Anna Jones Buttimore

Several years ago I reviewed  The Shack  by Wm. Paul Young .* I hated it. It seemed to me that it was little more than a theological treatise wrapped up in a novel, and not a particularly good novel at that. Of course, it's a hugely popular bestselling book and has since been made into a film, so I'm in the minority - although one friend admitted that she liked it but was under the impression that it was  a true story (it isn't) so is reassessing it in the light of this new knowledge. Now, I'm not going to say that religion and fiction shouldn't mix, because several of my books (The Haven series, Easterfield, Honeymoon Heist and especially The Saved Saint ) do just that. My issue with The Shack was that it appeared to me that the author had some pretty unusual and personal religious views that he wanted to make known, but knowing that others would be unlikely to buy his book if he titled it "My views on God, reality, and the purpose of life" he dresse...

My new book is now available for Kindle in the UK!  Click here to download it. (It doesn't yet seem to be available elsewhere in the world, but I'll let you know.) I've already had my box of ten free author copies, and started giving them away. I quite forgot to warn local friends that the village where the book is set is called Thundersley. This was quite an oversight, given that the village where I live is called Thundersley so it may have come as a surprise to them to see my home town detailed in the pages of my novel.  I didn't deliberately name my fictional village after the place I grew up as any kind of sentimental tribute (although I do love where I live). Neither is the fictional village of Thundersley in the same place as the real village: the real village is in south Essex, whereas the fictional version is in Suffolk. Originally the village in my book was called Easterfield, a name plucked entirely from my imagination. Readers of my previous ...

My new book, Fields of Glory, will be released on 19th April. As with previous books, all my author royalties from this book are being donated to a charity I support, Heart Mothers. What is Heart Mothers? Heart Mothers was  started by a good friend of mine, Ruth Williams, who read an article about the work of Somaly Mam in rescuing children trafficked into the sex trade in Cambodia. Touched by what she read, Ruth contacted Somaly to ask how she could help. At the time Somaly's work was well-funded by a French charity, but Somaly told Ruth that what these young girls really missed and needed was a mother. Most of them had never really known a loving mother, and many had been sold to the brothels by their own families. Although they were well cared for at the centre where they lived - provided with food, clothing, education and counselling - they each craved the love of an adult woman who would take a special interest in just them. A "Heart Mother". Ruth got to work ...