Jenny Kane & Jennifer Ash

Jenny Kane: Coffee, cupcakes, chocolate and contemporary fiction / Jennifer Ash: Medieval crime with hints of Ellis Peters and Robin Hood

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Guest Post from Nell Peters: Birthday Sharing

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On July 31, 2016

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, crime, Fiction

Somehow we’ve reached the end of another month, so I’m handing over my site to the lovely Anne Polhill Walton- aka crime writer- Nell Peters. Once again Nell has provided a brilliant blog- although a certain Mr Connery may not think so…you’ll see what I mean!

I urge you my friends, to read right to the bottom of the blog today. Life is full of twists of fate, some kind, some not so kind…

Birthday cake

Thank you, Jenny – and hello again, everyone J

As I mentioned in my last post here, Jenny and I celebrate our birthdays in July – both on the 13th in fact. Unlucky for some – most especially me, as I was born on a Friday, according to my mother … which explains a lot. So, too late now for you to shower us with impressive gifts this year, but most definitely a red-letter date in your 2017 diary. We share our big day with Sir Patrick Stewart, who boldly went – although not being a fan of Star Trek, Captain Kirk was at the helm last time I saw the programme. Then there’s Ian Hislop of Private Eye, who has also on occasion boldly gone, but in his case into print, closely followed by a court appearance, defending a libel case. Harrison Ford joins the line-up too, he of Han Solo and Indiana Jones fame. I’ve never seen Star Wars – do I sense a theme here, as in I seem to avoid anything with ‘star’ in the title? I do quite like Starbucks however, but only for tea as I don’t drink coffee (just don’t tell coffee addict Jenny!)

With four sons, I was unable to avoid all the Indiana Jones films – did I really read recently they are making another? Seriously? Harrison Ford is well into his seventies and his on-screen father, Sean Connery, is more than ten years older than that! They’ll surely be cavorting around, wronging rights from their bath chairs? Probably pushed around by scantily-clad beauties, though, as Hollywood OAPs are somewhat more attractive than the common or garden variety – they perhaps don’t need their Winter Fuel Allowance either, in sunny California.

There is a Connery connection to Jenny – not Sean, but his nipper Jason (he of the long, flowing locks), who played the eponymous role in the last of the Robin of Sherwood TV series many years ago. Where does the Jenny link come in, I hear you ask – go on, please ask, or I’ll have to think of something else to prattle on about (imagine a sad, pleading face here – oh, and violins playing). Well, Jen has had a bit of a thing about Robin Hood since she was a wee gel – one of her books is even entitled Romancing Robin Hood (and a sequel is brewing) – you don’t get much more dedicated than that. After a gap of thirty years, surviving members of the original TV cast have reprised their roles in The Knights of the Apocalypse – an audio drama crowdfunded by fans. We could speculate that they went for an audio production because there simply wouldn’t be enough Polyfilla available for the cast to appear recognisably on screen, but that would be cruel. I have seen a pic of Jason C, however – gravity has taken effect with a vengeance and his only hair now is sprouting from his chin. Whatever … while our ardent groupie Madam Kane managed to blag a ticket and hobnob with the stars at the premier performance (I’ve seen those pics too!), for me the best thing is that the production company is called Spiteful Puppet – genius name!

I digress: our communal birthday was on a Wednesday this year, but both Jen and I had the main event the weekend before – in my case, a family invasion for a BBQ on the Sunday. #4 son arrived early with his family, acting quite strangely (not wholly unusual), and holding a large cardboard box. When I asked what was in said box, he said he’d brought a load of crisps along because it’s not something we ever buy (true) and guests might just fancy a scrunch or two. He then sat me down and told me to immediately open the gift he shoved under my nose – a large bag of Pavlova the chicken’s favourite bird seed was revealed. Card next; on the left hand side were the questions ‘Do you know who Svetlana Alexievich is?’ and ‘What is she famous for?’

I coaxed the long-dormant brain cell into life and gave him my answers, before being dragged outside (in my slippers! Tsk!) to inspect the crisp box … even I (Miss Hopelessly Naive 1802) was beginning to smell a rat by then. When the box was opened and tipped up gently on the grass, not a rat but a chicken emerged! A sister/playmate for Pavlova! Double trouble! And she had already been named Svetlana after the Nobel Lit Prize winner by #4 (maybe the school fees weren’t 100% wasted, after all?)

Bluebell

Svet is a magnificent Bluebell hen – her plumage has a definite blue hue in a certain light, and she was sixteen weeks old when she moved in. She is bigger than Pav with feet large enough to support a strapping 25 lb turkey, perhaps even a Pterodactyl. #4 lives more rurally than us and he chose Svet from a farm local to him, where numerous birds were housed in a large pen with a sandy floor. She was picked up on BBQ day and transported to her slightly more glamorous life – a third of an acre with grass underfoot – on the back seat, just as carefully strapped in as the GDs.

chickenPavlova was doing one of her nesting stints when Svetlana arrived and so they didn’t meet until the next morning, when Pav came to feed – she was a little put out, but feathers didn’t actually fly and since then, while not yet bosom (or chicken breast) buddies, peace has been declared and there is no battle of the beaks to rule the roost. They really couldn’t be more different in personality (yes, they do have personalities!) – while Pav is quite skittish and aloof, rather like a cat who tolerates our presence as long as we know our place and keep her well fed, Svet is really laid back and friendly and follows us around like an adoring puppy. She doesn’t even mind the Grands chasing her and also talks incessantly (which the old chick on the block has never done, apart from very loud crowing when she thinks it’s chow time) making sort of mewling noises, rather like a Moomin with feathers.

Finally, I have reached the conclusion that the OH has been around my warped sense of humour for way too long and has lost his immunity. When no one was looking, he retrieved one of those Nando’s chicken on a stick things (liberated from the restaurant years ago by one of the boys) and stuck it in the grass by the communal food receptacle. Really!

NandosToodles! NP

***

PS-

OK, that was my original post for Jenny, written a couple of weeks in advance.

I’m so very sad to report that both Pavlova and Svetlana have since been killed – most likely suspect a cat new to the neighbourhood, that I’ve spotted in the garden at all hours of the day and night.

I know this is a first world problem – that there is dreadful carnage and unimaginable human suffering globally, to which the loss of two spoiled chickens cannot possibly compare, but I do so miss them. For instance, there is no one to greet me when I take an early morning stroll in the garden – they’d spot me a mile off and speed toward me with their silly run-trot, Pavlova making the most unholy din. Of course, I realise they were after food and not my scintillating conversation, but they always made me smile. And Svetlana, being a cheeky young upstart, had taken to sitting on the back door mat if the door was open, a few yards away from me when I was using my lap top at the table – just hanging out.

Goodbye, and thank you, little feathered friends. XX

***

Many many thanks fro such a great blog Nell. I shall certainly miss hearing about your chicken friend’s adventures. Pavlova in particular had become a very definite character in her own right. Thank you for sharing so much of her mischief with us on this blog. Hugs. Jenny xxx

(I can’t begin to imagine what the very lovely Mr C junior is thinking if he is reading this right now!!)

