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Christine Coleman spent her childhood in the Sussex country side, and her late teens and early twenties in Dublin, where she learned to enjoy Guinness and climb mountains while gaining a degree in English. She now works as manager of an Adult Education Centre in Birmingham, and devotes most of her spare time to writing fiction and poetry. Together with a group of three other poets under the name of Late Shift, she has given performances at poetry festivals and arts centres around the country, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2003. Her own poetry collection, Single Travellers, was published by Flarestack in 2004. The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society is the first of her novels to be published. The initial germ of the idea for this took hold while she was dangling from a paraglider 3,000 feet above a lagoon on an island in the Indian Ocean. She believes that the saying, ‘Life begins at forty,’ doesn’t go far enough, and feels that as we get older we can gain inspiration from seeing people in their seventies or eighties rise to the challenge of new ventures
‘Agnes Borrowdale, seventy-five years old a week on Tuesday, hoisted herself onto the window sill and perched astride it, gripping the wooden frame. So far so good, she murmured, still buoyed up by the surge of excitement. Then she turned her head from the safety of the room and peered over the edge.'
After escaping from the old people’s home where she’d been placed by her son Jack and his new partner, Agnes’s quest to find her grandchildren develops unpredictably. Among the new friends she makes on her journey are: Joe, the helpful lorry driver; Molly, the garrulous proprietor of a small, run-down hotel; Gazza, the student whose sprained ankle may have serious consequences for Agnes; and Felix, the retired barrister’s clerk, whom Agnes pulls back from attempted suicide. Hoping to rekindle his desire to live, she invents the Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society, but soon fears that this falsehood, having acquired a momentum of its own, will end in tragedy. Meanwhile, Jack, frantically trying to trace his missing mother, spends a night in a police cell on a drunk-driving charge, while an over-zealous young policeman begins to suspect him of a more serious crime.
‘When
you read a really great book the saddest thing you can do is finish
Clarissa Dickson Wright ‘Delightful, enormous fun and surprisingly original.’ Sara Maitland, The Literary Consultancy ‘This book is both wonderfully titled and brilliantly inventive. Telling the story of one woman's search for a reason to live, it manages to be piercingly accurate about our daily lives while very funny indeed.’ Jonathan Davidson, The Orange Birmingham Book Festival ‘A surprisingly original story – gripping stuff.’ The Oldie Dangerous Sports has all the hallmarks of conventional chick lit. It's a light read, irreverent, improbable and focused on a strong female character. That's where the similarities end. Lillian Kennet The First Post.co.uk ‘A funny and poignant story about life beginning at seventy five! Great stuff for anyone planning to grow old disgracefully!’ The Pitshanger Bookshop, London ‘A terrific girls own adventure with a most unusual heroine who will steal your heart. The Nottingham Evening Post
Christine has her own website :www.christinecoleman.net
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