This is our first year publishing novels, and we definitely wanted to come out with a bang. With experienced novelists Liam Bell and Sangeeta Mulay we found exactly what we had hoped for: the political, the accessible and a completely engaging story.
Liam Bell and 'Man At Sea':
(Released June 30th 2022)
I started writing Man at Sea back in 2014 in response to the Scottish IndyRef and the birth of my daughter. It’s part family-saga, part historical-thriller based in Malta during WWII and then in the years before independence, with themes of both nationhood and fatherhood. I’m so delighted it’s found a home with Fly on the Wall Press and I’m hugely looking forward to sharing it with readers next summer.
MALTA, 1941. A telegram arrives with news of Joe’s papa that will change everything . Joe Zarb is an eleven-year-old living with his nanna in the village of Zabbar, a bombing target for the Italian Regia Aeronautica. His mamma passed away in childbirth and his papa, Pietru, is an officer’s steward in the Royal Navy, on a minesweeper somewhere in the Atlantic.
The war has created a rubble-strewn, dogfight-watching, soldier-saluting adventure for young Joe, until the telegram and the ruthless German Luftwaffe join the fray.
TWENTY YEARS LATER, 1961. With Malta in a complicated process of seeking independence from Great Britain, two Brits travel to the island in search of Joe Zarb. The first, Beth, is the woman who married Pietru. Her companion is a former RAF pilot, Stuart, bearing the scars from horrific burns he suffered during his war-time posting on Malta and from the pioneering plastic surgery he received as part of the Guinea Pig Club, a group of airmen who were the first to undergo the procedure.
When they find Joe and a man purporting to be his papa, a chain of events is set in motion that sheds new light on what happened twenty years before...
Liam says...
I’m the author of two previous novels, both published by Myriad Editions. The first, So It Is, was shortlisted for Scottish Book of the Year and favourably reviewed in the Guardian and Financial Times. The second, The Busker, was paperback of the week in the Herald and featured at the Edinburgh Book Festival. More at www.liammurraybell.com
Sangeeta Mulay and 'Disobedient Women';
(Released November 11th 2022)
Set in a polarized India, ‘Disobedient Women’ is dark comedy about the struggles of an atheist feminist for her fundamental right to express a controversial idea in a religious and patriarchal society. It conveys the relentless power of the Indian society to make a woman conform however privileged she may be.
Written from multiple POVs, this book exposes not only the dangers but also the ridicule that outspoken atheist women face in the country. Exploring themes such as freedom of expression, religious intolerance and the aftermath of rape on a family, the book offers a view from a feminist gaze away from stereotypes. Though the book tackles heavy topics, there are liberal (no pun intended) doses of humour, showing Indian society in all its crazy contradictions, including the online wrangles between the religious right-wing and the woke liberals.
About Sangeeta...
Sangeeta Mulay grew up in Pune, India and now works for a company in London as a UX writer. Her book for young adults, ‘Savitribai Phule and I’ was selected as notable book of 2020 by The Bombay Review. Her short story was highly commended in the Sydney Hammond short story competition and will be published in an anthology in 2022. She received an honourable mention in the 2021 NYC midnight micro-fiction challenge. Another short story will be published in an anthology by Fox and Windmill in 2022.
Want to review either of these titles? Get in touch at flyonthewallpress@hotmail.com with a suggestion of where you would place a review.