Sarah Dobbs
Sarah Dobbs has a PhD in Creative Writing. Her novel Killing Daniel was published by Unthank Books in November 2012. Previous work has been broadcast on the BBC, read at Bolton Octagon and published by SWAMP, NAWE and Flax. She is co-authoring a text book for Anthem Press and is also co-founder of Creative Writing the Artists's Way. Her short story Hachiko was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Praise for Killing Daniel:
Shock and Circumstance – by Max Dunbar: 3AM Magazine
This is a very dark and frightening novel, told in short chapters and brief sentences, that pass like the shivers of bad dreams.
Crime Fiction Lover - Marina Sofia
This book starts off with a bang – one of the most gripping opening chapters I’ve read in a while. It captures perfectly that sense of nightmare-ish unease and fear which the two main protagonists experience throughout the book. Dark, overcast, the sensation of drowning permeates the whole book, not just the first chapter.
A gritty, unusual thriller that will appeal to fans of both literary fiction and Japanese noir. I hope that Sarah Dobbs will continue to write in this vein.
Doctors of Fiction – @ Book Oxygen by Dr Cath Nichols
There is literary depth in the novel’s portrayals of Fleur, the heroine in Britain, and Chinatsu in Japan. Both women have unusual relationships with men and their sex lives are an important part of the narrative; prostitution and sado-masochism enter the mix.
A gripping read that has real emotional depth.
Lancashire Writing Hub – John Rutter
Somewhere between the contrasting cultures there is another space, that uncertain place where hopes and dreams and the real world meet, a place where a memory might be imagined or idealised.
If you enjoy complex and interesting literary fiction that asks questions about the human condition or if you just want to read a cracking thriller, then read Killing Daniel.
A Lover of Books
This is a superbly written book. It is fast paced and very gripping. Within the first few pages I was hooked and when I wasn’t reading it I found myself thinking about the characters and the storyline. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.
Our Book Reviews
Dobbs creates complex characters in whom the reader can believe and whose pain the reader shares. . . a thought-provoking debut novel.
An absorbing literary thriller – Amazon
Killing Daniel is a beautifully written, exciting book. The story takes place in parallel worlds – Tokyo and Manchester – and Dobbs handles the shifts in time and geography with skill and precision. Her prose is beautiful and pacey. I stayed up past midnight to read the final chapters and, as the book hurtled toward its dramatic close,
Novel Stuff
Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of Killing Daniel is Dobbs’ engagement with her themes: communication, memory, and femininity. This novel appears to have been written for a PhD in creative writing, so one might expect a cerebral aspect to the book, but Dobbs pulls it off with aplomb, and never at the expense of readability.
Clover Hill Book Reviews
Killing Daniel unflinchingly tackles gritty issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, morality and murder, as well as life choices, relationships and friendships.
Praise or Hachiko in Unthology #3
Bookmunch - by Fran Slater
Sarah Dobbs’s ‘Hachiko’ occurs in a Japan recovering from the recent tsunami. The protagonist is a young man whose girlfriend was working in the Fukushima Nuclear Plant that was at the centre of the natural disaster, and the story unfolds as he considers a recent adulterous tryst whilst he waits to hear news of her safety. This story plays with ideas of guilt and grief, and highlights the way feelings for a person can alter when it seems they have suddenly been taken away.
I’ll be surprised if I read a better anthology all year.
Rum and Reviews
Sarah Dobbs and Mischa Hiller offer two compact tales, Hachiko and
“Madam Li nods. She reaches over the table for Chinatsu’s hand. It would look like a gesture of sympathy for a friend. Chinatsu uncurls her right hand and allows the money to be retrieved. The initial wedge of money that Madam Li takes now is more than she ever takes later on. It almost entirely depletes the stash of money she’s been saving for years. The woman’s magician-eyes are framed by the steam snaking from their tea. Cat-green, they are striking and marred by yellow jelly spots in the whites.‘You no drink you no eat. What you, pregnant?’‘Would I be here?’Madam Li screws her chin back into her neck. The chair creaks as she sits back, spine straight. ‘Well, if you not going eat drink speaking truth, fuck off.’Chinatsu’s eyebrows flick up. She bursts out laughing.”
“Yugi’s eyebrow is black and sparse. From the marks on the woman’s skin, Yugi can see all the places he has been. His fingerprints blur the white column of her throat with red. His right hand trembles. He clutches his wrist to still the shakes. It’s not nerves. It’s adrenalin. Still, he needs a moment. The women here were far less savvy, much more grotesque in a warped sort of way. And yet they were somehow innocent. It was almost crueller.”
“Quickly, she pulls out a photograph from the same drawer. Two girls; one English, one Japanese. Their hair is in plaits, knees in the same position, peeking out under school skirts. There is no gap between their bodies. They look entirely different. Chinatsu is delicate, so flawless that she seems like a drawing, whereas Fleur is scrawny and ablaze with freckles. And yet, they look like sisters; the same posture, the same sadness in their eyes. She remembers that day. It was the worst and best of her life.”
“With the boot removed, the leg and the man attached, is also gone. All that remains in the clearing is the teenager in the pond. His arms are drifting forwards, curving towards meeting as if in prayer, nudged along by the internal rhythm of the pond. The muck is settling, the water clearing.His name was Daniel.”