A Novel Solution
‘I galloped through this book. The prose is immediate and arresting, it’s fun without being frivolous and lively without being manic. It’s a book to romp through, just make sure you don’t have eggs on the stove.’ Jane Ions
‘A wonderful second novel from Sue Clark, with a strong central voice, cleverly building suspense and some beguiling twists. Clark’s is a voice that immediately engages, and A Novel Solution manages to combine humour with tight plotting and wonderful pace. A fantastic read’. Julian Dutton
‘A great pair of central characters and an enjoyable biff at the whole business of writing add up to a clever genre-crossing novel of comedy and suspense’ – Lissa Evans
‘It’s a bit tricky to find … Just down the lane from the old ochre pit.’
With these words, Trish, badly bruised by life, is catapulted into the world of celebrity author, Amanda Turner.
Her marriage on the rocks, no job, and at odds with her teenage daughters, Trish vows to reinvent herself. ‘Like Madonna,’ she tells her teens. ‘Only as a writer.’
Naively, she pins her hopes on arrogant Amanda to nurture her, and weekly classes begin at Amanda’s gloomy house in the woods. Trish takes an instant dislike to Amanda’s strapping young handyman, Pavel. Her suspicions grow, as an air of foreboding – as well as a nasty smell – hang over the house.
When Amanda vanishes, it’s left to Trish to mount a rescue. Is she woman enough for the job? Will she ever write that bestseller?
Funny and touching, A Novel Solution is an engaging and uplifting story of a woman’s struggle to sort her life out.
Sue Clark
In a varied writing career, Sue Clark has penned BBC Radio and TV comedy scripts for the likes of David Jason, Lenny Henry, and Tracey Ullman, as well as contributing to newspapers, magazines, trade journals, and guidebooks, as a journalist, copywriter, PR, and editor.
But she had never done what she had always longed to do: write comic fiction.
That is, until she was able to give up the old nine-to-five, take a creative writing course with Oxford University, join a writing group and – at last! – unshackle her imagination and let her love for comedy roam free.
The result, her debut comic novel, Note to Boy, (‘She wants her celebrity life back. He just wants a life.’) was published in 2020, gaining a Pencraft award. Her second, A Novel Solution, is published through SRL.
Sue Clark believes no story, no matter how tragic, isn’t enhanced by an injection of comedy. And likewise, no story, no matter how comic, isn’t enriched by an injection of pathos. Her aim: to give the reader that winning combination of laughter, laced with a few tears, heart, and humour.
Sue lives with her forbearing husband, her grown-up children, and grand-daughter near – but not too near, in the sort of apparently sleepy Oxfordshire market town that inspires deadly dramas like Midsomer Murders.