Today we welcome Harriet Cummings for an LBG blog Author Feature. Harriet’s novel We All Begin As Strangers was published earlier this year.
Book Synopsis
How well do you really know your neighbours?
In the English village of Heathcote the temperature – and the sense of unease – is rising.
It started with small things – a perfume bottle being moved, a photograph left behind in someone’s house. But now Anna is missing.
As the search for Anna gathers pace, suspicions grow and secrets are revealed. Surely one of the villagers can’t be responsible? But then can you ever really know what’s going on behind closed doors.
Favourite Five
What’s your favourite book cover by another author and why?
Recently I really loved the cover of The Vegetarian by Han Kang which I found very striking. I tend to like abstract – rather than pictorial – artwork that’s both intriguing and beautifully made.
What is your favourite time to read?
Before bed or at least in the evening. I find fiction sets my thoughts on different, abstract paths which suits my more relaxed state come nightfall. In the morning I tend to be very task-focused and less open to the big ideas of stories.
Do you have a favourite snack to nibble whilst reading?
Copious amounts of cereal bars and dried apricots, their wrappers strewn about. I like to tell myself they’re healthy but probably not at the rate I get through them.
Who is your favourite book character that has stayed with you long after the book ended?
Aslan from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. As a child I cried myself to sleep after reading the chapter where he was tied up and killed on The Stone Table.
More recently I really enjoyed the protagonist of Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh – a properly dark, in some ways disturbed character who isn’t supposed to be likeable or to conform to our ideas of how a young woman should think or act. We need more female characters like this!
What is your favourite book quote?
“I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession with undertones of nausea. ”
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We All Begin as Strangers sounds intriguing. Love the Margaret Atwood quote.
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