Lisa Manterfield

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September 3, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

The Smallest Thing Audio Tour

The new audiobook of The Smallest Thing is heading out on tour next week!

From September 12-18, you can follow Em as she visits audiobook bloggers and reviewers. I’ll be doing interviews and Q&As, as well as sharing some Top Ten lists. some of the bloggers will be sharing their reviews of The Smallest Thing.

Here are all the stops Em and I will be making:

Sep. 12th:
Valerie Ullmer | Romance Author (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Author Interview, Giveaway)
Viviana MacKade (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Author Interview, Top 10 List, Giveaway)

Sep. 13th:
Locks, Hooks and Books (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Giveaway)
The Book Junkie Reads . . . (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Giveaway)
Turning Another Page (Review, Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Author Interview, Giveaway)

Sep. 14th:
Country Road Reviews (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Giveaway)
All the Ups and Downs (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Author Interview, Giveaway)

Sep. 15th:
Jazzy Book Reviews (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Top 10 List, Giveaway)
Nesie’s Place (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Author Interview, Giveaway)

Sep. 16th:
Reading A Page Turner (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Giveaway)
Dab of Darkness Book Reviews (Review, Giveaway)
Eileen Troemel (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Author Interview, Top 10 List, Giveaway)

Sep. 17th:
Smada’s Book Smack (Review, Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Giveaway)
Nyx Blogs (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Top 10 List, Giveaway)
Always Love Me Some Books (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Giveaway)

Sep. 18th:
My Creatively Random Life (Review, Spotlight + Audio Excerpt, Giveaway)
KayBee’s Bookshelf, A Literary Blog (Spotlight + Audio Excerpt)
The World As I See It (Review, Top 10 List, Giveaway)

As the tour progresses, I’ll be updating these links so you find each blogger’s post. I do hope you’ll join me; it’s going to be a lot of fun.

You can find out more about the tour—and sign up to be a host stop—at the Audiobookworm Promotions website.

Filed Under: Book Love, Cool Stuff for Book Nerds Tagged With: audiobook, audiobookworm, blog tour, book review, fiction, The Smallest Thing, YA Leave a Comment

August 20, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield 4 Comments

Eyam: The Plague Village that Inspired THE SMALLEST THING

Imagine you live in an idyllic English village. Suddenly your friends and neighbors begin falling ill and dying of a deadly infectious disease. In order to stop the spread of this virus to the surrounding villages and beyond, you and your neighbors make a monumental decision. You quarantine your village; no one comes in, no one goes out.

For months you isolate yourselves, relying on the kindness of surrounding neighbors to provide food and supplies. You wait and watch, while the disease rips through families, sparing some lives and taking others. When it’s all over, 260 people—more than two thirds of the village—are dead, but the contagion has been stopped, potentially saving the lives of thousands of people—and your village will be remembered for centuries to come for its courage and self-sacrifice.

Sounds like a great premise for a novel, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s a true story. This is the story of the plague village of Eyam, a small village in the north of England, not far from where I grew up.

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In the mid-1600s The Great Plague ravaged London, killing more than 100,000 people. Thanks to a stowaway flea in a bolt of cloth, the disease made its way to Eyam, some 150 miles to the north. Lead by the local vicar, Reverend Mompesson, the villagers made the courageous decision to isolate themselves and prevent the plague from spreading further.

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I’ve always been fascinated by this part of history and the personal stories that have endured. There’s the story of Emmott Syddall, engaged to a boy in the next village. The two lovers continued their affair across the quarantine boundary from opposing riverbanks. Their story is commemorated in a stained glass window in the church.

There’s the story of villagers leaving money in a pot of vinegar (to disinfect it) in exchange for supplies from surrounding villages. And there are the tragic stories, such as Elizabeth Hancock, who buried her husband and six children, and yet never became infected.

I first heard these stories as a young girl visiting Eyam and they’ve stuck with me ever since. They’re an important part of my local history and I’ve always wanted to find a way to share them with a wider audience. I didn’t want to write historical fiction (plus Geraldine Brooks already did it, and undoubtedly better than I could have, in her 2002 novel Year of Wonders), and writing a contemporary version of the story was fraught with roadblocks, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and technology.

But I really wanted to tell this story, so I started writing. I started with the characters of Emmott Syddall and Roland Torre, and wrote some scenes with them. And I kept writing, until a new story started to emerge.

The story evolved, as stories do, in ways I could never have imagined, until it became my novel THE SMALLEST THING.

