• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Dragon Lake Books

The home of great stories

  • About
    • Sample Chapters
    • Events
    • Privacy policy
  • Where To Buy
  • My 100 Goals Blog
  • Contact Form
  • Mailing List Sign-up

Khmer

Lydia’s Song – an interview with author Katherine Blessan

July 24, 2017 by frozbie Leave a Comment

Just over a week ago I reviewed Lydia’s Song by Katherine Blessan. Today I’m interviewing the author…

Katherine, thanks for joining me here today! What sparked the idea for the novel?

The first time I went to Cambodia in 2006 I was staying with a family in Ratanakiri province and while there, I was resting on a hammock on their porch. A servant was sweeping underneath me and I remember feeling embarrassed by this. Suddenly the essential idea for the plot for Lydia’s Song hit me, almost like divine inspiration. I started the novel at that time, although it was just the beginning and needed a lot of fleshing out from my own experiences in Cambodia together with the research I had to do in order to make it authentic.

I found the NGO descriptions believable and entirely consistent with my own experience. Did you work for an NGO while in Cambodia?

Yes, both times I did. I went to Cambodia initially for 6 months with the organization Cambodia Action to work as a TEFL teacher, and the second time I went for two years and worked for an international school called Logos International under the wing of a Christian NGO called Asian Hope.

I found parts of the story, Song’s experiences as a sex slave, harrowing. How were you able to write this?

It was emotionally difficult, but strangely, this was the part of the novel that I was able to write most quickly as the narrative force of the story was highest at this point so drove me forward.

One of the things that really struck me while reading about Song’s experiences was the banality of the life as a prostitute, that once initially traumatised, it became almost normal. Is this what it is really like for young girls and women?

Whilst I don’t know this for a fact, I can imagine that this is true as psychologically humans do adapt to the most difficult of situations.

I don’t want to give the story away, but there is a point where Song has a chance to escape and she fights against it… Do some girls or women choose to stay where they are if they are offered a chance to escape?

Prostitution is almost always a result of violence or abuse at some point. If women ‘choose’ to remain prostitutes it would usually because financially they see no other way, or if young girls, then because they’re being coerced or manipulated in some way. According to NGO Soroptomist.org “90 percent of prostituted women have been physically abused as children, 74 percent have been sexually abused by a family member, 50 percent have been sexually abused by a non-family member, and 75 percent have drug problems, damaging factors that further remove the “choice” from the equation.” (http://www.soroptimist.org/trafficking/prostitution_faq.html)

Why write a novel about child sex trafficking?

Good question! Because this is the idea that I felt compelled to write. Secondly, to highlight the injustices of this endemic problem.

How much time have you spent in Cambodia?

I was there for 2 and a half years altogether, first with one organization and then, after completing a PGCE in the UK, with the other.

And finally, are you writing another book?

I am indeed, although my second novel has been on hold for a year whilst I’ve been writing a feature length screenplay of Lydia’s Song! – watch this space for developments there. I also write a few short stories in response to competitions and try submitting them to various places – an interesting but not always fruitful task!

Thank you Katherine! Lydia’s Song is available from all good bookshops and also from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback. If you would like to read a sample, you can do so below.

If you enjoy stories that give you insight into another culture, that contain real characters and deliver an emotional kick, then I recommend Lydia’s Song.

About the Author

Katherine tweets @kathblessan
Check out her website at: http://www.katherineblessan.com/

As well as writing, Katherine works as an English and Creative Writing tutor and an Examiner, together with juggling parenting and volunteering in the community. She is married to Blessan – yes, her surname is his first name! – and they travel widely and love to meet new people. Katherine lives with her family in Sheffield, UK.

Other stories by Katherine Blessan include:
• ‘A Heart on Fire’ – a love story inspired by Chariots of Fire. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Fire-Katherine-Blessan-ebook/dp/B06XD2D2FV
• ‘Travels by Wheelchair’ was shortlisted in a Patrician Press competition in 2016 and published in an anthology. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Refugees-Peacekeepers-Patrician-Press-Anthology-ebook/dp/B01MUG2YIV/
• ‘Beyond her Scream’ – a story of a mother-daughter relationship strained by the effects of FGM. Short Story Beyond Her Scream from cutalongstory.com

Filed Under: 100 Words 100 Days, Book Review Tagged With: Cambodia, child sex slavery, Katherine Blessan, Khmer, Lydia's Song, prostitution

Lydia’s Song – a book review

July 18, 2017 by Mark Anderson Smith Leave a Comment

I was in tears by the time I’d finished this novel. Katherine Blessan has written a deeply moving story of a young girl’s experiences of being sold into sex slavery in Cambodia.

