If Bach had been a mushroom...

This is a scene from the middle of my novel, The Finn´s Tale. The two central characters, Len and Päivi, are collecting chanterelles in the forest. Bach makes a surprising appearance:

We followed a small path for some way, then left it and walked between the trees to where the land began to rise gently. ‘This is one place where we could find some,’ she said. ‘They are often half concealed under other plants and undergrowth. You have to look very carefully.’

There were plenty of mushrooms around, but we were interested only in chanterelles. We went side-by-side, a few feet apart and scanned the ground carefully. It was a real thrill to find them, nestling half-hidden amongst the grass or moss. They’re a brilliant, butter-yellow and the shape is so elegant, like a fluted trumpet. I felt a thrill every time I found one, like finding a nugget of gold, a gift from the forest gods.

‘They tend to grow in colonies,’ Päivi said, ‘so when you find one you will probably find others.’

‘There’s something quite baroque about them,’ I commented, when we’d just finished clearing one fairly large colony. I held one on my palm. It was almost weightless. ‘If Bach had been a mushroom, he would have been a chanterelle,’ I added.

Päivi giggled with delight. ‘That’s a lovely saying, Len. If Bach had been a mushroom. I must remember that.’

The Finn´s Tale comes to Finland

My copies of my new novel, The Finn´s Tale, arrived yesterday afternoon, just as I was about to leave home to meet Eevi in town for a meal. Good timing; dinner turned into a celebration. The production quality is extremely high, as I´ve come to expect from Ward Wood Publishing. The book is printed on good quality paper and the cover image is really striking, I think.

Bookshops in Tampere and Helsinki have got information about the publication but I´m still waiting for a response from them. And I will be doing a reading from The Finn´s Tale at Swiss Cottage library in London on Friday 13th May at 19.00. I´d love to meet any readers of my blog who are able to get there. Copies of the book will be on sale. It can also be purchased from the Ward Wood website:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-mh-tft.htm

or from The Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780956660275/The-Finns-Tale

London Sights part 5

Not exactly sights in this number; I´m going to say a little about two well-known English institutions: pubs and fish and chips. But then again, I am going to point out two particular establishments, so maybe they count as sights.

Pub first. The last time we were in London we stopped for some liquid refreshment at The Cross Keys in Endell Street:

It´s a lovely little pub, very attractive from the outside, as you can see, and beautiful inside. The walls are covered with pictures, photos, posters and a huge selection of various objects. It´s like having a beer in an antique shop! The pub has a great atmosphere, very friendly service and there´s food, too.

But if you don´t choose to eat at The Cross Keys, you might want to walk just 50 or 60 metres up Endell Street to The Rock and Sole Plaice:

Fish and chips is quite a tradition in England, but it can vary a lot. When it´s not good, it can be pretty bad. Two key things to look out for: the batter coating the fish should be thin and crisp. If it´s thick and soggy, that´s a bad sign. Secondly, look for chips made from fresh potatoes, not frozen from a plastic bag. The meal should be cooked to order, not cooked in advance and then kept hot until somebody buys it.

How do you order your meal? Every fish and chip shop has a list of the fish on offer on the wall behind the counter. You select the type of fish you want. Some types of fish are well known to most foreign visitors: cod (turska in Finnish), sole (meriantura), haddock (very similar to cod), plaice (punakampela). But why not try something a bit different? We had rock salmon and skate. Skate is rausku in Finnish and rock salmon, or rock for short, is actually a kind of shark. Its real name is dogfish, which doesn´t sound very appetising, so they call it rock salmon, which sounds a lot more delicious. And it really was delicious. The flesh of rock salmon is very soft and white apart from some parts where there is more blood in the flesh and it´s a greyish brown colour. It has a large central backbone, but very few bones otherwise. Here it is:

As you can see, the chips are made from fresh potatoes. The fish was soft and succulent and really tasty and the batter was crisp and delicious. The Rock and Sole Plaice is highly recommended. And they have outdoor seating with heating.

Going to the printer

The final edit is completed. Whew! The Finn´s Tale should be going to the printer this week. I´m extremely pleased with the whole project and really excited at the prospect of holding it in my hands very soon.

