Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Here on Get Booked, we love talking to authors and book enthusiasts about new releases, going into detail about the topics covered, the inspiration, the mental health and well-being elements, opening discussions and offering support via the incredible writing community out there, and giving you that extra special insight into a different book and the author each week. Come and join us for the next hour, get involved, and if you want to catch up on previous shows, you can at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud. Now today we are going to be talking to the author Kathy Gunn about her recently released book Felix Unbound. Kathy Gunn was a financial journalist and editor before turning to fiction. Scottish by descent, she was born in Tanzania and grew up in Nigeria, Scotland, and parts of England before settling into multicultural London. Felix Unbound is her first novel, completed during the pandemic. It developed in stages during her busy career as a journalist for a variety of UK national newspapers and magazines and writing non-fiction books about some big business scandals. However, next, Cathy has embarked on a rather different genre, which is what we're going to be discussing today. Did you ever wonder what might happen if your cat turned human? When feisty Tiffany loses her temper with her boyfriend Anthony and accidentally topples a set of inherited Egyptian figurines, ancient forces take their mischief mischievous revenge and grant her careless wish that men were more like her tabby cat Felix. Imagine. It's fun at first as Tiffany and Felix gleefully launch him into her social circle, but it soon becomes clear that charismatic Felix spells trouble, such as cats quite often are, as he wins lightning-fast success as a talented artist Tiffany and her friend's relationship begin to flex and recalibrate, not always for the better. There's something more afoot here, and Tiffany realizes that whatever's got into her cat and his art has appeared before in her curious family. Suspicious elders Ozzy and Iris circle as Felix and his artworks peak and spiral into trouble. Tiffany meets a promising new love and in this tightly woven dark comedy of manners develops a conscience about some but not all of Felix's effects on her family's lives. Torn between helping fast deteriorating Felix avoid Ozzy and Iris's sinister grasp or just washing her hands of him, she finally chooses. But none see coming the bizarre opportunity seized by fading but predatory and cunning Felix. Right, now as promised, we do have Cathy Gunn here to chat to us about Felix Unbound. Thank you for joining us here at Get Booked. Firstly, congrats on Felix Unbound. It's quite a departure from your previous work. Hello, and tell us a little bit more about that. Hi, well, thank you, and yes, well, so Felix Unbound is a novel, so it's the first novel I've written. I'd written non-fiction books in the dim and distant past, and like many people who've been journalists, as I was, I always said one day I would write a novel. But it— I did start it a long time ago, but it took me a long time to, in between all the other demands of life, to sort of quietly press on with it at various stages. And yeah, and finally I did it. Well, I did just tell our listeners in the intro about how it's one of those novels that you picked up again during the pandemic, and so many people that we've interviewed here on Get Booked have kind of done that. I think so many people have gone one way or the other. They either suddenly went, "Wait a minute, I've got time to write a book," and they used the pandemic for that, and other people couldn't write because the pandemic was a departure from what they were used to. But I love it that the time was used where you suddenly went, "Do you know what? This is the time that I can get this book out." It kind of feels like a little bit of a labor of love. It's one of those things that, you know, I remember when I was first told about it, and I used to have a cat. I now have a dog. And I regularly think I'd love to know what it would be like to live with one of my pets as a human, considering that they're just— I mean, dogs are just lovable and ridiculous. And you can imagine them just being the best friend ever, whereas cats are known for being slightly different creatures, aren't they? Yes, they have a sort of different approach to life, don't they? Much more independent. And also, in a funny way, a dog just loves you. You sometimes feel a cat's judging you, but you will— but also, you know, that they have this sort of— you feel they've got this whole world going on that you know nothing about, whereas a dog sort of— I suppose also does, but you feel it's sharing its life with you more. They're sort of buddies, whereas cats are a bit more mysterious and quirky in that way. I mean, I've had cats most of my life too, though at the moment, like you, I just only have dogs at the moment and kind of miss having a cat. Well, it's interesting because, I mean, definitely as a child, I was— cats were my absolute favourite. I had many of them and I even was particularly best mates with most of the cats on the street. I think I'm a little bit of a loner, as quite often book fans, they either prefer books or animals. And it's a certain kind of element of solitude that we like, and I adore them. And when they love you, they love you. And then every now and again, they're just like, yeah, I just can't be bothered with you right now. And it's my prerogative as a cat to just kind of, I don't know, if you could just go off and if you could just feed me. And every now and again, I'd like some attention, but 100% on my terms. Exactly. Sometimes the cat just has something better to do. Yes. And yet Felix Unbound is about this. This is about Tiffany. Annie, who is fed up with her relationship with her partner and just wishes that her beloved cat could be her partner, her best friend, or she had him to just hang out with. And yet, bizarrely, it happens in a rather ridiculous twist. And then all of a sudden, it's like, yeah, I mean— Yeah, was this a good idea? How is this going to pan out? Yeah, fun to start with. Fun to start with. Especially when you've got to keep it a secret from your friends as well. Exactly, because who's going to believe it? And what was— Well, that was sort of the fun, you know. I had this wonderful cat that, you know, the whole idea kicked off when a friend sort of said, "Oh God, what sort of person would he be?" And I find myself thinking, "Yeah, that would be interesting." And so it evolved from there, but of course the biggest challenge was to think, well, how am I going to turn this cat into a person. And, you know, obviously you're asking your reader to suspend disbelief a bit, but there's lots of literature and legends and myths about these sort of things that happen