***

Bio

Nell Peters writes psychological crime novels and is published by Accent Press. Her next protagonist is going to be a chicken.

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Hostile witness bus

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Release Blitz from Laura Wilkinson: The Family Line

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On July 23, 2016

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, Fiction

I’m delighted to bring you the blurb, and an exclusive extract, from the first novel to leave the well aimed pen of my lovely friend, Laura Wilkinson.

***

Set in a much-changed Britain in the mid-twenty-first century, The Family Line is the debut novel from acclaimed writer Laura Wilkinson, now revised and proudly reissued by Accent Press. An original exploration of identity, love and what it means to be a parent.

The Family Line

Blurb

Three women. One secret. A child with a deadly disease

Megan is a former foreign correspondent whose life is thrown into turmoil when her son is diagnosed with a terminal illness: a degenerative disease passed down the mother’s line. In order to save him, Megan will have to unearth the truth about her origins and about a catastrophic event from the past. She must confront the strained relationship she has with her mother, make sense of the family history that has been hidden from her all her life, and embark on a journey of self-discovery that stretches halfway around the world.

An exclusive extract:

Megan sat alone outside the office of an eminent doctor resident at the hospital. It was nine fifteen; her appointment had been scheduled for nine o’clock. She was grateful for the reprieve and didn’t understand why she didn’t want to go in.

She wore heeled sandals and a knee-length dress, cut from black cotton with bracelet sleeves and a slash neck. Her cheeks were dusted with a soft pink blush and her lips coated in a sheer gloss. She had looked elegant and quite lovely in her bedroom mirror but now she felt overdressed and wished she had worn her regulation black jeans. She had been keen to make a good impression, but she resented this desire to impress. What was she trying to prove? That she was a good mother? Surely only a vain, selfish woman would be concerned about appearance when discussing her child’s development? She wiped away the gloss with the back of her hand. She studied her pale shins, the blue veins visible beneath the surface in the harsh hospital light. A nurse told her the consultant was ready. Megan took a deep breath and stood.

He faced the window, his back to the door, and looked out onto a pleasant garden bordered with hydrangeas, hebe and St John’s Wort. The air was cool in the sparse, smart office though Megan felt perspiration gathering under her arms and across her brow with every click of her heels on the floor. The doctor commented on the fine weather, reminding her that each day comes but once, never to return, and as such should be treasured. Platitudes. She looked at the garden. It was beautiful but nothing compared to her boy.

When the doctor finally spun his chair to face her, Megan knew the news wasn’t good, and though her stomach churned she told herself it would not be anything insurmountable. After all, this wasn’t oncology or the ER. After asking her to take a seat, Mr Barnet, a phlegmatic, saturnine individual, informed her that Cerdic had a rare congenital condition, a hereditary disease, passed from mother to son, which would rob Cerdic’s body of its ability to function. ‘AMNA. It stands for Alekseyev Motor Neuron Atrophy, named after the Russian scientist who first discovered the defective gene. For reasons that have never been quite explained the condition appears to be more prevalent amongst the peoples of the East, the Slavs in particular,’ he said.

Megan’s mouth dried, her lips seemed to be welded together. She struggled to push the words out. ‘How serious is it?’

‘Very. I am sorry.’

‘What will it do to him?’ She could feel the thick white spit at the corners of her mouth. She went to wipe it away and realised that her hands were shaking.

‘It starts in the muscles as cells break down and are gradually lost. The muscles weaken over time. Your son has trouble jumping and climbing, yes?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘By five years old AMNA boys are unable to walk far, and by seven or eight most are in a wheelchair. Nerve cells in the brain weaken, eventually failing to send messages to muscles and other vital organs like the lungs. Sufferers lose control of their bodies and minds. The average life expectancy …’ Megan watched his mouth move without hearing more words. Sunlight illuminated his form and she felt angry with the sun for shining.

‘How long do we have?’

He curled his lips inward. ‘If he reaches sixteen, it will be a miracle, of sorts,’ he said, delivering the news as if it were quotidian, finishing with a standard, ‘Do you have any further questions?’

Megan experienced a sensation similar, she imagined, to being eviscerated. It was as if he had ripped out her intestines, thrown them to the floor and squashed them underfoot, before asking if there was anything he could do to help with the pain.

She remembered the night Cerdic was born. Sweltering and still. Even the sea was silent. She stayed up all night, her body throbbing, unable to take her eyes from him, afraid that if she blinked he would disappear as miraculously as he had arrived. She remembered how, when he was tiny and slept in a cot in her room, she would wake to the sound of silence and rush to his bedside, placing a palm in front of his mouth, checking he still breathed. Like all mothers in the black moments she imagined a hundred ways he might be taken from her but nothing like this. She never, ever, imagined this.

Reeling from the shock, and working hard to control her spiralling emotions and liquid gut, she said, ‘There must be something we can do.’

‘As you will appreciate much research was abandoned, or more accurately put on hold, after 2025. Cerdic’s condition is, mercifully, extremely rare, and as such it has not been high priority for many, many years. In the past decade research has restarted. But it is a slow process, Mrs Evens.’ He returned to his garden as he spoke, and Megan thought there was nothing merciful about this disease.

‘Has this research thrown anything up yet?’ she said, adding, ‘It’s Miss Evens.’

Mr Barnet commented on a blackbird that hopped on the lawn before replying with indistinct mumblings.

Megan’s patience evaporated though she believed the consultant’s rudeness was not deliberate. She pressed for a clear reply.

‘There are signs to indicate that matching stem cell and blood plasma transplants, from suitable donors, can slow the progression of the disease. It works best if the donors are relatives, close relatives. Scientists believe they can stop the disease in its tracks altogether if administered early enough with a perfectly matched donor though there is no conclusive proof as yet.’

‘It is worth a try, Mr Barnet.’

‘Worth a try.’ He nodded absentmindedly.

‘Then we try it.’ Megan’s tone was polite but firm – this was not a request.

‘There is no sibling?’

‘There’s me.’

The consultant spoke of the viability of samples from her, Cerdic’s father, compatibility. He explained that it was most unusual, unheard of, for the mother, the carrier, to match, to be a suitable donor. She knew he meant no malice or blame – why would he? – but it pained her nevertheless. He rambled on, explaining the minutiae of technical detail. She twisted the ring on her left hand. Her mind flooded with images of Hisham. She would have to contact him. She knew there would be no question of him not helping but she allowed herself the irrational hope that contacting Hisham might not be necessary, that she might be the one in a million, in a manner of speaking. She left Mr Barnet’s office brim full of fear and hope, clutching a referral and a name for her son’s killer.

To buy: http://amzn.to/2ahSStC

Praise for the first edition:

Wilkinson ably navigates the tender, sometimes fraught exchanges between her protagonists. Though its scope is ambitious, and could easily have veered off-course, deft interweaving of complex themes makes for a haunting début.’ For Books’ Sake.

