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Bruno Blog

Sandra Bruna Literary Agency

WRITING IS LIKE KEEPING A TRACE OF OUR FEELINGS

Author: Sandra Bruna Thursday 11 May 2017

Reading and writing are two things that seem connected, although they don´t have to be. However, in my own life, they have always been linked because reading was an important part of my childhood, and now it´s part of my life not only as a hobby, but also as my job.  What more could you ask for? And writing is another of my hidden sides, because I actually love to write, but for myself, as a release. WRITING is difficult, it´s an art, but we can all keep little notebooks or diaries. It is a way of capturing the feelings, the emotions, and all the things that, for some reason, affected us inside.

For this reason, I fell in love with Ángeles Doñate´s book, EL ALMA DE LA RADIO (The Soul of the Radio), which Ediciones Urano/Umbriel have just published. It´s a tribute to a radio program that was huge in Spain, which the Spanish readers will recognize, but it could be applicable to any country. There is nostalgia in this intimate, amazingly well-written novel, which tells the story of a radio presenter who replies to love letters on air, as well as the stories of some of her listeners, who cross paths by falling in and out of love, by being poorly treated, or by feeling lonely in the end-of-Francoism Barcelona, when democracy was emerging. When Aurore becomes the new voice of the most-listened radio program, she has a big responsibility. On one hand, she must prevent Elisa – a seventeen-year-old girl who announced she was going to take her own life – to kill herself. On the other hand, she must fill the lives of solitary people like German, who listens to the show daily. But what nobody knows is that Aurora is as unhappy as many of her listeners, and that she´s broken-hearted too. One day, as she wonders what happens with the letters which don´t make it to her show, she discovers the studio burns them. Many of them show an unpleasant reality, full of domestic violence and political repression which the studio doesn´t want to see associated with the program, in order not to lose listeners. Outraged, Aurora takes home as many letters as possible to reply to them on her free time. She wants to help those who need it, no matter what is going on, and whether or not the big shots managing the audience like it. After many years of emotional void, she finds a meaning to her life, which is just listening to others.

With this novel, Ángeles Doñate demonstrates again how much of a great writer she is and how well she knows how to touch our heart. She did so in her first book, EL INVIERNO QUE TOMAMOS CARTAS EN EL ASUNTO (The Winter When We Decided to Act), which has been translated into 8 languages and has been bringing us a lot of joy. Two years after publication, we keep selling it across the world because it is about complicity, honestly and love. In Spain, the pocket edition, published by Ediciones B, is still available and I can´t recommend it enough. It reminds me of the movie Pay It Forward, which I loved. It has become one of my favorite novels, and I feel proud to represent it. I know that we, readers, receive this book with our arms open, and all we can do is to say “Thank you, Ángeles.”

MOTHERHOOD, A WONDERFUL CHALLENGE

Author: Sandra Bruna Thursday 4 May 2017

Yesterday I was enthralled by a baby that had curly blond hair and wouldn’t stop moving while his mother tried to feed him breakfast -without him falling off the chair. He watched and smiled, with that angelical face that would make anyone drool. Watching him made me think about how fast motherhood passes and how little I enjoyed it. Now, my son is almost thirteen years old and I will never relive that first stage, which I must confess -and because I wasn’t able to enjoy it-, I lived it poorly. I’m 90% certain that I wouldn’t like to relive it even if I could. But there’s that 10% that, if it knew what I know now, thinks that maybe I would have done things differently and I would have enjoyed that stage in a calmer, quieter way. The consequences would be different, most certainly, and maybe I would have even repeated.

As everything in this life, if you do what comes from your heart and you want to live everything fully, because you wish to do so, everything falls into place. Therefore, my advice to future mothers would be to live it fully from the first moment, without worrying about work, organization or fears. It’s a stage that, if you live it calmly and doing what you believe, I’m convinced it must be wonderful.

Dr.Eduard Estivill’s book SER MAMÁ: EL ANTES Y EL DESPUÉS (‘Being a mum: the before and after’), written along with Dr.Gonzalo Pin and Dr.Carlos Salvador, helps you prepare the months after giving birth, which usually are less dealt with. For me, they were the most difficult ones, because you have a tiny little person that depends on you that doesn’t come with an instruction guide, unluckily. At the same time, you, as a woman, live such physical and emotional changes that you must deal with while you learn from scratch how to take care of the thing you love most; your kid.

That’s a challenge for anyone, and because society isn’t really that helpful nowadays, we have to be superheroes to do everything right. Or assume that we aren’t, that not everything can be done perfectly, and choose what is truly important to prioritize it. That’s another difficult -but not impossible- challenge, as long as you know what you stand up for and you fight for it. To sum it up, this is a useful, practical book, and another tool to feel less alone in a situation that, at the beginning, can feel like way too much, but that if you handle it right and you follow common sense, you’ll only remember afterwards the laughter and the good times.

