Jenny Kane & Jennifer Ash

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

Tag: thriller

Opening Lines: A Few Bad Boys by Nicole

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On August 9, 2018

In Blog, crime, Fiction, Jenny Kane, Opening Lines Blog

Opening Lines day is here! This week’s blog takes us into the world of hard boiled crime.

I’m delighted to welcome Nicole, to share the first 500 words (exactly) of her novel, A Few Bad Boys.

I am thrilled to be part of the Opening Lines Blog and am introducing you to my debut crime novel, A Few Bad Boys., which I published last year.  Like so many others, I had wanted to write a book for a long as I can remember and finally I achieved it.  My next novel, Survival At Any Cost will be published later this year.  After the sudden death of my husband, I found getting back to writing very therapeutic amongst the chaos that surrounded me.  People often find me an inspiration and I encourage anyone that wants to pursue their goals, even if they are not writing related.  Since it is my birthday week, A Few Bad Boys is available for only 99p/99c until Saturday 11th August 2018.

The first 500 words of A Few Bad Boys

As Lucy Fratelli lay on the cold bathroom floor, her head was spinning, she knew that she could not keep doing this. Her life had to change and it had to change now. She had been in this position too many times and Rob always said sorry and that he wouldn’t do it again, but he always did. The violence had started shortly after she let him move into her house. First it was a slap, then it was a punch, then it was kicking whilst she was lying helpless on the floor. How was she going to get away from him and get him to leave her house? She had lost consciousness this time and was feeling very sick. She wasn’t sure if the feeling of sickness was due to her head injury or due to the intolerable situation she had now found herself in.

She attempted to move her bruised and aching body and gradually pulled herself up, using the bath for support. She shuffled to the basin, terrified to look in the mirror. What damage had he done to her this time? Her right eye was so swollen that she couldn’t open it. Her lip was split and her ear was bleeding. A massive lump was already forming on her head. As she felt her head she realised that it was also bleeding. She lifted her top as best as she could so she could try and inspect her back. No wonder it was agony, she could see an impression of his shoe engrained on her slender body. Her ribs hurt so much that she was scared to cough and she could barely move her left arm. Bruising was already appearing on her legs and they felt like they could hardly take her weight. She tried to clean herself up a bit and hobbled to the kitchen to get a glass of water and to ponder on whether to go to the doctors or not and on how she was going to leave Rob.

She also reminisced a little on how her life was pre-Rob. Lucy Fratelli was loved by everyone. She was really attractive with beautiful, thick dark hair and eyes that were so full of life. She had a family that adored her and brilliant friends. She had been so full of confidence, ambition and determination and inspired others; that was before Rob started to shatter her world. Why had she let him move in with her? He had turned her into a shadow of her former self. He was a control freak. Lucy knew all this and inside she knew that she had to free herself of him. She felt so lonely and ashamed. Many times she had wanted to confide in her best friend, Julie, about what was going on but she knew that her reaction would be to tell her father, Terry Fratelli, and then there would be murder. Terry would never allow anyone to hurt his family and if they did

Blurb

Lucy Fratelli is the girl who has everything – beauty, brains, her own apartment, a close family and friends. Unfortunately, she is hiding a secret from her family and her best friend, Julie. Lucy knows that she can tell her family and Julie anything but she also knows that if they find out her secret, there will be hell to pay.
Terry Fratelli, Lucy’s father, is a gangster and lives for his family. He will do anything to make them happy and protect them at all costs. When Lucy’s secret is revealed he will stop at nothing to keep her safe.

***

If you like hard boiled crime this is right up your street!

Amazon.co.uk link

Amazon.com link

 Don’t forget that ‘A Few Bad Boys’ is available for only 99p/99c until Saturday 11th August 2018.

***

Nicole was born in London but moved to Spain in 2000.  She has two children, James and Phoenix, who have been her driving force behind her completing her debut novel, A Few Bad Boys.  Prior to having children she worked for Karren Brady, which added to her determination to succeed in all goals.

Nicole has wanted to write a book for as long as she can remember, and although she has written articles and helped others with their writing, it is only last year that she finally completed and published her debut novel, A Few Bad Boys. Although the journey to becoming published has been long and difficult, she is overjoyed that she has managed it, but understands that there is a lot more work to do.

Nicole is a firm believer in living life to the full but also living a balanced life.

Nicole is currently working on her second novel, Survival At Any Cost and has a regular blog.

Goodreads link

Instagram Nicole

Facebook Nicole

Webpage Nicoletheauthor

Jolsclub

Many thanks to Nicole, for popping by today with her fabulous words. 

Happy reading,

Jenny x

Opening Lines: Nostra Dame by Jacqueline Evans

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On August 2, 2018

In Blog, crime, Jenny Kane, Opening Lines Blog, thriller

Today I’m delighted to welcome Jacqueline Evans to my blog to share the first 500 words of her book, Nostra Dame

It’s time for some ‘Opening Lines.’