that are slightly magical realist. But I wanted it to be, you know, part of the story that this sort of thing happened. But then if you're in your current real world and something that strange happens, then what happens next? How do you deal with it? What will follow through? Because I didn't want my cat turned man to be just a cat being a person. He had to be, you know, fully sort of engaged in trying to— in being a person, but with something else going on underneath as well, because it's not just cat-hood that's got into being a person, but there's something that's got into that cat that's allowed it to become a person. And that's where the kind of— some of the more kind of ancient mythical stuff comes in. But I did want it to work as well as possible in the modern world, that once I'd created this charismatic being that had landed in the midst of these people? What is the effect on their lives as well as on his? And what is— is there some other agenda going on? So I wanted to have a lot of fun with that, not to make it too heavy, you know, to make it enjoyable while also exploring those questions. Because there are lots of books out there which are about what happens when an interesting stranger lands in the midst of a group of people. It's a good catalyst, no pun intended, or maybe the pun is intended. So yes, so that was the idea to play with both those quite old established themes, you know, all the way through human interest in storytelling. I mean, even in, you know, if you think of some of the, the kind of Superman-type movies, I mean, a lot of these things are about somebody with a different skill set that they have to sort of keep hidden, being in the midst of ordinary people as well, and all the impacts, you know. So it's fun, it's fun. Well, what struck me as I was reading this book, and I kept on having to stop to just try and engage with, you know, what if this did actually happen? Because cats, you know, they are observers, they are very astute, and so if you bring that into human form, there are all sorts of complications, and yet at the same time, all sorts of knowledge that they've completely consumed. And not just in terms of, especially with Felix, where he was in the art world because he used to just sit there and watch the artists, down the road. It's the whole— I mean, as I was reading the book, I was sitting there and the dog's with me in a café, and I quite often chat to the dog because she doesn't talk back to me, and she's a great listener. There are so many people who aren't great listeners out there. If this dog came to life, the stories— I mean, how often have our listeners suddenly been at home on their own, they've had a really, really rubbish day, and they've turned around and gone, do you know what, I wish so-and-so in the office would just do one. And I must say, I think so-and-so for narcissists, I think this is this and this is this. And likewise, when you've had people coming to sit for your pets where they've suddenly gone, do you know what, I want to talk to this cat because it feels like I'm speaking to somebody, and yet all of a sudden all these secrets. Yes, yes, what would you know. Well, there is quite a famous story, and I've gone completely blank on the author, short story written, I mean, you know, met some decades ago about a cat that starts to talk. He doesn't turn into a person, but he does start to talk, and yeah, it becomes extremely concerning for his owner. So yes, there are all sorts of things like that out there that, yeah, people have thought about and gone, "Ooh, I'm not sure." There's some fun to be had with this. Well, there definitely was some fun that you had with it. I do I was actually just sitting, waiting for some friends to arrive in a beer garden the other day, and I was reading a certain element, and I was giggling away, because also, you know, Felix turns into a human quite quickly. And for the reader, you know, even as you state as the narrator that it might be hard to kind of understand why you would have accepted the fact that this human that suddenly arrived in your house that just expected it to be their home. It's believable because of the mannerisms. I mean, you would just know. I would know if somebody said something that only my dog would know. Yes. And that you would suspect. Yes. And it's the kind of comments about, "Oh, are you cooking again? Oh, can you do it that way, please? You always make this mistake," and da da da da da da. So it's, I mean, it is escapism. It is escapism, yes. I mean, I wanted it to be sort of reflect some of the things are, and sort of were as I was writing it, going on in the real world, but without sort of weighing it down or depressing the reader. So it's escapism within, in a sense, within a real world. And there are sort of lots of themes under there, but I wanted to try and have some continuity of the interlocking themes, the interwoven themes, like the bit of myth that sort of filters through all the time, but also the, with Tiffany too, that she's quite a sort of sparky character, quite a mischievous character, that says she will accept this, sort of saying, well, actually, this is really weird, but it could be fun to do something, you know, to go along with. But also that within the sort of the parallel, faintly parallel stories of that sort of drawn from the Egyptian myth bit, but sort of echoed in the modern world, as myths often are, in a less mysterious way. I wanted her to be, her family to be sort of part of, part of what's allowed this to leach through, so that again there was continuity, it would all make sense and hold together within its own framework. So that, so in a sense to make it as believable as possible, but also to play around with some of these themes that I find fascinating, that if you think about it, a lot of ancient myths are telling us some truths about human behaviour as as well as just being rather fun magical stories. So I was trying to do that but in a very digestible, easy read, fun— I keep saying fun, I must start using another word— but enjoyable way. Keep it light, keep it light. Well, I think there was a lot of parallels in, you know, it felt quite profound in the whole concept of identity and intrigue, and we're always intrigued with people that come into our social circles. Some people can be more intrigued than others and a bit more quizzical, or they want the drama. And it's quite an artistic group that's in the book, so for somebody as flamboyant as a cat to kind of enter the group— and cats are known to be quite cunning— that's going to cause intrigue. But also, you know, the cat already kind of knows everybody and knows their personalities and always already has that inside edge. Yes, he has an advantage. Yeah, he has the advantage that they don't know him as a human and probably haven't paid that much attention to him as a cat, but he knows them. And so he