I would like to wish you each and every on of you…
A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Many many thanks for all your support over the last year.
I hope you are all having a truly peaceful and huggled Christmas, with extra coffee and a mince pie or three.
Much love,
Jenny/Jenniferxx
I owe a lot to coffee shops.
With the exception of Christmas day, I go to a coffee shop at least once every day. I love them- there is so much life lived in such establishments. On a daily basis you can see almost every cross section of life’s challenges, joys, crisis’s, and smiles. What better place to find an unending source of inspiration than a coffee shop? They are the wine bars or pubs of the day time. They are social media away from a screen. They are live radio. They are soap operas without the dreadful unnecessarily for sensationalism.
Not only do I write all my stories from a desk in the corner of my local café, but I also have a job as a coffee shop blogger for the Phoenix Community, which specialises in prompting in dependent businesses.. Each week I travel around Somerset and Devon, visiting independent coffee houses. While I’m there I write, and report back on my experiences.
It is therefore not so surprising that I chose to write a series of stories around the comings and goings in a coffee shop.
On the 9th June 2016, Another Glass of Champagne, the final instalment of my Another Cup of…series, completed its journey from my notebook, to the bookshop shelves, via the desk of my lovely editor.
Following on from the novel, Another Cup of Coffee, and its seasonal Christmas novella length sequels, Another Cup of Christmas, Christmas in the Cotswolds, and Christmas at the Castle (which can now also be found together in the trilogy-Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection), Another Glass of Champagne provides the last chapter of the continuing journey through life’s adventures, for Pickwicks coffee shop friends, Amy, Jack, Kit and their friends.
Blurb
A warm-hearted, contemporary tale about a group of friends living in a small corner of busy London, by bestselling author Jenny Kane.
Fortysomething Amy is shocked and delighted to discover she s expecting a baby not to mention terrified! Amy wants best friend Jack to be godfather, but he hasn’t been heard from in months. When Jack finally reappears, he s full of good intentions but his new business plan could spell disaster for the beloved Pickwicks Coffee Shop, and ruin a number of old friendships…
Meanwhile his love life is as complicated as ever and yet when he swears off men for good, Jack meets someone who makes him rethink his priorities…but is it too late for a fresh start?
Author Kit has problems of her own: just when her career has started to take off, she finds herself unable to write and there’s a deadline looming, plus two headstrong kids to see through their difficult teenage years…will she be able to cope?
(Can be read as a standalone novel or as part of the series)
I invented the Pickwicks Coffee House in Richmond, London, to appear as a cross between the coffee shop I write in everyday, the café I used to write in when I lived in Scotland, and a Victorian building in London I fell in love with some years ago.
Within Pickwicks, it is while Amy, Kit, Jack, Peggy, Megan and their friends are clustered around the coffee house’s tables, their hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, that their problems are resolved- or not…
***
Extract from ‘Another Glass of Champagne’
‘My goodness, woman, you look like the proverbial beached whale!’ Amy grinned at the teasing smile on her former boss’s face.
‘Thanks, Peggy. I know I can rely on you to be ready with a huge compliment!’
‘Huge is the word, and you are more than welcome!’ Taking advantage of a lull in custom, Peggy followed Amy to where Kit was working, and pulled out a chair for her friend before sitting down herself. ‘So how long have you got to go now?’
‘Only two months, which is nothing like as long as I need to get ready, or even get my head around what’s happening to me! I have far too much to do before the baby comes, although we’ve almost finished decorating the nursery at last. I haven’t even managed to find anyone to cover my job at Home Hunters yet.’
Amy thanked Megan, Pickwicks’ chief waitress, as she delivered a tray of drinks and half a huge carrot cake for the three friends, before asking Kit, ‘I don’t suppose that lovely husband of yours fancies coming back to the business while I’m on maternity leave?’
Kit shook her head. ‘Not a hope. It did cross my mind after Phil gave up running Home Hunters that he might have withdrawal symptoms and want to go back, but he took to running the bookshop like a duck to water. I can’t see him ever going back. And he wouldn’t have the time, to be honest. Did I tell you that they’re so busy now, he and Rob have employed a guy to help them with their new educational courses at Kew?’
Amy beamed. ‘No, you didn’t. That’s fantastic! I bet Jack would be thrilled for them if he was here.’ Suddenly pensive, she picked up her cup, ‘I don’t suppose either of you have heard from Jack?’
Peggy shook her head as Kit said, ‘Not a word. I thought he’d keep in touch with you though, Amy, even if he went quiet on the rest of us.’
‘Paul says he’ll turn up eventually, but I’d rather like to be able to tell Jack about this bundle,’ Amy patted her stomach, ‘before he or she stops being just a bump in my jumper. I might ask him if he wants to be godfather.’
Kit nodded. ‘Jack is godfather to the twins, and although he’s a dreadful role model on the morals front, both Thomas and Helena have always found him great fun, and say that having a gay godfather is, and I quote, “Well cool”.’
Peggy had never understood the loyalty Jack’s two ex-girlfriends felt for him considering how appallingly he’d treated them both. She certainly wouldn’t want anyone who’d stood her up on her wedding day – albeit only in the role of usher – to be a godparent to her child, but she simply asked, ‘How long has he been AWOL for?’
Amy frowned. ‘It must be more or less four years since I last saw him, and about twelve months since I last spoke to him. It’s not so much being AWOL as missing in action. How about you, Kit?’