After drawing a blank in my search to find someone who shared a similar ability, I was inspired to write my first book.  The word ‘psychic’ is used so loosely these days and often leaves people either cringing or wanting to know more.  It saddens me that people part with their money in the hope of getting a ‘message’ from a deceased loved one at events or private sittings that promise such things.  It’s nothing like that for me; I don’t profess to speak to dead people!  The thought of being put in the same box prompted me to write my own story.  For me, the definition of psychic is precognitive, spiritual and selfless – it doesn’t come with a price tag or self-glory.  The people in my book – those that lost their lives, are very dear to my heart.  My only hope is that I told the story with dignity.….

First 500 words of Nostra Dame

Chapter One – Preppy

From the start it appeared as if I’d been in training; a ‘preppy’ guided by an unknown force.  As if my path had somehow been pre-determined.  A near-death experience in my mid-twenties triggered a chain of events that completely changed my course.  Not only did it give me the strength to shed years of imposed beliefs but also taught me to trust my instincts.

Only then did a deeper level of empathy and understanding begin to emerge.  Over time, it seemed to turn a series of cogs, which opened me up to the supernatural and to a world far beyond the constructs of science.  A world that knew the future and one that seemed eager to want to share it.  Down to the tiniest detail, I would be given pieces of information that when put together formed a complete picture.

From serious crimes to global disasters, there had been no limits to the intelligence.  It had proven so reliable that I became able to interpret the most complex murders and anticipate big changes one after the other, like on a checklist.

‘It’ knew everything about me too; what made me tick, my likes, my dislikes and my reactions before I reacted.  It appeared to pave the way, engineering every twist and turn; so many turns that it is difficult to know where to start.  Perhaps then, my first memory would be the best place.

It was Christmas day, 1968.  A sparsely decorated tree stood in the corner of the cramped living room, glistening with multi-coloured lights and it felt magical.  We had sat around the table eating dinner, wearing paper hats; and afterwards my sister and I had wanted to play upstairs with our new toys.

We lived in the inner city of Birmingham, in a dingy, Victorian, terraced house.  Our only form of heating had been a paraffin heater and portable electric fire.  My large bedroom, which I shared with my sister, had high ceilings, bare floorboards and no furniture, other than two single beds.  It had been so bitterly cold, that my mother had put the fire in there to take the icy chill off.

Despite her warnings not to go anywhere near it, I couldn’t resist its warm glow and had stood closer than I should have.  The ribbon on my dress had dangled on the red-hot bars and in seconds, flames lashed around my head.  My sister’s screams had thankfully alerted my father, who flew into the room, rolled me in a blanket and took me straight to hospital.  I was just two and nine months, though remember it like it was yesterday.

It had been the reason for us moving to another house which had been far more modern, albeit still urban.  My sister, Diana was two years older and my brother, Stewart was five years older than me.

My dad worked long hours as a lorry driver, whilst my mom stayed at home looking after us.  She had been relentless in keeping us…

***

Nostra Dame, the true story of a woman trying to make sense of a mysterious world. Suppressing what came naturally for most of my early years; a pivotal moment in my mid-twenties opened a door to what lay dormant. The depth of knowledge that ensued began to snowball, leading me to predict global events and high-profile murder investigations. Each piece of information imparted in fractals, like pieces to a puzzle; and it was down to me, to put the pieces together

UK: http://amzn.to/2u5Dazq

US: http://amzn.to/2iQIdh8

Jacqueline was born in the 1960’s and grew up in Birmingham, where she still lives today with her youngest son. From an early age, she became an avid reader and always dreamt of one day becoming a writer. For many years Jacqueline worked in a bank, doing a job that she enjoyed but left to raise her two sons; a move she has never regretted. She loves spending time with family, cooking hearty meals, sewing and gardening. Above all, she likes nothing more than to escape to a quiet corner to read her favourite kind of books; crime-fiction and psychological thrillers. Currently she is working on her second, non-fiction book and excitedly awaiting the arrival of her first granddaughter.

https://twitter.com/JEvansthewriter

https://www.facebook.com/JEvansthewriter/ 

***

Many thanks Jacqueline.

Don’t forget to join me next week to read some words from Nicole Dunsford Evans.

Happy reading,

Jenny x

Opening Lines: Counterfeit! by Elizabeth Ducie

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On July 5, 2018

In Blog, Jenny Kane, Opening Lines Blog

‘Opening Lines’ time is upon us! This week I’m delighted to welcome the multi-talented Elizabeth Ducie to my blog to share the first 500 words from her thriller, Counterfeit!

Over to you Elizabeth…

 

Before I started writing fiction, I spent more than thirty years in the sometimes murky world of international pharmaceuticals. I visited more than fifty countries, many of them in less-developed parts of the world. Much of my fiction starts with a location and expands to characters and their stories.

Counterfeit!, which was published in 2016, began life as a 6K word short story assignment during my MA at Exeter University. Later, I expanded it into a thriller featuring three storng female protagonists (having been influenced by The Women’s Murder Club series by James Patterson). I thought it was going to be a standalone novel, but as soon as I wrote the closing line, I knew it was just the start of a series. The follow-ow, Deception!, came out in 2017 and the final part of the series, Corruption!, is due out this September.  Although the storyline is fictional, some of the events, espeically in Counterfeit! are based on real situations and conversations.

