New book ‘a wake up call’ for a generation of debt junkies says author.

[9 March, 1999]

Antonia Swinson, Hodder and Stoughton’s "great new talent" in women’s fiction, has several good reasons to celebrate:

• Her new book The Cousins’ Tale sold out its first hardback edition in 10 days
• Publishers Hodder and Stoughton have decided to print a second edition to meet the heavy demand from the trade, public, and Internet community
• The Antonia Swinson web-site took over 100 hits in its first week-end from just two small ads in The Bookseller and The Spectator
• And the early reviews from the Critics both in London, Scotland and the provinces have been uniformly excellent

Says Antonia: "It is always nice to have your work praised, but I was especially pleased that The Bookseller singled out the cover design as being ‘excellent and unusual.’ Marketing is such an integral part of any writing project these days, and it is a great privilege to have such a creative and imaginative team behind the publication of The Cousins’ Tale."

The Cousins Tale is a comedy of modern manners which follows its subjects, TV super cook Bunny Halifax, and put-upon housewife Sarah Todd from growing up in ‘60s Surrey to the prescribed realities of nineties life in London and Scotland.

While the critics have praised Antonia for her wit and sharp humour, they have also been quick to recognise her shrewd and penetrating commentary on modern life. According to The Scotsman, Swinson takes some "sharp swipes at the fraudulence of the post-feminist settlement, the thanklessness of motherhood, the uselessness (at best) of men, and the more portentous pieties of contemporary Scottish culture."

While Peter Dundy in the Newcastle Journal welcomes "a book that was waiting to be written (as) it tells us where the whole merry dance of modern life can lead." "As a commentary on modern life, the book is witty, shrewd and penetrating. Who could fail to recognise a typically modern man in the following: Christopher embraced his new job in the way only a man could who had two families, eight credit cards, a large overdraft and a £340,000 mortgage?"

Says Antonia, who writes a weekly column for Scotland on Sunday on middle class angst and money: "In the book I wanted to say something about the way we live now, to issue a wake up call to a generation which has lost the plot when it comes to understanding the value of money. Auberon Waugh was so right when he wrote recently that there has never been a better time to be alive. It just seems so bizarre that hundreds of thousands of otherwise sane professional, educated people in the west have responded to that generational opportunity by smothering themselves in insane levels of debt. It doesn’t need to be like that is the message in my book."

Critics have the last word as Major New Talent emerges in Fiction.

With her second novel The Cousins' Tale, Antonia Swinson wins plaudits from the critics for her ability to combine high comedy with serious themes. Her advice to new writers: 'Don't take no for an answer, and invest for success if you want to see your writing in the bookshops'.

In February 1995 journalist and TV critic Antonia Swinson saw red when the manuscript of her first novel The Widow's Tale plopped on to the doormat with an unsigned comps slip after six months of deliberation by yet another major London publisher. Nicola Horlick style, she decided to act...and like Nicola on her celebrated flight to Frankfurt, she was in no mood to take prisoners.

Within days she had organised the dog eared manuscript's publication by a small established Midlands publisher, underwritten by her own capital.

Three weeks later she had designed the book jacket, and organised a launch party for more than a hundred friends and family at a Waterstone's branch in south west London.

And by September that year, The Widow's Tale, written to keep her spirits up while battling the blues after the birth of her second child, was on sale in Hatchards, with no less than five London publishers beating a path to her door.

Just over three years later with a dazzling set of reviews for her follow up novel The Cousins' Tale already in from the late January launch in Edinburgh - she now lives with her husband and two children in wild and rugged East Lothian where the new novel is partially set – ex actress and Fleet Street writer Antonia laughs as she recalls that time:

"I suppose I did do a Nicola, even if it was before her time and beetling off to Leominster is hardly an air raid on Frankfurt bankers with a posse of press in tow.

"But the similarities were there. My blood was up and I wasn't going to be pushed around any longer by what I thought were offhand and often pompous, agents and publishers. With a strong Fleet Street background I had faith in my work even if nobody else did, and it was worth a sum happily paid by some women for a designer frock to get the book out, get on with my life and cut out years of frustration.

"I was warned that this unorthodox approach would cost me the all important first novel reviews and sales. But it didn't matter. I had taken control of the situation and it felt good. I found I really enjoyed selling in the book to bookshops and also working on the publicity. I ran up a large phone bill, and it was a vertical learning curve but I learned a great deal about the business , and now very much appreciate all the benefits of being published by large established and imaginative publisher."

Antonia subsequently signed to Hodder as she had enormous respect for editorial director Carolyn Mays, who in turn appreciated Antonia's ability to fuse high comedy with serious themes and had the foresight to see the potential of the much more challenging material she planned for The Cousins' Tale. Editor Kirsty Fowkes comments: "Antonia Swinson is a major new talent for us and we are delighted to be publishing her at the beginning of what we are sure will be a long and successful writing career."

Antonia now writes a popular satirical weekly column about money in the business section Scotland On Sunday. 'The Cousins' Tale , the often hilarious story of "two cousins in the nineties: on the run from men, mortgages and mothers", is an expression of Antonia's belief that money and how we use it , is so often the ruler of all our destinies.

Antonia's proactive approach to securing her first publishing break had very clear precedents. After graduating with joint honours in English and Italian from the University of Edinburgh in 1980 she embarked on a career, and enjoyed much early success, as an actress. And when her inside knowledge of showbusiness sparked an interest in sharing her thoughts with a wider audience, she graduated to Fleet Street as a writer and critic. Naturally, in true Antonia style she made up for her lack of training in either field with a steely inner belief in her own talents.

She spent three happy years as TV critic on the Daily Express in the late eighties. And it is the world of soap stars and celebrity cooks that Antonia satirises so cleverly in her work. Celebrity chef Nick Nairn helped her to piece together the TV celebrity cook and catering superstar that is Bunny Halifax, one of the eponymous cousins in her new book.

"I truly adore my character Bunny Halifax. She is the ultimate cook who loathes cooking, many women will identify with. When I'd finished the book I missed her. I'm thrilled that Bunny also seems to be such a hit with the early readers of The Cousins' Tale.

The paperback edition of The Cousins' Tale will be published by Hodder and Stoughton on its new imprint Flame on June 17. 1999. The sequel to The Widow's Tale will be published as a Hodder hardback in January 2000.

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