knows what they're, you know, he's been observing them all this time. He has ideas about what they should be doing with their lives, and part of his influence, slightly disturbing influence, unsettling influence on them, without them feeling slightly provoked into reconsidering their own lives and starting to recalibrate, recalibrate, look at their own ambitions. And some of them, you know, become nicer people. Some of them discover their slightly darker side and their less attractive side and start to give in to some of their— I mean, none of them are really horrible, but some of them are a little bit ruthless, you know, there's an animalistic cat in them too, in a way. So that's sort of— they become more themselves themselves in a way under his influence. Well, that's the thing, some of the characters are quite ruthless, and I don't want to offend the cat-loving community out there, but cats are arrogant, aren't they? They can seem to us, they can seem arrogant. Of course they are hunters, there is all of that. I mean, I do love cats, but I know what they're like, but that's, you know, but, and I do love them as animals, I think they are fascinating. And I mean all animals, the animal kingdom, you know, most of them are hunters in some shape or form, whether it's a bird eating an insect or a cat catching a mouse, you know, they have to live. And we try to domesticate them and tame them, but nevertheless their wild nature is still there to some extent. And in my Felix character in Felix Unbound, he may have become a person, but he still, you know, has the instinct of a cat in many ways. Just to reassure anyone listening, he does not eat anybody. You've ruined it now, Natalie! He prefers it, you'll be glad to know. Nothing that sinister, this is not a horror story. No, it is not a horror story. It is truly entertaining though. Can I ask you, what dogs do you have? I have, I used to have this lovely spaniel who, and cats, but you know, time and tide has taken them away. And now we have two very mad, very sweet, very fluffy, white, bouncy things that are half Jack Russell and half a breed called Coton de Tulear. These were puppies that a friend's dog had a few years ago, and so they're like fluffy Jack Russells. They are great fun. They are very sweet and a bit mad, and actually in some ways a bit sea lion and the way they will leap onto something or whatever, you know, so they're a good compromise. I mean, I would love a cat again, but with these two bouncy fluffy things, I think it would have to be a very, very strong-minded cat that would move in and tell them where to get off, you know. I don't think we could start with a, with a sweet moggy. It would be just too bossed about by them. I can imagine. See, I've got a beagle, and beagles are selectively intelligent, they're very astute, very cat-like as well in that they will just sit there and judge you. But I'd be intrigued, so if you wrote a version of this book where the dogs came to life, the dog wouldn't go into the artistic area, would it? It'd have to go into sports, I guess. It would have to be, yes, perhaps something that involves balls, maybe they could play cricket or football. Quick, run, run! I love that. What do you mean you can't find it? Yes, I'm just— we're gonna go for a sports day down at the park. I'm gonna bring my friend Bowser. That would be hilarious. I don't know if I'm equipped. I probably don't know enough about the necessary sports to be able to run. Maybe they could be a tennis player. Oh, can you imagine? They'd have to be the ball boy though. Oh gosh, with Ames to be the star. Yes. Oh dear, there's only somebody else can write that one, but it would be fun. I'd look forward to reading it. So this book, it got released, first released in autumn 2020. Yes, just at that point in the pandemic, I think. So there were an awful lot of us, you know, in all sorts of creative walks of life and others working through that first pandemic using the time, or in my case I was thinking, because my whole working life had had deadlines, you know, short deadlines, and so no deadline on the novel. I was writing for my own pleasure and interest and getting other people to read and comment on and all of that, but no actual deadline. And then COVID kind of imposed a deadline because I did think, you know, this is ridiculous. If I genuinely, if I get sick and die, this book's still going to be sitting in, at this point, the laptop, and I'm going to be cross, you know. There will be major sulks in the afterlife, if there is one. It actually, you know, I mean, I know it was an awful time for so many people, so I don't want to make light of this, but it did impose, or make me impose, a deadline on myself, which is what I used to complete the book. And I think lots of people did something similar. So it came out then, but we couldn't really do a lot to launch it, and actually I'm not very clever at social media myself. So it came out, and I did have some nice feedback from people, so then I thought, I thought, you know, as time went on, I thought, you know, I have faith in my work. I should do a bit more to bring it to more people's attention, which I've been trying to do with some professional help, and just let more people know it exists. Because I felt that enough people told me they liked it for me to think, yes, now I've committed, I've written it, I've finished it, it's out there, and now I want more people to know about it. I have started writing something else, and I will continue with that. But I also think it's important once you've got some work out there in the public domain to, you know, it's like supporting your child, you know, while they get themselves launched in their careers. You want to give them a bit of support, a bit of sympathy, a bit of encouragement, and it's a similar feeling, you know. Felix feels very real to me as a character, probably because I drew on a real cat for the original idea, or, you know, that they developed from that. And I sort of want people to know what fun he is, how nice, how interesting, how curious he is, what he's up to out there. So that's why it seems like a while since it first came out, but it's like, it's a more gently drawn-out process, I think. And I think quite often, you know, something's out there, it hits the shelves, and then, you know, we will move on to the next thing. But then when we talk about the books we've really enjoyed, they're often books that came out decades ago. We go back to them, and every now and again somebody rediscovers an author they really like, and we all start talking about them again. So I just want him to have that life, you know, out there. He's still out there waiting for people to notice, or have him— or for him to leap out at them, you know, in a nice way, of course. I think it's a great time for this book to be kind of just reminding our listeners that this book is