Peggy and Amy exchanged glances as they saw Kit staring blankly into her soup bowl-sized cup of black coffee. ‘Kit? You with us?’
‘What? Oh, sorry, guys. I didn’t get much sleep last night, I phased out for a minute. What was the question?’
Peggy had noticed how distracted Kit had been lately, although instinct told her that she shouldn’t ask her friend about it yet. ‘When did you last hear from Jack, honey?’
‘I’m not sure, must be at least a year. That is very Jack though, isn’t it. I bet he’d get a kick out of the fact that we’re all back here wondering where he is and if he’s OK.’
Amy, who’d had similar thoughts herself, grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised – although I’d like to think that at his age he’s finally grown out of playing those games.’
Kit and Peggy laughed in unison. ‘No chance!’ ‘I assume he’s either still travelling around the world – or working in someone’s garden, using that horticultural qualification he got after Paul and I got married.’
‘Sounds possible, and of course,’ Kit let her inner storyteller go in a way she wished she could on paper, ‘if Jack has spent all the inheritance his grandfather left him, he could have got a job in the grounds of some posh house, had a torrid affair with the heir to the manor, and be in the middle of a society scandal.’
Amy smiled as Peggy divided the carrot cake into mountainous slices. ‘That sounds entirely possible, and I sort of hope it’s true! The boyfriend bit, I mean, rather than the scandal bit.’
Pulling her cake plate closer, Kit shrugged. ‘I’m not sure he’d risk another relationship, not after Toby hurt him like that. I suspect he’s reverted to full-on sleeping around mode.’ Realising she had sounded rather curt, she added, ‘I’d like to be wrong though. If he settled down a bit, he might come home…’
***
If you would like to find out how the Pickwicks crew tackle the joys and woes of life in their early forties, then you can buy Another Glass of Champagne in paperback, e-Format, and on Audio CD, from all good bookshops and online retailers, including-
You can find all the links to the Another Cup of…series by following the book links at the top of this website.
***
Happy reading and Happy Christmas
Jenny x
Today I’m taking a look at the third of my Pickwick’s café festive short stories. Christmas at the Castle (which follows hot on the heels of Another Cup of Christmas and Christmas in the Cotswolds), is available as a standalone story, or as part of the ‘Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection.’
This, my fourth outing with the Pickwick Coffee House crew, begins in a little café in Richmond (on the outskirts of London), before flying one of the regular customers, writer Kit Lambert, off to the Deeside region of Scotland for a Highland adventure.
Seven years have elapsed since the close of the original novel, Another Cup of Coffee, and there are quite a few new faces to be spotted amongst the original line up now. One of the most exciting things about writing any series of stories is introducing these new characters and working out how their personalities would mix- or not- with those of the main cast.
It is this friction within the personalities that makes the stories work, and creating these new interactions over the festive season makes this task all the more interesting- and challenging. No other event in the calendar can add the pressures on a relationship, be it a friendship or a romantic connection, than Christmas can. So much is expected of us over the festive season. Everything has to be perfect, and happy, and sugar-coated…which is a tall order under any circumstances. Add in a literary festival, a business woman who has forgotten how to act like a human being, a wallflower of a writer, and a go-getting Gran from the WI, as I have in Christmas at the Castle, and even the strongest of friendships can suffer…or blossom…
Blurb
Christmas at the Castle is a seasonal treat from Jenny Kane, featuring much-loved characters from her bestselling novel Another Cup of Coffee.
When hotshot businesswoman Alice Warren is asked to organise a literary festival at beautiful Crathes Castle in Scotland, her ‘work mode’ persona means she can’t say no – even though the person asking is her ex, Cameron Hunter. Alice broke Cameron’s heart and feels she owes him one – but her best friend Charlie isn’t going to like it. Charlie – aka famous author Erin Spence – is happy to help Alice with the festival…until she finds out that Cameron’s involved! Charlie suffered a bad case of unrequited love for Cameron, and she can’t bear the thought of seeing him again. Caught between her own insecurities and loyalty to her friend, Charlie gets fellow author Kit Lambert to take her place. Agreeing to leave her London comfort zone – and her favourite corner in Pickwicks Café – Kit steps in. She quickly finds herself not just helping out, but hosting a major literary event, while also trying to play fairy godmother – a task which quickly gets very complicated indeed…
***
As you would expect from one of my cosy café tales, it doesn’t take long for Kit to find a coffee shop that will be a good temporary replacement for Pickwicks while she is away. And she soon realises, that if she is going to gets to grips with the fact that she is to help organise a literary festival in a place she doesn’t know, with people she isn’t sure she likes, with next to no budget and very little time, then that supply of caffeine is going to be more vital than ever…
Although Christmas at the Castle follows on from Another Cup of Coffee, Another Cup of Christmas, and Christmas in the Cotswolds, it can also be read as a standalone piece.
Buy Links
You can buy Christmas at the castle along from –
Or you can buy it alongside Another Cup of Christmas and Christmas in the Cotswolds within Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection–
***
Happy reading,
Jenny x
Christmas in the Cotswolds is the festive (short novella) sequel to Another Cup of Christmas – which in itself follows the novel, Another Cup of Coffee. Rather than being set in the Pickwicks café in Richmond however, this festive tale takes Megan, Pickwicks regular waitress away from her day job, on a mercy mission…
Blurb Izzie Spencer-Harris, owner of the Cotswold Art and Craft Centre, is due to host the prestigious Cotswold Choir’s annual Christmas carol concert in her beautiful converted church. Or at least she was, until a storm smashed a hole right through the chancel roof. Days from Christmas, Izzie suddenly finds herself up to her neck in DIY, with her last dodgy workman having walked off the job. She does the only thing she can … calls in her best friend Megan to help.
