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Bryony Doran 
September 2017

The China Bird

Book Group Guide

In 2006 I starting sending my novel, The China Bird, out to various agents. The general response I got back was that they liked it but didn’t feel it was mainstream enough to get published. Two years later I entered, and won, The Hookline Novel Prize, and, in 2009, The China Bird was finally published.

The Hookline Novel competition winners are chosen by book groups across the country and I owe them all a deep debt of gratitude for their hard work and dedication. I was delighted to have had my novel chosen in such fair and democratic manner by actual readers.

I love visiting book groups so if you would like me to come to your book group please contact me.

Please click here to download the Book Group Guide

About

the

Hookline Novel Competition

At Hookline Books we let serious book groups select the novels for publication. We begin the process with the Hookline  Novel Competition. This is open only to  students and graduates of MA writing courses. The judges are book groups from  around the UK. Writers submit the first three chapters of their  work and a brief synopsis. These are bound  in collections and sent to book groups, who  have three months to read and review. The  writers whose works come out on top are  then asked to submit their complete novels.  Again, these are bound and sent to book  groups who rate them on plot, character  development, writing style and reader  satisfaction. This is the fourth year of the competition and,  so far, two books have been published each year.

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