the box are hand-drawn and hand-coloured. The largest is on the bottom – its wingspan covers the entire surface, and the wings are mirror images of each other. Each colour is perfectly twinned; each intricate vein etched in black and reflected on the other wing. It must have taken her hours to do each wing, let alone the rest of them, each a different size, everyon a unique, beautiful winged creature that looked fragile and lifelike.’

These boxes look nothing like Clemency’s box, but I saw it in a shop while I was looking for something else and I liked it so much I bought it. I then went back and bought another one when something else happened in the plot to necessitate another butterfly box. (You’ll see what I mean if you read the book.)

When I’m writing, I find it helps to have visual reminders around – what I’m writing about may not be exactly the same but it is a trigger of what I can see in my mind when I’m writing the book. I really loved writing That Girl From Nowhere, and finding out about the baby boxes was a huge part of that.

If you want to find out more about the Finnish baby boxes, have a read here.

If you want to read That Girl From Nowhere, you can read an extract, here and you can buy it here, here and hereonline.