Chalk Dust

After a wonderful but hard-slog time in the UK we’re back in New York. And here’s a little round-up of things I’ve written for various websites, plus some reviews I’ve received from hither and thither over the last two weeks.

Yonder at ‘We Love This Book’ I’ve written a ‘story behind the story’ article on how competitive Oxford students (myself included) inspired my novel. You can read it right here.

There’s a little recommendation penned by me for ‘The Ministry of Fear’ by Graham Greene, one of my favourite books and an inspiration every single time I sit down at my desk. It can be found on ‘Crime Fiction Lover’ over here. (Lots of other great recommendation for classic crime books can be found on the same page.)

You can win a stack of books if you solve a crossword that I compiled. It’s here at ‘Dead Good Books’. You’ll probably need to have read Black Chalk to be able to solve it. But hopefully that’s not a terrible thing, right?

Meanwhile, I had four reviews in the past fortnight. As follows:

• The pictured press clipping is from the Daily Mail where I was placed next to Thomas Hardy, one of my all-time favourite contemporaries. You can read the review here.
• I was reviewed in The Times (UK). Read it here if you can go beyond the paywall. If you can’t then here are a few quotes. “Black Chalk is an inventive and intricate psychological puzzle thriller that mystifies, torments, disturbs, beguiles and occasionally irritates.” Thank you – I think. Furthermore, I’m apparently “a touch pretentious”; this upset me until my wife pointed out to me that the reviewer has no doubt seen me wearing one of my several scarves. However, obviously I loved the sign-off: “a powerfully intelligent debut for Christopher J. Yates”.
• Lovely review at ‘The Oxford Student’ – needless to say, for a novel about Oxford students, you kind of crave a good review from ‘The Oxford Student’. They’re pretty much the target audience. The review is shot through with a few quotes from me about the book. Just click this link to read.
• And finally a review over at ‘Books with Bunny’, which you can see here. Bunny (real name Kate) concludes: “I can imagine it working well as a dramatisation serialised for TV.” YES, PLEASE KATE/BUNNY MAKE IT HAPPEN NOW. I also reveal my five favourite places to write. You know, in case you’re the kind of person who couldn’t possibly imagine where you might possibly locate yourself vis-à-vis hitting random keys on a computer.