Lynne Ellison

About

I wrote this book when I was 14, when I was a dreamy, bookish adolescent who could listen to the teacher with half an ear and write the book at the back of the class. My main reading at the time was novels set in Roman, Greek or medieval times. A weekend trip to Anglesey with my Mum gave the backdrop for the starting point, and travelling back in time was always a favourite fantasy. I believed my main character, Karen, was fictional, but with hindsight I realise she was me. Once started, the ideas flowed thick and fast and before the end of one chapter, the next would suggest itself. I did some additional research but even so slipped up on a couple of things that the editor later spotted, for instance the Romans had no tomatoes: they were brought to Europe from America centuries later.

I was thrilled when a publisher accepted it, and of course a huge fuss was made about such a young author.
However, I spent the rest of my teen years trying to live it down. Boys didn't go for clever girls and if anyone mentioned it at a party I knew my chances were snookered. The book has been gathering dust in my memory for decades, so I was frankly astonished to be contacted by a private publisher last year, wanting to re-issue it. However, when I look at it again, I'm surprised how good it is, and friends of mine are now begging for copies and reading it themselves.

These days I'm a Speech and Language Therapist, but I've had a variety of jobs, including teaching English to foreigners, working in a bookshop, leading pony treks in the Welsh Mountains and running riding holidays in the Scottish Borders. I'm an outdoor person at heart, love animals, wild places and wine. I have two sons who are the best thing in my life, even though when I was younger I thought I didn't want children.

If you want to write, just sit down and get on with it. Then go over what you've written, reduce and condense by at least a third, delete the word "I" wherever possible, and don't stick to a strictly chronological order of events.

Influences/Inspirations:
Wild places, adventure and the unknown, life lived close to nature.

Favorite Writers and Artists:
Rosemary Sutcliff (The Eagle of the Ninth and other books.) Dostoevsky, A S Byatt, some science fiction writers.

Current Projects:
No writing projects until I have more time - after retirement.

Interests:
Long-distance walks, horses, blues music.

Family:
Divorced, two sons.

University Affiliations:
Russian and German at London University, Teaching qualificzation in EFL, Masters in Human Communication.

Contact Information:
[email protected]

Charities/Causes:
Amnesty, Wateraid, Brooke Hospital for Horses.

Size Zero (Visage Book 1)

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Description

"A somber, disturbing mystery fused with a scathing look at the fashion industry. Mangin writes in a confident, razor-edged style." - Kirkus ReviewsCondom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways.A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion's biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend's New York City mansion.This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name. He teams up with Ava Germaine, a renegade ex-model. And together, they investigate the depraved and lawless modeling industry behind Cecil's family fortune.They find erotic canes, pet rats living in crystal castles, and dresses made of crushed butterfly wings. But Cecil finds more truth in the luxury goods than in the people themselves. Everyone he meets seems to be wearing a person-suit. Terrified of showing their true selves, the glitterati put on flamboyant public personas to make money and friends. Can Cecil find truth in a world built on lies?In high fashion modeling, selling bodies is organized crime.

Story Behind The Book

wrote this book when I was 14, when I was a dreamy, bookish adolescent who could listen to the teacher with half an ear and write the book at the back of the class. My main reading at the time was novels set in Roman, Greek or medieval times. A weekend trip to Anglesey with my Mum gave the backdrop for the starting point, and travelling back in time was always a favourite fantasy. I believed my main character, Karen, was fictional, but with hindsight I realise she was me. Once started, the ideas flowed thick and fast and before the end of one chapter, the next would suggest itself. I did some additional research but even so slipped up on a couple of things that the editor later spotted, for instance the Romans had no tomatoes: they were brought to Europe from America centuries later.

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Reviews

<div>Leading Author Naomi Lewis selected this book for Hamish Hamilton's The Best Children's Books of 1966, and made the following comment therein:- "A schoolgirl's able novel of a schoolgirl who looks into an old bronze mirror and finds herself a slave in Nero's Rome. The author has done her homework well on Roman mores: affairs of boudoir and kitchen; a gruesome afternoon out at the Amphitheatre... All presented with cheerfully youthful insouciance."</div>

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