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Talking Books with JT Crowley
Hosted by JT Crowley
British Author JT Crowley is talking books with international authors online and on screen. These video chats will reveal the stories and characters as they are built from the ground up. Join JT and his guests to take the journey of engaging audiences through writing and story-telling.
Katie, A New Chapter by Lisa Billingham
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This book, imaginatively written reveals and touches on some of the issues the author herself has gone through both in her professional life and that of her personal life. The characters are brilliantly interwoven to reflect the multi-layered storylines that are going on in this debut novel, ‘Katie, A New Chapter,’ which is set in Britain in the early nineteen nineties over a twenty-one-month period.
Katie is the main protagonist, who as a young woman has had to deal with issues that no woman at her tender age would dream of having to face let alone coming to terms with. Abuse both physically and mentally from past and present relationships, along with depression and anxiety issues have left her scarred leaving her no option but to seek professional counselling. Add to that having to go through a hysterectomy due to stage four endometriosis with the early onset of the menopause and all that entails, demonstrates that this is a young woman struggling to cope with life, but despite the odds being stacked against her, she forges a new chapter in life for herself. Hence the title, ’Katie, A New Chapter.’
Relationships can be complex and what Katie initially sees in John quickly evaporates as the darker, deeper side of his past manifests itself, highlighting drink addictions associated with violent behavioural patterns as well as sexual identity issues. Katie’s loose liaison with Tom is equally as interesting as she comes to realise all his womanising is an attempt to disguise a past hurtful relationship. But what of Michael the young bar person she works with, why does he want to meddle in her relationships? And who was behind Jack’s vicious attack and why?
This is a great read all chronologically set out.
I was born on a warm summer’s evening to Irish immigrants. My father was born in Ireland under British rule, he kept British citizenship, which allowed him to join the British Royal Air Force and follow a career in aero engineering at Rolls Royce in Derby. My mother was actually born in Manhattan New York but after the tragic death of her father when she was just seven months old led her mother eventually having remarried several years later to return to Ireland, it was there on the wild west coastline my mother spent much of her childhood.
In August 1957 my parents married and settled in Derby where my brother and I along with our late sister grew up. On reflection we weren’t particularly financially well off but there again nor where the kids that we grew up with, so we were non the wiser. However my parents instilled in us to respect others and to do things with our lives that they weren’t able to do.
When I was at school I excelled in Geography looking at all the different places in the world. So I suppose it was that geographical background coupled with wanting to achieve things that my parents weren’t able to do so, that set me on my worldly travels.
The excitement of travel coupled with the allure of seeing different cultures especially the many facets of kid’s lives in those places in contrast to my own narrow childhood inspired me to write the book. I want kids to see beyond their own streets and their smartphones and I hope that when they’ve read the book they will start to see that different kids from dissimilar places in the world live and experience contrasting lives and some of those lifestyles can be defined as harsh. But above all I hope it inspires some of my young readers to follow in my footsteps and witness life in all its forms.
The one thing that I’ve learnt in life is that theory in itself is fine but putting that theory into a practical form like a book is somewhat different. I suppose what I’m trying to say here is having an idea for a book and actually writing it and promoting it to the public is a far cry from the initial notion. So what made me take the leap from the first mental pictures to transferring them to words on a page that kids and adults alike can read any where in the world, well that hawks back to my parents encouragement wanting me to achieve things they couldn’t.
As a child writing never came easy to me, and when I look back at some of the letters I wrote to my parents from boarding school I can only hang my head in shame. I suppose being a boy more interested with what was going on in the school playground rather than the classroom would lead my mother who was by then an English teacher to tearing her hair out, the look of despondency written on her face as she tried to get me to read a single page of a book only to hear me begrudgingly recite a page in front of her and asking having got to the end of the page, ”can I go now.” Little did I know then that not having the ability to read and write properly would set me back in life, something I later rectified. So kids you can change but go and see the world in all its beauty, and don’t forget respect all nations.