New! Download an mp3 of an extract from Vintage here. Holly has a meal with Marilyn's parents and little brother.
Vintage is published by Five Leaves. Go on the email list for news as it happens.
Readings and signings - The Bookshop in Kibworth Beauchamp on 25th June 7.30. Lowdham Book Festival 26th June. Knighton Library to be arranged.
An interview with Maxine Linnell on lovereading4kids.com
I was a teenager in 1962. It was just before the
Beatles and the Rolling Stones changed everything, when people mostly
did what they were told, and girls were meant to look forward to being
housewives and mothers. Holly doesn’t think much of all that when she’s
in 1962. I think I was really lucky to grow up at that time, when so
much was changing, though perhaps a lot of people think like that about
the time when they’re growing up. There were also tough things to deal
with too.
And there’s some fantastic things about 2010, and
things that aren’t so great. I love the amazing stuff we have now, the
internet, mobiles, mp3s, satnavs and takeaways. People are much more
free to be who they are – but there are downsides. Marilyn has to
experience the violence, and it’s very scary.
I thought it would
be fun to play with such very different times, to dump Holly and
Marilyn into places they’d never been and find out how they managed it
all. And it was really good fun to write. I hope it’s fun to read too,
and to imagine. There are lots of older readers who are also enjoying
it.
Would you prefer to be a teenager now rather than to
have been a teenager in the 1960s?
I don’t know what
it’s like to be seventeen now – but I don’t think I favour one more than
the other. They’re just very different, with good stuff and bad, like
most times I suppose. If I definitely thought things were better in one
or the other, the book wouldn’t be balanced: I’d be imposing my ideas on
the characters and on people who read it. I don’t like that in books I
read, so I wouldn’t want to do that in my own writing. I’d like people
to make up their own minds. I know I’m happy being who I am now!
Your
two main characters - the ones that swap places - are girls. Would it
have been different for boys? If, say, Holly's friend Kyle was also
transported in time?
I can’t imagine Kyle in 1962! He’s
so much himself, gay, sensitive – it was really hard for gay people back
then, they couldn’t come out safely. It’s not easy now, but it’s very
different. Girls and boys were often kept separate – I went to an
all-girls’ school, and hardly knew any boys except for my brother until I
was about sixteen. I’m not sure I could have written the book about
boys swapping – I just don’t know what it would be like. Maybe someone
else could write that one!
Holly and Marilyn - the two
characters who swap places in time, they never meet but towards the end
they start to communicate - is there one thing you'd like them to say to
each other?
They do start to communicate, but through
texts and in their minds, and only in emergencies. They get to know each
other well though, through living each other’s lives! We never get to
do that, live inside someone else’s body, someone else’s time, with
their family and their friends – except through books. That’s partly why
I love fiction so much, it gives me a chance to live someone else’s
life for a while, at least in my mind. And that lets me experience much
more than any one person can in their own life.
I don’t know what
they’d say to each other. Holly is really worried that Marilyn is going
to mess things up for her. Marilyn’s just loving every minute – until
things get scary.
Could they meet in the future? Is this
the last we'll hear of them or is there more from Holly and Marilyn?
I’d
love to write about them again – I feel like I know them both, and love
them both too! I do have something in mind for them, but there are
other ideas and characters I want to write about.