You’ll have to read the book for a more intimate tour of Em’s village, but for now, I’ll leave you with a few more snaps of Eyam, taken from one of my research trips.

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You can still see the Plague Cottages, where George Viccars, the first victim lived. The cottages are still inhabited. You can also see the church and churchyard where some of the victims were buried.

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One of my favorite spots is Cucklett Delf, where Emmott and Roland allegedly met, where outdoor services were held during the quarantine, and where a memorial service is held each year to commemorate the incredible sacrifice.

You can learn more about Eyam at their excellent museum, where you’ll also find copies of The Smallest Thing.

The Smallest Thing is now available as an audiobook, narrated by the brilliant Charlie Sanderson.

Filed Under: Cool Stuff for Book Nerds, The Story Behind the Story Tagged With: audiobook, Eyam, fiction, museum, plague, The Smallest Thing, true story, village 4 Comments

July 30, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

Fave Read: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Although The Smallest Thing is not a science fiction novel, I did want to be sure to get the scientific facts correct. If someone were to ask, “Could this story happen?” I wanted the answer to be “Yes.”

One of the books I read during my research was Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone. I wanted to understand more about how viruses are transmitted and what the reaction would be if a virus like Ebola made it onto Western soil. This book did not disappoint.  

The Hot Zone is the true account of what happened when, in 1989, a deadly infectious virus from the central African rainforest suddenly appeared in the suburbs of Washington, DC. The story begins at the origin of the virus and follows members of a team of scientists in the U.S. as they work to understand and contain the virus on their home soil. Even though the book is a work of non-fiction, it reads like a fast-paced thriller and I found myself staying up late to find out what happens next. 

The Hot Zone is the true account of what happened when, in 1989, a deadly infectious virus from the central African rainforest suddenly appeared in the suburbs of Washington, DC. The story begins at the origin of the virus and follows members of a team of scientists in the U.S. as they work to understand and contain the virus on their home soil. Even though the book is a work of non-fiction, it reads like a fast-paced thriller and I found myself staying up late to find out what happens next. 

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is horrific in its detail and terrifying in its accuracy. It’s all the more disturbing, not because it could happen, but because it did happen, and will undoubtedly happen again at some point. 

Still, if you have the stomach for it, I highly recommend this book. Just best not to read it before bed.  

Why I Loved this Book 

Aside from being a riveting read, what makes this book truly outstanding is that it follows the lives of a handful of key characters. A particular favorite is Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Jaax, chief of Pathology at the Institute for Infectious Diseases and one of the few people qualified to work with the virus. She is also a wife and mother of teenagers, and the insights into her regular home life serve to drive home the very real stakes of the work she does.

What I Learned as a Writer 

A compelling premise can take you so far, but a well-told story is what makes a book un-put-downable. This book could have easily been a dull recounting of facts, but Preston focuses on the personal stories of his real-life characters, people the reader comes to care about. Add to that the “this could actually happen” factor, and this is a book that keeps readers thinking long after the last page.

Read This Book If… 

You love non-fiction that reads like a brilliant thriller. If you’re even the slightest bit of a science nerd, you’ll love all the details in this book.

P.S. The Hot Zone is now a National Geographic series starring Julianna Margulies.

Rating:

You can hear the research from this book put to good use when the audiobook of The Smallest Thing comes out in August.

Filed Under: Book Love, The Story Behind the Story Tagged With: deadly virus, ebola, nerdy girl, series, the hot zone, The Smallest Thing, virus Leave a Comment

July 24, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield 6 Comments

Falling in Love with My Book All Over Again

When I was eight, I had scrambled eggs for breakfast every single day for two weeks straight. By the end of that time, I was so sick of them I didn’t eat an egg of any kind again for more than twenty years. 

That’s a little bit what it’s like to write a book. There comes a point in the writing process where the author just gets sick of her story and, no matter how much she once adored it, they fall out of love.

I thought about The Smallest Thing for years before I started writing it, trying to figure out how best to tell the story that was in my heart. Should it be a historical retelling (been done) or should I tell the love story of Em and Ro, but with a modern twist (great, except the real ending isn’t very happily-ever-after). It wasn’t until I started writing scenes in my notebook, exploring Em and her world, that the book solidified in my mind.

Once I committed to that idea, it took me three years to draft, revise, and finish the book ready for publication. During that time I read the book dozens of times. There are scenes I’ve probably read into triple digits. The twists in the story were no longer surprises, and there were parts I grew to loathe. At some point I was so familiar with every word in the story I was sick of it. 