Blurb

Fake medicine kills. No-one is safe.Regulator Suzanne Jones’ mission to stop counterfeiting in Africa becomes personal when a colleague buys a bottle of fake cough syrup with tragic consequences. But her investigations bring danger ever closer. In Uganda a factory burns; Suzanne’s friend goes missing; and in Swaziland and Zambia, children die.
Who is supplying the fake drugs? What is the Eastern European connection? Can Suzanne stop the counterfeiters before more people die? 

***

First 500 words of Counterfeit!

Zambia; December 2003

Kabwe Mazoka walks up the hill, scuffing his feet in the rutted and baked red earth. It’s been dry for months, but today thick clouds mask the sun and when the rains come, this will be a water course, pouring mud and stinking filth into the main street below. He turns through a broken-down gate and walks across the yard. A mangy dog, tied with rope to a ring on the fence, jumps to its feet yelping before sinking back on its haunches, eyeing him warily.

The building was painted white once. Pale flakes cluster around rusty lines where the reinforcing bars are breaking through the pitted concrete. In the single row of windows running below the flat roof, most of the panes of glass are missing.

A line of women sit in the dirt against the wall, taking advantage of the shade from the over-hanging roof. As Kabwe unlocks the shiny new padlock on the door, they rise and slowly follow him into the building. The first raindrops splash into the dust.

The downpour hits the corrugated iron roof like stones from an angry crowd. Kabwe uses a metal pole to stir the thick, creamy liquid in the cleaned-out oil drum.

The men were coming back today, bringing brightly coloured labels and delivery instructions. They would be cross if the bottles weren’t filled ready for labelling and packing. He didn’t want them to be cross again.

They’d been cross when he suggested testing the ingredients before making the medicine. They showed him pieces of paper with green stickers and words in another language. They told him to ‘just get on with it.’ So he did.

When Kabwe ran out of the glycerol used to sweeten the cough medicines, they brought him drums in a battered lorry and told him to ‘get them unloaded and stored in the lock-up.’ The drums were different from the ones he’d had previously. These were red. Last time they were blue. The name was different too, longer. They told him it was just the chemical name for the same material. He pointed to the place where warning symbols and storage conditions were usually printed. The labels had been scratched and scraped; none of the words were legible. The men laughed at him and told him to ‘just get on with it.’ So he did.

Today, the men arrive just as the last of the brown bottles is being filled. They’d been pleased with Kabwe when he managed to source these from the local glass plant. For eleven months each year, the plant makes beer bottles, then the mechanics switch the moulds and they make medicine bottles, a year’s supply in just four weeks. They need a lot more beer bottles than medicine bottles in Africa.

These bottles are rejects, slightly misshapen, no good for an automated bottling line. But Kabwe’s filling team holds bottles under a tap, one at a time, operating the pump with a foot-pedal. He was able to….

***

Buy Link: http://elizabethducieauthor.co.uk/book/counterfeit-2/

Elizabeth’s Bio

Elizabeth has been writing for more than thirty years; initially producing audit reports, text books, articles and training modules for the international pharmacuetical industry. In 2012 she gave up the day job to concentrate on fiction. She has so far published three novels and three collections of short stories. She is due to publish her fourth novel in September.

She also writes The Business of Writing series to provide a toolbox of skills, allowing writers to spend minimal time getting their business systems right and releasing them for the creative work they love. She regularly lectures at Swanwick Writers’ Summer School and elsewhere.

Elizabeth believes self-publishing is an exciting opportunity and not merely the choice of last resort. In the past seven years, she has published fifteen titles under her own imprint, Chudleigh Phoenix Publications.

Elizabeth’s Links

Website: http://elizabethducieauthor.co.uk/

Blog: http://elizabethducieauthor.co.uk/category/my-blog/

Books: http://elizabethducieauthor.co.uk/my-books/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Elizabeth-Ducie-Author-312553422131146/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElizabethDucie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth_ducie_author/

*** 

Great opening lines! 

Make sure you come back next week for some opening lines from Zara Stonely.

Happy reading,

Jenny xx 

Opening Lines: Simon Farrant’s Famously Ordinary

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On June 21, 2018

In Blog, Fiction, Jenny Kane, Opening Lines Blog, thriller

Opening Line’s blog day is upon us.

Today, Simon Farrant is joining me to share the first 500 words from his very first novella, Famously Ordinary.

Over to you Simon…

 

Hello! I’m Simon Farrant, and this is my submission for the great 500 words blog. I haven’t heard of this concept before and I think it is intriguing. I hope that you enjoy the excerpt!

My book is called Famously Ordinary about a man called James Dean!

Many years ago I met a young man called James Dean while I worked in a mobile phone shop. I wondered what it would be like to have the name of a famous person. Of course, being British, I didn’t ask him.

