cover image and design copyright 2009, Sarah E Melville
“captures the rhythms and nuances of how we live now in a way that has rarely been done better” LA Books Examiner (read full review)
“Holloway’s accomplishment is in rendering a world in exquisite detail and still conveying the universal via the personal.” Emprise Review (read full review)
“a lovely book written in that rare thing: beautiful, lyrical prose.” Jane Smith, The Self-Publishing Review (read full review)
“Songs From the Other Side of the Wall is a *very* good book” Erica Friedman, Yurikon publishing (read full review)
“genuine promise”, Scott Pack, Harper Collins Fifth Estate/The Friday Project (read full review)
“In threads that shimmer like the novel’s central image of petrol-colored silk, what could have been weaves itself into every situation.” Pank (read full review)
In the Top 10 DRM-free ebooks for Christmas 2009 at ebooksjustpublished
After her mother walks out and returns to England when she’s just a week old, Szandi grows up on the vineyard in Hungary that has been in her family for 300 years. Now 18, Szandi is part of Budapest’s cosmopolitan art scene, sharing a flat and a bohemian lifestyle with her lover and fellow sculptress, Yang. She has finally found her place in the world. When she discovers that her father has only weeks to live, Szandi must choose once and for all: between the past and the present; between East and West; between her family and her lover.
Songs from the Other Side of the Wall is a coming of age story that inhabits anti-capitalist chatrooms and ancient wine cellars, seedy bars and dreaming spires; and takes us on a remarkable journey across Europe and cyberspace in the company of rock stars and dropouts, diaries that appear from nowhere, a telepathic fashion mogul, and the talking statue of a bull.
Praise for Songs from the Other Side of the Wall
“You write extremely well – with a wonderful turn of phrase and descriptive abilities which make for an atmospheric read.”
Melissa Weatherill, Simon and Schuster
“Your voice is very fresh and original…Sandrine is an engaging, intriguing narrator…Your writing is extremely good, very lyrical but always with the aim of moving the story on.”
Random House
“An artful style, with some very striking moments…The parallelism of a person and a country coming of age; the past’s haunting of the present in both; the hopes and fears of different generations: all these are rich veins that you exploit well, and provide a fascinating core to the book”
Harper Collins
All other reviews
Dear Dan. I enjoyed the Oxford readings a great deal. Keep the flame alight.
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