Leaving Peggy and Scott to run Pickwicks Café in her absence, Megan heads to the Cotswolds for Christmas. Within minutes of her arrival, she finds herself hunting down anyone willing to take on extra work so close to Christmas. It seems the only person available to help is Joseph Parker – a carpenter who, while admittedly gorgeous, seems to have ulterior motives for everything he does … With Izzie’s bossy mother, Lady Spencer-Harris, causing her problems at every turn, an accident at work causing yet more delays, and the date for the concert drawing ever nearer, it’s going to take a lot more than Mrs Vickers’ powerful mulled wine to make sure everything is all right on the night …
I’ve always loved the Cotswolds, and was lucky enough to grow up not too far from their villages filled with yellow stoned picturesque cottages and stunning churches. For me, once I’d decided to take Megan away from Pickwicks for a while, the Cotswolds was the obvious choice of location. It is precisely the type of area I can imagine Izzie setting up an arts and craft centre, which- were it real- I have no doubt would flourish! I’d go there for sure. It has a café after all!
Although Christmas in the Cotswolds is a sequel, it can also be read as a standalone story.
If you’d like to have a read, you can buy my latest novella from all good e-retailers including-
Or you can buy it as part of the Jenny Kane Christmas Collection –
Happy reading,
Jenny x
Today I’m kicking off a three day explore through the Christmas stories which make up Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection.
I’m in festive mood as I line up a mince pie next to my cup of coffee. It really doesn’t feel like three years since the publication of the novella length sequel to my debut novel, Another Cup of Coffee – Another Cup of Christmas!
Here’s the Blurb-
Five years ago the staff of Pickwicks Cafe in Richmond were thrown into turmoil when their cook and part-owner, Scott, had a terrible accident. With help from his friends, his wife Peggy, and the staff at the local hospital, he made an amazing recovery. Now Pickwicks is preparing to host a special Christmas fundraiser for the hospital department that looked after Scott.
Pickwicks’ waitress Megan has been liaising with the ward’s administrator, Nick, as all the staff who helped Scott’s recovery are invited are invited. As the problems of organising the fundraiser take up more and more of their busy lives, Megan and Nick contact each other more frequently, and their emails and phone calls start to develop from the practical into the flirty.
But can you actually fall for someone you’ve never met?
As the fundraiser draws closer, Megan is beginning to think that she had imagined all the virtual flirting between herself and Nick – he promised to arrange to meet her for real, but he hasn’t done so. Now he’s bringing someone with him to the fundraiser, and they’re just bound to be everything Megan feels she isn’t …
Deliberately short, so that you can fit a peaceful moments reading into your busy Christmas preparation schedule, Another Cup of Christmas can be easily consumed in one delicious ginger and nutmeg flavoured mouthful!
As an extra treat to warm up a Monday. hwre’s how Another Cup of Christmas begins…
Chapter One
December 4th 2012
Having politely escaped her third ‘So what are you doing for Christmas?’ conversation of the day, Megan Johnson was retreating back to the counter when she spotted Pickwicks’ most regular customer sit up from her work and brush a stray red hair from her eyes.
Knowing it had been at least half an hour since Kit’s caffeine addiction had been attended to, the waitress swiped up the percolator jug and headed in her direction.
Without bothering to ask if it was required, Megan poured the steaming liquid with practised care, before taking advantage of the lull in Christmas shopping trade, and sitting down opposite her friend. ‘Going OK?’
Swivelling the laptop round to face Megan, Kit rubbed the back of her neck, ‘I’m sure I’ve missed something. What do you think?’
Pickwicks Festive Fundraiser!
Spoil Yourself With An Afternoon of Pickwicks’ Finest Festive Fare.
In Aid of the Royal Free Hospital’s Spinal Ward.
Saturday 22nd December from 2pm.
Deluxe Buffet And Festive Fundraising Fun!
Tickets are ONLY £25 per person
Don’t miss out!
Book your place at Pickwicks Coffee Shop, Richmond – NOW!!
Megan scanned the poster. ‘Oh, that’s fabulous! I thought you were writing your latest novel.’
‘To tell you the truth, that’s exactly what I should be doing, but Peggy asked me to do some publicity for the fundraiser and I thought I’d better get on with it. Time seems to be dissolving. It’ll be the 22nd before we know it.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Megan started to collect the dishes left by a couple who’d just vacated a nearby table. ‘The next three weeks are going to fly by.’
‘Two and a half weeks!’
‘Oh, hell! Really?’
‘That’s why I want to get these done; otherwise everyone will be too booked up with their own celebrations to have time to come.’ Gesturing towards the kitchen, Kit asked, ‘How’s Scott doing out there, or shouldn’t I ask?’
Megan’s permanent smile widened further across her lightly freckled face. ‘He’s amazing. I have no idea how he does it. The temperature in that kitchen is tropical, and yet Scott’s still beaming that massive toothy grin of his. I’m seriously beginning to think he is physically unable to stop cooking! Surely he must have pre-prepared as much as he can for the fundraiser by now?’