Some Finnish friends have asked me how long it is. That´s a good question and behind it, for non-native English readers, is the thought, `How long´s it going to take me to get through it?´ I fully understand that, of course. So for any other readers of this blog who aren´t native speakers, I can let you know the exact answer. In its published form the story begins on page 9 and the last page is 169 so the text of the novel runs to 161 pages. It´s not too long, in other words.

Sue Guiney in Asia

Sue Guiney, my colleague from Ward Wood Publishing and author of A Clash Of Innocents, is at the start of a tour of S.E. Asia. She sent me an email about her trip with some web links and information on how to follow her progress on her blog. With Sue´s permission I am posting her message on my blog. I thought that my Tuesday reading group, who are reading Sue´s novel, and other visitors to my blog might like the opportunity to see what she´s up to.

Sue´s message:

Hi,

My excellent adventure is just a few days away – an entire month travelling around SE Asia with my new novel, A Clash of Innocents. I’ll be travelling to four countries giving workshops, presentations, readings and book signings with the aim of raising as much money as possible for charity through my book sales.

I have events planned at places like Nielsen Hays Library in Bangkok, the Butterflies Garden in Siem Reap, the International School in Phnom Penh and the Tanglin Club in Singapore. The main event, though, is the founding of a new on-going, internet-based Writing Workshop for the children of the Siem Reap shelter, Anjali House.

I hope you’ll follow along with me! I’ll be blogging as I go along, complete with pictures and perhaps a video or two, on

http://sueguineyblog.blogspot.com

I have already started to talk about the trip there, and Sunday’s post will show a brief video which we’ve made about the origin of it all. Please check in every now and again to see what I’m up to and maybe to post a comment of encouragement every once in a while. I’d love to hear from you. Of course this is exciting, but it is bound to be tiring and a bit overwhelming as well and the occasional kind word from a friend would be much appreciated.

If you are moved to contribute to one of the charities I am supporting, do go to their websites, read more about them and follow their directions there:

Anjali House http://www.anjali-house.com
Tabitha http://www.tabithauk.com


That’s all for now. See you soon in cyberspace.

Love,

Sue

www.sueguiney.com

The Finn´s Tale opening paragraph

This is the opening paragraph of my new novel, The Finn´s Tale, due from Ward Wood Publishing at the end of March. The tale is told by Len, an American with Finnish roots who visits Finland to meet his Finnish relatives and find about about the country and way of life and learns some unexpected and surprisings things.

Right from the start, Finland surprised me. When I arrived in Helsinki the temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit and it was one of the warmest places in Europe. For that day, at least. It didn´t stay that way the whole summer. Coming out of Helsinki airport the heat was noticeable and I felt overdressed in a sweater and jacket. I´ll admit to having been thrown a little off balance right at the beginning of my Finnish experience. I had always thought of myself as partly Finnish, which I am; my grandparents on my father´s side emigrated from Finland to America in 1920. And although, at the age of forty-four, this was my first-ever visit, I´d always thought of Finnishness as something I could take for granted in my idea of myself. And now here I was, being caught out by the weather, just like all the other tourists. It´s true, though, that Finnishness had played a negligible part in my upbringing. In a way, it had been conspicuous by its absence, but that absence was always present, if you take my meaning. I felt it was there as a kind of backdrop against which all the immediate experiences of everyday life took place.

Available to pre-order:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-mh-tft.htm

The Finn´s Tale cover

Here´s the cover of my new novel, The Finn´s Tale, due from Ward Wood Publishing at the end of March. I´m delighted with the effect Mike Fortune-Wood has got with the photo of the woman´s hand which portrays a key scene in the plot.

The final edit of the novel is well underway and I´m really pleased with the way it´s going: no major revisions, just some tweaks here and there to make sure the text flows smoothly. I had to get permission from Minnesota Public Radio to use two short passages from an article on their website, as well, and I can say that they were jolly quick in their response and extremely helpful. Much gratitude.

So, not long now. I´ll post some more details as the big day draws closer.