Review of 'Forbidden' by Tabitha Suzuma

This is one of the most fascinating, - under-the-skin books I have read in a long time. It left me feeling totally desolate at the end and challenged my whole sense of morality.

To be honest with you, the reason I purchased 'Forbidden' was a little whimsical. I was in my local Waterstones - in the YA section as to be expected - when I caught sight of the book 'Forbidden'. In itself it was little out of the ordinary; black cover, single gripping image (all a little pastiche of the Twilight graphics). If it had just been this on the cover I would have probably passed it over but there was also a bright purple sticker that stated 'Not Suitable for Yonger Readers'.

In the end I purchased it purely out of curiosity - What did a mainstream published YA book with an appropriacy warning actually look like? I knew from the blurb that it was a rather controversial subject matter, and the publisher has made it clear exactly what difficult subject the book deals with. What it doesn't warn you is that this book might just break your heart.

I'm not going to give the traditional kind of review about this book - you need to discover it properly for yourself - or maybe not.

It is a shocking book - it does not hold back on the description of physical intimacy. Primary genitals are named bluntly and actions are lingered over. There is explicit language: the F word is woven throughout (this didn't shock me particularly as I work in a London Comprehensive School and have a very realistic understanding of teenage language.)

Set in London, in the kind of community it is, makes this book very close to home for me. The work I have done with young people over the years allowed me to both fully recognise the scenario but also feel acutely disturbed by it. The depiction of the mother and homelife is incredibly crafted and portrayed - and is sadly not as fictional as it might first seem.

'Forbidden' does have questionable suitablility for a younger pre-18 audience. It breaks most of the rules of YA fiction and yet its truthfulness is something to be praised. I applaud the writer's and publisher's bravery, but wonder if I would, in truth, feel happy about my daughter reading it in her teenage years.

It's a definite 5 STAR (But your life might just be a little happier for not reading it.)

A love poem for my hubby

Here is a Valentine's Day flash poetry piece dedicated to my hubby. It's simple, straightforward and honest, because the thing is, sometimes the greatest feelings of love are found at the kitchen sink when doing the washing up together after a crappy day at work.


THERE ARE MANY WAYS I LOVE YOU.

There are many ways I love you.
The way I pack your lunch for work,
Or fold your clothes.
Or think of you in fleeting smiles
When sat in boring meetings.

There are many ways you love me
In the way you stroke my hair,
Always break the last cookie into two.
Spontaneously buy me chocolate,
Send me e-mails signed with x

We hold hands and catch smiles,
Tell each other ‘I love you.”
Taste each other’s gravy secretly,
And add more salt or stock.

We stand at our daughter’s door,
Watch her sleeping. Our arms around
Each other. We are proud and content.
She is the best of us.

And I believe I will love you always,
Even when there are times you let me down
Because the deal is ....
You will do the same for me.

A Valentine's message for my Readers.

Dear Readers,

You will never know exactly how I feel about you. I have bared my soul, my dreams, my hopes to you, and you have held them dear. You have laughed when I've laughed and you've wept alongside me.

We have travelled distant lands together, conquered daemons and fought off darkness side by side. We have fallen in love together, shared first trembling kisses and romantic walks through the forest.

We have sat on the beach, side by side and watched the sunset over the ocean. We have dreamed an alternative life together.

You have acknowledged me: trusted me enough to hold your hand and guide you through a liftetime.

And I love you - each one of you, because without you, I would not exist.

Happy Valentine's Day
With Love

Kate x

First kisses.

When I declared the legal statement that all events in my book were the invention of the author, I told a little bit of a white lie. (Well I'm an author - what do they expect?) There is a scene in 'The Forest of Adventures' which is based on a true event: it was the event of my first kiss. (That is also a bit of a white lie too - my technically 'very first kiss' now resides in the Fraudian filing cabinet in a folder called 'Traumatic Childhood Accidents'.)

Here, however is the event I have chosen as my official first kiss. (And as I am author of my own lifestory, I get to choose the narrative sequence.)