Lydia’s Song is not a book I’d have normally chosen to read. Neither thriller, nor crime fiction, nor mystery, yet containing elements of each of these that eventually hooked me in to the point where I finished the last half of the book in one sitting, desperate to know how it ended.

The novel starts from Lydia’s point of view, looking back on her time working for a Non Governmental Organisation in Cambodia. I found the beginning slow going initially as it could almost have been a romance as Lydia (the Westerner) develops a relationship with Radha (the Cambodian). I don’t read romance generally, so struggled with the start. Yet even in this, it was fascinating reading about the daily life in Cambodia and I enjoyed that insight. I worked abroad for a time myself, also for an NGO and could relate to some of the struggles and incidents.

Lydia finds a young Cambodian girl in her garden one night – the Song of the title. Song has effectively been orphaned and the story gently shows the developing relationships between Lydia, Song and Radha. Until it all goes wrong…

This for me is where the story really started to come alive as Katherine Blessan manages to create a sense of realism in her descriptions of a child being made into a sex slave, without titillation or eroticising the experience. Harrowing is one word I want to use, yet, because of the way the story is structured, there is a sense of hope throughout.

If you enjoy stories that give you insight into another culture, that contain real characters and deliver an emotional kick, then I recommend Lydia’s Song. If you would like to try it out, a sample is available below.

Available from all good bookshops and also from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback.

About the Author

Katherine tweets @kathblessan
Check out her website at: http://www.katherineblessan.com/

As well as writing, Katherine works as an English and Creative Writing tutor and an Examiner, together with juggling parenting and volunteering in the community. She is married to Blessan – yes, her surname is his first name! – and they travel widely and love to meet new people. Katherine lives with her family in Sheffield, UK.

Other stories by Katherine Blessan include:
• ‘A Heart on Fire’ – a love story inspired by Chariots of Fire. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Fire-Katherine-Blessan-ebook/dp/B06XD2D2FV
• ‘Travels by Wheelchair’ was shortlisted in a Patrician Press competition in 2016 and published in an anthology. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Refugees-Peacekeepers-Patrician-Press-Anthology-ebook/dp/B01MUG2YIV/
• ‘Beyond her Scream’ – a story of a mother-daughter relationship strained by the effects of FGM. Short Story Beyond Her Scream from cutalongstory.com

Filed Under: 100 Words 100 Days, Book Review Tagged With: Cambodia, child sex slavery, Khmer, prostitution, The Killing Fields

Primary Sidebar

Follow

Follow me on:

Recent Posts

  • Goal 31
  • Q2 Halfway point
  • The 12 Week Year – a first quarter review
  • Double Your Salary …Without losing your soul!
  • 40K

Recent Blog Posts

  • Goal 31

    Goal 31

    February 22, 2025
    I keep returning in my thoughts to Goal 31: To be and do all that God wants of me. Not every minute or every day, yet this phrase follows me around. I used to have a website: www.goal31.co.uk which I used for my contracting/consulting business. I made a poor decision to take it down and […]Read More »
  • Q2 Halfway point

    Q2 Halfway point

    May 12, 2021
    Back in December 2020/January 2021 I wondered if the contracting and job markets in the UK would continue to be dead through till the summer. It seemed possible that I might have to go six months without working and so to put a plan in place to make constructive use of the time seemed sensible. […]Read More »
  • The 12 Week Year – a first quarter review

    The 12 Week Year – a first quarter review

    April 21, 2021
    I recently finished my first 12 Week Year and wanted to review how it went to see if I could learn some lessons from the experience. If you’ve not read it, The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington proposes by working to a 12 week plan, you can get more done […]Read More »
  • Double Your Salary …Without losing your soul!

    Double Your Salary …Without losing your soul!

    June 25, 2019
    I’m excited to share that the hardback of my next book: Double Your Salary …Without losing your soul! will be released for sale on 1st August 2019. I believe that doubling your salary is possible when you understand who you are and what you are capable of. Sharing my story of how I doubled my […]Read More »
  • 40K

    40K

    June 15, 2019
    It might be that weekly posts are all I can manage until the first draft of Fallen Warriors Season Two is complete. I met my target of 10,000 words today and did manage to hit 2,000 words each day this week. That feels good. An accomplishment. I haven’t managed much else, publishing wise. I kept […]Read More »

Footer

My 100 Goals Blog

  • Goal 31

    Goal 31

    February 22, 2025
  • Q2 Halfway point

    Q2 Halfway point

    May 12, 2021
  • The 12 Week Year – a first quarter review

    The 12 Week Year – a first quarter review

    April 21, 2021
  • Double Your Salary …Without losing your soul!

    Double Your Salary …Without losing your soul!

    June 25, 2019
  • 40K

    40K

    June 15, 2019

Copyright © 2025 · Author Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in