Blue Monday by Simon B N Thompson is a fictitious account of a boy growing up in fast-changing 1970s Coventry. It is humorous and thought-provoking, taking a route via loves and losses and family caravanning. Battling constantly with a pressurizing father, loving mother and older brother who struggles to lead the way. He shows the city through his eyes, meeting his first girlfriend and making the best of caravanning. A troublesome parental marriage is underlying with constant academic pressure by his father. The boy’s escapism into science-fiction- a ‘story within a story’ - uniquely parallels his reality with fantasy and allows him to grasp hope and ambition. Blue Monday defines childhood with a powerful adult perspective. A must for soulful yet playful minds of community narratives.

Simon B N Thompson was born and educated in Coventry. He attended Bablake School, one of the oldest schools in the UK, which has since been notorious for its featuring in the film Nativity. Simon studied at the Faculty of Medicine, Edinburgh University and gained three doctorates within clinical neuropsychology. Awarded the Sir Isaac Newton/Darwin College Double Scholarship to read criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge , he gained a first-class degree. He has held positions as Professor in the UK and France and has written extensively for health and medical journals. He has appeared on BBC Radio and in film commercials, and as an actor in Stiletto and in the feature film High Water. Blue Monday is his first novel.