The List of Suspicious Things

Product Information

Maggie Thatcher is prime minister, drainpipe jeans are in, and Miv is convinced that her dad wants to move their family Down South. I have heard nothing but good things about [ We All Want Impossible Things] and they were all quite right - it's so warm and funny and full of great observations ... it looks set for rip-roaring success, deservedly so! CLARE CHAMBERS, author of SMALL PLEASURES It was on the first course that I put a post on the forum asking for a trusted reader. It was the best thing I could have done. It was through this post that I met Jennie.

It’s similar with agents. While they will get a sense of your book from your letter and synopsis, providing comps is an easy way to cut through the noise and encapsulate the feel of a book. So here is my guide to identifying and using comp titles in pitching your book. Ailah Ahmed, publishing director, and Helen Conford, publisher, introduced the showcase, which was bookended by wine and canapes. Godfrey was born and raised in Yorkshire and the novel was partly inspired by her father having worked alongside Peter Sutcliffe, the man eventually charged with the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper. She is a former HR director of a FTSE100 company who left her career to write and is now a creative writing PhD student at Bristol University. If Sutcliffe played an outsized role in Jennie’s life, so did books. She was once dragged to the doctors by a mother worried she wasn’t sleeping because she spent so much time reading under the covers. Plot/structure –regardless of the characters, is there any similarity in how the books works/is structured? E.g., feminist retellings of Greek myths.Funny and tender and life affirming and quite simply GLORIOUS....The way the friendship is depicted in this story is a masterpiece... To say I have been deeply moved by this book would be an understatement. My heart is broken after finishing it this morning but it is also singing. SARAH TURNER I can already hear someone saying ‘but I’ve heard the rules are that it has to be published within five years’ which leads us nicely onto: Writing can be arduous and terrifyingly lonely, however as we have written our novels, and both found agents during the pandemic with the support and friendship of each other. Here’s what we learned from our experiences that we thought might be helpful to others yearning for their own writing community; 1. Deadlines are your friends

Jennie said: “I remember my dad staring open mouthed at the television and saying ‘but I know him, I know him’.” Also, I will be forever grateful for Elizabeth Day’s work on failing. Her book, ‘How To Fail’ has been my constant companion in this and is a great inspiration. What on earth are you on about?' she said. 'How are we going to catch the Yorkshire Ripper, when the police haven't even managed to?' I’m making near-constant decisions, and, for me, this is a clear example of everyday leadership. Nothing has been prescribed to me in terms of how to do what I’m doing; I just have to make my way. Jennie excelled in business, eventually working her way up to HR Director of a FTSE-100 company. But despite her success she always felt out of place playing the role of a “hard-nosed businesswoman”.

Do you consider yourself a leader?

Smart and funny and devastating, We All Want Impossible Things has huge Sorrow and Bliss vibes and I didn't want it to end. LAURA PEARSON Jennie is now finishing the final edit of the novel. Hutchinson Heinemann (an arm of Penguin) plans to publish it in 2024, before translations into German, Spanish and other langauges. So, I guess there’s a life lesson for me about really trusting your instincts. It’s about giving yourself space and time to work out what’s truly right for you. It’s so important to uncover your direction; uncover where you need to lead yourself. I’ve learned to go where the universe takes me even if I feel unsure or scared of what that might involve. This has led to me undertaking a PhD at Bristol University at the same time as learning to write and working to get published. Jo Nadin is Jennie’s PhD supervisor, a Senior Lecturer in the University’s English Department and an author of several successful books. She said: “I’m thrilled for Jennie, but not at all surprised. Her writing is touching, funny and insightful. I can’t wait to see it in print.” There is a strong sense of place and time in the book and although I grew up a few years later than the setting, much of it was nostalgic - the games of Bulldog, the excitement of a new lip gloss and the anti Thatcher sentiment definitely very familiar. Also a time of innocence when children played freely in the streets but also an era where adults didn’t quite want to grasp just how dangerous characters like ‘Uncle’ Derek were.