Super Thursdays are for life, not just for Christmas

Blue Door is proud to announce its very own Super Thursday. Yes, that’s right, today we release not one, not two but three fantastic novels. First up is Rachel Trezise’s wonderful Sixteen Shades of Crazy. Tipped as the Valleys’ answer to Trainspotting, here’s Rachel giving us an insight into why she decided to dissect the morals and mores of life in ex-mining towns:
Already popular on the literary festival circuit you can catch Rachel this summer at Hay, Latitude and Green Man. You can also catch up with all of her news at her website www.racheltrezise.com. Recognised by the Orange Futures list (amongst the likes of Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters) we are very proud to be publishing her first novel.

Next up is something completely different. Meg Gardiner’s thrillers have been praised by Stephen King, Jeffery Deaver and Tess Gerritsen which is a pretty impressive roll call of fans. Her Evan Delaney series of novels was a hit with adults and teens alike and was regularly in the top ten of teen thrillers on Amazon.com. Her new super sleuth, Jo Beckett, is a forensic psychiatrist, investigating a person’s life to discover why they died. The Memory Collector (released early May) tells the story of Ian Kanan, a passenger on board a flight to San Francisco, who has been restrained by crew members for his erratic behaviour. Jo is immediately called in when it is established that Kanan has no memory of who he is or where he has been. Convinced that he holds the key to a potential terrorist plot (and may have been exposed to a deadly biological agent himself), Jo must race against time to unravel a series of clues and save her beloved city. Meg’s next Jo Beckett thriller, The Liar’s Lullaby will be released in June so watch out for some guest blogging on the site soon.

Last but by no means least is Warren Fitzgerald’s The Go-Away Bird. Perfect for fans of Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand, this is a heart-wrenching story of how friendship can develop in the most unlikely of places between the most unlikely of people. Fourteen-year-old Clementine arrives in London from war-torn Rwanda, having witnessed horrendous cruelty and unimaginable loss during the 1994 genocides. Lonely, grieving and displaced in a daunting new city, she flees her abusive uncle and befriends Ashley, a middle-aged, loner for whom teaching singing is the only escape from his London life. The story that unfolds is deeply moving and at times sad but throughout is a positive and uplifting tale of how two utter strangers can collide, bond and ultimately save each other. Here’s Warren telling us about the novel:

Volcanic ash you say?

With the pesky Icelandic ash cloud threatening to disrupt the start of LIBF next week, volcanic activity has become a rather unlikely talking point with volcanologists thrust into the spotlight like never before (even in the Daily Mail).

So with volcanoes even being a Twitter trending topic, I thought I’d take the chance to write about an engrossing new novel by prize-winning Australian author Andrew McGahan. Wonders of a Godless World, McGahan’s fifth novel, tells the story of a young orphan girl living in a decaying mental institution on a torpid tropical island (complete with ash-spewing volcano). The girl cannot speak or understand the speech of others and lives an isolated existence, until that is, a stranger arrives at the hospital, lost in an inexplicable coma. Although he never speaks, the orphan becomes convinced that she can hear the foreigner speaking in her head: he is cursed, he claims with immortality. And so begins a journey of discovery that will take them right around the world and far beyond it. Questioning ideas of reality and madness, this is a book quite unlike anything I have ever read and will certainly provoke debate amongst readers as to the identity of the mysterious stranger.

The Australian press have heaped praise upon McGahan calling Wonders an “impressively sustained feat of imagination,” rising to “invigorating heights.” Published by Allen & Unwin in 2009, Blue Door are proud to be publishing this tumultuous tale in June. Why not whet your appetite until then with the trailer