Fast forward to last year, and I started to write stories. The young man came back to mind; I wanted to write a horror short story for an anthology. As it happened, the anthology never came about. This was good news for me in an unexpected way because a year later I rejigged the story and this novella was born.

I hope that you enjoy it!

The Blurb:

‘James Dean is an ordinary man with a famous name. But when he sees his father die in a traumatic car crash, something in James’ subconscious snaps with lethal consequences.

Caught in the perfect storm of grief and anger, James has blood on his hands. With the famous name weighing heavily on his subconscious mind, will his conscious mind be able to save him from himself?‘

***

The First 500 words:

James Dean hated his name.

Several times a week he thought about why he didn’t have a regular name. James blamed his father; he more than likely took charge of naming him. Like most things in his parents’ relationship, his father liked to think he was ‘the man of the house’ and dominated all the decisions. He decided what companies to use for utilities, and everything else. Denise sometimes asked to be more involved, but she got nowhere.

Dean Dean, his father, was hung up on his name, but unlike his son, he tried to not let it show to the outside world. Being from an older generation, it wasn’t the done thing to let your emotions shine through. James survived school and college unscathed; youthful ignorance meant most of the kids didn’t connect to the movie star, and those who did thought having the same name as a famous person was cool. Still, he had a lot to be happy and content about. James had a nice job in the same warehouse his father worked in that paid well, a nice car he had chosen because it was what he wanted rather than just being what he was able to afford after scraping the money together to buy it, and a nice detached house with an integral garage. He could buy nice new clothes as and when he wanted, which he was grateful for because he didn’t like to wear the same clothes repeatedly. Nice. Such a small word, James thought, but damning by faint praise.

James believed his life was normal, like other successful people. Yet he aspired to be something more. His mind was always on fast forward, daydreaming. He was fascinated by the adverts on television for the RAF Reserves. That looked extraordinary; he just needed a push in that direction. He hoped Dean would dare him to apply and say he thought James wasn’t cut out for it just so he could prove him wrong.

To entertain himself when he saw someone on the street, he would often invent a story about them for a few minutes. These stories were detailed, and they came to life in his imagination when he saw them play out in his mind’s eye.

Facebook didn’t yet have a group for ‘Normal People with a Famous Name’. Maybe no one wanted to start one for fear of the unknown and the inevitable ribbings, or maybe because they just wanted to keep a low profile.  Perhaps they didn’t even pay their moniker any attention at all. Maybe James needed to see a psychiatrist to help him with his problems, but he was in denial that his mind was a swirling pit with unseen depths. In his daydream world, which he was sure was created by having the hated name, the characters he created were normal people with the curse of stupid famous names. James had always been bitter, even as a schoolboy. He hid behind a mask of fake smiles…

***

Buy Link:

Mybook.to/famouslyordinary

My social links:

Facebook.com/simonfarrantofficial

Twitter – @asfarrant

Email – simon@farrantfiction.com

Bio:

It is true, what they say; you never know where life is going to take you.

I’m lucky enough to have had a diverse experience of life thus far.
Back in 1975, yeah I’m ancient, I was born in Doncaster; a town in South Yorkshire, England. I’m proud of my Yorkshire roots.

Over the following few decades, I lived in various places. I went to university in Derby and gained a HND and a BA (Hons). Since then, I lived and worked in a few more places before finding the love of my life.
We moved in together, got married and had three kids. What an adventure; it started almost fifteen years ago. Since then, I am proud to have served as a Special Constable. I wanted to join up full time, but life had another plan. At the time, I was working for a major national supermarket as a HGV (large truck) driver, which I did for over a decade. I became ill, I think it was during 2011, but the illness never went away. Now I am disabled with various chronic illnesses, which resulted in my losing my job about four years ago.
I did wonder where life would take me next.
Mark Nye, a superb writer and a friend, asked for submissions for an anthology. I wrote a short story called Famously Ordinary. To my delight, Mark told me it was a good story. By then, I had caught the writing bug!
The anthology was never actually published, so I made it into this novella, which, I feel, is a much better story.

***

Many thanks Simon,

Good luck with your first publication.

Don’t forget to come back for Jane Risdon’s first 500 words next week.

Happy reading,

Jenny. xx

 

Opening Lines: What’s Mine by Fiona Morgan

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On June 7, 2018

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, crime, Fiction, Jenny Kane, Opening Lines Blog, thriller

It’s that time again!

This week’s ‘Opening Lines’ blog come from the lovely Fiona Morgan. Let’s dive into the first 500 words of What’s Mine.

Blurb

Bronagh seems to have it all; her own flat, a fantastic new job as a party planner and a blossoming romance with long-term friend Max.  Little does she know that some is plotting to take everything away from her.

Elaine, now out of work, having been replaced by Bronagh, is hell-bent on revenge.  She begins a campaign of terror, beginning with abusive text messages, which quickly escalates leading to devastating consequences.

Will Bronagh and Max’s relationship survive the turmoil that ensues? Will Elaine get the revenge she so desperately wants?

Set in Glasgow this is a powerful tale of love, hate, manipulation and control, which examines the wide-ranging consequences and damage inflicted by a callous act of revenge.

