Dear Reader,
I just opened a box containing proofs for A Wild & True Relation and felt such a surge of love and pride for this beautiful object. Of course, I felt immensely proud to publish my first novel, Testament, which meant so much to me, rooting into my family history, and growing new roots into my future as a writer. And I feel so honoured to have my name beneath Ian Fleming’s in Double or Nothing. But holding the proofs for A Wild & True Relation is a particular sensation.
A Wild & True Relation was supposed to be my first novel. It started as a short story, written while visiting Devon in 2009. When it is published on February 2nd 2023, it will have been fourteen years in the making. I was working on it solidly until 2011, when my grandfather died and my grandmother began to tell me about her memories of the Holocaust. Testament came to the fore as a way to process both of those griefs. A Wild & True Relation had also hit rocky shores as I continued from undergraduate to postgraduate studies. I couldn’t write it anymore – for a while, I couldn’t write at all. This separation and alienation from my characters and story was its own kind of grief, something that may sound strange but I think you’ll understand.
It wasn’t until 2015 that I opened the document back up again. I thought I’d lost the novel, but the novel hadn’t lost me. The characters, Tom and Molly and Grace, had held on. I wrote it out of the corner of my eye as I finished Testament, and then in 2018 I was taken sailing by my cousin Roger Squire and the story suddenly had wind at its back. My confidence returned. I started to tell people what I was working on. It was my mainstay and only project again, but not for too long. I finally finished A Wild & True Relation as I wrote the first draft of Double or Nothing. The characters were born in the second year of my undergraduate degree and kept me company through nine homes and two other novels. I could never let it go because the book has my heart in it, plain and simple, wild and true.
And now it’s here, with – if I do say so myself – the most beautiful proof I can imagine. Two colourways. A quote from Dame Hilary Mantel I still can’t believe. And the words I spent so long dreaming on the page at last.
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On Saturday, I went to Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival in Stirling. It was my first time and it is one of the most joyous festivals I’ve ever been to: all of the writers stay in one hotel, and the tone is set by a police tape cordoning off the doorway with an outline of a dead body reading a book. Although I’ve spoken at many literary festivals, this was also my first appearance at a crime festival, and I was struck by feeling like the new kid at school. But crime writers are a very kind bunch (despite our grisly imaginations) and all the bigger kids were very nice to me.
(Photos by Amber Ivatt)
(My colour-coordinated outfit. Never knowingly off-brand. Photo by Nicholas Herrmann)
I spoke on a panel brilliantly named ‘Aye Spies’ with Charles Cumming and the two halves of Ben Creed, chaired with generosity and insight by Adam LeBor. Ben Creed (both halves) writes novels set post-war, while Charles and I write novels infused with the present day, and for me one of the most interesting moments was the chance to reflect on how spy fiction has changed in the last half-century, and the narratives that remain present. Inevitably, John le Carré came up in this conversation, as a chronicler who articulated us to ourselves from the shadow of World War II to post-Brexit. Do you have a favourite le Carré? Though Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Russia House and The Night Manager all vie for top spot, The Perfect Spy wins it for me.
A good friend of ours is visiting from California, and after Bloody Scotland we drove into the landscape that Sir Walter Scott called ‘so wondrous wild, the whole might seem the scenery of a fairy dream.’ And so it did. We’ve only lived in Edinburgh for a little over a year and half, but every day I fall more deeply in love with Scotland, bloody or otherwise.
(Photo by Nicholas Herrmann)
On Thursday, I’ll be appearing at my old local bookshop to talk about Double or Nothing, Mr B’s in Bath. And on Friday I’m delighted to be appearing at Frome Festival. Hope to see you there.
And a last bit of VERY exciting news. Double or Nothing has been chosen as the Sunday Times Thriller of the Month. It means so much to me to see the novel finding its readers. Thank you to all of you for your continued support.
From Kim, With Love x