there, because again, in the pandemic, so many people turned to pets and kind of— we all love pets, well, a lot of us do love pets, we appreciate the value of them, but they were a lifesaver for many people who were feeling lonely or disconnected. And, you know, especially with dogs where we constantly had to be walking, we were borrowing people's dogs. Absolutely. Just for something to do. So important. And I think it's good also, there's so many books out there at the moment and it's nice to have that variety, and with Felix and Baum being kind of escapism, we all want a bit of escapism every now and again, but something that we do kind of relate to because you know, if we're pet lovers, or even those of us who don't have pets and we see the neighbour's cat on the wall and we have a quick chat with them while we're getting out our recycling. I think, I mean, especially in the pandemic when we couldn't see people in quite the same way, I think it brought home to us all that, you know, we do need our friends, we don't want to be isolated, we want to be part of the community, we need to get out and about. So if you've got a dog in particular, you can, but there's the companionship that you get from an animal, where even if you couldn't see people you might have had the companionship of your pet, was terribly important. And as you say, we need a bit of, you know, something like Hortense as well, and their books became company as well, you know, that you could lose yourself in another world of whatever choice you made, and get away from the more disagreeable realities of life for a bit, you know, again without pretending they weren't there, but that you can escape through a book or a good film or a good TV series or whatever it is, but also through the company of your animals. It's true. Well, this is, this is the beauty of reading, isn't it? You can learn something new, you can find out about somebody else, you can have a little bit of a thriller to kind of excite you, or a complete escapism. And yeah, we can choose what we dependent on our mood, and I tend to kind of make it quite cyclical. I want to make sure that I have quite a varied amount of books that I read at any one point, but I do know if I'm feeling a bit low, you know, I need to go down the kind of fiction, entertainment, escapism, maybe a thriller or something like that, complete escapism. Yeah. It's so hard powerful what it can do for our psyche. Absolutely, it can lift your mood so much. And I did want some of my characters to be not so serious all the time, you know, obviously their own lives are serious to them, but I wanted there to be bits in there that were quite amusing or slightly wry humour that would make somebody chuckle, you know, and all of that, so that these people are perhaps not necessarily spotting their own foibles, but it's obvious to others and to the reader, hopefully, what those foibles people are, and it might make one smile. So there's all of that, and there's a lot in there. It's not simply Felix the character, but there are other things that people might be interested in. There's a lot of art woven into it, there's some elements of theatre, coffee drinking. My goodness, I've been listening to all this stuff about how good coffee is for you, and I'm thinking, yes, coffee was important in the book, and it was, you know, helped people make up their minds about things, and I've done the odd sort of tweet on coffee being good for you, and suddenly there's this piece of research that's come out about how good coffee can be, and I'm thinking, yes, I knew it, I knew it! I know how good coffee is for you. I'm pretty much double espresso up until about 5 o'clock, and then if I'm out, it moves into espresso martini, so I still like to make sure that I keep you going. Yes, well, a good cocktail can be— yes, there's a bit of gin and whiskey woven through the book too, all in moderation of course, only from the health-giving point of view. But also, I mean, these drinks are actually ancient drapes, and they were originally thought of as being magical, curative, having sort of interesting powers. So, and modern medicine is saying, actually, yes, they— again, in moderation, they do have some beneficial qualities. So, you know, the ancients weren't wrong. And that's part of almost one of the themes of the book, that ancient knowledge is still there, it's still valid, and it sort of leeches into our lives in ways that we think are totally modern, but actually they come from from somewhere way, way back, and that's really interesting. Again, I've kept it light, but it's all in there. Well, it's kind of the interwoven nature of mythical and yet what people believe, or things that sometimes just cannot be explained. And there's so much even modern day that can't be explained. Yes, well, the things that we can now explain used to be part of myth and legend. I mean, you know, all sorts of things that we science now says, oh yes, this is how it works, would have seemed completely mythical thousands of years ago. And perhaps some of the things that still seem to us a bit, oh yeah, that can't possibly be, or we don't understand it, maybe one day will be perfectly understood and explained. It's just at the moment we don't know how it works. We don't, but only time will tell. However, only time will tell. Yes, Felix and Bounce, it's It's quite a departure from your career and previous writings, isn't it? Yes, well, I was a financial journalist for a very long time, which was something I— well, I didn't stumble into. I mean, I aimed at getting it because I'd worked for a couple of years as an investment analyst in the City of London, which was really interesting, but I didn't want to end up as a fund manager. I wanted to do something that was a bit more, I suppose, fast and moving, to be honest with you, and journalism certainly is, especially if you're working for a daily. So I sort of segued into financial journalism thinking that it might be a way to develop into other fields in journalism, but it was at a time where, as a field, financial journalism was just taking off. It was so lively, there was so much going on, there were so many bits of it— it's a vast field— that I never left, as it were, for many, many years, you know. I was a financial journalist working for various publications and then editing the City, the financial pages of a couple of things, you know, at different stages. And, you know, it was— I wasn't— I never had time to be bored. And really it was so interesting and I met fascinating people. But my whole background is not maths, you know. My real interest was in what makes people tick and that applies to companies too, and the people who run companies and how they behave. And I used to really enjoy visiting, you know, not just the talking to the chief exec or whatever, but going around the factory floor, meeting the men and women who are