I started writing my first book Free to push myself to do something I had always wanted to do and I knew that if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done, so I bought a pad of paper and went for it.  After finishing all the writing and editing, and Free was away being proofread, I felt there was something missing, I had lost friends, so I sat down and started again with What’s Mine.  I love writing, telling my stories and the fact that people not only read them, but are enjoying them is amazing and something I am always grateful for.

Here is the first 500 words of my new book ‘What’s Mine’, I hope you all enjoy it.

Bronagh walks from her job interview at House of Fun part planning fearing the worst, but hoping for the best. She feels she must have come across as a desperate crazy lady, and to a certain extent she is desperate. Desperate to get a start on her own wedding coordinating business.  She has decided that working as a party planner is the best way to gain experience and showcase her talents before breaking out on her own.  At twenty-five years old Bronagh is fed up working in retail shops and pubs, so after her best friend Max, noticed the job advert online and sent her the link, she knew it was time to get her plans, and hopefully her life, started.

Max has always been kind and thoughtful towards her, plus he is absolutely gorgeous.  Bronagh would love fir him to see her in a romantic way, but he never seems to, so she has resigned herself to not being his type and accepting the fact that she will only ever be his best friend, or at least she tries to accept it.

Max is broad shouldered with sandy short hair and crystal blue eyes. He is a good bit taller than her five feet five inches.  She guessed about six foot, and always seemed to have a tall blonde on his arm, which is nothing like her. Bronagh has auburn waves, that shine like copper in the sun, freckles dusting her nose and is a curvy size twelve. She loves her curves and has never wanted to be straight up and down.

She sighs as she makes her way back to her car, a green 1999 W plate Ford Fiesta that could be temperamental at best in the cold weather. She chastises herself, remembering that she needs to stop thinking about Max in a romantic way and stop worrying about the job interview. Trying to put everything out of her mind she mutters to herself, ‘Que Sera Sera’, what will be will be, and what will be should be found out in a few days, or so David and Erin (the married couple who own House of Fun party planners) had said.

The weather that day is clear and bright for a late February afternoon and Bronagh is g;ad to see the sun after a week of rain, so much so it manages to lift her mood and gives her something to smile about. Climbing into her car she turns the key in the Fiesta’s ignition, and after the second try and a few pumps of the accelerator the car roars to life.

***

Sitting in her bright red 64 plate Audi TT, Elaine glowers at the redheaded woman that has just left David and Erin’s house. That is, was her her job the redhead had just been interviewed for and she has no right getting it, unless, Elaine thinks, the redhead was part of the plan to get her fired all along! In Elaine’s opinion they had no…

***
Huge thank you Fiona- another fabulous opening sequence!
Come back next Thursday fro some opening lines from Jennifer Wilson.
Happy reading,
Jenny x

The Parliament House Books: John Mayer

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On May 4, 2018

In Blog, Fiction

We ae taking a step into the world of John Mayer today, with a look at his series, The Parliament House Books.

Why not grab yourself a cuppa, put your feet up and settle down for a read?

Over to you John…

Firstly, please allow me to say how refreshing it is not to be answering the same questions as I normally do for these things.

Well, I’m John Mayer and I write The Parliament House Books. Why? The honest answer is that having lost the community into which I was born and then lost the one where I grew up, both to City Hall ordered demolition I hoped I would find that sense of community in Parliament House; which contains the Scottish Faculty of Advocates. I didn’t. Instead, I found what Lord McEwan called ‘a nest of vipers’. So, in what I think is typical form for me, I created the community I wanted to live amongst. You might say that creating The Parliament House Books was, for me, a kind of necessity. It’s certainly a community I enjoy being amongst.

During my twenty years as an Advocate in the Supreme Courts of Scotland, having written legal text books, journal articles and been published in non-fiction hardback, I thought I could simply start writing fiction. I figured that I had many transferrable skills. After all, when writing complicated legal arguments, you only get one chance to get it right in court. So, having been very successful in my written practise and being very persuasive in oral argument, I’d be an immediate success with The Parliament House Books. Right? Wrong!

I went through two editors and a couple of thousand pounds in trying to learn. What I discovered was that – as the Chinese say about lawyers – if you started in London and laid all the editors in the world end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion. So I took what I thought were the best bits of their advice and just began to write just for myself. I quickly learned that, as with giving love and affection, if you try too hard, it comes out wrongly. You firstly have to feel that honest deep-down feeling and then find a way of bringing it to the surface. Then comes the difficult bit: imparting it in a way that makes the receiver feel that your passion is offered solely for them. That private feeling of connection between author and reader is what makes people keep turning pages.

 

As I’ve deepened and developed my writing skills, I’ve also learned something of vital importance. That is never to think that my words are chiselled in stone. As I’ve become a better writer, I’ve gone back to the three prequels and the first novel in the series and re-written certain parts. I like that Amazon gives those who’ve bought an earlier edition the chance to get the later one free. I’ve had people write to me and say they were in tears when reading the changes. That’s the phenomenon I was talking about earlier: the private connection between author and reader. It’s very intimate and thus very delicate. It’s a privilege to connect with readers to that depth.