I was sixteen - okay, so that 'childhood accident' put me off for a while. It was February and it was snowing, which perhaps explains my romantic pre-occupation with snow. Strangely the kiss itself has refused to stay - I think because I was transported to a different galaxy when he actually kissed me - but those precious, heart racing, slip-sliding moments before he actually reached forward and placed his lips on mine have stayed with me ever since; enough to make it the turning point in my heroine's destiny.

"Rejecting his help, I struggled to my feet, hot blood rushing to my cheeks. I could barely think how I would be able to look at him, and when I finally managed to brave it out, all I could see was an amused and curious smile dancing over his lips.

Snow began to fall and, whether it was the blood rushing to my head, or the effect Blake had on me, I had the sudden feeling of being turned slowly upside down inside of a snow-globe." Time slid; the snow fell in slow motion and Blake looked deep into my eyes. I was transfixed on a single snowflake that was balanced on one of his long, dark eyelashes. His brown eyes were the only promise of warmth in the whole landscape." Chapter 4 'The Forest of Adventures'

What is beautiful about being a young adult is that when these moments happen you live the poetry of the moment - as if you are outside observing the film of your own life. Orchestral scores really do burst out of the heavens, your eyes become various camera shots, you really are able to feel and live metaphors on the spot.

There is no need for nostalgic romanticising - it was really like this, and perhaps this is why I refuse to put the inner adolescent to bed. To hide it away as if slightly ashamed by the silliness and impulsivity of youth. Perhaps this is why I choose to write YA fiction, to always allow the opportunity for my YA self to have a voice - because the adult world can become so pragmatic and cynical; Snow can just become cold and a travel disruption; Kissing just an exchange of custom on leaving the house for work; Eyes just something we use for reading the bank statements or watching television.

As long as my YA self is kept alive then who cares if it's one that is slightly delusional, slightly romantic, slightly silly - at least it's one that feels the passion of life. This is why I love the whole notion of Valentine's Day - because it's a day when there is the potential to write our own poetic scene and be young and beautiful again.

My Valentine Book Crushes

With the theme of Romance in the air this week I thought I'd bring the Romance home and share some of my (not so secret) book crushes.

No 10: ZORRO (The Mark of Zorro: Johnston McCulley

Now I have to confess, I may have been a tiny weeny bit influenced by the wonderful Antonio Banderas - but hey, who can blame any woman for falling for all that gorgeous sword wielding, masked charm. A true rugged, handsome hero.

No9: Count Alexis Vronsky (Anna Karenina: Leo Tolstoy)

His complete elevation of pleasure over morality leads to one of the most tragic, beautiful and haunting love story ever told. He destroys the one thing he ever truly loved and so the lesson is learnt. *sighs*

No8: Sherlock Holmes (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:Arthur Conan Doyle)

Long before the delicious Mr Cumberbatch, I had a crush on Sherlock Holmes. There is just something intensely sexy about a man with extraordinary intellect - especially when coupled with that dark subversive side. His visits to the opium dens add a luxurious, aesthetic complexity to him that just makes him the ultimate thinking woman's crumpet.


No 7. Daniel Grigori (Fallen Series: Kate Lauren)

Oh, Daniel - all those lives lived in the pursuit of your one true love. Who could not fall in love with a time-travelling fallen angel of Italian descent. All those terrible moments where your kiss destroys the one thing you love. I cling to the belief that it will all be alright in the end. That one day, heaven will approve.

No 6. Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights: Charlotte Bronte)

I'm a Yorkshire girl and the landscape is in my blood. The wild, wind blasted heather moors and the brooding, cruelty of Heathcliff are one. In many ways he is a wretched, deplorable man - but he is the landscape and he has exactly the same exhilarating, death defying effect on me. I would love to feel my heart pounding in my chest as the mud flicked all over the hem of my empire line.

No 5. Dorion Gray (The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde)

There is a side to me that wants to be a decadent libertine and for me Dorian is not just a character but a whole epoch in one vessel. I adore his total rejection of morality and am yet at the same time completely repulsed by it. It is the powerful combination that acts as such a potent attraction to me. I would happily sacrifice my heart at his altar.