READING HELP US REFLECT

Author: Sandra Bruna Thursday 27 April 2017

There are days when you think it might have been better having stayed in bed and not got up. However, for some time now, these negative thoughts, that I have less often each time, disappear in an instant because I want to trust that anything can have a solution, as difficult as it may seem. And if there isn’t one, it’s not in our hands, most of the times, to be able to solve it. But human beings have a tendency to complicate our lives and make things even harder for us, I don’t know exactly why. When you stop for a moment to reflect on it, you think it’s because there are tons of things that are piling up and clogging your mind, leaving you in a state that doesn’t leave room for a possible solution to be found.

Novels help us see cases, sometimes extreme ones, of how characters react when faced with problems, and because it’s fiction, we accept it. Lately, I can’t stop recommending feel-good fiction books, as their reactions are the same as mine, because if I were to recommend the solutions of my favorite noir novels, there may be more deaths than lives in this jungle. That’s the case of Susana Rodríguez Lezaun’s novels. In her first novel, SIN RETORNO, Irene Ochoa has to make one of the most important decisions of her life; she can’t stand anymore her drunk husband, who treats her poorly, and she needs to escape. Must she cross the line of evil to do so? A fire in Irene’s house ends with her husband’s life, and David Vázquez’s inspector will take charge of the investigation. Has it been provoked? At the same time, in the Road to Santiago have appeared several bodies of pilgrims that Vázquez will have to solve, while he falls deeply in love with Irene. If you didn’t read this book, I can’t recommend it enough to any lover of the noir genre. It will leave you breathless, and because now DeBolsillo has published a new novel with a newer case of David Vázquez’s inspector, DEUDAS DEL FRÍO, it’s the perfect time for a “two for one”, perfect for a weekend of thrilling reads on the sofa. This time, Vázquez has a new case to solve, but they’re still being haunted by Irene’s past, so we’ll still know more about her story besides having a new murder; the managing director of the Hispano-French Bank appears murdered on the outskirts of Pamplona, where the novel is set.

Susana Rodríguez Lezaun is an author that we love and that has nothing to envy to other names that appeared at the same time as her, such as Dolores Redondo or Mikel Santiago, who have written great novels that I’ll keep recommending even though I’m not their agent. Susana sold with her first novel more than 8,000 copies, a huge debut, but with all first times, it was hard for the press to pay attention to her, even though she earned the praise of her readers. We believe she deserves way more and because of this, Penguin Random House is still betting for her with DEUDAS DEL FRÍO and a third book that, hopefully, will come out next year to complete a trilogy that, with the help of everyone, will manage to make big. We have a great author, with two stories at the moment that are fast-paced and leave you wanting more. She deserves to be read by any thriller and mystery lover, because it’s written by an amazing writer.

HAPPY YEAR OF THE BOOK

Author: Sandra Bruna Thursday 20 April 2017

Sant Jordi’s Day is around the corner one more year, and I can’t stop saying how special it is for anyone who works in this business. A public holiday for readers, and a hard day of work for the publishing sector. At the same time, however, it’s a time for festivities and contained feelings, for you want everything to go smoothly and for each person to buy books they truly enjoy. A day when everything seems extraordinary and books, usually more invisible during the year, are the main event, the KINGS of a wonderful festivity where the communion between reader and author is complete. I don’t have the right words to express what we feel that day when one -or more! – book from the agency appears in the bestsellers lists. It’s an explosion of happiness and joy that you feel for the author, who has worked so hard and deserves the acknowledgement that they long for so much; for the public; for the publisher, who has launched it and has bet blindly for a title that is now succeeding; for the bookseller, who has recommended it… It’s such a long chain, all filled with people who has collaborated to make it possible that, when it works, the feeling you get is one of relief, calmness and unrivalled excitement. It’s an award to the effort and the work well done of an author and of all the others who have supported it.

However, for me, the most important thing on this day is that people feel excited when sharing a book with someone they love and that, with the help of one another, we try for great literature to reach the readers. I’m sure that many of these books, gifted with love, change the lives of whomever gets them. New readers are nurtured and become long lasting ones. Let’s live an intense April 23rd, full of wonderful feelings, and let’s manage for books to accompany us the rest of the year as well. As we always say in the agency, books are the best travel companions in this journey that we call life, because they always add up, even if it’s something very small and simple. We’re convinced that there’s a book for every reader, and a reader for every book, the exciting part is to strengthen that union that, most of us, can’t live without. Reading is life and life without reading is way poorer, and it’s not difficult to enrich it with good stories that will surely fulfill us.

Happy year of the book and let’s celebrate April 23rd next year with all the readings that have come along for the ride on this 201/2018 and that have shaped us into better people.

Our recommendations

HAPPY EASTER!

Author: Sandra Bruna Wednesday 12 April 2017

We have some days to rest and recharge batteries in order to be in full swing after Easter Holidays. These past few months have been hectic, with the London and the Bologna Book Fair, and tons of hard work so that every book can find a publisher.

We come back on Tuesday 18th of April with our best smiles and with Saint George’s day around the corner. We hope we can live once again a wonderful book day celebration.

Therefore, the team of Sandra Bruna’s Literary Agency wishes you a happy Easter. Don’t forget to open your mind and travel with a great book!

Check my recommendations and catalogues in our webpage.



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