Well, I guess it’s time to talk about the characters who populate the pages of The Parliament House Books. Despite Brogan McLane being a Glaswegian like me, and despite being an Advocate in Parliament House, he as the central character, isn’t me. McLane’s blood brother, Big Joe Mularkey, is also fictional; though he is based on someone whom I know very well. Some characters however, are real, though I lost touch with them many years ago. There is a real Tucker Queen and a real Arab. In the second novel The Order, I had permission to use a real character who is a young blue-haired beauty whose abilities with all things digital are second to none. There is a character which I very much enjoy writing and which is real. I say which and not whom because the character is a place and not a person: it’s the Calton Bar. I see the Calton Bar as the focal point of the community called The Calton in Glasgow. It’s – to coin a phrase from the 90s – a place where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came. Many reviewers have said the price of the book is worth paying just for the parts in that Bar.

I once wrote elsewhere that ‘Justice is not automatic. It usually has to be won and often hard won.’ That is not perhaps how we’d like the world to be, but it’s certainly how it is. It is the purpose of lawyers and courts to bring that justice to those to whom it rightfully belongs. When that purity of purpose is usurped, then injustice arrives on the coldest of all possible cold winds. That wind rips through people’s lives and often kills them. I’ve seen it happen many times. On the first morning of a court case that may have taken four or more years to get to the door of the court, clients often said to me ‘Well Mr Mayer, do you think we’ll get our justice?’ I’d have to remind them of what I said at the beginning of their case: ‘If you want justice, the church is down the street. Here in Parliament House you get your legal warrior against their legal warrior. Now keep calm and let me do battle.’

Court battles where the judge favours one side, the behind-the-scenes wriggling of The Crown Prosecution Office, the way old school ranks can close in the blink of an eye, the way personal agendas often take precedence over sworn oaths, all lead to injustice and despair. There’s plenty of injustice to be found in The Parliament House Books, but there’s a brighter side too. Especially that camaraderie found in the Calton Bar amongst people who’ve known and trusted each other all their lives. And of course, there’s the joy of winning when you’ve been on the side of the righteous.

I hope you enjoy your visits to my world called The Parliament House Books.

***

The Trust   

Amazon.com   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0 756K8X5P      http://tinyurl.com/yd3p7q dg

Amazon.co.uk  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp /B0756K8X5P

The Bones      

Amazon.com   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01 N7DKA2Q   http://tinyurl.com/y7c4rso y

 Amazon.co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/ B01N7DKA2Q   

The Order      

Amazon.com   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B 013YKCAV4   http://tinyurl.com/y8xabkm w

Amazon co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orde r-Urban-Scottish-Crime-Parliam ent-ebook/dp/B013YKCAV4

The Trial       

Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00 SYZRN12  OR  http://tinyurl.com/ydbkojj t

Amazon.co.uk  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0 0SYZRN12

The Prequels

The Cross       

Amazon.com               https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00 Y4GRAUE

 Amazon.co.uk            https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B 00Y4GRAUE

The Cycle         

Amazon.com            https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0 0XVOGI5S

Amazon.co.uk          https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cycl e-second-prequel-Parliament-Ho use-ebook/dp/B00XVOGI5S

The Boots

Amazon.com           https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00 YBSXB76

Amazon.co.uk         https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B 00YBSXB76

All Three Prequels

Amazon.com    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06 VSSQBKM  OR  http://tinyurl.com/yaqbkco w

Amazon.co.uk  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B 06VSSQBKM

BIO

John Mayer was born in Glasgow, Scotland, a war-zone where violence and poverty reigned. In 1963 when he heard The Beatles on Radio Caroline, he decided to change his life. Aged 14 he left school because, in his opinion, he wasn’t being taught. For the next year, in all weathers, he cycled 9 miles to and 9 miles from the Mitchell Library in central Glasgow where he devoured books of all kinds and began to understand what more the world had to offer. He became an Apprentice engineer, and soon was teaching men twice his age. In the early 1970s his love of music led him to set up as a Record Producer. He built his own record company trading in 14 countries. After a disheartening court battle with global giants, he left the business world and went back into further education at the University of Edinburgh, becoming an Advocate in the Supreme Courts of Scotland. There he acted for the downtrodden and desperate as well as Greenpeace International. His specialism was in fighting international child abduction.

John has written non-fiction, legal texts and articles; broadcast to tens of millions of people on US and UK radio, appeared on TV and in print media.  Since retiring from the Law, John has enjoyed using his years of very colourful experience to create The Parliament House Books series.

The Trial is the first full length novel in this series. Set in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it is more than a nod to Franz Kafka’s book of the same title. The Trial sees crusading Scottish Advocate, Brogan McLane, fight injustices so casually delivered by Low Life in High Places in the Old Town.

