As part of the 2017 Independent Bookshop Week (IBW)
celebrations, on Thursday 29th June we were really excited about
hosting two fabulous authors, Eve Chase & Abi Oliver, for our Summer
Reading Event.
Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate which meant that
we were unable to host the event in the garden.
However, looking on the positive side of things, that meant that we could
show off our newly refurbished shop which had had its grand opening the
previous Saturday (see details here).
Our first guest speaker, Eve Chase, is an Oxford-based
author who lives in the city centre with her husband and three children. Eve has worked as a journalist in the past
and her first novel, Black Rabbit Hall was published in 2015 to critical acclaim
by the public and critics alike.
Our second author, Abi Oliver, has spent much of her life in
the Thames Valley and now lives in Purley on Thames. Abi has four children and, prior to embarking
into the world of publishing, she has had a varied career working for a
charity, as a nurse and on Indian Railways(!).
During the event we discussed Eve’s new book; ‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ which is a dual-time frame novel, split between present day
and the hot summer of 1959. It’s a story
of how four teenage girls, on holiday in Oxfordshire, are slowly drawn into the
disappearance of their Uncle and Aunt’s daughter, Audrey, five years before.
Abi was talking about her new book: ‘A New Map of Love’
which is about an antiques dealer who, with his loyal dog, Monty, by his side,
spends a summer getting far more embroiled with village life than he ever
intended.
The event started off with both authors introducing their
books and reading an extract for the audience to enjoy. Conversation then ensued around a variety of
aspects of writing and publishing, ranging from decisions around where to
locate the novel to whether characters were based on anyone that the authors
knew and how they structured their days to create their best work.
Both books touch on the fact that a single event can have a
significant impact on a person’s life and, when discussing whether that was
important to the book (and, indeed, to life in general), Abi talked about the
importance of having a particular event to focus on as part of the writing
process. Her novel had been started
whilst she was studying towards a Master’s Degree and, as part of her studies,
the importance of having that central point of focus had been emphasised.
The books are both based relatively close to Abingdon, with
the events of ‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ taking place in the Cotswolds and
Abi basing ‘A New Map of Love’ around the Wallingford area. When discussing the importance of choosing
the right location for a book, Eve shared her experiences of researching
locations, telling us about her trips to different parts of the country to
source inspiration.
Having not one, but two authors, chatting to us and taking
questions created a brilliant atmosphere and led to a really enjoyable
evening. Many thanks to Eve Chase and Abi
Oliver for such wonderful insights into their books and the writing process,
and thanks to everyone who not only came along, but who support Mostly Books by
choosing and buying their books from us. Huge thanks to Macmillan and Penguin
Random House for making the whole thing happen.
Independent Booksellers Week is a time to celebrate
bookshops and it also gives us a great opportunity to thank all our customers for
their on-going support. We hope that you
have enjoyed the celebrations this week and look forward to more of the same in
future.