‘This is a
 compelling story that raises important issues and will linger in the mind long after the last page has been turned.’ Joanna Caney, New Books Magazine.

‘This mind-blowingly original novel asks big questions about a woman’s right to choose when to have children…  Ultimately, it questions how far is too far… This is a book that will haunt your dreams.’Pam McIlroy, Books at Broadway.

‘ This is an interesting and emotional début, and is highly recommended.’ Michelle Moore, Book Club Forum.

 ‘… a fantastic debut novel which surpassed my expectations.  I totally agree with one Amazon reviewer; this has got BBC 3-part drama written all over it! Simply fabulous!’ Kirsty, Book Love Bug.

LW 2 No 1 - dark, smile

About Laura

After working an actress and journalist, now Laura writes novels and short stories. She is published by award-winning independent press, Accent. Her novel, Public Battles, Private Wars, was a Welsh Books Council Book of the month; Redemption Song, is an insightful look at learning to forgive and love again after significant loss. The Family Line is set in a near future Wales and looks at identity and parenting. ‘It will haunt your dreams’ Books at Broadway. Alongside writing, she works as an editor for literary consultancies, Cornerstones and The Writing Coach, and runs workshops on self-editing and the art of fiction. She’s spoken at festivals and events nationwide, including London Metropolitan University, GladLit, University of Kingston, The Women’s Library and Museum in Docklands. www.laura-wilkinson.co.uk   Twitter @ScorpioScribble Facebook: Laura Wilkinson Author

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Happy reading everyone,

Jenny xx

 

 

Release Blitz: Melody Bittersweet and the Girl’s Ghostbusting Agency by Kitty French

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On July 19, 2016

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, Fiction

MELODY BITTERSWEET AND THE GIRLS’ GHOSTBUSTING AGENCY by Kitty French

OUT NOW

UK: http://amzn.to/1TCU5Q7

US: http://amzn.to/1Z2CQpB

An absolutely hilarious, totally entertaining, spookily sexy read that you won’t be able to put down!

Melody-Bittersweet-and-The-Girls-Ghostbusting-Agency-


 Life’s tricky for Melody Bittersweet. She’s single, she’s addicted to sugar and super heroes, her family are officially bonkers and … she sees dead people. Is it any wonder no-one’s swiping right on Tinder?
Waking up lonely on her twenty-seventh birthday, Melody finally snaps. She can’t carry on basing all of her life decisions on the advice of her magic 8 ball; things havegot to change.

Fast forward two months, and she’s now the proud proprietor of her very own ghostbusting agency – kind of like in the movies but without the dodgy white jumpsuits. She’s also flirting with her ex Leo Dark, fraternising with her sexy enemy in alleyways, and she’s somehow ended up with a pug called Lestat.

Life just went from dull to dynamite and it’s showing no sign of slowing up anytime soon. Melody’s been hired to clear Scarborough House of its incumbent ghosts, there’s the small matter of a murder to solve, and then there are the two very handsome, totally inappropriate men hoping to distract her from the job…

Welcome to Chapelwick, home of the brand new and hilarious Girls Ghostbusting Agency series, where things really do go bump in the night.

***

Chapter One

‘So, what do you do with your spare time, Melody?’

I look my date square in his pretty brown eyes and lie to him. ‘Oh, you know. The usual.’ I shrug to convey how incredibly normal I am. ‘I read a lot . . . Go to the movies. That kind of thing.’

I watch Lenny digest my words, and breathe a sigh of relief when his eyes brighten.

‘Which genre?’

‘Movies or books?’ I ask, stalling for time because, in truth, I don’t get much in the way of spare time to do either.

‘Movies. Action or romance? No, let me guess.’ He narrows his eyes and studies me intently. ‘You look like a sucker for a rom-com.’

‘Do I?’ I’m genuinely surprised. I’m five foot three and look more like Wednesday Addams than a Disney princess. Maybe Wednesday Addams is over-egging it, but you get the idea; I’m brunette and my dress sense errs on the side of edgy. I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me and thought whimsy. Maybe Lenny sees something everyone else has missed, me included. I quite like that idea, mainly because everyone who knows my family has a head full of preconceptions about me, based on the fact that my family are all crackers.

‘Four Weddings?’ He shrugs hopefully.

I nod, not mentioning that the only part of that particular movie I enjoyed was the funeral.

‘The Holiday?’

Again, I try to look interested and hold my tongue, because I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear that I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than ever watch an over-optimistic Kate Winslet drag some old guy around a swimming pool again.

I’m relieved when the bill arrives and we can get out of there, because so far Lenny has turned out to be a pretty stellar guy and somehow I’ve managed to convince him that I walk on the right side of the tracks. Maybe this time, things will be different.

Lenny pulls his dull, salesman’s saloon into the cobbled cartway beside my building and kills the engine. I don’t mind dull. In fact, my life could really use a bit of dull right now, so I shoot him my most seductive smile, cross my fingers that my mother will be in bed, and invite him in for coffee.

Oh, just when it had all been going so well. Why couldn’t I have just given him a goodnight kiss, with maybe the smallest hint of tongue as a promise, then sent him on his way? He’d have called for a second date, I’m sure of it.

But no. I got greedy, pulled him by the hand through the dark back door, placing my finger against my lips to signal he should be quiet as we tip-toed past my mother’s apartment and up the old wooden staircase to my place.

He rests his hand on my waist as I turn the key, and a small thrill shoots down my back. Look at me, winning at this being-an-adult thing today! Dinner with an attractive man, sparkling conversation, and now back to mine for coffee . . . and maybe even a little fooling around. It’s not that I’m a virgin or anything, but it would be fair to call my love life patchy of late. By ‘of late’ I mean the last two years, ever since Leo Dark and I called things off. Well, by Leo and I, I mean Leo called things off, citing conflict of interests. Ha. Given that he was referring to the fact that my mad-as-a-bag-of-cats family are the only other psychics in town besides him, he was, at least in part, right.

But enough of Leo and my lamentable love life. Right now, all I want is for Lenny not to know anything at all about my peculiar family, to keep seeing me as a cool, regular, completely normal girl, and then to kiss me.

‘You remind me of Clara Oswald,’ Lenny whispers behind me at the top of the stairs. ‘All big brown eyes and clever one-liners. It’s very sexy.’

Lord, I think he’s just brushed a kiss against the back of my neck! My door sticks sometimes so I shoulder it open, aiming for firm and graceful but, I fear, ending up looking more like a burly police SWAT guy ramming it down. Thankfully, Lenny seems to take it in his stride and follows me into my apartment. Then I flick on the table lamp only to discover that my mother is standing on my coffee table in a too-short, too-sheer, baby-blue negligee with her arms raised towards the ceiling and her head thrown back.

‘Shit!’ Lenny swears down my ear, clearly startled. He isn’t to blame. My mother’s a striking woman, ballerina-tall and slender with silver hair that falls in waves well beyond her shoulder blades. It isn’t grey. It’s been pure silver since the day she was born, and right now she looks as if she’s just been freshly crucified on my coffee table.

I sigh as I drop my bag down by the lamp. So much for me being normal.

