David Smith's Blog

BEHIND EVERY GREAT LOVE IS AN EPIC STORY WAITING TO BE TOLD

Adam Finnegan Black, or 'Finn', an innocent young American who is insatiably curious about life, made a promise to his mother before she died: To find out what really happened to his father...

His ambition is to be a travel writer, like his heroes: Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and the ancient Greek 'father of geography', Strabo. His journey of discovery takes him through the radiant literary, cultural and picturesque landscape of the Mediterranean.

Following his heart and inspired by Letters to Strabo, written by his long-distance pen-pal Eve, Finn gradually learns more about himself but also about the woman he hopes will one day become his wife.

Funny, provocative, disarmingly honest, Finn's story captures the excitement and mistakes of youthful energy and proves ultimately life-affirming in the emergence of new hope from personal tragedy.

Quite simply one of the best coming-of-age novels you will ever read: Letters to Strabo will appeal to lovers of literary fiction, good travel writing and the classic works of Ernest Hemingway.

My fourth novel Letters to Strabo is published on January 28th. It is autobiographical in form and follows the Mark Twain-type adventures of a young American writer touring around the Mediterranean. It will appeal to those who love romance but with a real sense of place and a delight in history and art.

I've used the works of the father of geography -- Strabo; who wrote around the time of the Emperor Augustus to frame each of the chapters in the journey.

Finn keeps up a correspondence with Eve, the archivist at Olana, in the Catskills who inspired him to make the trip of a lifetime. He hopes also one day she will become his wife...

Love in Lindfield will be published later in May. It's a combination of a contemporary love story and historical fiction about a local Victorian stained-glass artist called Charles Eamer Kempe. I've interwoven events as Harry and Ellie begin to understand some of the love-interests throughout Kempe's life that inspired him. The whole thing is structured around a book Henry James wrote called The Spoils of Poynton, whose characters were reputedly based on some of the women that Kempe knew! Love in Lindfield

I am also working on a travel novel called Letters to Strabo that is written as an autobiographical tale of a trip round the Med by a young American author that has some very unexpected consequences.

Searching for Amber continues to get excellent reviews.Death in Leamington will shortly be republished in a second print run.