I have a new YA novel to read
From a new to me author
I am so intrigued by the blurb on the back of the book
I cannot wait to read this story
Northern Island 2019
Tara has been reaised by her mam and nan in Derry City. Faith lives in rural Armagh.
Their lives on opporsite sides of a political divide couldn’t be more different.
Until the come face-to-face with each other and are shocked to discover that they look almost identical.
Are they connected?
In searching for the truth about their own identities, the teenagers uncover more than they bargained for.
But what if finding out who you truly are means undermining everything you’ve ever known?
To help me and you get to know Sue Divin a little better
I am so pleased to be sharing an exclusive guest post from Sue Divin
All about the books that have shaped her life
MY LIFE IN BOOKS – SUE DIVIN
Recent reads I’ve loved include Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell), Boys Don’t Cry (Fíona Scarlett), All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr), and Fire Starters (Jan Carson). I also have an inability to pass anything written by Kevin Barry. In YA I loved Flying Tips for Flightless Birds (Kelly McCaughrain), The Hate You Give (Angie Thomas) and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Suzanne Collins). The TV adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses gripped me completely and Toffee (Sarah Crossan) was the first ever verse novel I read. It was stunning. Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd, although it’s set in 1980’s Northern Ireland, was probably the closest I’ve found in atmosphere to Guard Your Heart and I love the fact that alphabetically, I often find it in bookshops right beside mine because of our surnames.
My mum was clearing out her attic recently and found a box of my old favourite books, I had as a teenager. I’ve been re-reading some of them – I am David (Anne Holm), the Tillerman series by Cynthia Voigt and some novels and non-fiction set in the Middle East or South Africa. I was always interested in global issues and human rights. I think it resonated with what I could see happening on the streets and communities around me growing up during the Troubles.
An unusual inspiration was probably Wilbur Smith. My dad owned practically every novel he wrote including all the African sagas. I remember being on about the fifth novel before realising that actually, what I was reading was history blended with fiction. The political history of South Africa and the injustices of apartheid struck a real chord with me. I read Cry Freedom and Cry the Beloved Country, lapped up films like Biko and The Power of One, listened to Graceland on loop and later read Mandela’s biography. Reflecting back on it, that era in my life was probably a dawning that writing can tell something real. Writing can teach, but not in the same way as a textbook – it connects not just to the mind, but to the heart. It’s why it’s so important that more underrepresented voices are heard in literature – or any artistic form for that matter. We need to hear those stories to diversify our own understanding.
And if there was only one book I could read for the rest of my life it would be The book of Psalms or The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. The former being an anthology of poems and lyrics, some bizarre, but many taking me through a full spectrum of human emotions and circumstance, the latter a clever twist on how we inhabit and understand a perspective on the world we live in – Letters from a Senior Devil to a trainee junior. Both fire my brain and being into the sense of there being more than just what we see visually on this planet. Something in my own spirit likes that there is a sense of purpose behind how we choose to be in our lives. An alternative would be ‘As If I Cared’ by poet and writer Damian Gorman. If there were only going to be one book, then it would need to have something profound to say on the human condition and the importance of listening. Damian’s writing does that. I was so delighted when he gave permission for me to use an extract from one of his poems at that start of Truth Be Told – it encapsulated the heart of the entire novel in one verse.
Truth Be Told by Sue Divin is out now in paperback (£7.99, Macmillan Children’s Books)