‘Err, mother?’

Slowly, she takes several heaving breaths and opens her eyes, changing from crazy lady to almost normal human lady. She stares at us.

‘For God’s sake, Melody,’ she grumbles, taking her hands from above her head and planting them on her hips. ‘I almost had the connection then. He’s hiding out in the loft, I’m sure of it.’

I risk a glance over my shoulder at Lenny, who sure isn’t kissing my neck anymore.

He lifts his eyebrows at me, a silent ‘what the hell?’ and then looks away when my mother beckons to him like a siren luring a fisherman onto the rocks.

‘Your hand, please, young man.’

‘No!’ I almost yell, but Lenny is already across the room with his hand out to help her down. My mother eyes me slyly as she steps from the table, keeping a firm hold of Lenny’s hand.

‘Long lifeline,’ she murmurs, tracing her red talon across Lenny’s palm.

‘Mother,’ I warn, but my somber, cautionary tone falls on her selectively deaf ears. I expected nothing else, because she’s pulled this trick before. Admittedly, the standing-on-the-table thing is a new twist, but she’s got form in scoping out my prospective boyfriends to make sure they’ll fit in with our screwball family from the outset. Not that her romantic gauge is something to put any stock in; Leo passed her tests with flying colours and look how that ended up. I got my heart broken and he got a spot on morning TV as the resident psychic. Where’s the justice in that?

Look, we may as well get the clanky old skeleton out of the family closet early on here, people. It’s going to come out sooner or later, and despite my attempts to pull the wool over Lenny’s eyes, there’s never any running away from this thing for long.

My name’s Melody Bittersweet, and I see dead people.

It’s not only me. I’m just the latest in a long line of Bittersweets to have the gift, or the curse, depending on how you look at it. My family has long since celebrated our weirdness; hence the well-established presence of our family business, Blithe Spirits, on Chapelwick High Street. We’ve likely been here longer than the actual chapel at the far end of the street. That’s probably why, by and large, we’re accepted by the residents of the town, in a ‘they’re a bunch of eccentrics, but they’re our bunch of eccentrics,’ kind of way. What began as a tiny, mullion-windowed, one-room shop has spread out along the entire row over the last two hundred years; we now own a run of three terraced properties haphazardly knocked into one, big, rambling place that is both business and home to not only me, but also to my mother, Silvana, and her mother, Dicey. Gran’s name isn’t actually Dicey, it’s Paradise, officially, but she’s gone by Dicey ever since she met my Grandpa Duke on her fifteenth birthday and he wrote Dicey and Duke inside a chalk heart on the back wall of the building. He may as well have written it on her own racing heart.

‘Silvana!’

Speak of the devil. Does no one go to bed around here?

I open my door to find Gran on the threshold with her hand raised, poised to knock. I guess I should be glad she’s slightly more respectably dressed, if a floor-length, purple shot-silk kimono, bearing huge technicolor dragons could be considered as such. Her usually pin-curled gold hair is piled elegantly on her head and she wears a slash of fire-engine-scarlet lipstick for good measure. Most people couldn’t carry the look off, but thanks to her poise, confidence and couldn’t-care-less attitude, Grandma Dicey wears it with artful success. She glides past me without invitation and gazes at my mother and Lenny, who are still hand-in-hand on the rug.

God.

First thing tomorrow morning, I swear, I’m going to look for a new place to live, somewhere, anywhere, that is not in the same building as my mother and my gran. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a charming old place and I love my family dearly. It’s not even as if I don’t have my own space here, because, theoretically at least, I do. Mum and Gran have the ground floor apartment behind Blithe Spirits, and I have the smaller flat upstairs, at the back. In lots of ways this makes me fortunate; I get to have a nice little home of my own and stay close to my family. It would all be fine and dandy, were it not for the fact that my family are officially bonkers and liable to come up and let themselves into my flat – using the spare key I gave them for dire emergencies only – and embarrass the shit out if me.

‘Why is Silvana entertaining a man half her age in your flat?’ Gran looks from me to my mother. ‘You should have said you were expecting company, darling. I’d have gone out.’ She touches her hand lightly against her hair. ‘Put a towel on the doorknob or something, isn’t that the modern way to signal these things? Don’t come a knockin’ if the caravan’s rockin’?’

She looks spectacularly pleased with herself, and one glance at Lenny tells me that he knows he’s way out of his depth with these two and is in the process of writing me off as the worst date he’s ever had. His eyes slide from me to the door, and I can almost hear him begging me to let him go unharmed.

‘He’s not mum’s date, he’s mine. Or else, he was,’ I mutter, and then I’m distracted as a beer-bellied pensioner in a soup-stained shirt slowly materialises through the ceiling, his flannel trousers not quite meeting his bony ankles. Stay with me; I see dead people, remember? As do my mother and my grandmother, who also watch him descend with matching expressions of distaste.

‘Finally,’ my mother spits, dropping Lenny’s hand so she can round on the new arrival. ‘Two hours I’ve been chasing you around this bloody building. Your wife wants to know what you’ve done with the housekeeping she’d hidden in the green teapot. She says you better not have lost it on the horses or she’s had it with you.’

Grandma Dicey rolls her eyes. ‘I rather think she’s had it with him anyway. He’s been dead for six weeks.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk, given that you still sleep with your husband twenty years after he died.’ Mother flicks her silver hair sharply. Touché.

Lenny whimpers and bolts for my front door, turning back to me just long enough to splutter ‘something’s come up, gotta go,’ before he hoofs it out and down the stairs two at a time.

I listen to the outside door bang on its hinges and wonder what came up. Probably his dinner.

Guest Post from Jackie Buxton: Glass Houses

By

On July 15, 2016

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, crime, Fiction

I’m delighted to welcome Jackie Buxton to my blog today. Jackie is currently celebrating the launch of her brand new novel, Glass Houses, and is sharing some of the background- and a juicy extract- with us today.

Over to you Jackie…

BLURB

‘When she sent that text, all our lives changed for ever…’ 51 year old Tori Williams’ life implodes when she sends a text while driving on the M62 motorway and allegedly causes the horrific crash in which three people die. Public and press are baying for her blood, but Tori is no wallflower and refuses to buckle under their pressure or be a pariah in society. Instead, she sets about saving the nation. But can she save Etta, the woman who saved her life? Or will Etta’s secret be her downfall? This incredibly topical and contemporary morality tale appeals across generations and will find favour with fans of authors such as Liane Moriarty, Marian Keyes and Kathryn Croft.

Glass Houses COVER

BLOG POST

Many years ago, the picture of a car crash, with a woman slumped over the steering wheel, and a stranger holding her hand until the emergency services arrived, pressed itself into my brain so forcefully that I was worried I was having a premonition about a real life incident. I wasn’t, thankfully. Instead, it seemed the gods of book writing had sent me the idea for my novel: one with a guilty protagonist, who could be any one of us. As I started to plot Tori’s character, a driver who texts from the wheel and becomes Public Enemy Number One, I realised that two separate news items were really behind the car crash image.

