Next to reveal all is the brilliant Priya Basil, author of Ishq And Mushq and more recently, The Obscure Logic of the Heart.

Read on to hear about Priya’s record breaking attempt, her (not so) faulty appendix and even a bit of skinny dipping too!

5 things you didn’t know about Priya Basil:

1. Priya passed her Kenyan driving test even though she lost control of the car during the test. The examiner told her off for chugging along at a docile 30kph, and insisted that she speed up in order to prove to him she could really drive. She got up to 100kph before skidding off the road. The examiner chuckled and slapped his thighs. ‘Now that’s driving,’ he said. Things work differently in Kenya.

2. Priya is a keen cook. When she can’t write she bakes – the more complex and chocolatey the recipe, the better.

3. Priya has had her appendix out even though she didn’t need to. At the age of eight, a little ploy to get attention and stay home from school went rather wrong when her pretend stomach pains were diagnosed as appendix-related. That same day she was admitted to hospital for an emergency operation. Even as she was wheeled to theatre she wanted to shout ‘Stop! I’m fine, really. I feel absolutely okay.’ But she was too scared, and went through the whole procedure, only admitting the truth to her parents about ten years later. What perplexes the whole family most is just whose was the inflamed and partially ruptured appendix that the surgeon had presented to Priya, as her own, in a jar after the operation?

4. Priya likes to skinny dip – but only at one particular lake in Berlin, in the early morning, or late evening, when no one else is around. Her mother is disturbed by this unwelcome Germanic influence and can no longer bear to hear about Priya swimming at all.

5. Priya hopes to set a new World Record in less than a month’s time. On September 21st 2010, the International Literature Festival Berlin will host Authors for Peace, a 24-hour, global, live online reading to mark the UN’s International Peace Day. In this event, which is the first of its kind, and which was proposed to the festival by Priya, authors from all over the world will read from their work in a gesture of solidarity with those who are oppressed, or caught in conflict. Hopefully, many citizens worldwide will join in to watch the event, thereby amplifying the spirit of peace and unity. Priya invites you to be part of this special event. To find out more visit www.authorsforpeace.com

Priya Basil was born in London in 1977 and grew up in Kenya. Her first novel, Ishq and Mushq, was longlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It was also shortlisted in the 2008 Spread the Word: Books to Talk About competition. Priya lives in London and Berlin.

To find out more about Priya and her novels, visit her website here

Last week, the brave Sean Black revealed all for our between-the-lines readers

This week MICHAEL WRIGHT is in the hot seat as we divulge five things we never knew about the Francophile author and the lengths he will go to for a Cadbury’s Creme Egg!

5 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT MICHAEL WRIGHT:

1. He is allergic to penicillin, and grew up convinced that he was also allergic to pineapple.

2. He had childhood crushes on Suzi Quatro, Debbie Harry and Gemma Craven.

3. The first proper job he was ever offered was as a sub-editor on Electrical Review, a magazine dedicted to the heavy-duty cabling industry.

4. At school, he cheated in French vocab tests and did other boys’ Greek homework in exchange for Creme Eggs.

5. He is currently training six times a week in an attempt to row 2000m in sub-7 minutes at the British Indoor Rowing Championships.

Born in Surrey in 1966, Michael Wright enjoyed an unfashionably happy education at Windlesham House and Sherborne and graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in English Literature. He spent several years working as a theatre critic, arts columnist and literary diarist in London whilst wondering what to do when he grew up. The answer turned out to lie in rural France, where he now lives.

Je t’aime à la Folie (the sequel to his joyous and very funny bestselling memoir, C’est la Folie) is now out in hardback.

To read more about Michael, visit his website or to pick up a copy of Je t’aime à la Folie, click here

‘Wright captures the fun of the countryside perfectly.’ The Sunday Times

‘What elevates this book…is Wright’s gentle humour and his ability to create a vivid impression of his literal and emotional journey…with such wit and perception.’ The Daily Telegraph

Stephen Clarke’s latest novel, 1000 Years of Annoying the French, is out now. It’s for anyone who is interested to know what REALLY happened to Joan of Arc, why America would be l’Amérique if the French hadn’t threatened a cow, and why we owe the signing of the Entente Cordiale to Parisian ladies of the night. And the funniest thing is, it’s all true…

Click here to read an interview with Stephen on the brilliant expat blog and discover just how much we Brits love annoying the Frogs… i mean, French.

Transworld are thrilled to announce an exciting new feature created especially for our Between the Lines readers. Every week we will be revealing FIVE things you didn’t know about our authors allowing you to get up close and personal with the people behind the fantastic books you read…

First up is the very brave SEAN BLACK, author of the Ryan Lock thrillers LOCKDOWN and DEADLOCK. 

Sean Black grew up in Scotland, studied film in New York and has written the screenplays for many of Britain’s best-known TV dramas.  His latest novel DEADLOCK (now available in hardback) is a high concept race-against-time thriller set in Pelican Bay High Security Prison.  As some of you will know from previous posts, Sean ‘did time’ as research for DEADLOCK but as we see below, even the hardest men can’t help shed tears occasionally…

FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT AUTHOR SEAN BLACK:

1.       Sean had a very brief appearance in Spike Lee’s biopic of Malcolm X.

2.       His father-in-law ran Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaigns on the west coast of the United States.