Kit nodded. ‘He probably has, but Peggy is getting paranoid there won’t be enough food.’ Glancing around, checking that Megan wasn’t needed by a customer for a moment, Kit pointed to a fresh pile of abandoned cups. ‘If I clear those, will you have a proper read of the poster? I’m sure I’ve missed something obvious but I can’t put my finger on it?’
Kit was already standing up and taking a tray from Megan’s hands before the waitress said, ‘On one condition.’
‘Which is?’
‘I can check my emails? I’m supposed to be liaising with the hospital about this for Peggy, but we’ve been so busy over the last few days I haven’t had time to see if Nick has got back to me about how many of the ward staff are coming.’
‘Nick?’
Megan silently cursed her inability to prevent the involuntary warm pink blush that hit her pale cheeks, ‘Yeah, he’s the admin guy for the ward that cared for Scott after his accident.’
‘Nice, is he?’ Kit gently teased the petite blonde waitress, wondering, not for the first time, why someone as kind and pretty as Megan hadn’t been snapped up years ago.
‘I’ve never met him, but he seems friendly. Well, he does via email and over the phone at least.’
‘You’ve spoken to him then?’
‘There are loads of things to sort out.’ Megan, knowing that the crush she’d developed on Nick’s Irish accent was utterly ridiculous, turned her full attention to the poster on the screen before her…
****
Just for an hour, why not forget about the mince pies that still need making, and the present wrapping that hasn’t been done yet, and curl up on the sofa with some Christmas chocolates close by, and a hot drink to hand (a cup of coffee perhaps?), and escape into the adventures of Nick and Megan, and their friends from the Pickwick café…
***
If you’d like to buy Another Cup of Christmas, it is available as a standalone read from all good eBook suppliers including-
You can also buy it as part of Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection from-
Happy reading everyone,
Jenny xx
I’m delighted to say that, from today, you can purchase my ‘Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection’ as a trilogy in PAPERBACK.
Blurb for Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection
There is something very special about Christmas… Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection combines all three seasonal shorts from Jenny’s best-selling Another Cup of … series in one festive anthology. In ‘Another Cup of Christmas’, we return to Pickwicks Coffee House in London, the setting for Jenny’s bestselling novel Another Cup of Coffee. Together with old friends Kit, Amy, Scott and Peggy, we meet new Pickwicks waitress Megan, who’s in charge of organising a charity event for the local hospital…is romance as well as seasonal goodwill in the air? ‘Christmas in the Cotswolds’ sees Megan, now an established face at Pickwicks, travelling to the beautiful Cotswold countryside after an emergency call from her friend Izzie. Can Megan help Izzie pull off the perfect Christmas at her Arts and Crafts Centre – and save the business from disaster? Kit Lambert, Pickwicks’ writer-in-residence, takes centre stage in ‘Christmas at the Castle’. Already nervous about appearing at her very first literary festival, in the grounds of a magnificent Scottish castle at Christmas time, Kit suddenly finds herself co-organising the whole thing – and trying to repair old friendships – with the deadline fast approaching…
If you fancy putting your feet up with a book and a mince pie (and possibly some mulled wine), you can buy Jenny Kane Christmas Collection as a paperback
or as a download from-
***
To mark this occasion, I’ve been thinking about the features that unite each of the stories within the trilogy.
Naturally, the characters all have a connection to the Pickwicks coffee shop in Richmond; then there’s the coffee, the hint of romance, the element of adventure, and the hurdles of life that need to be overcome before Christmas can arrive- and then there’s the food.
The food at Christmas is so important- it has that special feel good, warming factor- that really sums up the season, with its hints of cinnamon and nutmeg, mulled wine and Christmas puddings, and then there are the mince pies.
My Grandad was often heard to say “Christmas isn’t Christmas without a mince pie,” usually while trying to persuade my Nan that he really was allowed to pinch another one off the mountain she’d made in readiness for the WI Christmas party…he didn’t always get far on that!
Anyway- it got me to thinking. A mince pie is actually a rather weird thing. When did we start eating them? So, just for you, here is a very potted history of the origins of the mince pie!
The earliest mince pie in the UK can be traced back to the 13th century, when it was amongst many of the recipes returning European crusaders brought with them back from the Middle Eastern crusades. This first recipes contained meats, fruits and spices, all wrapped in a large pastry pie crust.
In medieval times pie crusts were known as coffins, and pastry was simply flour mixed with water to form mouldable dough. The pastry itself was rarely eaten; rather it was designed to be discarded once the contents of the pie had been consumed. (Leftover pie pastry was often handed out to the poor.)
In the fourteenth century work, Forme of Cury there is a recipe for Tart of Flesh, which contains figs, raisins, wine, pine kernels, lard, cheese, minced pork, honey and spices. A similar recipe using mutton rather than pork is also given in The English Huswife in 1615. These recipes formed the origins of what was to become the mince pie we recognize today.
Mince pies were only for special occasions, such as Easter and Christmas, because the ingredients were so costly. Unlike the circular shape we are used to, these pies were first made in an oval shape to represent the manger that Jesus slept in as a baby, with the loose fitting top placed over the mixture, representing his swaddling clothes.
Although it is a myth that Oliver Cromwell banned mince pies during his period in power after the English Civil War, it was at this time that the pies stopped copying the shape of Jesus’ manager, and adopted the more recognisable circular form.
During the Stuart and Georgian times, mince pies were a status symbol, with only the rich being able to afford them. The wealthy liked to show off at Christmas parties by having pies made is different shapes, like stars or hearts.
