Louise Cole's Blog

Thanks so much to all the young adult readers and school librarians who took part in the Wishing Shelf Awards. I was thrilled that it won a bronze medal in the YA category. I look forward to seeing your feedback - and to reading some of the other great books which won.

OK guys, two quick things. 1. Amazon has put The Devil's Poetry into its Prime Reading programme in the UK and Australia for the next six months so if you are a Prime customer, you can read it for free.
US customers don't yet get the book in Prime BUT to make up for it, next week The Devil's Poetry goes on sale at 99c. (I think this is probably just in the US but honestly as a writer you never quite know. I'm not in control of pricing or territories, I just get emails from my publisher.)
So there's a chance for everyone to get a bargain.

If you do read TDP, why not give the sequel On Holy Ground a go? Because Callie may have pulled off the reading, but her problems are far from over. And if you have read either of the books, then please leave a review on Amazon if you can. It helps more than you can imagine.

wishing you peace and books
Louise

The urban fantasy market is filled to the razor-sharp teeth - puns intended - with vampires. Vampires in fiction have always equalled sex. Their sexual allure, great beauty, physical grace and magical control mean they combine raw animal magnetism with that staple of romance novels, alpha dominance (which as all women know is supposed to make us weak at the knees).

But since Bram Stoker's Dracula, vampire novels have rather lost their bite. The reason? Our attitudes to sex have changed dramatically. And not just to sex but to female sexuality.

In Stoker's novel - and if you haven't read it, really, really do - Dracula embodies everything which has turned away from God. And the quickest way to damn a woman? Get her turned on. In all his guises - mind control, turning into bats and wolves and his obsessive desire for Mina Harker - Dracula represents a gateway to all the things Victorians held most taboo. Bestiality, obsession, illicit (ie unmarried) sexual relations, even homosexuality. Even the 'three sisters' bring up all kinds of issues of group sex, and incest, although, of course, the greatest sin they commit is being sexually forward, predatory women.

In Dracula, for women to embrace the intense sexual magnetism of the vampire is to be damned. But what the Victorians really believed was that for a woman to embrace sex as anything more than her marital duty was to be damned - to be unnatural and to risk not just her soul but her sanity. This was an era which loved to drug and institutionalise women who did not fit within their prescribed roles with the right amount of happiness.

So what about today's vampires? From Twilight to True Blood, we see the attitudes to women's sexuality loosen and the message become that 'smart' women can withstand unfettered sexual enjoyment. There are still plenty who end up as prey, and relationships still tend to be cast as needing 1. love and 2. a dominant male for the heroine to get her happy ending.

It makes you wonder how far we've really come, when these novels often still accept and even fetishise certain male behaviours such as dominance and possessiveness.

I'm not judging. People do not necessarily choose books which explore or represent how they want to live. But for my part, I'm enjoying the new wave of fantasy and YA literature which frees women from expectation and judgement. That shows women making choices without having to justify or condemn themselves, and shows their sexual choices as no one's business but their own.

Equality. That's got the right bite to it.

For years, traditional publishing, retailers and critics have loved to cast teen or young adult fiction as 'coming of age' or 'rites of passage' works - which is simply another way of saying these books are about growing up. I think they are missing the point - and in a deeply patronising way.
You can see this most clearly in fantasy, although it's also increasingly apparent in real world novels like The Hate U Give or The Exact Opposite of Okay, which feature young people experiencing societal dysfunction on a wretched scale.
Think of the last six fantasy novels you read - I'm betting that most of them opened with young protagonists who had one or more of the following traits:
- they had dysfunctional or missing parent(s)
- they looked after themselves or took on the parental/carer role for their families
- they were already skilful providers whether through hunting, working or thievery
The reason for this is that most young adult novels are concerned with people who are already being forced into adult roles within their own families - and now, through the course of the novel will be pushed into adult roles on a much wider scale.
Think about Bella Swan; Matt in The Subtle Knife; Izzy in The Exact Opposite of Okay; Katniss in The Hunger Games. All who have lost parents or care for their parents and have had to grow up way too fast.
There are lots of others if you think about it.
These books are not about them leaving childhood behind - they did that long ago. Their stories are about them finding and learning to use power. And before someone tells you that's a function of growing up, I'd refer to you to the millions of powerless adults in this world - and often in novels.
Characters may well experience their first love or their first loss but that's almost coincidental. Show me an adult novel that doesn't feature characters experiencing new love or new loss.
No. I think YA novels are about power. They harness the determination, energy and idealism of young people, all of which are necessary to change their world. It's rare for us to find older protagonists who have that purity, that determination to see injustices righted without already being scarred or disillusioned by time.
That's the great gift and exploration of YA fiction - that it says: what could you do if life had not yet shown you your limits? What could you achieve if you didn't yet know that you could fail?
And that's something we should all ask ourselves - or, if we feel too old for that, maybe try to remember.

Hi everybody

This is a completely indulgent post but please humour me because this is HUGE for me. The Devil's Poetry is currently a bestseller on Amazon UK. It has its little orange sticker and that no 1 at last.

Now I know that as a reader you either love a book or you don't and how many copies it sells doesn't really matter. But what this means is that new people who might love TDP but never otherwise see it might become aware of my book.

If you are reading this blog then I'm guessing you already know about the book. So if you did enjoy it, please tell a friend who might like it or recommend it on Goodreads. Your recommendation can be the difference between someone else finding a new author they love, or them never hearing about that book and never knowing what they missed.

Anyway, *bestseller*. Coo. I have to go and tell my Mum now. :) Thanks for listening

Louise x

On Holy Ground, the sequel to The Devil's Poetry, launches today. For the next two weeks it's just 99p/99c, so don't miss your chance to snap it up as a bargain. It will be more like £3.99 once prices go back to normal.
The low price is for two reasons: one to say thank you to all the people who supported Onn Holy Ground during its pre-launch campaign - and secondly, because The Devil's Poetry is on a Kindle Monthly Deal in the UK and I wanted people to be able to buy them both for that price if they wanted to.

Early readers of OHG have really liked it - even said it was the 'perfect sequel'. I hope you like it too.
wishing you peace and books galore
Louise x

The Devil's Poetry is on a Kindle Monthly Deal for 99p in the UK. Tell your friends if they haven't read it!

Hi guys

The support for On Holy Ground on twitter and facebook and, of course, on Kindle Scout has been wonderful - thank you all so much. For anyone who hasn't voted yet, here's the deal. You have just five days to go to https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2DXQ... and nominate the book. It takes two minutes and doesn't cost anything. If Kindle Press gives it a contract, Amazon will give you a free digital before the book is released.

What have you got to lose?

Thanks. Wishing you wonderful novels, always,

Louise

The spine tingling sequel to The Devil's Poetry, On Holy Ground is on Kindle Scout now - mainly because I want you all to have the chance of a free copy. IF the book gets picked up by Kindle Press, everyone who nominated it gets one free.

So head over to https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2DXQ... read the first three chapters... and if you like it click that button.

Talk soon

Louise

If you love YA, fantasy or maybe off-beat thrillers, then watch out for The Devil's Poetry review tour starting Monday 19 February. Two reviews a day for a whole week.

Thanks to the great book reviewers who have taken part - reviewers should be every reader's heroes because they make life so much easier for us to find books and new authors that we'll love.

I am way better at writing novels than I am at managing to post photos that actually come out on Goodreads, so for details of the tour check out my twitter feed @LouiseCole44 or my fb page @LouiseColeAuthor