Latest News

BOOKS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS

If you are a primary school teacher and your school already has a library or is hoping to start one, and you think it is deserving of some free books, Susan gives away £100 worth of books to individual schools who apply to her.

Please e-mail schoolbooks@susan-hill.com with the details of your school and why in particular you feel help is needed – maybe your school is very small, does not have an active PTFA, is in a deprived area, or has especially enthusiastic readers who are hungry for more.

Please note that it is books themselves which will be sent not the cash equivalent. You can choose what you want though and Susan will have the books despatched to you.

In addition, if you are doing fund-raising for a new library or more books, Susan may help by match-funding the sum raised.

So do ask.

HOT NEWS !

Susan`s children`s book THE BATTLE FOR GULLYWITH has just been shortlisted for the prestigious 2009 SHEFFIELD CHILDREN`S BOOK AWARD. !

It has been a busy publishing year for me. My children`s book THE BATTLE FOR GULLYWITH came out in April (see www.gullywith.com) and appears in paperback this April from Bloomsbury.

In June came the fourth in the Simon Serrailler crime series THE VOWS OF SILENCE, which has sold very well indeed. The paperback of my ghost story, THE MAN IN THE PICTURE came in October, at the same time as

THE BEACON

I am unsure where this short novel came from – but then, I rarely do know. It was written very quickly.

The Prime family have farmed in the bleak North country for generations. The house and farm are called The Beacon and there, the four siblings of John and Bertha Prime were born and brought up. Colin, May, Berenice – and Frank. Colin marries and leaves to farm nearby, Berenice, who was the youngest, prettiest and the most favoured, marries a local man. May was clever, went to University in London for a year but left after a breakdown and returned home to look after her parents. Frank moved  to London too, became a journalist, married an older woman – and wrote a misery memoir, called The Cupboard under the Stairs, about his terrible, abused childhood. The book is a bestseller and a high-profile film. But its appearance devastates the family and the neighbourhood and changes all their lives forever, because as far as the other Primes are concerned, not a word of it was true. The happy childhood they remember bore no relation to Frank`s  tale.

The novel was extremely well-received. I don`t remember ever having such a swathe of good reviews on all the literary pages of newspapers and journals.  Things always happen when you least expect them and I did not expect these.

The book has sold extremely well too. It has a fine, arresting cover image, it is a neat hardback and costs 9.99 which helped it a great deal in recessionary times.

Click here to read news coming up in 2009