Book Club launch: bestseller charts, reader discounts, competitions and more
TODAY we launch the Book Club — featuring bestseller charts, a massive reader discount on our inaugural Book of the Month, a competition and much more.
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TODAY we launch the Book Club — with bestseller charts, a massive reader discount on our inaugural Book of the Month, a competition and more.
To kick off, Sunrise star and voracious reader Edwina Bartholomew interviews the author of her latest favourite piece of fiction — a gripping new psychological thriller blending the world of morning TV with a mother’s darkest fear.
The key character of The Ones You Trust, byThe Australianjournalist Caroline Overington, is Emma Cardwell: host of hit show Cuppa and a mum who seems to have it all, until her little girl vanishes from day care …
Edwina, who devoured the Harper Collins publication, sat down with Caroline to discuss.
Edwina: I was nervous reading this book. Because it’s so close to my world, I was worried it wouldn’t be accurate enough for me. But it’s wickedly accurate.
Caroline: I’m so glad to hear that! I’ve never worked full-time in TV but like everyone, I feel that I know the people I see on morning TV because they come into your lounge room.
The main character in the book had to be a really busy mum; because if you’re going to have a situation where a child is missing from a childcare centre you have to put in the reader’s minds maybe she’s forgotten her as one of the scenarios.
I was thinking to myself who are the busiest people I know… and it seems like being a morning TV host is a really busy job.
Edwina: The nugget of this book came from an experience you had with one of your twins when he was young.
Caroline: Yes. I was living in Bondi without any parking, so I’d get a park where I could; pick up one twin, run inside, come back down, get the other one — you’d never do that today, this was 20 years ago. So one day I put Michael inside, came down to get Chloe, went back and Michael was gone. He was at that age when they can go backwards down the stairs, and he’d disappeared in the street.
And I still remember that feeling. Anyone who has lost a child at a beach or a shopping centre will know the feeling — I felt my blood run cold; the fear, the racing heart — and I knew I would never survive, my life would be destroyed if something had happened to him. And I wanted to capture that feeling. And the sound that came out of me — it was like a lion, roaring.
It turned out he was next door, underneath their outside stairs. The neighbours found him. That feeling also — the relief — I wanted to capture that too.
Edwina: Other women would put that chapter away in the back of their minds; you instead think “there’s a great novel in that”.
Caroline: Everyone I’ve ever met who has had a child to care for, even a babysitter, says this could happen; this feeling of something going wrong is always in the back of your mind. You spend your whole life as a parent hoping that nothing will go wrong.
Edwina: What you encapsulate so well, and not being a mother I can only guess at this, is that guilt that Emma feels because she’s thinking “What could I have done differently?”
Caroline: She feels guilty because she’s stretched in a million directions.
Edwina: Which is something common, you don’t have to be on TV for that. I’m sure many readers will identify with that.
Caroline: Mums I know say when I’m at work I’m not giving 100%, when I’m with the kids I feel like I’m not giving 100%, I can’t remember last time I had an intimate night out with my husband … that is the female condition, that is life for so many women with small children.
Edwina: Being a journalist as well as an author, you bring to your books current affairs, issues that you are seeing in everyday life — for example with Emma that symbiotic relationship between people in the media and paparazzi.
Caroline: Well the paparazzi part is interesting. I feel enormous sympathy for anyone in public eye, men and women; for example Emma goes to the beach with her new daughter, there are paparazzi hiding in the bushes and they take close-up pictures of her thighs; and they’ve circled all the cellulite and online people are calling her porridge legs … it happens to men too.
There are a lot of advantages to having a job in the public eye but you give up a lot and I think we forget that they are people, with feelings. It hurts.
Edwina: Your process: Do you come up with the twist first, the character first … how do you start?
Caroline: Well I never know how a story is going to end. In this one it changed a few times, which is good, because if it’s kept me guessing it will keep the reader guessing.
Edwina: When you read, what do you look for and what do you love?
Caroline: I will read almost anything, my place is a bit of a shrine to books. At the moment like everyone, I think, I am really into Australian fiction. This for me has been the most extraordinary development over the past ten years. When I first started writing Australian fiction it was really hard to get space on shelves and in shops because there were always these big blockbusters coming from overseas, whereas now Australian fiction is booming. When I talk to booksellers they say to me “People come into shop and say ‘I want something Australian’.”
Edwina: A few quickfire questions to finish. Your favourite book from school.
Caroline: The Secret Garden.
Edwina: Your favourite book as young kid or one you read to your twins.
Caroline: I was very fond of Enid Blyton books; the sense of mystery and all the girl characters had a real sense of adventure about them, which was great. I’m told that’s true of a lot of kids books now — it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to read a book to small child.
Edwina: Book you recommend the most (aside from your own!)
Caroline: I recommend so many books to so many people. Whenever I finish a book I’ve loved I say “You must read this”.
Edwina: The book you’ve read the most?
Caroline: This is going to sound ridiculous, but the book that I read pretty much every day is Bob Dylan’s Chronicles. I’m a Dylan fanatic. He wrote a book about 20 years ago — it makes no sense at all but I like to jump in and out of it because the language is very beautiful and it has become like a comfort book.
Edwina: Favourite author?
Caroline: Cormac McCarthy.
BOOK CLUB DISCOUNT — AND JOIN THE FACEBOOK CHAT
As a regular feature the Book Club will offer readers a massive discount on our Book of the Month.
This month it’s The Ones You Trust, by Caroline Overington, published by Harper Collins.
To get 30 per cent off the recommended retail price go to Booktopia and use the code NCBT18.
Next month it’ll be Table For Eight by Tricia Stringer.
WIN VERONICA ROTH TICKETS, BOOKS AND MOVIES
She has sold 40 million books worldwide — now Veronica Roth is heading Down Under, and you can go to one of her live events.
Roth, 30, is the wildly popular American author of the dystopian Divergent series, aimed at young adults and the basis for three blockbuster movies.
She is on a speaking tour visiting Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney and with our partners at Harper Collins we are offering readers a chance to win tickets to hear her speak or a box set of her books and films.
Simply visit www.harpercollins.com.au and enter the Veronica Roth competition. Good luck!
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