It is unknown when meat was finally removed from the mince pie recipe. It was still included in 1845, when Eliza Acton wrote ‘Modern Cookery for Private Families, but in 1861, Mrs. Beaton was recording two recipes different recipes for mince pies, on with meat and one without.
***
Hope you found that interesting!
Happy reading,
Jenny xx
I’m delighted to welcome L A Berry to my place today. Why not grab a cuppa and put your feet up for five minutes, so you can read this excellent blog about how reality can shape fiction
Writing What I Know (or How Life Influences My Fiction Writing)
Thank you Jenny for inviting me to write a guest blog piece for your website today.
In the company of other writers and readers, we often discuss what inspires our storytelling. During November, I was with a group of four writers at a retreat in Shropshire and it was clear that each of us had in-depth knowledge and experiences that informed our writing. One focused his story on his life as an Asian child within a predominately-white British community and another was using the experiences of a relative within the mental health sector. The third writer was interested in the modern history narrative, drawing from her own memories and I enjoy writing about human strength, in particular what happen when a female character faces a threatening situation.
Silencio, my debut novel, is a suspense story set in Spain, narrated with Spanish characters, and based on real life events that took place during the mid to late 1900’s.
Writing tutors and experts instruct writers that it is best to write about something they know but most of us have not committed a crime, witnessed a murder or had a new-born baby stolen whilst in the Maternity Unit. I started writing this first full-length novel in 2011 after watching a BBC documentary on television about the Stolen Babies of Spain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJJ7Pp_Zvvs). The investigative documentary introduced me to the background behind the baby trafficking of an estimated 300,000 babies in Spain during the Franco and immediate post-Franco periods.
I am an English woman, too old to worry about childbirth, and have not experienced the loss of an infant. How did I ensure that I wrote with authority and authenticity without the value of these experiences?
My Experiences
I am a Mum. My daughter may be in her 30’s but I remember holding her as a newly delivered baby – the colour of her skin, the warmth and smell of her body. The memory of the sleepless nights and leaping out of bed to run to her assistance having recognised her cry in a room full of other babies, will not be forgotten. My maternal intuition kicked in from the moment of conception, well before the morning sickness and the tickling of tiny feet inside of my womb. Even now that she is an adult, I sense when my daughter is in danger and needs my support.
My previous employment was as a midwife and nurse. Every hospital has common features and my experiences of working in various hospitals allowed me to add detail to the hospital scenes in Silencio. It doesn’t matter that a Spanish hospital is different from one in the UK because this is a work of fiction and as long as the reader believes that the place could be real, he or she will not be distracted from the story. Having had experience of Spanish health care and hospitals, I can testify that there are more similarities than differences.
Spain is my second home and I have lived there for a number of years, speak conversational Spanish, have travelled throughout the country, and have experienced life in a Spanish community.
However, I am English and was not brought up as a Spanish girl within a Catholic family. Not a problem, because as the saying goes I know a man who can or in this case, a young Spanish woman who was delighted to read and correct my work and give me an insight to the lives of her mother, her sisters, her fellow villagers, etc.
Mercedes, the main character in Silencio, is a journalist. I am not a journalist but I studied the subject at university many years ago, I read newspaper articles and I am lucky to know a young magazine journalist who gave me the benefit of her experience.
Many readers have commented on the development of the love relationship and the passion between Mercedes and Orlando. Apparently, it is quite steamy and some of my daughter’s friends are shocked that Rachael’s mum ‘wrote this’. 25 years ago, I met my husband and I thought back to those early days and the excitement that a look or a brush of the fingers could stimulate. I remembered the heightened senses and the fear of commitment and tried to bring these to my writing.
Research
During a three-year period, I researched background information for Silencio and most of it has not ended up in my novel. One of my pet hates as a reader is to read a research-led story instead of one that focuses on the characters and plot.
In addition to internet searches, books and library research, I tried to visit each of the places in my novel. I travelled on the public transport and ate in local cafes so that I absorbed the culture. This was important when writing about a country as large and diverse as Spain because the northern life is different to that of Madrid, and the society of the eastern coastal towns does not resemble that of the central plane. The clothing changes to suit the local climate and the locals socialise in different ways. Hearty foods of the north are too heavy for the warmer climates of the south. I changed a number of details after each research visit; for example, the men in a northern village play cards instead of dominos.
My novel-in-progress A Life on the Line takes place in 1961 between York and Scarborough.
Last summer I spent several weeks in the area as I surveyed the layout for detail and interviewed local people who remembered the period. In the York library, microfiche records of local press helped me to discover the products, trends and issues of that year and the library of the excellent National Railway Museum holds information and photos that add detail to the backstory.
Friends
There is a saying that goes something like this ‘be careful of what you tell a writer as you or it may end up in her next book’. None of my characters is based on a single person I know but each is a compilation of the characteristics of many people I have met. Mercedes, in Silencio, does not represent either of these two beautiful friends but she has the strength of one and the humour of the other. Without the people in my life, there would be no characters in my stories.
It is time to finish this piece but if anyone wants to have a discussion about what influences their own writing, I would be delighted to hear about them in the comment box below. You can find out more information about my writing and research (including links to articles about baby trafficking and the Spanish stolen babies) at my website www.laberrynovels.org or visit my blog www.writelindy.wordpress.com.
Follow me on twitter @LABerryNovels or @writelindy
Like me on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/silenciobylaberry
Silencio is available to purchase as a paperback through the following link or to order from any good book retailer – ISBN 9781785890994
The EBOOK version of Silencio by LA Berry is available on all major ebook retail sites including Amazon, Ibook, Google play, Kobo, Nook – EISBN 9781785894732
***
Many thanks for such an excellent blog!