actually making whatever it was. And sometimes the people on the factory floor had rather more idea about what was going on, or the straws in the wind, than the people further up the hierarchy did, you know. They found out later. So it was so interesting that it was really all about the people, and then putting that into, you know, digestible, easily read in short chunks form within the publication, just to inform. I suppose you're trying to inform and entertain. The kind of journalism I was doing, you're informing, but if you don't also make it interesting, nobody's going to read it. So you're doing a combination all the way through, and I really, really enjoyed that life for a long time. Yeah, you've actually written quite a few books on, some non-fiction books on high street robbery, how the banks hold up their customers. Yes, that was an earlier round than the last big banking collapse, it was sort of the banks not being very kind to some of us smaller companies and the way they treated them. So back in the— goodness, where are we going back to— the sort of 1990s, the Sunday Times had done a big thing about it and it was an interesting topic and I was asked to sort of pick up on it and look at it in book form by the publisher who was interested. I remember thinking that I managed to persuade a lot of the banks to sort of talk to me when they were beginning to realize that they had messed up. And so I talked to the customers, but I talked to some of the banks about, well, what are you doing? About it. And if they'd known— well, I didn't have more than just a working title at the moment, that time. But when the publisher said this is going to be the title, I thought, oh well, some of those people will never speak to me again, but it's fair do's. I'm quite intrigued as to how you managed to get them to talk to you and then— Well, none of us knew the title at that point, or they might not have. I can imagine. But you know, the thing I always feel with any business is they feel they're there, the people running it feel they're there to make money for their shareholders and whatever, but it's so important to remember your customers because if you don't treat your customers well, you end up without a business and you're going to go bust. It might take a long time, but sooner or later that's what's going to happen. But also I think the idea of just being in it to make money means you're going to go in a sense up the garden path, you're going to end up going in the wrong direction because there's so much more about life all the time than just making money. And if you make the accountancy part the only thing that matters, you will make some horrendous mistakes that will actually wreck the business. You've really got to look at the whole picture and not put just the profit motive first. You've got to make enough profit, as it were, to be able to plough some back into the business, develop it, pay your staff, pay everybody, and, you know, look solvent. But you don't have to just make money for the sake of it, because if you do, you'll start making some very short-sighted decisions and some big mistakes that can destroy the business. And we've seen it happen time and time again. We've seen it happen with whole industries sometimes. When I did the book about Lloyd's of London, the big insurance insurance market, there were an awful lot of things that had hit them, and their problem there was that they didn't understand some of the way they were parceling up the risks they were taking and apportioning them. And when the minute somebody running an organization doesn't understand some of the technical bits and wheezes that the clever people are developing, then again it will go wrong. Because if you don't understand the business you're running, or parts of it, how can you direct it and make sure it continues and is healthy, you can't, and it will explode on you. And I sort of— my talking being Maxine Eddowes coffee— my sort of own little pet phrase in my mind for this is what I call cappuccino economics. You know, if it's all froth and there's not really enough coffee underneath to go wrong, it's gonna collapse. And there are a lot of companies that get themselves, and indeed nations, that get themselves into that position. And I, you know, we never seem to learn. It happens cyclically every 30, 40, 50 years. Nobody remembers. There needs to be a balance and there needs to be an understanding and it needs to be able to evolve. And this is why, you know, there's such an important role for good journalists to make sure that there is accountability, that there's the right mix. Yes, we have to make money. Yes, we have to keep the economy moving, moving up But what's it for? If it's not for— I mean, this whole thing right now about windfall tax, you know, of course you have to do something like that. These are extraordinary times, and they're in a sense unearned profits being made by the oil companies, which I think they themselves recognize, that it's just the price has gone up through nothing they've done. So, but the rest of us are trying to pay the fuel bills. Of course it makes sense to plough that back in through or whatever you want to call it, some system. Because, you know, if you're running a company, if you're running a country, what are you doing it for? If you're not doing it for the good of, you know, as many people as possible in that nation, or people working in that company and buying its products and owning some of its shares or whatever, then what are you doing it for? And why are you there? Is it just for your self-aggrandizement? You know, I think people in business really, really need to think about about. And that should be sort of hardwired into their own training and their own mindsets. But of course, sadly, it isn't always, and when it isn't, it ends in tears. And not always the tears of the people running the show, unfortunately. So maybe I'm sounding a bit harsh, but I think it's so important as a journalist. I don't think it is harsh. I think it's incredibly accurate, and this is why we need make sure that there's a good balance of the right amount of people who can complement each other to come up with a better solution. Exactly, yeah. Interestingly, one of the questions I quite often ask my guests here on Get Booked is if there's anybody in the public eye that they particularly admire, so I'm quite intrigued to hear who yours would be. That's such a difficult question to answer. I know. Well, I suppose in this moment of the Jubilee year, you know, I do think that the Queen's a remarkable person and has seen us through all kinds of interesting things, and I have all sorts of pet theories of my own about why having an, you know, an outward and visible head of state who's some different from the government of the day is important, because the interest of the government of the day is not always the interest