Getting reviews

It’s what authors have to do. Get reviews. I’ve tried it for my previous two books and only ever managed to get one solitary review in spite of asking bloggers around the world.

Now since the release of Stories to Read by Candlelight, I’ve been offered advice from my publisher, Michelle Lovi at Odyssey Books, and her public relations man in California, Henry Roi, who has magically rustled up numerous reviewers to read my book and write their reflections on Amazon and Goodreads. Henry has me using Twitter daily though I’ve hardly touched it before. I’m doing my best to show potential readers what makes my little translation worth reading by adding ‘tweet’-sized quotations from each of the eight stories.

While the Twittersphere is not a place I enjoy, I can see the benefits for a time like this in a new book’s life.  All but one of Henry’s reviewers have said yes, and today I received my first review. A good one. Phew.

Illustration by Erin-Claire Barrow for ‘Monsieur d’Avonancourt’ by Jean Lorrain

Shelley Nolan posted her kind words on Amazon and Goodreads and, in reduced form, on Twitter. Here it is in full:

‘This is my first time reading a translated work and I was hooked from the opening introduction. It has a wonderful sense of nostalgia as it tells of stories from the author’s childhood, some of them eerie and disturbing, others whimsical or cautionary. I loved the parts where Jean Lorrain explained each story and how it affected him as a small boy and could clearly picture him watching on as his family’s seamstress regaled them with fantastical tales that made him shiver. Stories that would resonate with him long into adulthood.

I also loved the glimpses it gave into provincial life in France so many years ago, and the roles the servants played in the lives of their employers. This helped to bring the stories to life, painting vivid pictures as I read each one and transporting me back in time. As a translated work, it was a seamless read that was packed with charm and otherworldly beings, creating a delightful collection that was a perfect way to spend a few hours.’

Illustration by Erin-Claire Barrow for ‘Useless Virtue’ by Jean Lorrain

Shelley’s review would certainly tempt me to read this book! It’s interesting to see what leaps off the pages for others who read Lorrain’s words. He was a very perceptive turn-of-the-century man who observed, and never forgot, quirky behaviours.

As the translator of someone else’s ideas, I’ve read and written the text of this book – Lorrain’s French and my English – hundreds of times over the past six years or so, and while I’ve never stopped liking it, I’ve never known what other readers have thought despite the original being 120 years old, for there are no reviews of the French original (that I’ve found) and before now no English translation has been published of the whole collection.

I think I’m looking forward to reading any other reviews that turn up…

Stories to Read by Candlelight – release

Odyssey Books has just published my translation of Contes pour lire à la chandelleStories to Read by Candlelight by Jean Lorrain, and today I received ten copies of a very well produced, postcard-sized book. As yet it’s available on Amazon only to pre-order, but will actually be available from next week, 16th September.

The eight stories were written in the 1890s by the French author Jean Lorrain. About six years ago I completed my translation of them (the first one in English according to my research) and began submitting it to publishers. At last I can announce that the little collection is available in English, and as a bonus it’s illustrated with surprising silhouette images by the talented artist, Erin-Claire Barrow. The cover design is by Simon Critchell.

And now, an excerpt, for a little of Jean Lorrain’s whimsy:

Illustration by Erin-Claire Barrow

Princess Mandosiane was six hundred years old. For six centuries she had lived embroidered onto velvet, her face and hands painted on silk. She was dressed all in pearls, her gorget rippling with heavy beading, and her gown was woven with threads of argentite and arabesques of the finest gold […] For a long time she had figured in processions and royal celebrations. She would be brought out and hoisted up on a banner staff, and the dazzle of her jewels would bring joy to great ladies and commoners […] Then the era of processions passed, thrones were abolished, kings disappeared, civilisation marched on, and the princess of pearls and painted silk now remained confined in the shadow and silence of the cathedral.

Please let me know if you read the stories and especially if you review them. May they give you as much pleasure as they did me when I pulled the original book from the library shelves of forgotten French literature.

Book cover: Stories to Read by Candlelight

I was searching the internet this week for any mention of a translated book I’m waiting for. It’s my own translation, not yet published. The publisher, Michelle Lovi at Odyssey Books, has been working on it, so I wondered if she’d mentioned it somewhere online. Hooray! My search produced a result: I found a cover on Booktopia, and a chance to pre-order the whole book. The link is here.

Here’s a preview of the cover:

The stories are from Jean Lorrain’s small collection, Contes pour lire à la chandelle, first published in 1897 though most of them had appeared in illustrated journals in the previous ten years. A few of these 19th-century illustrations can be seen in my blog posts herehere and here.

The new book will also be illustrated. The silhouette images on the cover give a clue to what will be inside, but they’re not yet ready. You can imagine how eager I am to see how they look!

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