WEBSITE                         https://parliamenthousebooks. weebly.com/

TWITTER URL                 https://twitter.com/johnmay erauthor

FACEBOOK                     https://www.facebook.com/thep arliamenthousebooks/?fref=ts

JOHN MAYER AUTHOR PAGE     https://www.amazon.com/author /jmayer

Author page on Goodreads   http://tinyurl.com/glay5ou

***

Many thanks, John.

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny x

 

Opening Lines: The Man in the Needlecord Jacket by Linda MacDonald

By

On April 12, 2018

In Blog, Contemporary fiction, Fiction, Jenny Kane, Opening Lines Blog

It’s time for another in the popular blog series “Opening Lines.”

This week I’m delighted to welcome Linda MacDonald to my site to share the first 500 words (precisely) of her novel, The Man in the Needlecord Jacket.

Over to you Linda…

The Man in the Needlecord Jacket is told from the perspectives of two women who are each struggling to let go of a long-term destructive partnership.

When Felicity meets Coll, a charismatic artist, she has high hopes of being distracted from her failed marriage. What she doesn’t know is that he has a partner, Sarah, with whom he has planned a future. Sarah is deeply in love with Coll, but his controlling behaviour and associations with other women have always made her life difficult. When he becomes obsessed with Felicity, Sarah’s world collapses and a series of events is set in motion that will challenge the integrity of all the characters involved.

I was inspired to explore the issue of mental abuse in partnerships and the grey area of an infidelity that is emotional, not physical.  Here are the first 500 words …

Sarah’s Story – July 2013

In early December last year, my life took an ominous turn. It was a time of grey skies and drizzle-filled days and when Coll came over to my place for a midweek supper. I had finished decorating the small Christmas tree, tidied leftover tinsel and trinkets into a carrier bag and was sitting at my dining table putting stamps on my cards ready for posting. He arrived with a local Exeter paper in his hand and he waved it at me with a flourish before plonking it down in front of me, scattering my neat pile of cards.

No hello or how are you? I could tell he was on one of his missions. I would have to listen before I spoke, and then perhaps feign enthusiasm for yet another wild scheme which would take a good half hour in the telling. His eyes were excited and there was a smear of green paint on the back of his left hand. It’s interesting how one remembers trivial details surrounding major events.

He said, ‘I want to find an outlet for my paintings and try to seize some of the Christmas present-buying market. There’s a new restaurant opened this side of Pinhoe. I might try there, if someone hasn’t already beaten me to it. Look, it says “locally sourced produce”.’ And he jabbed a finger on the advert in question, demanding my scrutiny. ‘The clientele might appreciate local art too. Can’t get much more local than me. I’ll go and have a meal there on Friday and see what it’s like.’

I noticed he said ‘I’ll go and have a meal.’ Not ‘we.’ He saw my narrowed eyes.

‘You won’t want to be hanging around while I talk pictures,’ he said.

It would have been nice to have been asked. He was always inclined to do what he wanted without considering my feelings. A man of impulses. Highly annoying but also part of the attraction because when the impulses included me – which they did often at the start of our relationship – life was sublime.

‘Good idea,’ I said. I thought it was. I had no inkling that it was going to be the worst idea in the world.

Felicity – Early December 2012

My new restaurant has barely been open a week when I am hovering near the entrance lobby and a table for one is requested by an attractive middle-aged man. I assume he is on business, but as we are outside the centre of Exeter on the edge of a small village, this is unusual. Also, he is clad

like a rock-star in faded denim and a dark grey needlecord jacket. Not the favoured garb of my clientele who are usually besuited or, that most broadly interpreted of phrases, smart-casual.

I show him to a small table by the window and give him a menu. He requests a glass of house white in a voice of liquid gold. In my mind, I begin to elaborate on…

***

You can find out what happens next by purchasing The Man in the Needlecord Jacket from – Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Needlecord-Jacket-Linda-MacDonald/dp/1788037111/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

About the Author

Linda MacDonald is the author of four independently published novels: Meeting Lydia and the stand-alone sequels, A Meeting of a Different Kind, The Alone Alternative and The Man in the Needlecord Jacket. They are all contemporary adult fiction, multi-themed, but with a focus on relationship issues.

After studying psychology at Goldsmiths’, Linda trained as a secondary science and biology teacher. She taught these subjects for several years before moving to a sixth-form college to teach psychology. In 2012, she gave up teaching to focus fully on writing.

Linda was born and brought up in Cockermouth, Cumbria and now lives in Beckenham, Kent.

Twitter: @LindaMac1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindaMacDonaldAuthor/

***

Many thanks Linda. Great extract.

Come back next week to read the first 500 words from Liz Mistry.

Happy reading,

Jenny x

Kate Griffin talks Kitty Peck!

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On February 2, 2017

In Blog, crime, Fiction, Historical fiction, Jenny Kane

Forgive me a small fan girl moment.

I can’t quite believe I have Kate Griffin on my blog today. Her Kitty Peck series is just brilliant. Not a single word is wasted throughout. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I wish I’d written these books myself!

And what’s more, having had the pleasure of meeting Kate at the Tiverton Literary Festival last year, I can tell you she is a lovely person as well- with great taste in Thai food.