of the rest of us. And if you've got another figurehead there, that helps one to remember that. But aside from that, I've been recently sort of seeing a former colleague from the theatre company where I did some fundraising in the past called Chicken Shed, which is this wonderful inclusive theatre company. She's done remarkable work the last 40 years with people of all, all skills and abilities. They really are wonderful, and I think the people who started that Joe Collins, and oh, and I've just gone suddenly horribly completely blank on the name of the wonderful woman who started it with him. And those are people who have really changed lives for, you know, over the last 40 years, have changed and influenced a lot of lives. Well, it's about inclusion, isn't it? Totally. And so I think people like that are the big, the sort of people I really— and they are in the public eye, though not, you know, in the way that a big politician is, but honestly I think people like that are the lifeblood, the lifeblood of an awful lot of lives and hugely to be admired. I love that. This is why I asked the question because quite often we have, we're so consumed with the news and what's happening and people getting angry about so-and-so doing this and that and whatever, and I do like our listeners listeners to go, oh, do you know what, yeah, I'll go and have a look at that because, you know, whichever guest on Get Booked have said that they're hugely admired. But also we just need to sometimes consume more positive news and more positive people. Oh goodness, yes. It's true because otherwise, you know, one just ends up getting very down about the state of the world, and there's only so much we as individuals can do. And we can do things in a small way, and we should do what bits we can. But none of us— Mary Ward, by the way, that was the name I was trying to remember. Ah, wonderful woman. But yes, I think so, people like that have done things that started small and become so hugely important and transformative in many lives. And I think we can each do a little bit, and the point is not to be ashamed that one can only do a little, but if your little bit really does make a difference somewhere to someone, and it also can snowball, you know, literally like a snowball, you start rolling it and maybe somebody else carries on with rolling it, but it gets bigger and bigger. So I think that's really important, and not to feel down in the face of the enormity of everything, but to do what little bit you can, whether it's a small way from home or whether one starts getting involved in volunteering or helping. It's what we consume and fill our lives with. We can do something. Yeah, yeah. Well, something else, we're running out of time a little bit, which is unfortunate, but I do like to ask our guests for their 3 top tips on just how they try and achieve a good balance of mental well-being. Yes, I've been thinking hard about this and chatting with friends about it too. I mean, I think My first thoughts were, you know, thinking time, like getting out and going for a walk with the dog or something, helps me keep, you know, it sort of problem-solves without my realising it. And also one of my approaches to life has not been to think, well, why me? But sometimes, well, why not me? Things happen to lots of people, it just seems to be my turn, and now I focus on how to deal with it. But then chatting with friends as well, people have said the sense of purpose is important, finding a sense of purpose. It doesn't have to be in a big way, but it can be something that gives one— and the friendship and being part of one's community, if one can be, you know, if you can get involved even in a minor way. Just, I think also it's important if one's giving time and effort to something, not to overcommit, because then you feel bad because you end up thinking, I'm going to let someone down because I can't do what I promised. So, and then get overwhelmed, but do it gently, do it in small ways, and then build build it up so that you're never taking on more than you can actually deliver. And it's, you know, so sort of be realistic about it, but do what one can. But also have that ability sometimes to say no, because everyone knows the more someone does, the more other people ask of them, and then don't always realize it's not possible, or suddenly think, oh, you're letting us down, whereas in fact you're maybe already giving more than you've got the time and energy to do. So pacing oneself, you know, And be mindful of when you're asking somebody to help, and if they can't, just to be, you know— Yeah, and be nice if they can't. There'll be a good reason why they can't, even if it's not a reason they can tell you. I think if when people— the whole volunteering world is a world where people are giving, and one should never be— if somebody can't give, that's fine. Yeah, I agree. I think they're absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much. I just want I just want to point out to people that they can follow you on Twitter @Kathyghut, and they can find out more about you there and what you're about. And then they can go in and buy the book on Amazon as well. It's quite nice and easy to find. Or you can order it from any bookshop, you know, if you've got a favourite local independent bookshop, you can support them by just ordering it through them. I think that's it. We must support local, definitely. We must, we must. Well, thank you so much, Cathy, for joining us here. Oh, it's been such fun. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it. I'm now going to go and chat to my dog and just say, listen, whoever's alive, please don't tell all my stories. Well, good luck with the book, and thank you again for joining us here on women's and men's radio station. What a great guest. Kathy Gunn, who was a financial journalist and editor before turning to fiction. Scottish by descent, she was born in Tanzania and grew up in Nigeria, Scotland, and parts of England before settling into multicultural London. Felix Unbound is her first novel, completed during the pandemic. It developed in stages during her busy career as a journalist for a variety of UK national newspapers and magazines, and writing non-fiction fiction books about what some big business scandals have arisen. A lover of art and theatre, she has always said someday she'd work in arts fundraising and finally made that leap via the inclusive Chicken Shed Theatre in North London. She mentors an arts programme student per year, has two adult children, one husband, and shared life with variety of dogs and cats, including the feisty inspirer of Felix Unbound. Coming up next, we're going to be looking at some books that I've recently been reading that I'd love to tell you about. I do like to kick off my book blogs with a favorite literary quote, and today's one is: Outside of a dog, A