No 4. Lestat De Lioncourt (Interview with a Vampire: Anne Rice)

Originally I had Bram Stoker's Dracula here but then I realised it was probably in truth the more handsome Lestat infused with the Count Dracula legacy that really did it for me. I'm a sucker for velvet and lace (yes, that appalling pun made me smile) Again a tortured soul in denial of his true self - his desire for self improvement and restraint is touching because you always know that he's going to fail.

No 3. Mr Darcy (Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen)

In my humble opinion (and please don't shoot me) Mr Darcy is the one saving grace out of the whole tedious collection of banal parlour-room politics that is Jane Austen. Darcy's combination of supreme arrogance, wealth, intelligence and handsome good looks is just the perfect magical combination for me. I love an arrogant man - but only if he has something to be arrogant about - oh, and Mr Darcy has bucket loads. He brings out in me a more refined fantasy, one in which I pour him port and have immaculate napkins.

No 2. Edward Cullen (Twilight: Stephanie Meyer)

Controversial, I know, but I have a very special place in my heart for Edward Cullen. He is flawed in so many delicious ways. Again a man battling with his nature and his moral ideal, he is a figure that for me sums up the word ATTRACTIVE. He is indeed my own personal brand of heroin. His supreme intelligence, his refinement, his entire Edwardianism, his humour and his tendency to passionately over-react, makes me wish that I could be eighteen forever!

No 1. Sir Lancelot (Mallory, Tennyson and a hundred others)

Truly the sexiest men in literature! His total sense of good and right and the tragedy of his fall from grace because of his one, all consuming weakness - love. Lancelot is showy, brave and totally seductive. I love him enough to have spent the last four years of my life ensuring his legacy lives on.

Hitting the Wall: Dealing with Writers' Block.

One of the questions I'm asked most as a writer is, "What do you do when you get writers' block?". It's a question I never really find that easy to answer, well not succinctly anyway.

Writers' block is a strange concept. Today my lovely writer friend Joanny @JoaOropesa asked me this question - she referred to it as 'hitting the wall' and somehow this simple, brilliant phrase inspired me to write this post. You see I always deny that I get writer's block - I think this is because the idea of it terrifies me; as if I might just wake up one day and have nothing left to say, no stories left to tell. I can't tell you how much that idea saddens me. But as for hitting the wall....

Yeah, I hit the wall all the time and the way that I deal with it - I walk away from it. I'll give it an hour or so, labouring over a scene but if it's not walking, I close the file and do something else. I never know exactly when I'll return; it might be an hour, a week or even a month - it's never gotten past three before. I use the time to go and read some of the awesome books I have gathering dust in my TBR pile. I return to my notebooks and re-read them. I go to the bookshop and buy history books to do more research. I sketch out plots and ideas of other books. I increase my blogging, play with my website, design my cover, interact with my readers - you see, I'll do pretty much anything but agonise over my MS.

This doesn't mean I've left it body and soul: you carry your stories with you. I daydream the settings I've invented, chat to the characters I've created - because I know that the story will come, the wall will suddenly develop a door - and then it will just be a matter of waltzing right through it.

I think in these modern times of indie-publishing and networking, there can be a terrible sense that all of our writer friends are cleverly spinning out works with ease. It only seems like last month when they published book one of their series and already they are getting ready to release book two. It can sometimes feel a little bit like a race. I give myself a stern talking to about this. I'm happy they can produce talented work quickly - but it's not who I am. I've always been a four hour casserole girl over a stir-fry. It's taken me four years to get the first two books of my series out. Book three is coming along nicely - although on saying that, I haven't touched it in a fortnight.


So - this wall business. You've got to find your own way. You can determinedly bash it down brick by brick wielding a big hammer. You can spend your day scrabbling up it and for every three steps upwards you take two down, or like me you can turn around, enjoy the flowers and the sky, have a chat with those standing around you - and just wait for the door to appear.