The first was the face of Gary Hart, the driver of the Land Rover involved in the Selby rail crash in 2001. He’d had little sleep the night before, chosen to drive the next day, and fallen asleep at the wheel with the most tragic of consequences. It was a horrendous scene. 10 people died, 82 were seriously injured and Gary Hart survived.

He was public enemy number one.

But when I saw his face in the media, I kept thinking that his wasn’t the face of a killer, it was the face of someone who’d done something stupid, selfish perhaps, but not intentional. His life would also be changed forever. Maybe he didn’t need us to chastise him any more than he would chastise himself. It was easy to criticise him – he doesn’t come across well in front of the camera – and people did. But I couldn’t help thinking that I’d driven tired before. I’d been lucky. There was no perfect storm for me, I managed to get off the motorway before something catastrophic happened and we all lived to see another day. I wondered if Gary Hart was any more guilty than I was, just because the consequences of his actions were so very different.

The second news item was the film of the charismatic mother of a boy who’d been killed in the 7/7 London bombing in 2005. She stood on a box in a crowd and everybody listened. She wasn’t talking vengeance, hatred and justice, she was talking about forgiveness. I was struck by how much more powerful and effective this type of reaction was, than the undoubtedly human and more usual reaction of anger and revenge.

This shot me back to a childhood thought which has appeared and re-appeared all though my life. It’s the paradox of the human condition. How often do we hear people say, Oh, we all make mistakes,’ and, ‘Nobody’s perfect, we all have our foibles,’ and yet we see families feuding, colleagues resigning and neighbours not speaking because they are not able to forgive someone who didn’t behave ‘perfectly’. Sometimes this anger lasts a lifetime and beyond. As a child, and a rather idealistic adult, I couldn’t help feeling that the world would be a better place if we didn’t get quite so cross or, perhaps more importantly, we endeavoured to become ‘uncross’ as quickly as possible.

By the way, I’m not pretending I’m perfect. That’s the point, really.

I wanted to explore forgiveness, guilt and atonement and the image of the woman slumped over the wheel, with a stranger willing her to stay alive, gave me Tori and Etta and the framework to get started. I chose a text sent from the motorway to be Tori’s crime. I wanted it to be something that was a conscious act that most of us would find abhorrent, and yet if we looked closer, we might find we’d done similar ourselves. I wanted to play with this phenomenon that people can be guilty because it happened and not guilty because it didn’t. My dream for Glass Houses is that as well as being entertained by Tori and Etta’s stories, not to mention Tori’s antics as she clumsily tries to re-build her life and Etta’s ability to self-destruct, readers will be interested in this conundrum, too.

***

Extract: the beginning of the first chapter

THERE WAS BLOOD on the steering wheel. Etta stared at her fingers as they gripped the rim. She uncurled them, flexed them in and out, then turned over her hands to examine the grooves in her skin. She smiled – a surface wound. Just a surface wound. Her half-chewed nails had plunged into her palms.

She patted her face, her arms, her legs: everything was in place. Her neck was stiff but it moved. Her feet ached so she lifted one and carefully replaced it, then lifted the other. Nothing broken. She undid her seatbelt, leaned back against her seat and forced out a long, whistling sigh.

“Thank you,” she whispered, looking up as if to acknowledge the powers-that-be who’d looked after her.

She wrinkled her nose. Her eyes darted to the foot well where she saw her flask smashed into too many pieces to count, drowned in a puddle of milky coffee. She reached for her phone where it had fallen, narrowly missing the liquid, but she froze before she could lift it to her ear. Her engine had cut and the radio silenced but it was more than that. She placed the phone on her lap. The silence was too loud.

In the rear-view mirror she saw stationary vehicles. She held her breath, cast her eyes to the side, to the stream of cars travelling as if in slow motion in the other direction. Tentatively she turned back to the front. The smashed side window of the Jeep was only a few paces ahead of her.

Not again.

“M62, yes, eastbound.” She picked her way quickly over the mess of twisted metal and fragments of glass, covering her mouth against the stench of burning rubber. “Junction? I don’t—”

She dropped her phone, stared at the door to the Jeep which had come away in her hand. It was heavy. She let it fall and covered her ears as it smashed against the ground. She bent down to look inside the Jeep. Her body crumpled and she sank to her knees.

***

Bio

Jackie Buxton is a writer, editor and teacher of creative writing, living in Yorkshire with her husband and two teenage daughters. Jackie used her recent experience of an aggressive form of breast cancer to inform and dispel some myths about a cancer diagnosis via her popular blog: Agenthood and Submissionville. Her posts became the frame-work of self-help memoire, Tea & Chemo (Urbane Publications, November 2015) which receives heart-warming feedback, and has a five star rating from over 75 reviews. Jackie’s award-winning short stories can be found in three anthologies, as well as appearing regularly in Chase Magazine. When not writing or reading, over-seeing house and teens, Jackie can be found running, cycling or tripping up though the beautiful Yorkshire countryside.

Tea & Chemo cover

***

Links

Website:          www.jackiebuxton.com

Blog:                http://jackiebuxton.blogspot.co.uk

Glass Houses:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Glass-Houses-Jackie-Buxton/dp/1910692840/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Tea & Chemo: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tea-Chemo-Fighting-Cancer-Living/dp/1910692395/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51VarAHlbnL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=40W7ZSYWXQPDFB32377Z

***

Many thanks for dropping by today Jackie. Good luck with your new novel.

Happy reading,

Jenny x

Guest Post from Jane Jackson: The Master’s Wife

By

On July 11, 2016

In Fiction, Historical fiction

I’m delighted to welcome one of my fellow Accent authors to the blog today. Jane Jackson is a truly excellent writer, and an all round lovely person. She is here today to share some of the background to her novel, ‘The Master’s Wife.’

Over to you Jane…

When Caseley and Jago Barata’s two young sons die in an epidemic while he’s away at sea, her grief and his guilt create an unbridgeable chasm between them.

Believing he failed his wife when she needed him most, Jago cannot turn to her for comfort. Seeking escape from his guilt he takes up with his former mistress, devastating Caseley when she finds out.

Aware of Jago’s undercover work in Spain, and deeply anxious that increasing unrest in Egypt could lead to war, the British Treasury asks him to carry £20,000 in gold to Egypt to bribe the largest Bedouin tribe to fight on Britain’s side.

What had caused the unrest?   Ambitious to make Egypt more like Europe, Khedive Said then his heir and nephew Ismail had raised money for their expansive but poorly-planned schemes through crushing taxation.  When that wasn’t enough, they took out huge loans at high interest rates from British and European banks.

By 1876 Egypt faced bankruptcy.  Anxious to protect its 44% share in the Suez Canal, Britain demanded – and was granted- joint financial management of Egypt with France. Ismail was deposed in favour of his son Prince Tewfiq, and left for exile in Naples on a train loaded with gold, objets d’art, jewels and furniture.

The poorest Egyptians saw little improvement in their lot. They toiled for overseers employed by large landowners and too often had to choose between buying seed for their own small plots, or a length of cloth to replace the rags that were all they had to wear.