Falling in Love Again

But the process of producing the audiobook version of The Smallest Thing has made me fall in love with Em’s story all over again.

The audio files for the book were delivered last week. (Yes!) My job since then has been to listen to them and read along with the book to make sure everything is how I want it before the files go off for the final stages of production.

It is a very strange process to listen to someone else read the words I wrote. Even though I have read this book dozens of times, hearing the narrator Charlie Sanderson, read it, breathed new life into it.

As I mentioned in this post, Charlie is from the same part of England as me and grew up not too far from Eyam. She knowsthe characters in this book and she brought them to life in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

Take Mrs. Glover, for example. She plays a small but important role in the story. Charlie brought the perfect personality to her so that she lends a bit of comic relief, much needed as the story gets darker. I’m finding myself laughing every time Mrs. G opens her mouth.

Listen to an excerpt from Chapter One of The Smallest Thing here

I’ve also been crying, which is quite unexpected, given how well I know the story and that I have a reputation for being a bit stoic. But Charlie has found poignant scenes that touched me unexpectedly. 

There’s a scene where Em walks by a small memorial for her dad’s sister, a woman Em never got to meet. Auntie Sandra disappeared on a backpacking trip as a young woman and was never found. It’s a tiny moment in the story, a bit of backstory I wrote to help explain why Em’s dad keeps such a tight rein on her … because he knows firsthand that bad things happen to good people. He’s strict, not because he’s mean, but because he’s afraid for Em. My own dad was strict in a similar way (although I didn’t appreciate that as a teen) so hearing this little moment touched me deeply and quite unexpectedly.

Writing to be Heard

I’m learning a lot about my writing from listening to it read by someone else. I’m learning that text acronyms, like IMHO and LOL, work fine of paper but do not translate to the spoken word. I’m hearing how dialogue can light up a scene—a reminder that I need to get out of my character’s head and get her talking to others. 

And I’m solidifying something I’ve learned from reading books I love: that minor supporting characters, like Mrs. Glover, can be like chocolate chips in a cake—delicious, even though small, and something you look forward to encountering often.

Assuming I don’t encounter any major problems in the files (and I don’t expect to) the audiobook will be available across all outlets in mid-August.

If you’d like to get release updates and have the chance to win a copy of the audiobook, you can sign up for newsletter here.

Filed Under: Book Love, The Story Behind the Story, The Writing Life Tagged With: audiobook, Charlie Sanderson, Eyam, I hate my book, The Smallest Thing, writing, writing process 6 Comments

July 11, 2019 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

Fave Read: Grace After Henry by Eithne Shortall

If you’ve read (or heard me talk about) my first novel A Strange Companion, you’ll know I do love a good grief story. I have a bit of an obsession with grief, mostly because it’s such a complex topic, and yet so universal, and I’m always interested to read the point-of-view of others. Grace After Henry, a story about the aftermath of loss, examines the question of whether a lost love one can ever be replaced.

After the sudden death of her partner, Henry, Grace is trying figure out how to go on with the life they had planned together. She’s struggling along, when Henry’s long-lost twin brother turns up on her doorstep looking at lot like a good replacement for the man she’s lost. Suddenly, “Henry” is back in her life, and Grace is pulled into the way things were…until she realizes that things aren’t the same at all, and that she’s hiding from her grief in a make-believe world. 

Why I Loved It 

I enjoy a book that gets real about grief, without sliding into the maudlin. Bonus points if it captures the humor that so often accompanies grief. Set in Dublin and capturing that wicked Irish sense-of-humor, Grace After Henry is a funny, poignant, and very real look at life after loss. It doesn’t linger on the sadness, but focuses instead on the way the mind works when grieving, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to cope with loss. 

What I Learned as a Writer 

While story is key, what really brings the world of a book to life is the cast of supporting characters. I looked forward to scenes with Grace’s outrageous parents, her no-nonsense BFF, and her cadre of fellow mourners at the city cemetery.

Read This Book If… 

You enjoy a wry sense of humor (think Derry Girls, but further south) and stories populated by colorful, quirky characters.

My Rating:

Filed Under: Author Love, Book Love, Love, Loss, and Grief Tagged With: book review, Eithne Shortall, Grace After Henry, grief, Irish Fiction, loss, reading, writing Leave a Comment

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