The Green Table published by Cinnamon Press, was launched in September 2015 in Manchester and Derbyshire.
Reviews
'The prologue of this book had me hooked before I had even got to the first chapter...These carefully crafted characters tell a poignant, heart-rending story, and certainly draw the reader into the harrowing life faced by those caught up in WW2. It has been superbly written by Tricia Durdey...'
Amanda Penman
Artsbeat Magazine.
'...a seriously good novel, and one that's very hard to put down...'
Nigeness blogspot.
'I loved this book. The story is compelling, of everyday lives of ordinary and extraordinary people in occupied Holland. Tricia Durdey's style of writing, flows from the page, and the chapters interchange between the main character's perspectives beautifully. The tension builds throughout, and I found it difficult to put down as I became increasingly anxious for the fate of the beautifully crafted characters I grew to care about - even those I found difficult to like. A real treat, believe me! I read a lot and this was right up my street.' Amazon review
To order a copy you can visit the Cinnamon Press website or via my contact page.
Jan Fortune, editor of Cinnamon Press writes the following:
When Hedda Brandt and other members of Kurt Jooss’s dance company flee Germany for Holland in 1933, Hedda imagines she is going to a place free from the prejudice and threats that have overtaken her country. There they perform the celebrated anti-war piece ‘The Green Table’. Staying behind to teach dance when Jooss and other members leave the Netherlands for England, Hedda encounters Katje, a girl who has seen and been enthralled by the performance and wants to learn to dance. But these are dangerous times and as Nazi Occupation changes all their lives, Katje watches her brother being drawn into Nazi sympathies fuelled by his admiration for his German piano teacher, Erik Weiss, a difficult man who also poses questions for Hedda. Determined to defy new regulations that demand dance should conform to rigid ideology, Hedda is drawn towards resistance, but with her life more and more at risk, matters are only complicated by the prospect of love with a much younger man, Kai Hoffman, whose family have befriended Hedda. Against a background of oppression, disappearances and terror, Hedda and Katje assert the power of dance, resistance and life in this gripping debut novel that takes real events and characters as its starting point. Poignant, sometimes harrowing, and exquisitely written, this is an extraordinary story from a convincing writer.
Reviews
'The prologue of this book had me hooked before I had even got to the first chapter...These carefully crafted characters tell a poignant, heart-rending story, and certainly draw the reader into the harrowing life faced by those caught up in WW2. It has been superbly written by Tricia Durdey...'
Amanda Penman
Artsbeat Magazine.
'...a seriously good novel, and one that's very hard to put down...'
Nigeness blogspot.
'I loved this book. The story is compelling, of everyday lives of ordinary and extraordinary people in occupied Holland. Tricia Durdey's style of writing, flows from the page, and the chapters interchange between the main character's perspectives beautifully. The tension builds throughout, and I found it difficult to put down as I became increasingly anxious for the fate of the beautifully crafted characters I grew to care about - even those I found difficult to like. A real treat, believe me! I read a lot and this was right up my street.' Amazon review
To order a copy you can visit the Cinnamon Press website or via my contact page.
Jan Fortune, editor of Cinnamon Press writes the following:
When Hedda Brandt and other members of Kurt Jooss’s dance company flee Germany for Holland in 1933, Hedda imagines she is going to a place free from the prejudice and threats that have overtaken her country. There they perform the celebrated anti-war piece ‘The Green Table’. Staying behind to teach dance when Jooss and other members leave the Netherlands for England, Hedda encounters Katje, a girl who has seen and been enthralled by the performance and wants to learn to dance. But these are dangerous times and as Nazi Occupation changes all their lives, Katje watches her brother being drawn into Nazi sympathies fuelled by his admiration for his German piano teacher, Erik Weiss, a difficult man who also poses questions for Hedda. Determined to defy new regulations that demand dance should conform to rigid ideology, Hedda is drawn towards resistance, but with her life more and more at risk, matters are only complicated by the prospect of love with a much younger man, Kai Hoffman, whose family have befriended Hedda. Against a background of oppression, disappearances and terror, Hedda and Katje assert the power of dance, resistance and life in this gripping debut novel that takes real events and characters as its starting point. Poignant, sometimes harrowing, and exquisitely written, this is an extraordinary story from a convincing writer.