Wilfully blind to their own part in fuelling the upsurge of anger, the ruling elite refused to believe that the fellahin would ever rebel. But the Egyptian poor, who did not want their country ruled by Turks or by Europeans, had found a charismatic leader in Egyptian-born Col. Ahmed Arabi.  (There is a saying that those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it, and I see painful similarities between these events and our current situation)

Jago’s mission to Egypt would take him away from home for at least three months. Desperate to escape a house filled with memories, Caseley pleads to go with him. He is reluctant, concerned for her safety. But she demolishes his argument by pointing out that for her the worst has already happened so what has she to fear?  Besides, the official language in Alexandria is French which she speaks and he doesn’t. if only for this he needs her.

The Master's Wife

Because I’m a plotter, I had mapped out the story’s route. But Caseley and Jago are strong people and once the journey began they took over, reacting in ways I hadn’t planned or expected. This led to unforeseen consequences. It was as much an adventure for me as it was for them. I lived the events with them. I laughed, wept and had my heart in my mouth more than once. Would Jago fulfil his mission?  Could he and Caseley find a way back to each other?

***

Excerpt:

Gesturing towards an alcove screened from the cabin by the folds of a thick dark curtain, he moved to the open doorway. ‘You know your way around. I want to get underway.’

‘Yes, of course.’

They were husband and wife and as wary as strangers. He disappeared and she heard his boots clang on the chased brass treads of the companionway. Alone now she pressed a gloved hand to her dry throat as her heart thudded. Not too late…With all her heart she hoped so.

Everything was as she remembered: the table designed to fit the narrowing stern and edged with a wooden lip to prevent things sliding off. The shelf above filled with books and sea junk secured by a beautifully turned fiddle rail. The shallow brass lamp suspended beneath the open skylight.

Her gaze moved from the clock and barometer to the squat stove standing on its protective metal plate in front of the forward bulkhead and bracketed by a full coal-bucket and basket of logs.

Through the open skylight came the sounds of a ship making ready for sea: the rattle of blocks, snapping canvas, and the crew’s banter. Six years had passed since her last trip and it was exactly as she remembered.

She crossed to the sleeping alcove. Pushing back the curtain she saw the nightstand. Beneath a hinged lid was an enamel basin. A cupboard underneath held a chamber pot. Light fell across the bed and her breath caught in her throat.

Immediately after proposing to her, Jago had instructed Hammer to widen the narrow berth so it would comfortably accommodate them both.  She had made a mattress to fit and bought new blankets.  In that small private space they had discovered each other, shared their pasts and talked of their plans for the future. Their elder son had been conceived there. She had slept in Jago’s arms, safe, loved, until her advancing pregnancy had made it uncomfortable and unwise.

The berth had been reduced to its original size. Rejection stung like a slap. She lifted the blankets and saw the mattress had been made smaller. Their time together, her presence here, her part in his seafaring life, he had erased it all. She had believed herself numb to further pain. She wasn’t.

***

You can buy The Master’s Wife from all good retailers, including- :  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Masters-Wife-Captains-Honour-Book-ebook/dp/B01DPSLP5C

***

JanepinkRS

Bio

I have lived in the same Cornish village nearly all my life.

My first book, a romantic thriller, was published in 1982. After four medical and ten contemporary romances for Harlequin as Dana James published worldwide I began writing longer historical romances. Of the fourteen published as Jane Jackson some remained Cornwall-based, others – set in the C18th and C19th – ventured to foreign shores while maintaining strong Cornish links. After joining the RNA in the early 1990s I reached the shortlist for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award with Eye of the Wind in 2002, and was shortlisted for the Historical Prize in 2010 with Heart of Stone, and in 2016 for The Consul’s Daughter.  Crosscurrents published in 2016 was shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize. The fourth in my ‘Polvellan Cornish Mysteries’ series, Secrets and Lies written as Rachel Ennis was published in April.

Teaching the Craft of Novel Writing for over twenty years from Ad. Ed. to MA level has been both a pleasure and a privilege. Ten of my former students are now multi-published novelists.

www.janejackson.net

www.facebook.com/JaneJacksonAuthor

www.facebook.com/PolvellanCornishMysteries

***

Many thanks Jane, wonderful blog.

Happy reading,

Jenny x

Guest Post from Nell Peters: About 100 Years Ago…

By

On June 30, 2016

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, crime, Fiction

I’m delighted to welcome back Nell Peters for her second ‘end of month’ guest blog of the year! This is a  cracking (and I don’t just mean Pavlova’s eggs) blog post…

Over to you Nell…

Hi Jenny!

I’m afraid that Pavlova the chicken is on the naughty perch at the moment and can’t come out to play. All the attention and fan mail she received after last month’s blog post went straight to her comb and she’s behaving disgracefully. A real poultry diva, in fact. She’s been horribly mean to birds that she deems inferior, has been strutting her stuff like she owns the place and making such a noise, Tim Peake can probably hear her up in his space station. But worst of all, she’s taken to leaving very large deposits right outside the back door. Eeew! That’s it – I’m withdrawing the oxygen of publicity that she craves even more than her dried meal worms, and whether this is a permanent or temporary measure depends entirely upon her behaviour in the immediate future. She can put that in her beak and smoke it. Pavlova is in the hen house.

chicken

Now where was I?

Oh yes, I took a short break recently to meet up with an old friend. About a hundred years ago, I used to share a flat in Kew Gardens with someone I will refer to only as M, to protect the guilty. In case you were wondering, Kew Gardens is a place (now referred to as a village by those fortunate enough to be able to afford the zillion pound price tags of property there) in West London and not just the hallowed centre of horticultural excellence – ergo, we didn’t actually live in a potting shed. There was another girl too – Valerie, but M and I knew each other from ghastly temp jobs we had with British Gas and Valerie was a bit of an also-ran. I wonder whatever happened to her – she was something of a miserable cow (turned her nose up at the rot-gut sherry we used to drink by the bottle, I can’t imagine why) and totally lacked any sense of humour as I recall. Some sort of local government worker, I think, which could explain the comedic bypass.

On Friday evenings M and I used to frequent the local wine bar, run by a rather brassy dame in her forties (she seemed ancient to us then!) who had very amusing affectations, airs and graces, until she’d had one too many glasses – which she did frequently – then all hell let loose and dancing on the tables ensued. Not a pretty sight, as she was a rather large lady, who either didn’t believe in or chose not to invest in controlling underwear. Brassy wasn’t the only entertainment to be had chez Garfield’s – a guy used to sing and play acoustic guitar (both badly), expecting punters to buy him copious amounts of alcohol to keep his tonsils irrigated. It was actually worth buying him a glass or two for the bliss of silence during the (all too short) time it took him to neck the booze.