3.       The last time he cried was reading the end of Marley and Me.

4.       His best man when he got married wedding was Eric Da Re who played crazed wife-beater Leo Johnson in the TV show Twin Peaks.

5.       Duncan Bannatyne got his big TV break in a pilot for a TV drama that Sean wrote.

To read more about Sean and his Ryan Lock thrillers, click here to view his superb website and blog and to get a sneaky peek inside DEADLOCK, click here.

Between the Lines readers: we hope you enjoyed your first instalment in this feature; don’t forget to log on next week to see who is in the hot seat!

Priya Basil, author of Ishq and Mushq talks to theasianwriter about her new novel The Obscure Logic of the Heart…

Click here to read the interview in full, below is a sneaky peek….

Firstly I have to congratulate you on your second novel. Your style’s grown and developed and you’ve tackled some really difficult issues with The Obscure Logic of the Heart. Can you talk us through what was different, in a writing sense, second time around?

The satisfactions and struggles of the creative process were identical to those I experienced the first time around: the urge to write a great and lasting story was accompanied by the exact same doubts about failure. The writing itself was easier in some technical respects because of things that I’d become aware of while editing the first book.

The deep entanglement of a corrupt government and illegal arms trade juxtaposed the lovers’ own dilemmas was a powerful way to weave the story. I really felt like I was being educated the whole time I was reading. What inspired you to explore this in your novel and what research went in to make the plot plausible?

I always knew that the main character, Lina, would have a strong impulse to ‘save the world’, which would clash with the private realities of her own life. During the early stages of writing, the problem of piracy in the Indian Ocean, along the coast of Somalia, made lots of headlines. One particular incident, about a ship carrying arms, caught my attention because of Kenya’s alleged involvement in the procurement of those weapons. I began to read up about arms dealing, and was shocked by the scale of the trade, especially the illegal aspect of it. I immediately felt that I wanted to support all efforts to curb this trade and make it more accountable, and the best way for me to do that was through my writing. I am now also a supporter of the Control Arms Campaign, a global civil society alliance campaigning for an Arms Trade Treaty that will protect lives.

 To read an interview with Stephen Clarke on expat-blog.com and be in with a chance to win a signed copy of his new novel 1000 Years of Annoying the French, follow the links below:

 http://www.expat-blog.com/quizz.php

http://www.expat-blog.com/interview-stephen-clarke.php

Extreme Risk by Major Chris Hunter is published by Bantam Press this week. Chris took a moment out of his busy publicity schedule to talk to Between the Lines.

What did you do before you joined the army?
I joined the Army when I was sixteen, so pretty much joined straight from school, although I worked in my parents restaurant after school from the age of 14.

Why did you decide to train as a bomb disposal expert?
I think people do it for a number of reasons. I know some do it for the ­ adrenalin rush, others to seek atonement for darker episodes in their livesBut I think most do it out of a good old-fashioned sense of duty - just because they want to make a difference. For me, I guess it was a bit of all three.

How long did it take you to train?
The basic ammunition technical officers course (the Army’s counter-terrorist bomb disposal operators) complete 14 months of basic trade training, before undertaking a minimum of a years on-the-job training; only then can they attempt the two-month high threat operators course.  It has one of the highest failure rates in the British Army.only 10% pass first time.

How many bombs did you diffuse?
I neutralised scores of IEDs and hundreds of items of other unexploded ordnance

Which countries have you worked in?
Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, and a few slightly more operationally sensitive ones.

What was the most difficult part of your job?
Being away from my family - it never ever got any easier.

What was the most difficult situation you found yourself in?
Being targeted by insurgents for assassination when I was serving as an operator in Iraq.  Eventually it came to a head when the Shia insurgents placed a booby-trapped car bomb outside an hospital in the Sunni-dominated part of Basrah.  They expected me to deal with it by hand…but I had other ideas…and I’m still alive to tell the tale!

What was the best part of your Job?
The teamwork and camaraderie and the immense sense of gratification that comes with preventing a device that’s designed to kill and maim, from doing so.

How would a typical day pan out for you?
One minute I could be in the UK, going for a run, or shopping for groceries in Sainsbury’s…and the same day I could be parachuting out of an aircraft or arresting terrorists in Gloucestershire.  The variety was a huge part of the appeal.

How big was your team?
We started with 8 men, but were ambushed and badly shot up during an ambush on my fifth day in Iraq. It was a miracle that we all survived, but from that day onwards, we never deployed with less than twelve people in the team.

Would you encourage individuals to choose this career path?
Absolutely, it’s got to be about the most fascinating and exciting thing I’ve ever done without getting arrested!

If you had to choose another job, what would it be?
Having read Ed Macey’s brilliant autobiography ‘Apache’…being an Apache helicopter pilot would win hands-down.

     Click here to get your copy of Extreme Risk, out now!