Tonight we listened to Rosamund Lupton, Marina Palmer (aka Imogen Robertson) and Jacqueline Sutherland, all writers of published thrillers, discuss their processes and generally talk about the various things that makes their genre tick. It was our third session at the Farnham Literary Festival, again in the wonderful Blue Bear Bookshop, and was, again, fascinating.
Among many things, we heard, again, how book covers were chosen for them by their publishers. Sometimes the cover has nothing to do with the contents of the book. Rosamund talked about a Danish edition of one of her previous books that featured a woman draped across a settee, wearing a blue dress. It bore no resemblance to the story at all.
Marina explained the significance of a non-representative cover when she said that “Dead women sell books!“
Mirinda spoke up, saying that a cover doesn’t make any difference to her. She buys and reads three books a week but they are on her eReader and the covers are, firstly, in black and white and, secondly, so small as to be completely ineffective.
Each writer also read a small excerpt from her latest book. So we heard from The Coffin Club, Russian Doll and Three Hours. They all sound very thrilling and exciting.
In the meanwhilst, sitting opposite, was the cheesemonger turned writer, Ned Palmer who regaled us with strange cheese related tales. Obviously this was before the session started.
Possibly my favourite cheese story concerned a sheep cheese maker who would load a trebuchet with cheese, set light to it and send it flying for reasons unknown. I guess it’s a bit better than throwing the entire sheep, ala Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Ned is the author of A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles. He is also Marina’s husband. In fact, after the three women had spoken, Marina was going to have a chat with Ned as a sort of bonus session. Unfortunately, we had to head off as we’d booked for dinner at The Lost Boy.
As usual, dinner was delicious. Another excellent night out in Farnham.