Happy reading everyone,
Jenny x
I’m delighted to be joined by fellow writer and historian, Janet Few today. Take a seat and enjoy this excellent blog about a life in writing.
Over to you Janet…
Early in 2016 I entered my seventh decade. Throughout all those years, words have skittered, swirling and whirling, dervish-like through my brain. Sometimes, they have made it from brain to paper, or, more recently, keyboard. Each of those seven decades has seen me embark on a new phase of writing. As a small child, I crafted Blytonesque adventure stories, populated with improbable numbers of characters and involving tortuous plots that were rarely resolved. My very early education was in an old-fashioned private school which encouraged ‘compositions’ scribed with a quaint, Victorian turns of phrase. I find stealthy reflections of this technique creeping into my writing still.
My teenaged years were characterised by angst-ridden prose, leavened with a smattering of blank verse. It is probably just as well that most of this never emerged from my graffiti- emblazoned notebooks. One ability that I did acquire as a school-girl was the facility for writing in very different styles. We had two English teachers. One was the archetypal ‘school marm’; bespectacled, with chunky ankles encased in lisle stockings and a bun scraped back from a moon-shaped face. Essays for Miss P*** were full of verbose language that verged on the Shakespearian and convoluted sentences in the dreaded passive voice. Her colleague was daringly modern. Miss S***, it transpired, even lived with her boyfriend. This was the early 1970s; we never did know how she slipped through the interviewing net of our ultra-conservative school. Work for her demanded snappy phrases and a contemporary vocabulary.
As a student, my output was circumscribed. Academic essays meant that fiction writing was consigned to a forgotten corner of my life. In pre-computer days, writing techniques were so very different. Cutting and pasting involved, quite literally, hacking pieces of paper into strips, arranging them in a suitable order and praying that no one created a draught before you had laboriously copied them out in the desired sequence. In my fourth decade, my life was filled with nappies, building-blocks and modelling clay; I barely had time to write a shopping list. Although I wrote little at this time, my writing garnered a new dimension. My husband died suddenly. He had worked away from home and we had exchanged lengthy letters. Unlike me, he had a dry and pithy, darkly humorous style. After his death I found that, unintentionally and by osmosis, this had, on occasions, become grafted on to my own.
Children grown and it was ‘me time’. So, in my forties, I embarked upon a PhD. As I hewed an 80,000 word thesis from the stony gleanings of my research, I sometimes doubted the wisdom of this endeavour. Magnum opus submitted, I went on a well deserved overseas trip. Strangely, as part of the re-acclimatisation process, I found myself unable to stop writing. This led to the first of a series of lengthy travel diaries, the later ones of which appear on my blog.
It is only comparatively recently that I have become a published author and my output is non-fiction evidence of both my academic leanings and a life long obsession with the past. I believe good history is for everyone. As The History Interpreter, I aim to bring history alive in a variety of ways. I am passionate about encouraging young people to become interested in the past, especially through living history or family history. I therefore shared many of my ideas in the booklet Harnessing the Facebook Generation: ideas for involving young people in family history and heritage. I spend part of my time as my alter ego, Mistress Agnes, living in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, managing the Swords and Spindles team of historical interpreters. My social history book Coffers, Clysters, Comfrey and Coifs: the lives of our seventeenth century ancestors, emerged out of this experience.
I enjoy dissecting small, rural communities and trying to understand how they functioned in the past; a branch of research that is known as a One-Place Study. I have written a guide to that peculiar blend of local and family history: Putting Your Ancestors in their Place. I also research my own family history, with an emphasis on putting the lives of my ancestors into a wider context. I am responsible for the latest edition of the classic family history handbook Family Historian’s Enquire Within. I am particularly interested in the role of women in the past. When I was writing Coffers, Clysters, I regretted that I did not know more about the lives of the ordinary women of the time and that I could not ask them questions. I thought that perhaps now was the time to capture the period 1946-1969, whilst there were still first hand accounts to work with. I recruited eighty lovely ladies and helped them to recall their memories of this pivotal period. These have been merged together in Remember Then: women’s memories of 1946-1969 and how to write your own.
Realistically, the change of direction that my writing has taken since my ‘big’ birthday earlier this year can scarcely be called a ‘mid-life’ crisis but it is certainly a watershed. I have been persuaded, after over forty years, to return to fiction writing. Unsurprisingly, the novel that I a working on does have an historical slant. It is based on the true story of a mother accused of killing her child and it unravels the psychological twists to characters who struggle with surprisingly modern anxieties. I do hope that it won’t take me the whole of my seventh decade to finish. My self-imposed deadline for publication is November 2018, which will be the centenary of the death of my heroine. Who knows what my eighth decade will bring?
Janet Few
Janet’s website is The History Interpreter: resenting and preserving the past. She can be followed on Twitter @janetfew but beware, she has no idea where she is going.
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Wonderful blog! Thanks you Janet.
Happy reading everyone,
Jenny x
It’s that time again! The end of the month means it’s time to hand over to my good friend Nell Peters (aka Anne Pohill Walton), for a romp through November. Get yourself comfy – you’ll want time to sit down and enjoy this.
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Only thirty-one days to the end of the year – yikes! Although many of us won’t be too sorry to see the back of 2016, as it’s been a sad and demoralizing year in many ways.