Meetings with Ivor
Published by Thorntree Press
Reviews
'I never met Ivor Sutton but, having read this beautifully crafted memoir, I feel as if I'd known the old rascal for years. It's a vivid, honest, touching and often very funny account of a man of whom it can truly be said They don't make them like that any more.'
Nigel Andrew
Daily Mail Weekend
'Meetings with Ivor is a book that typifies a bygone era, a heart-warming story about a real character that you just can't help but come to admire...Tricia has combined Ivor's stories with hers and other people's memories of him in a way which enables the reader to truly feel as though they grasp his personality and life...Meetings with Ivor is forged in a way that allows any reader to get an authentic feel for both Ivor and the Staffordshire Moorlands. A truly touching book.'
Lucy Evans
Leek Post and Times
Published by Thorntree Press
Reviews
'I never met Ivor Sutton but, having read this beautifully crafted memoir, I feel as if I'd known the old rascal for years. It's a vivid, honest, touching and often very funny account of a man of whom it can truly be said They don't make them like that any more.'
Nigel Andrew
Daily Mail Weekend
'Meetings with Ivor is a book that typifies a bygone era, a heart-warming story about a real character that you just can't help but come to admire...Tricia has combined Ivor's stories with hers and other people's memories of him in a way which enables the reader to truly feel as though they grasp his personality and life...Meetings with Ivor is forged in a way that allows any reader to get an authentic feel for both Ivor and the Staffordshire Moorlands. A truly touching book.'
Lucy Evans
Leek Post and Times
This book is available in paperback (50 pages, 12 sepia photographs) for £5 (including postage) Order via website contact page.
Short stories
My short stories have been published by Argo, Cinnamon Press, Matter 10 and 11, Chester University Press, Mslexia, BBC Radio 3 The Verb website, Real Writers Magazine, Morton Press and Thorntree Press. For further information please contact me via my contact page.
You can read my short story Difficult People, on the Radio 3 website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rkdw6
Veronica (seeking publisher)
In Spring 2015, Lord Nelson's Eye, the novel I completed for my MA (Sheffield Hallam University) won the Blackfriars Open Submissions. Editor, Clare Smith, made some very helpful suggestions, and it's now re-titled Veronica's Wild.
Veronica's Wild began with my memory of those strange games adults played on children at parties in the 1970s? A child would be blindfolded and taken into a room where all the grown up family and friends sat watching. A story was told and objects handed to the sightless child. The climax was often shocking, and always humiliating, and the adults would be helpless with laughter.
It made me think how often things are not as they seem – especially for a child. Veronica's Wild is about one particular year in the lives of two very close friends, Veronica and Charlotte. How it was then, and how it seems to Charlotte years later.
An extract from the original draft is published in Matter 11
My short stories have been published by Argo, Cinnamon Press, Matter 10 and 11, Chester University Press, Mslexia, BBC Radio 3 The Verb website, Real Writers Magazine, Morton Press and Thorntree Press. For further information please contact me via my contact page.
You can read my short story Difficult People, on the Radio 3 website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rkdw6
Veronica (seeking publisher)
In Spring 2015, Lord Nelson's Eye, the novel I completed for my MA (Sheffield Hallam University) won the Blackfriars Open Submissions. Editor, Clare Smith, made some very helpful suggestions, and it's now re-titled Veronica's Wild.
Veronica's Wild began with my memory of those strange games adults played on children at parties in the 1970s? A child would be blindfolded and taken into a room where all the grown up family and friends sat watching. A story was told and objects handed to the sightless child. The climax was often shocking, and always humiliating, and the adults would be helpless with laughter.
It made me think how often things are not as they seem – especially for a child. Veronica's Wild is about one particular year in the lives of two very close friends, Veronica and Charlotte. How it was then, and how it seems to Charlotte years later.
An extract from the original draft is published in Matter 11