book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. Obviously Groucho Marx. You can check out all my book reviews at hazelbutterfield.com, but today we have murder, mystery, darkness, and reality. Just, just a few of the topics that's covered in today's vlog. Now kicking this Kicking things off is Under My Skin by Elise Cranson, a recent guest here on Get Booked. Now this book had me spiraling with joy. The Bronx colloquialisms, the heady Studio 54 music era, the storytelling of the beginning stages of women having a place in the music industry, or at least fighting for it, paving the way for others to come. How being strong-willed has its challenges, but when directed properly can produce an interesting life, all with lashings of predictable and yet so paradoxically unpredictable chutzpah. Elise, who endured a conflicted upbringing, not encouraged to be herself and thrive, which she later took upon herself to do, stayed with a Nazi, her non- Nazi boyfriend's dad while traveling Europe just to spite him, as you do. A rock journalist who toured Japan with KISS then stayed in Tokyo, you know, because it seemed like an adventure. And wasn't it just? Sometimes you have to work harder for what you want, but isn't it great when you know you fought hard for what you have achieved? Under My Skin is only the first in a trilogy so keep your eyes peeled for what Elise has to offer, and you can check out our conversation on the Women's Radio Station SoundCloud. Next up we have Mr. Jones by Alex Woolf. This was an absolute joy to read. I do love a thriller, and one that kind of really gets under your skin, one of those books that that you think is leading you in a particular direction and then another, but also, you know, you read so many books that you think you have a bit of an intuition for these things, and yet you still constantly get returned back to the dark. A great combination of an incredibly drafted, enigmatic folk tale of Mr. Jones set in what is a suburban normality where such things are just silly tales for playground gossip beyond any comprehensible reasoning, so we would think. And yet, and yet, there is undeniably something happening. But then sometimes the unexplainable can get you questioning your own sanity. When do you get to a point where you finally admit that the only answer is explained by your own psychosis. Life can indeed send us crazy. Next up, now I absolutely love this one and I'm hoping to interview this author in the coming months, so watch this space. A Countdown to a Killing by Tom Vaughan-McCauley. Rather than the scene of opening with a dead body appearing, ensuing the search to uncover the killer and their motive. Ugh, how passé. We have the build-up to what could indeed happen without knowing whodunit, nor who it will be, told via various forms of one-sided emails and WhatsApps from the key characters. And yet what is left unsaid is just as intriguing as the clever cleverly depicted and intricate mannerisms of each flawed ego, riddled with dry witticism and irony. A book that challenges perceptions of our own subjectivity via a unique storytelling style. Its introspective nature of characterization is enthralling, detailing the incredible loneliness and desperation that can developing personalities, affecting their mental well-being. Many of us just want love in different ways, which is not always conveyed in the most succinct ways, but oh, how complicated it can make life be. Now, A Countdown to a Killing by Tom Vaughan-Macaulay is to be released on the 7th of July of this year. You can pop onto hazelbutterfield.com, and there's various links on there on my latest blog for how you can get it pre-ordered. Next up we have Women Like Us by Amanda Prowse, the best-selling author. She has sold millions of books. I think she's on book 25 at the moment, something around that figure, and it's quite a departure departure from her usual style. It's more of a memoir— well, it is a memoir, uh, but it is still completely addictive. Women Like Us. Yes, we are all different, but there is so much we also have in common. Fitting in, pretending we do, hiding our complexities, body confidence issues, self-sabotage. Imposter syndrome, jealousy. I sped through this book just empathizing and loving reading about the clumsiness, confidence knocks, yearning for literary solitude, self-sabotage, constantly evolving and trying to grasp life's challenges, our comparative nature and trying to focus on who we are and not who somebody else else is. This book, it's beautifully and openly written. I can't help but feel that the more we lay ourselves open, the more we can understand and connect. Yet success and honesty is unfortunately often met with scrutiny and jealousy, something we should collectively work on. Another important reminder that what we see on the surface is rarely indicative of the truth of a perceived charmed life. Millions of books sold worldwide, yes, yes, check, ticking the box. Still figuring out life, yes, aren't we all? Now this book, Women Like Us by Amanda Prowse, is going to be released on the 6th of September 2022. Now some slightly exciting news is that I have been writing my book. Some of you regular listeners will know that we occasionally talk about it, um, with the various guests we've had on Get Booked, and that is getting published, hopefully to be out roughly around Christmas. It's called 20 Weeks, so I'm super looking forward to that. I'm gonna have to find somebody who's gonna interview me for Get Booked, um, maybe Maybe you want to come and interview me about my own book, please do let me know. And as ever, a little bit of a reminder that if you have come across a book that you absolutely love, please do get in touch with me either via my website, azelbutterfield.com, or you can contact me on Twitter @nuttybutty and send through a little recording of a book that you've absolutely loved. Maybe you've written and a review. Maybe you are a book blogger and you want to give yourself a little bit of promo, then please do. We'd love to hear about what you are loving reading at the moment. Now, a little bit of a preview into who we are going to be having on the Get Booked show over the next month or so. We do have Katie Murray, author of Changemakers. I'm so looking forward to that, about how we can burst through that glass ceiling while still keeping our heads together. It's an incredibly hard world out there, and she's got some fantastic hints and tips for us. And then we're going to have the silver ladies of 'Lockdown Stories.' There are various creative writing groups out there, especially part of certain organizations, certain charities, who have decided to put together their creative writing efforts in the lockdown to put them into a book and help raise funds, because it's been so much harder for charities to raise funds in the pandemic, especially as we, we could have open events, and it's