Why not grab a cuppa- possibly with cake- put your feet up for a few minutes, and have a read.

Over to you Kate…

First a big thank you to Jenny for inviting me to contribute and also a huge thank for responding to my Kitty Peck books so enthusiastically. As she also delves into the shady corners of history, her appreciation means a great deal!

Writing a novel is a bit like mountaineering. Admittedly, climbing Mount Everest is a lot more dangerous than sitting in your pyjamas and eating Hobnobs while tapping away at a laptop, but  bear with me because there are definite parallels.

When the going’s good you manage to cover a vast distance in a surprisingly short space of time but on a rough day it doesn’t matter how long you slog away – head down against the wind, digging your crampons into the crumbling ice underfoot – nothing comes right.

Hours can pass and then when you finally look up, snow-blind from the glaring whiteness of the empty screen in front of you, it’s soul-destroying to find that you’ve hardly gone anywhere at all.

Even your ‘footsteps’ – those few feeble paragraphs you managed to hack out – have probably been deleted as you became increasingly dejected, disoriented and unsure which way to go.

It’s as if snow has fallen on your tracks, obliterating every trace of your progress.

Whiteout.

On grim days like this a mountaineer stops, pitches camp, brews up something hot and strong and takes cover until the blizzard has passed.

In writing terms, ‘pitching camp’ means admitting temporary defeat. When nothing comes together, it’s best to switch off your computer (or close your notebook if you’re a long-hander) and do something else, preferably something that makes you happy.

A break usually clears the head and clears the way.

But even then, once you’ve gathered your strength, consulted your charts and stepped boldly back on the trail, the way to the summit can still be treacherous and deceptive.

Sometimes you’re so busy concentrating on reaching those far glittering peaks that you don’t notice the bottomless crevasse yawning in front of you. By this I mean the gaping hole in the plot that you never realised was there until you tried to marshal your characters across the final glacier and en-route to the sunlit upland ending of your story.

One minute it was all going so well; the next you have no alternative but to find another route to your neatly planned conclusion.

Sometimes it can take days to retrace your steps to chart a new way forward or around the chasm. In particularly hazardous conditions you might even have to go right back to the beginning, re-stock your supplies and start out again.

More fortunately, just occasionally when you find yourself teetering on the brink of a deep dark void, inspiration strikes and you find exactly the right piece of equipment in your rucksack to enable you to perform a miraculous leap to safety.

By ‘equipment’ I mean your plot or your characters. It’s amazing how helpful and inventive they can be when you put your mind to it!

Then again, your characters can also be difficult, dangerous travelling companions, particularly the pesky independent ones who refuse to listen to your strict instructions and insist on going off by themselves, getting totally lost in the craggy, uncharted landscape – ie, the parts of your story that you never had any intention of writing. All it takes is to allow a character to wander a few steps off the track you’ve planned and that’s it. They can be missing for days!

By the time you realise what they’ve gone and done, it usually takes a major search party (aka a complete re-write) to locate them and bring them back to the trail.

At testing times like these many writers would be thrilled to see a St Bernard lolloping to the rescue with a giant barrel of brandy hanging round its neck. (Or, in my case, gin).

Now, I’m horribly aware that I’ve pushed my mountaineering metaphor to the limit of human endurance, but there’s one last comparison I’d like to make, and for me it’s very relevant.

Kate Griffin with Michael Jecks, Ruth Ware & Chris Ewan at Tiverton Lit Festival

This week, I’m about to embark on the fourth instalment of my Kitty Peck mystery series, published by Faber and Faber.

Kitty’s world is a version of London in the early 1880s. The setting will be familiar to anyone who loves Conan Doyle’s wonderful Sherlock Holmes stories. Kitty’s London, specifically Limehouse, is a place where menace lurks in the swirling mist rising from the Thames and where the rumble of a hackney carriage generally bodes ill. Kitty is the youthful proprietress of three tawdry music halls, but she is also more, much more.

By the end of the year I hope that Kitty and I will have gone on one last journey together.  At the moment, we’re both at base camp. Around 400 snow-blank pages lie ahead and I have to find a way to guide us across that vast and virgin expanse.

I know exactly where we’re going. If I shield my eyes and squint into the far distance I can see the sparkling summit – our final destination.

I’ve spent the last few months planning and researching. I’ve worked out the route and packed essentials for the journey (well, Hobnobs and gin) but, as I explained above, you can never be quite sure what might crop up on the way.

Now as I stare at all that whiteness ahead, I have to admit that I’m excited… and slightly terrified.

 

If you’d like to catch up, the first two books in the Kitty Peck series have just been released as a single ebook:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kitty-Peck-Mysteries-Murders-Ill-Fortune-ebook/dp/B01M8G7QL2

The third book in the series, Kitty Peck and the Daughter of Sorrow, will be published in summer this year:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kitty-Peck-Daughter-Sorrow/dp/0571315208

***

What a wonderful blog. Like many writers, I totally equate with the feelings of terror you have described! However, having read the Kitty Peck books to date, I can tell you, you have nothing to worry about!

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny x

 

 

 

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