The Night Rainbow by Claire King

It was the stunning trailer that first captured my attention. The bubbling voice of a child made me hold my breath, watch and listen. I’d been waiting to read ‘The Night Rainbow’ for weeks, I wasn’t at all disappointed. Claire King’s debut novel is an utter delight.

The narrator, a little girl called Pea, grabbed hold of my hand and took me on a colourful journey. Set in southern France, somewhere I once lived, I could taste the heat, I could see where Pea lived. With her mother drowning in grief and heavily pregnant, the story follows Pea and her sister Margot as they are left to their own devices in the meadow behind their house. Their aim and goal is to bring happiness back to their maman.

This is a story of innocence, of hope, of kind-heartedness and of love. This beautiful story will make you smile and cry and not quite know what to do with yourself. If I could have climbed into the book, I would have. The optimism of a child is something that we need reminding of, it is something we must all have had, once upon a time. I loved everything about Pea.

Captivating, full of sunshine, evocative, I think you should all read ‘The Night Rainbow’.

Claire King’s truly remarkable debut launches today and I’m thrilled that Claire was willing to take some time to answer my questions:

Great title! What inspired you to write ‘The Night Rainbow’? Where did you find that first seed of a story? Thank you! The title of The Night Rainbow came quite a long way into the book, when I’d realised that what I was really writing about was finding hope in the midst of darkness. The story hadn’t started out that way, it began by watching and listening to my daughters, then four and two years old, and realising that their perspective on the world was fundamentally different to my own.

And how long did ‘The Night Rainbow’ take to write? It took me around a year. That’s a working mother’s year, not a full-time writer’s year! I was still used to a lack of sleep at that point, so used the early hours when the house was silent to write.

I love to hear publication journeys, so tell me, how did you come to be published? As with a lot of authors, my first published novel is not the first one I have written. I was submitting back in 2004 with a novel based around three generations of a family in Ukraine. It was garnering positive responses from agents but no bite. I was approaching agents one at a time then, which I understood to be the correct protocol. After a year I’d only got through 6 agents. Then I started having children and for a while I lost momentum. When I came back to writing I wanted to start something fresh. The Night Rainbow was a much better novel, and I found representation in the first batch of submissions to agents (found through the Writers & Artists Handbook).

Although the book sold in the first batch of submissions from my agent to publishers, it was a heart-stopping couple of months. I’d chosen to write a first-person narrative in the voice of a five year-old, and the plot is fairly ‘quiet’. Publishers often loved one of those elements but not the other. But Bloomsbury really ‘got’ it. I went in to meet Helen Garnons-Williams, who was championing the novel in-house, but was in a bit of a predicament because her list was full for the next two years! Still, after meeting me they decided to offer for 2013, so the choice was to accept and wait it out, or else approach the next batch of publishers. I leapt at the chance to be published by Bloomsbury and I don’t regret the wait at all. It’s given me time to work on the next book!

How has following your dream influenced your hopes and dreams for your daughters? I don’t think it has, because in a way I’ve been working towards this my whole life. I grew up seeing people in situations they couldn’t extricate themselves from, largely because of money, and that affected me. My thinking was that I needed to get a good education, to get a good job, in order to have the independence and financial security I craved, then I could follow my dreams. I also wanted a family and I wanted to really make the most of it and there’s only so long you can put that off. I’ve been absolutely blessed in all those respects, and of course now I have children my priorities have realigned. Most of all I hope my girls will be happy, healthy and loved.

And how has your following of your dream influenced your daughters? I love this question. It has influenced them, because they’ve seen me change. Instead of just seeing me go off to work ‘to earn money’ (which I still do) they’ve seen me carving out time for a different kind of work. They’ve seen the effort that goes in as well as the frustrations and the joys.

They’ve shared my excitement over the book cover, came with me to the printers to see the book coming off the press, read snippets of the story and delighted in the lovely trailer that Bloomsbury made.

We’ve had some really interesting conversations about what it means to work: the necessities of earning a living and the idea of pursuing a vocation you love (and why sometimes you have to do both in parallel). I think that’s really healthy.

Who do you feel would be your ideal reader? I think The Night Rainbow has a broad appeal. I know from early reviews that it has gone down very well with a wide cross section of ages, men and women. I have to say I do feel it’s a real ‘book-club’ type book. It has the air of being a ‘quiet’ novel, but I hope each reader will bring their own experiences to the story, and that they will end up with a lot they want to discuss.

And what do you plan to write next? As I write, I’m finishing my work on the next novel. It’s an existential love story, set on the Canal du Midi. I haven’t shared it with anyone yet, so that’s all I’m saying for now. And the third one is already bubbling away at the back of my mind. A common theme is emerging though – one of understanding and optimism.

Name one book that captured you and held you hostage. The Time Traveller’s Wife. There, that’s the first one that came to mind, although there have been many, many books that have done that. There is so much wonderful writing about. It’s amazing when it happens; it’s like falling in love – breath-taking, heart-stopping, overwhelming.

Can you offer any tips for people wanting to be published? OR Have you learned anything about the industry that has shocked you/surprised you? I would say that wanting to be published (traditionally) is an understandable objective, but it’s not a goal that you have control over. So much of it is timing and luck. What you do have control over is the time you spend improving your craft - writing, reading, writing some more. First work on being a writer, then think about the road to being published.

I’ve benefitted greatly from networking on places like Twitter. Authors and writers are generally kind and generous and there is so much to learn from people who’ve been doing this thing for years and years. Go there, meet people, join in the discussion!

And let’s end this interview with that WONDERFUL trailer for ‘‘The Night Rainbow’: