elizabeth mcgregor - holly fox - elizabeth cooke
Dear Reader,
It's been a while since I posted to my home page, but there have been tremendous developments!
Since 'The Damnation of John Donellan' was published I've been working on a second murder mystery, this time from 1817. As with all things non-fiction, research takes time - particularly if you aim to write the definitive version. As we waited to see how JD would be received in the USA (publication this summer) there was no particular urgency to finish 'The Innocent Barbarian'......
Lennon said 'life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans'. A month ago I received a very welcome call from Liv Blumer in New York, passing on greetings from my one-time editor Wendy McCurdy at Penguin. The end result is that two novels have been commissioned, much to my excitement!
So 'Barbarian' takes a back seat while the decks are cleared. The two novels already figure very large in my mind as their world grows around me. For the last week or two I've been contemplating how extraordinarily lucky I am to have such supporters in my London and NY agents and in Wendy and Penguin - guardian angels, each one.
While I'm immersed in fiction, don't forget that 'The Damnation of John Donellan' comes out in paperback in the UK very soon, and available to pre-order already on Amazon.co.uk. I'll let you know how JD fares in the USA. Meanwhile, here's some of the fabulous reactions that we've had to JD here at home.
'..Cooke's analysis is a masterpiece...fascinating....gripping....'
'The Damnation of John Donellan', published by Profile Books, deals with a death in the eighteenth century that exposed a whirlwind of scandal, lies and seduction. The characters emerged as a 3-D cast, shaking off two centuries as they stepped from the pages of archives and diaries as living, breathing people full of ambition, passion, prejudice, power, lust and glorious inconsistencies.....what a gift for a writer!
In its first week, the book received a four-star review from www.express.co.uk, an interview in New Scientist, a great review in NewBooks, a superb mention in www.thebookbag.co.uk two 5-star reviews on Amazon, and was voted 'Non-Fiction Book of the Month' by Argosy. A major thrill on August 13th was the review by Iain Finlayson in The Times : 'True life period crime is gruesomely well served by this forensic examination of a death in 1780...Cooke's analysis is a masterpiece.' On August 21st, Kathryn Hughes at the Mail On Sunday wrote : 'A fascinating account..a potent brew of resentment, loyalty and sexual bad behaviour...just as Kate Summerscale did in The Suspicions of Mr.Whicher, Cooke focuses on legal procedure and forensic evidence to gripping effect.'
Please click on the 'Novels' section for details of each title; and the biography section for more details about me.
If you have a professional enquiry, I’m represented in London by the brilliant & insightful Laura Longrigg at MBA.
Thanks for your interest.
Liz
