Sally Jenkins

When Dianne Noble contacted me and said her third novel was about to be published, I was shocked – this was Dianne’s third book in fifteen months. Surely nobody can be that prolific?! So I asked Dianne to explain herself and this is what she told me:

I suppose it might appear prolific, three books out in fifteen months, Outcast first followed by A Hundred Hands and now Oppression which was published today, June 14th 2017, and is available for 99p for a very limited time. 
But it’s not as prolific as it appears! I doubt anyone could turn out writing of any quality at such speed. The painful truth is that the first two had been written for a few years. I’d been doing voluntary work in India, teaching street children to speak English, and when I came home again had the idea that the journal I’d kept would be a good basis for a novel. Unhappily, agents and publishers thought differently and after Outcast had been rejected 32 times I stopped submitting, sat back and licked my wounds.
After nursing my bruised ego for several months, I decided to write another book, A Hundred Hands, also based in India, but with a different story line. I joined two writing groups and took my work in, chapter by chapter, week after week. Their critique was merciless and within a short time I felt tempted to abandon the whole idea. Whatever had made me think I could write? However, the stubborn part of me persevered and bit by bit every chapter was re-written, every word checked and evaluated, until I had a complete manuscript. I trawled The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook to find agents or publishers who 1) dealt in contemporary women’s fiction and 2) accept unsolicited manuscripts. They were very thin on the ground!
It took Conville & Walsh 17 days to refuse me and Curtis Brown 5 weeks. Some took months to respond, others never answered at all. It’s hard to describe how demoralising it is when everyone says no. You wonder if you’re totally deluded thinking you can write, and your skin seems to get thinner rather than thicker. 
When I received an email from Tirgearr Publishing my heart sank. I was at rock bottom and really couldn’t take another rejection. But it wasn’t! It was an acceptance and a contract. I don’t know how many times I read it, totally disbelieving that somewhere, someone (apart from me) thought I could write.
So when Outcast was accepted, A Hundred Hands already existed in draft form and Oppression then took around a year to write – not as prolific as it might first appear!

Dianne supplied me with an advance review copy of Oppression and it is well worth reading. It is a story of women fighting circumstance, men and religion in Yorkshire and Egypt. Dianne is brilliant at settings – sights, sounds, smells and dialogue are all authentic and her characters will have you rooting for them. Don’t miss the 99p offer!