Kew is within a long stone’s throw of Richmond upon Thames, just two stops on the Tube – where we could have had a much wider choice of great venues to sup the vino, most with some form of decent live music, but there’s a lot to be said for being a short walk from home when the time comes to stagger out the door of a hostelry, especially in Winter. Besides, I always suspected that M used to fancy the singer and that terribly attractive aggressive snarl he shared, if nobody applauded his questionable vocal efforts.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens

I was at the flat for only a short time before I got a proper job and moved in not a million miles away with the OH. Valerie and M let my vacant room to a rather dishy Australian guy – and were both bitterly disappointed when they found out he was gay. Unfortunately, he repaid their hospitality by hightailing it back to Oz less than three months later – perhaps he suddenly remembered where he’d left his didgeridoo.

M’s life and mine took very different directions; over the years, I produced a few sprogs and we moved the family to a falling-down house in Norfolk. M visited as frequently as she could and, child duties permitting, I went to see her for some very welcome R&R. Wine was drunk. In abundance. She neither married nor had children – perhaps being the oldest of six had put her off – and eventually moved back to Scotland, from whence she hailed. The visits in both directions became less frequent because of the sheer distance involved and the responsibilities that life throws at us – it didn’t help that the OH would spend long periods working overseas, leaving me in sole charge of four smelly boys.

But children grow more independent with age and gradually they were no longer tied to my apron strings, so a new period evolved in the social lives of M and me. For several years, we have been meeting up intermittently in a variety of UK locations (let’s hear it for bargain air fares and cheap deals on train fares!) – for instance, Edinburgh, Dublin and Newcastle, the latter where we took in the most excruciating ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ art exhibition (for want of a better description!) at the Baltic Centre. Well I say ‘took in’, but M stomped off in her size eight Doc Martens after about ten seconds – mumbling obscenities – to stick needles in her eyes. But was it art? Actually, no. A bit of a turkey is the kindest description I can manage – but I suppose you have to admire the exhibitor’s nerve. Plus, it was a few years ago now and I can still recall its sheer ghastliness in some detail (I didn’t have M’s nerve to exit, stage left, in a flurry of outrage at the flagrant waste of tax payers’ moolah, and persevered) so it did make an impression of sorts.

We met again most recently in Cambridge – I am now granny to six and M has a huge number of nephews, plus just one niece, so two old ladies sitting in deckchairs, to paraphrase Morecambe and Wise. J She took (very!) early retirement and is travelling a lot, so I was lucky she could fit me in! In all likelihood we will never again Run the World with Bob Geldof (though I’m not sure that he actually ran the first time!), or go on severely bracing hikes here, there and everywhere – or indeed puff, pant and wheeze our way to the top of Arthur’s Seat. That always sounds faintly rude, somehow. I did draw the line, though, at accompanying M to a Wham concert – she bought herself the most awful bright blue synthetic cap thing with ‘George’ plastered all over it, and actually wore it there and back on public transport!

Our main exercise now when we are face to face is talking, catching up generally – and, of course, drinking wine, though not so much as we used to as we’re older and so much wiser. Yeah right!

Just to prove what a wino I am (it was M’s fault – she led me astray), even my two crime novels published by Accent Press are drawn to the bottle.

Nell Peters books

Hostile Witness can be found at mybook.to/hostilewitness and

By Any Other Name is at mybook.to/BAON

See you next month for some more drivel? By the end of July, both Jenny and I will have celebrated our birthdays – actually on the same day, although I suspect she’s decades older than me … J NP

***

Another wonderful blog!! Many thanks Nell!

I shall be raising my coffee up to you on 13th July.

Happy reading,

Jenny x

 

 

Summer Reads, Blog Tour News, & a Book Launch: Another Glass of Champagne

By

On June 26, 2016

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, Contemporary Romantic Fiction, Fiction

It is with great pleasure that I can announce, not only that Another Glass of Champagne has been selected to be part of the Accent Press Summer Read, but that my blog tour is about to begin, and my book launch is only a few days away!

Summer reads

Over the next four days I will be visiting four fellow authors, chatting about Another Glass of Champagne, sharing a few of the secrets behind the story, and giving you a peep at the story itself via some tasty extracts.

jenny kane blog tour

Do drop by the following blog pages each day from 9am and say hello. A massive thank you to my fellow authors for hosting me.

The following links will work from the dates shown.

27th June- Marie Laval – http://marielaval.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/who-could-resist-another-glass-of.html

28th June- Laura Wilkinson – https://lauracwilkinson.wordpress.com/blog/

29th June – Georgina Troy – http://georginatroy.blogspot.com/

30th June- Helena Fairfax – https://helenafairfax.com/

***

On top of all that- on 1st July I am holding my- rather late in the day- book launch for Another Glass of Champagne! This event will be held at my local Costa- where I wrote the novel- and will involve a book quiz for the whole family- with some great prizes! Part of the Tiverton Literary Festival’s occasional events,  and supported by both Accent Press and Costa Coffee, this will be a relaxed, fun, free to enter event, with coffee and cake! If you are anywhere near Tiverton in Devon, I’d love to see you there.

another glass poster costacoffee

***

To add the cherry to my cup cake- the first 2 reviews for Another Glass of Champagne are in- and they are both 5 Stars!

“…Going to miss this bunch, a lot…”

“…It’s nice to have the whole gang back together for the series finale, along with a couple of new faces to join in with – and add to – the drama along the way! Jenny Kane has tied up some loose ends perfectly, whilst at the same time creating enough new openings to wish that this wasn’t the last we will see of Jack, Amy, Kit et al…I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was sad to get to the end.”

***

Happy reading everyone- don’t forget to come and say hello to me while I’m blog touring!

Jenny x

Interview with Sue Fortin: The Girl Who Lied

By

On May 19, 2016

In Contemporary fiction, Contemporary Romantic Fiction, Fiction, Interview

It’s interview time! Today it’s the lovely Sue Fortin in the hot seat. So why not pull up a chair and join us for a cuppa and a chat?

coffee and cake

What inspired you to write your book?

I’ve always been interested in anything with a mystery and a touch of romance. This particular story started off as a contemporary romance when I was undertaking a creative writing course with the London School of Journalism. Margaret James was my tutor and I clearly remember her saying, it’s all very nice but not much has happened. Not knowing how to fix it, I put it to one side and over the next four years revisited to see if I could make something happen. I’m not sure what clicked, but last year, something did and I knew what to do. It involved an enormous rewrite, but I definitely made something happen!

Do you model any of your characters after people you know? If so, do these people see themselves in your characters?

Not especially, the characters are usually a blend of people I know and my imagined acquaintances.

Which Point of View do you prefer to write in and why?

Up until this book I have written all my novels in the third person. This time, however, I have used the first person present. It just felt right for this particular character and as I experimented, the words seemed to flow very easily. I felt as if I really got to know my main character by writing this way.

TGWL final cover

Do you prefer to plot your story or just go with the flow?

I’m a plotter. My novels are very much plot driven as I try to put in lots of twists and turns. I have to know where the story is going otherwise I would end up writing myself into a complete muddle. I have tried to write without plotting but it’s rather scary!

What is your writing regime?

