There’s no mystery – it’s just great writing

1:47pm Thursday 1st November 2007

Comments (0)   Have your say »

THE exquisite pain of an impossible first love lies at the heart of Sue Gee's The Mysteries of Glass, a novel long-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Set in Herefordshire in the bitter winter of 1860, it tells the story of Richard Allen, a young curate arriving to take up his first appointment - fighting back waves of homesickness and of grief for his recently dead father, unsure, unprepared for the responsibility but ready to put service to God and the community above everything.

But he finds his ideals and integrity severely tested when he falls helplessly, hopelessly, desperately in love with Susannah, the wife of the Reverend Oliver Bowen.

Unable to give voice to his feelings, he confides his love and longing to his journal.

In a quiet Victorian community, where other secrets remain hidden behind closed doors, this secret cannot be kept and scandal and ignominy are the inevitable result.

"This exquisitely written novel transports you to the simple beauty, poignancy and hypocrisy of the Victorian era in a way that makes you feel you've been there," said fellow novelist Katie Fforde.

"I cannot recommend it highly enough."

ALL over the country people are discovering books they'd never ordinarily choose. Some they like, some they love, some they don't understand - and some they can't pick up again if they put them down.

But all of them have been chosen by one of the thousands of readers' groups that have sprung up everywhere in recent years - groups of people who love books and love reading, and who enjoy the lively discussion and debate that is the inevitable result of lots of different opinions.

And the creation of reading groups has spread beyond living rooms and libraries - onto TV shows and into newspapers, and today, the Hereford Times launches its own book group, a chance for readers to join us on a journey of discovery - trying everything from the classic to the contemporary, fiction and non-fiction, from Britain and beyond.

To make it simple to join in, we can supply each month's selected book at a discount, with free postage and packing.

When you've read the book, simply visit www.herefordtimes.com to post your review or comments and we'll publish a selection of your views on next month's Book Group page.

AWARD-winning novelist Sue Gee is the author of the Hereford Times Book Group's first selection, The Mysteries of Glass.

The novel is set in Herefordshire, around Kington, an area Sue knows well, having had a cottage there for many years, a cottage which became the home of curate Richard Allen in the novel.

"Mysteries of Glass started with an image I had of a young man standing in one of the rooms of this cottage, and a bird in the garden," says Sue. "I also knew that it was in the past.

"I'm a follow-your-nose kind of novelist," she adds. "I have a small idea, an image that either stays or doesn't. I really don't know where I am going - it all happens in the writing."

Sue Gee has been involved in words, her own and others, throughout her career. As deputy fiction editor on Woman magazine, she nurtured other writers' careers, something she continues to do at Middlesex University, where she runs the MA Writing Programme.

It was when she left Woman to have her son Jamie in 1983 that she began writing herself, securing a commission for her first novel when he was not quite two years old.

That first novel, Spring Will be Ours, has been followed by a further seven, the most recent of which, Reading in Bed (also available through the Hereford Times), begins at a recognisable, though unnamed, literary festival, and, in contrast to The Mysteries of Glass, has a contemporary setting.

Her fifth novel, The Hours of the Night, won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award, causing something of a stir when Barbara Cartland disapproved of the choice. "It was a storm in a teacup really," recalls Sue. "She didn't like the fact that a book which had two gay men in it should win the award."

Ten years after she won the award, one of her MA students, Katharine Davies, took the prize in 1995 with A Good Voyage.

Sue is planning a move away from novels for her next book: "I've written short stories and had a lot published in magazines, but I've never done a collection."

She is, though, finding the novel a hard habit to break.

"Two of the ideas I've had had linked characters and I found myself thinking that could be the start of a novel'."

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

How do you react, as a 21st century reader, to the moral climate in which The Mysteries of Glass is set?

How is the growing importance of science in the Victorian age treated?

Look out for references to reflections and glass.

Do you find the meticulous description of place and atmosphere distracting or engrossing?

HOW TO ORDER

The Mysteries of Glass RRP £7.99 Offer price £7.59 Published 02.05.05 Paperback

Reading In Bed RRP £19.99 Offer price £17.99 Published 12.07.07 Hardback

The Hours of the Night RRP £7.99 Offer price £7.59 Published 04.10.04 Paperback

Earth and Heaven RRP £7.99 Offer price £7.59 Published 03.05.01 Paperback

To order any of the titles listed call the Hereford Times Bookshop on 08700 713 317 or send your cheque/postal order made payable to Hereford Times Bookshop to: Hereford Times Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston, TR13 0TP. Please allow 7 to 10 working days for delivery. All titles supplied subject to publisher availability.

To order online, visit www.sparkledirect.com or click on the link below.