another fantastic example, so I'm looking forward to discussing this with the main tutor of the Silver Ladies of Lockdown stories, and we're going to hopefully get to have a couple of snippets of the book, so definitely not one to miss. We also have hopefully just discussed in my recent book reviews, Tom Vaughan-Macaulay, Countdown to a Killing. Brilliant, I cannot wait. And also we're going to be talking to the authors Tina Salvesen and Celia Strauss about their new Bobo and Iris series, which they're children's books but they're all about helping children deal with life life's curveballs, of which there are so many, in a very cute and endearing way, in that we, we help them to understand nature and friendship and the value of just what life can provide, especially when it's not in the traditional path. Sometimes we have to look for alternatives that are going to work for us. Um, and then coming up, hopefully Hopefully in July we're going to be talking to Perry Power, the author of Breaking the Silence. He self-published through Amazon, and it was one of those situations where he really did want to get his voice out there, his stories out there to help other people share, and he just decided one day that if it was to be done, he had to do it their and then, and this is the beauty of self-publishing, that you're completely in control of your own time frame. And I'm going to talk to him about the actual concept of publishing through Amazon, because myself, when I was— when I finished my book, I did look into doing it myself as well, and it is actually relatively straightforward. They've got a fantastic platform on there, Haramsa. On, to make sure that everybody gets to have their voice heard. And I love it that he's just decided it was too important to wait, too important to kind of— it can take a lot longer in the whole traditional publishing sense. And he has done it. He's brought together some incredible stories of people who have survived sexual abuse, and it's to to try and help people realize, you know, that there is power in talking about what we have gone through. The, the worst thing we can do is just be insular and hide and let all that anger and resentment, um, just build up inside of us. So an absolutely fantastic guest for us there, um, and hopefully we're going to have some really good summer reads coming up in August as well. So we have just enough time to read you a little extract from today's book, Felix Unbound by Cathy Gunn. Chapter 1. Well, I'm already there now, so tonight's definitely off. I'll call you as soon as I get back from Cairo. Anthony snapped and hung up. Tiffany exploded with rage. How dare he stand her up! She slammed her mobile phone down onto the sofa, but it skittered across the taut fabric and shot into the shrine nestled in the old fireplace, toppling the joss sticks and tumbling flowers before smacking into 4 bronze Egyptian statuettes. Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys crashed together into a triangular but delicate balance. While Seth, that old trickster, clattered dramatically right out of the grate, knocking over the cat figurine on the hearth. The duo fell sideways, narrow eyes accusing. "Now look what you've made me do!" Tiffany shouted. All desire to see Anthony had popped like the soap bubbles sometimes playfully battered by her tabby cat. She hated She hated the Manta Knight and glared at the mute phone now resting in the wreckage. It flickered in a panicky blue burst and went blank. The sleek tabby, woken by the commotion from his snooze beside a bowl of geological crystals on the coffee table, sat up bristling. Tiffany reached out a hand to soothe him, cupping his chin, and bent to rub her forehead gently me against his. Oh Felix, dearest Moggy, why can't some men be more like you? she muttered. But the cat was not appeased and jumped down. He stalked to the open ground floor window. When things got noisy at home, a neighbour's cluttered study was worth a sly visit. But as he dropped down into the garden path, the air outside seemed as charged as Tiffany's mood and distant thunder grumbled. He hesitated on the warm flagstones. Inside, Tiffany knew she should rescue the tumbled figurines, but her head was throbbing and now her throat hurt. Shoo! she sneezed, ignoring the chaos. And now the blasted cat's taken off as well, she finished crossly, as if appealing to that life-giving Egyptian god about whom her great-grandfather Freddy once wrote his pamphlets. She'd loved playing with these sounds as a small child. I can't be getting a cold now, it's almost summer. She stalked over to a small sideboard tucked into the alcove next to the fireplace to find her bottle of whiskey and poured a shot into a tumbler, hoping the elastic The cask's taste and kick of the peat malt would numb her sore throat. It made her gasp, "Huh, huh," another ancient incantation, and she poured a second shot to savour more slowly. Thunder muttered again, louder and closer, and the gauzy curtain at the window fluttered anxiously. Tiffany turned away, deciding that a deep bath might help to soak her ills away with a generous libation of perfumed oils. As she left the room bearing her consoling glass, a gust of wind rattled down the chimney, costing Isis her fragile balance in the fireplace. The figurine slipped forwards, her bronze head headrest striking the abandoned mobile phone screen with a sharp "hm." Its blue-green flash lit up the mocking features of Seth just as a sudden crack of lightning outside breached the early evening sky and a violent burst of rain clattered on the garden flagstones as if crying the name of its ancient goddess Tefnut. In the same At that moment, a loud yowl exploded outside, and an expanding ball of fur hurtled through the open window into the protection of the apartment, tumbling heavily onto the floor, perilously close to the fallen figurines. The thud made Seth rock again while more thunder growled and the rain cackled harshly. Upstairs, Tiffany heard only the water filling the bathtub. She sat on its edge, alternately sipping whiskey to dispel her throaty feverishness and pouring swills of iridescent oils from an array of glass bottles, one after another, into the steadily clouding water. Then she leant across to turn on the radio on the windowsill, prepared to descend into the waters, aware of the outraged creature racing silently up the stairs beyond the closed door. Badly ruffled and tingling with static, it sped past the bathroom and turned the landing corner to flee further upstairs. Gaining the open door of Tiffany's room, it leapt straight into the large bed and huddled into the soft duvet. All the air seemed humming with electricity. Then the whole room crackled with vivid white and green light, and thunder crashed directly overhead. No respite then. The creature pressed deeper into the comfort of the duvet, waiting for the next shock.