Those who have embraced the challenge of National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo (always makes me think of Mork and Mindy. Did you know that actor Mark Harmon – Jethro Gibbs in NCIS – is married to Pam Dawber, aka Mindy? Now you’ll be able to sleep at night …) have just hours left to clock up their target of 50,000 words. To achieve that total over thirty days, participants need to quit procrastinating on social media and bash out an average 1667 words a day, preferably in some sort of logical order – either as an opening to their novel or the completed work. This may seem a little on the stunted side, but The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Brave New World, and The Great Gatsby are all novels of approx 50K words.
Started in July 1999 by Chris Baty, with twenty-one participants in the San Francisco Bay area, the NaNo project was moved to November the following year to take place during the cooler season, when writers wouldn’t be distracted by the need to swat mosquitoes, prance around in embarrassing beach wear, slather themselves in suntan lotion, go for a dip (leaving oily slicks of suntan gloop in their wake), or eat copious amounts of ice cream to cool off. NaNo has since evolved into a huge annual global experience – let’s all listen out for the collective sigh at 23.59 hours.
November is also the month to grow a sponsored moustache for Movember, raising funds for research into prostate cancer and to generally boost awareness for men’s improved health. I guess it’s predominantly a male thing, but hey – it’s for charity, ladies, so you could always knit a moustache or go all Blue Peter and fashion one out of sticky-backed plastic. #3 son takes part every year, although I suspect it’s so he has a legitimate excuse not to shave for a month (he doesn’t worry about the tache thing, just gradually morphs into his stubbly tramp persona as the days go by.)
While males with mature follicles cultivate whiskers to fundraise nowadays, in America during the mid-to-late 19th century, they had a very different reason for growing facial adornments during November – which, as we all know only too well, is election month over the pond. As visual confirmation that they were old enough to vote, ‘virgin voters’ or ‘twenty-onesters’ (the age of majority at that time being twenty-one) would grow ‘facial foliage’, to prove they were adults and not mere ‘beardless boys’ – and were therefore entitled to scrawl their X in the box. Apparently the registration of births was an extremely random affair in those days, varying a lot from city to city and state to state – quite handy for identity theft and other things criminal.
At least the good folk at the Movember Foundation don’t turn a hair (sorry!) about how the money is raised, unlike some. I’ve contributed to two charity anthologies recently – the first a collection of horror/scary short stories (though mine wasn’t really either!) written in aid of Save the Children … except that after everyone was on board and a great deal of blood, sweat and tears had been spilt by the organisers, the charity decided it wasn’t something they wanted to sully their name with by association. They magnanimously agreed to take the money, though, as long as the book was advertised as benefitting ‘an international children’s charity’. Some of the authors – me included – ignored those precious corporate protestations and still flogged it for S t C. How fussy do you think the children who will gain are about the genre of stories in a book sold to get money to provide them with food, shelter, blankets, inoculations etc?
The second anthology features crime and thriller shorts and was originally intended to equally benefit UNICEF and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. Guess what? First one, then the other decided the genre was unsuitable for their image. What? Again, huge amounts of work had gone into getting the project together before they dropped their ‘thanks, but no thanks’ bombshells. This insane scenario was repeated with other charitable bodies (who don’t appear to be that charitable) – who would have thought it would be so hard to give away money, with no strings attached, to worthy causes? I despair. Meanwhile, there was a release date set for 13th December and a launch party in London, all arranged and paid for by the authors, on the 17th. Eventually, a small, localised charity in Hampshire and a national organisation, Hospice UK, decided we weren’t actually too bad after all …
This day in 1874, Winston Churchill was born in Blenheim Palace – I wonder how he’d feel about his illustrious name being taken in vain by an insurance company fronted by an annoying cartoon dog? Winston would have been 142 years old – that’s even older than Rolling Stone Keith Richards! (I was actually quite surprised to learn that Keith is only just coming up to his seventy-third birthday in December, because he seems to have been rocking {sorry again!} the pickled walnut look for some decades. You’d think he could afford a vat of anti-wrinkle cream?) There are many memorable Churchill quotes, but the one that might resonate with struggling authors is, ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.’ Or maybe even more so, ‘Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.’ OK, if neither of those grab you, how about simply this; ‘Never, never, never give up.’ He possibly didn’t think that one up himself …
Before Winston’s father, Randolph, was even a twinkle in Pater’s eye, Samuel Langhorne Clemens entered this world in 1835. Unfortunately, his own father died prematurely and Samuel was forced to leave education to work in the print industry. Aged seventeen, he moved to St Louis to take a printer’s job, and while there became a river pilot’s apprentice, gaining his licence 1858. Samuel’s pseudonym, Mark Twain, comes from those days as a pilot – it’s a term meaning the water is two fathoms or 12-feet deep when sounded, and so it is safe for a vessel to navigate. I imagine Winston C would have known that, having been – amongst so many other things – First Lord of the Admiralty.
One hundred and thirty-one years after Mark Twain, another writer chose this as his birthday in 1966 – and (silly Billy) missed England winning the FIFA World Cup by a good few weeks! Step forward David Nicholls to answer your starter for ten – name at least four of the footie squad who beat Germany at Wembley. OK, ignore me! I bet you could name ex-footballer Gary Lineker, though? He also shares your birthday, born in 1960.
