Rachel Hore's book THE GLASS PAINTER'S DAUGHTER is short listed for the Romantic Novel of the Year and this week she is in Dubai at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature. Here she gives a brief report of the festival...
'This week I'm here at the Dubai Literary Festival. It's the second year of this amazing new annual event and I really can't believe I'm here (husband in tow -DJ Taylor standing behind her in the picture), staying in the luxurious Hotel Intercontinental (check the pool area dotted about with palm trees and fairy lights) and enjoying mixing with a wide range of international writers such as Vikas Swarup (Slumdog Millionnaire), Martin Amis, Amit Chaudhuri and Michelle Paver.
Also, there are shops and trips - lunch in the Burj Kalifa (let's hope the lift to the top is back working!), and tonight my chance to commune with camels and a whirling dervish dancer in the desert - what more could a romantic novelist ask for?
It's wonderful what a varied and enthusiastic audience there is in Dubai, what a thirst for books and for reading. Yesterday I took part in a lively discussion about book clubs (and was delighted to see RNA's Liz Fenwick there).
Today many of the writers visit schools and tomorrow and Saturday I'm facilitating creative writing workshops. It's definitely the experience of a lifetime! Back to domesticity on Sunday - a real shame we couldn't bring our children(!) - but maybe a signed copy of a Darren Shan novel will be a nice consolation prize.'
Fran Morrison, a travelling musician, is summoned home to London after her father suffers a stroke and finds herself in charge of the family business, a stained glass workshop in an historic backwater of Westminster.
Minster Glass was founded in the Victorian heyday of stained glass making, and when the vicar of the local church asks Fran and her father's assistant Zac to restore a shattered angel window, her research into the window's origins amongst her father's papers uncovers a fascinating and moving love story from the Victorian past that resonates in her own life.
And as she makes a new life for herself in London she discovers that, if you know where to look, there are angels all around.
Minster Glass was founded in the Victorian heyday of stained glass making, and when the vicar of the local church asks Fran and her father's assistant Zac to restore a shattered angel window, her research into the window's origins amongst her father's papers uncovers a fascinating and moving love story from the Victorian past that resonates in her own life.
And as she makes a new life for herself in London she discovers that, if you know where to look, there are angels all around.
Find out more of what Rachel is doing at the festival by following her on Twitter @Rachelhore and #dxblit
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