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

Tag: headline books

Seasoning

Regular readers of contemporary fictions/ romcoms/romances can’t have failed to notice that there are a great many  novels out there with a season of the year named in the title.

My recent #contemporayfiction novel, Summer at Sea Glass Cove, forms part of this trend. Obviously set in the summer months, this novel will – hopefully – let you feel the sun on your skin.

Meanwhile, #thepottingshed series is set in and around a garden centre, it made sense to make the novels seasonal, to fit in with the gardening year. Book one, Frost Falls at The Potting Shed, is based in winter, book two, Bluebell Season at The Potting Shed takes place in the spring. For book three, Misty Mornings at The Potting Shed, I skipped summer in this instance – when most plants are happily growing away – and have taken Maddie and her team into autumn, when it’s time to tend the polytunnels and to ensure the ongoing success of the growing business. 

My previous #series of novels, #MillGrange, also has seasonally inspired titles. In this case however, the summer, autumn, spring and winter connections were less deliberate.

 

The first novel, Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange, was so called as the lead character, Thea Thomas, was dreaming of a new start to her life during the months of Midsummer – so far, so obvious.  It’s sequel, Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange, was so titled because it was decided (by my publisher’s marketing team) that the reference to the season in book one had worked so well, they wanted to keep the time of year concept running. So the die was cast, and the following novels continued the seasonal theme – hence Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange and Winter Fires at Mill Grange.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I wanted so many of my novels to have the linking theme of seasons. However, there is no arguing with the popularity of the stories which state, upfront, when in the year they are set.  We like books with a declared summer background in the summer months – and in the winter months, when we need mentally ‘warming up’, a great many of us reach of a summer or spring read. In the winter time we like a festive read – and oddly – in July there is often a wave of winter themed sales as folk use fiction to escape from the heat, and dream of winter jumpers and roaring fires.

Fiction gives us the chance to have the seasons we expect to have – cold in the winter, sun in the summer, new growth in the spring, life crunching in the autumn… At a time when out weather is all over the place and the fears of climate change are fast becoming a reality, we seek the reassurance of what we know – or want to know – within our fiction.

Happy seasonal reading,

Jenny x

A Coffee Shop Habit

Okay- I admit it, I have a serious coffee shop habit! I am addicted- not just to the coffee itself- but to the cafes themselves. I just love them- all of them. From the little independent cafes, the truckers rest stops, one or two of the chains, and the coffee stops tucked away in department stores- I adore them.

I love to watch the people around me, to smile at strangers to see how they respond, to wrap my hands around a coffee mug and inhale the aroma of the drink within. For me, there is something very soothing about these places. Whether they are jammed packed and noisy, or as quiet as the proverbial grave, I simply feel at home in coffee shops.

 

It won’t surprise you to learn then, that – even before I was lucky enough to become a writer in residence in a café, and have my very own corner (with a plaque on the wall!!!), every novel I have ever written has taken shape in various different coffee shops.

From my earliest days writing children’s stories (I used to go into schools and jump around, making up tales about cows, hats, and Doctor Who- yes Doctor Who), to my erotica, my poetry (yes- I write poems as well – naughty ones), and on to my romances, each has begun life with a cup of café poured black coffee to hand.

It seemed totally natural to me therefore, that when I came to create my first non-erotic novel – Another Cup of Coffee – to make coffee shops the main places of meeting and discussion for the main characters.

The coffee shop that features most within Another Cup of Coffee is Pickwicks. Tucked away on a side street in Richmond, London, Pickwicks is run by the ever bubbly Peggy, and her husband Scott. It is here that, newly arrived in London from Scotland, Amy is to find a refuge from her troubles, a temporary job, a possible future, and a potential friend in Kit- a woman who spends her days sat in the corner of Pickwicks writing erotic stories for an American Internet company…

Blurb- Another Cup of Coffee

Thirteen years ago Amy Crane ran away from everyone and everything she knew, ending up in an unfamiliar city with no obvious past and no idea of her future. Now, though, that past has just arrived on her doorstep, in the shape of an old music cassette that Amy hasn’t seen since she was at university.

Digging out her long-neglected Walkman, Amy listens to the lyrics that soundtracked her student days. As long-buried memories are wrenched from the places in her mind where she’s kept them safely locked away for over a decade, Amy is suddenly tired of hiding.

It’s time to confront everything about her life. Time to find all the friends she left behind in England, when her heart got broken and the life she was building for herself was shattered. Time to make sense of all the feelings she’s been bottling up for all this time. And most of all, it’s time to discover why Jack has sent her tape back to her now, after all these years…

With her mantra, New life, New job, New home, playing on a continuous loop in her head, Amy gears herself up with yet another bucket-sized cup of coffee, as she goes forth to lay the ghost of first love to rest…

Here are the opening words…

Taking refuge in the kitchen, Amy placed her palms firmly onto the cool, tiled work surface, and took a couple of deep yet shaky breaths. Forcing her brain to slip back into action, she retrieved a bottle of white wine from the fridge, poured a large glassful and, squaring her shoulders, carried it through to the living room.

Perching on the edge of her sofa, her throat dry, Amy stared suspiciously at the tape for a second, before daring to pick it up and click open its stiff plastic box. Two minutes later, her hands still shaking, she closed it again with a sharp bang, and drank some wine. It took a further five minutes to gather the courage to re-open the case and place the tape into the dusty cassette compartment of her ancient stereo system. It must have been years since she’d seen a cassette, she thought, let alone listened to one. She wasn’t even sure the stereo still worked …

Swallowing another great gulp of alcohol, Amy closed her eyes and pressed Play, not at all sure she wanted to take this trip back in time …

Available from:

In eBook and paperback format from Amazon UK , Nook, Kobo, and all good book stores.

Coffee smile

Who says coffee shops are just for drinking coffee???

Happy reading,
Jenny xx

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