David Nicholls was hatched on the very same day as funny man John Bishop and they are both (as the mathematically-inclined amongst you will have twigged) clocking up their half-century. Happy Big 5-0 birthday, guys! I wonder if either agrees with Twain’s sentiments, ‘Write without pay, until someone offers to pay.’ I’d hazard a wild guess, though, that Bishop got a pretty healthy advance for his autobiography, so didn’t have to worry about that – lucky thing. By the way, only one of the birthday celebrants is on my list of FB ‘friends’ – maybe I’ll give you a clue one day, but for now suffice to say it’s not Winston Churchill.
Strange that not one of the folk mentioned was called after Andrew, patron saint of Scotland – also of Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, San Andres Island (Colombia) and St Andrew (Barbados). My, he and his sporran got around. In 2006, St. Andrew’s Day was designated an official bank holiday by the Scottish Parliament and it’s also been a national holiday in Romania since 2015. Which rather begs the question, what is St George’s Day on April 23rd to the English, chopped liver?
In Scotland, and many countries with tartan connections, 30th November is marked with a celebration of Scottish culture and traditional Scottish food, music and dance – Highland Fling, anyone? It is the start of a season of winter festivals, including Hogmanay and then Burns Night, when you can knock yourself out with haggis, neeps and tatties – or not – and sink a few wee drams. Edinburgh holds a week of celebrations, concentrating on musical entertainment and traditional ceilidh dancing (a ceilidh being a bun fight with couples or sets of six or eight people dancing in circles. Especially after those few wee drams.) In Glasgow city centre, a public shindig with traditional music (bagpipes ahoy!) and a ceilidh is held – is that song Donald Where’s Your Troosers by Andy Stewart a tradition, I wonder? Hopefully not.
Right – I’ve prattled on for long enough. I opened by saying there are just thirty-one days left to the end of the year, but that glosses over the big C; Christmas. In our house it’s an annual triple whammy, with our anniversary (thirty years? How can that be when I am only twenty-one?) on 23rd, #4 son’s birthday on Christmas Eve and the big day on 25th, with a houseful as usual. Since I won’t be here again before you all sit down to eat, drink and be merry, pretending to be the overjoyed recipient of musical reindeer socks from Great Aunt Aggie (again), I’ll wish you Happy Christmas and resist the temptation to bah-humbug about the whole ridiculous affair, that has got completely out of hand through overt commercialisation. There were Christmas cards in shops before the children went back to school, for goodness sake! And if I never hear Slade again, it will be far too soon.
Toodles!
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Thanks again! Another brilliant blog-wonderful!!
Happy reading,
Jenny xx
I’m delighted to be joined by fellow Accent author, Jo Bartlett. Today, she is thinking Christmas.
Over to you Jo…
A Proper Family Christmas
I wonder if you’ve got a picture already conjured up in your head when you read that title? Is your family Christmas like the squabbling brother and sister who eventually come good in the new M&S advert, or is the dog the number one priority in your house, as John Lewis depicts? Or perhaps it’s such a unique family dynamic that no advertiser has ever managed to represent a family like yours at Christmas.
Growing up, there was plenty of squabbling in the house between me and my sister. Less than two years apart in age, we had a love/hate relationship and presents had to be duplicated to ensure that we didn’t come to blows over whose turn it was to give Tiny Tears her never ending bottle. Looking back it was a fairly traditional family set up, we had an older sister and brother who came home for Christmas too and extended family who we got together with over the festive season.
Fast forward over thirty years and many families are scattered across wider geographical distances, and the ability to use technology to interact with friends and loved ones perhaps means we don’t make as much effort as we could to see people face to face. Perhaps the biggest change, though, is what family *looks* like. The days of a family simply equalling mum, dad and 2.4 children is as outdated as the Sodastream which made us feel so cutting edge back in those 1980s’ Christmases of my youth.
I love exploring the dynamics of family life and the relationships which make a house a home, something that always seems to be a theme of my books. St Nicholas Bay is a fictional seaside town on the Kent coast, where rumour has it that Charles Dickens penned A Christmas Carol. In ‘The Gift of Christmas Yet to Come’, which is set in St Nicholas Bay, the plot explores perhaps the greatest love story of all – adoption. It’s also about how the best of friends can become as close as family and that the family you end up with isn’t always the one you expect. The heroine’s journey to motherhood was partly inspired by a true story and the childhood friend to whom the book is dedicated.
I’m part of a jigsaw family, as we’re called, made up of birth children and step-children and I truly wouldn’t want it any other way. I’ve included a picture here from when my children were younger and I made them all pose like this for a family Christmas card – we laugh about it together now and they’ve forgiven me for being such an embarrassing mum and stepmum, like families do. Perhaps it’s this that draws me back to telling stories about families who might never feature in a Christmas advertisement, but who know that being a family is about so much more than genetics.
M4034S-4211
However, you spend your Christmas this year, I hope it’s surrounded by the people you love – your family – whatever that might look like.
‘The Gift of Christmas Yet to Come’ is priced at just 99p and is available here – http://tinyurl.com/glxkdu3
‘Somebody Else’s Boy’ is a St Nicholas Bay novel and is reduced for one week only from £2.99 to 99p and is available here – http://tinyurl.com/gt3dusg
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Jo Bartlett is an author and lecturer who lives with her husband and four children, in a part of Kent that’s so close to south east corner of England that they’re almost French.
You can find out more about Jo on her website at jobartlettauthor.com or via Twitter @J_B_writer
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Thanks ever so much for such a great blog Jo.
Happy reading everyone,
Jenny x
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