On an ideal day, I’d like to be at my desk by 9.30, having done the school run and had a swift tidy up at home – all the exciting things like loading the dishwasher and washing machine. My aim is to have a quick blast on social media. If I’m in the middle of writing, this really does have to be a quick blast, when I’m not under a deadline pressure, it’s a more leisurely activity. I try to spend most of the day writing, up until about 2.30pm when I have to get ready for school pick up, cook the tea, help with homework etc. It doesn’t always work that smoothly but I do try to stick to it.

Thanks so much for letting appear on your blog today, Jenny, it’s been great answering your questions.

 ***

Links

www.suefortin.com

Facebook Sue Fortin Author

Twitter www.twitter.com/suefortin1

Buy link

Amazon.co.uk

Sue Fortin author pic

Bio

Published by Harper Collins’ imprint Harper Impulse, Sue Fortin writes romance, mystery and suspense.

Sue’s second novel, Closing In, became a best seller in 2014 reaching number one in the Kobo Romantic Suspense chart. Her originally self-published debut novel, United States of Love, was awarded the INDIE Brag Medallion and later when published by HarperImpulse was short-listed for the Joan Hessayon Award (2014). Sue was also short-listed for the Festival of Romance, New Talent Award (2013). Sue blogs regularly with the on-line writing group The Romaniacs.

Lover of cake, Dragonflies and France. Hater of calories, maths and snakes. Sue was born in Hertfordshire but had a nomadic childhood, moving often with her family, before eventually settling in West Sussex.

Sue is married with four children, all of whom patiently give her time to write but, when not behind the keyboard, she likes to spend her time with them, enjoying both the coast and the South Downs, between which they are nestled.

**

Many thanks for popping over to chat today Sue. Good luck with your ne novel.

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny x

 

 

My First Time: Patrick Whitehurst

By

On April 27, 2016

In Blog, crime, Fiction, Interview

Today I am joined by a good friend from the other side of ‘The Pond’. Patrick Whitehurst is a multi-talented, multi-genre author. He first came to my attention with his erotic writing, but is now best known for his fabulous ‘Barker Mystery’ crime fiction. So, how did it all begin?

Over to you Patrick…

First Time

Can you remember writing the first story you actually wanted to write, rather than those you were forced to write at school? What was it about?

The first story I wrote that I actually wanted to write was a short story about a man in a cabin who fought off a werewolf attack. The story was likely influenced by my love for Stephen King. I was 16 at the time.

PW-1

What was your first official publication?

My first published story was a non-fiction humour piece about Valentine’s Day that appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun, a daily newspaper out of Flagstaff, Arizona.

What affect did that have on your life?

From that point on, my short non-fiction and even art began to appear more and more in northern Arizona publications, which led to college and a degree in journalism.

Does your first published story  reflect your current writing style?

Not at all! Back then I tried to sounds smarter and write with my humour than I do these days. For me, the simpler the style the better and the more accidental the humour the better.

Mantula Cover-2

What are you working on at the moment?

I am currently editing “Mantula,” the story of a man born into the body of a tarantula. He teams up with a quail, himself a former meth addict, to find a cure for their affliction. With Catholic saints, curses, an evil centipede, and more; it’s the weirdest novella I’ve ever produced. Portions of the story are told in the form of faux news stories, memes and comic books. Mantula should be available on Amazon in March.

Patrick-trinip

BIO:
Patrick Whitehurst is a fiction and non-fiction author who’s written for a number of northern Arizona newspapers over the years, covering everything from murders to Rotary luncheons. In his spare time he enjoys painting, blogging, the open water, and reading everything he can get his hands on. Whitehurst is a graduate of Northern Arizona University and currently lives along the central coast of California.
Monterey Noir-1
Amazon Patrick Whitehurst page link:
Author website:
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Many thanks Patrick.
Happy reading,
Jenny x

Guest Post from Christina Philippou: Stereotypes in fiction

By

On April 19, 2016

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, Fiction

I’m delighted to have another new face to my blog today- please welcome Christina Philippou. This is a fascinating blog…so pop the kettle on, grab a cuppa, and have a read.

Over to you Christina…

Coffee blog- Full Bean Cafe Somerton- Hot Choc

It’s a trap we’ve all fallen into at one point or another: assuming someone – or something – is who or what we think just because, well, we think so. And stereotyping is just that – making assumptions on first impressions.

But, despite stereotyping’s bad press, it doesn’t necessarily have to be ill-meant. Very often, stereotypes come from subconscious prejudices that we didn’t even know existed. Someone refers to a model and a footballer and we all assume they are talking about a woman and a man in that order. But there are male models and female footballers and, just as in life, these sometimes find their way into fiction.

Morbid, I know, but my favourite part of The Lord of The Rings is Eowyn’s killing of the leader of the ringwraiths. Morbid because – spoiler alert for those that have only watched the film – she dies, but also wonderful because she shows an unexpected side to what in many other fairy-tales or fantasy stories would be, effectively, a stereotypical princess that rides off into the sunset with her lover (which she actually does in the film).

Then there’s Pride and Prejudice, where Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy would probably have ended up together far sooner had it not been for both of them stereotyping the other – her stereotyping him as a pompous, arrogant rich man, and him stereotyping her as a gold-digger.

In my debut novel, Lost in Static, I actively tried to create anti-stereotypes to bring some ‘reality’ into my fiction. In that vein, one of my protagonists is a woman who loves (to both watch and play) football, one is a member of a hockey team that doesn’t actually love sport, and one is a male who is not as obsessed with sport as some of his female friends (OK, and the final one is a yoga-loving, fashion-conscious woman, but I had to have one stereotype in there, right?)

9781910692707

Stereotypes have their ‘cosy factor’. Who wants to read a romance where the hero is fat, balding and has copious amount of hair on his back (unless you’re reading a paranormal romance, in which I suppose the latter is reasonable)? Readers want a certain amount of familiarity, but if the Gone Girl phenomenon has taught us anything, it’s that you don’t have to love a protagonist to keep reading the book.

And that’s the other thing about stereotypes – they very rarely produce flawed characters. They are always black and white; the perfect villain with his cantankerous laugh and white cat, or the hero with his caring personality and chiselled abs. Having said that, I do have some chiselled abs in Lost in Static, but they certainly don’t belong to a flawless hero, if he can be considered a hero at all.

But, love them or hate them, stereotypes in fiction will always be around. Or am I guilty of stereotyping literature?

CPhilippou (2)

Author Bio

Christina Philippou’s writing career has been a varied one, from populating the short-story notebook that lived under her desk at school to penning reports on corruption and terrorist finance. When not reading or writing, she can be found engaging in sport or undertaking some form of nature appreciation. Christina has three passports to go with her three children, but is not a spy. Lost in Static is her first novel, due to be published on 15 September 2016 by Urbane Publications. Christina is also the founder of Britfic.

You can connect with Christina via her blog, Twitter and Facebook.

Lost in Static is due to be published on 15 September 2016 and is available to pre-order from the publisher website, Amazon UK and Amazon US.

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Many thanks for such an interesting blog. Good luck with all your writing adventures.

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny x

 

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