Tag Archives: authors

Places in our Memories with Juliet Greenwood #MondayBlogs

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There are places that remain in our memories, the details may become slightly blurred, nostalgia may colour our thoughts, but they don’t fade. And how those places made us feel at the time is the one thing that remains.

Today I am thrilled to welcome Juliet Greenwood, a friend for many years, and a brilliant writer. Juliet is sharing her special memories Llyn Idwal, a lake near Snowdon in Wales.

I have so many places in my memory that remain vivid over time. The one I have chosen has been familiar since childhood, and is one I hope to visit again very soon. Oddly enough, it’s less than six miles from my cottage in Snowdonia, but because it was just outside our five-mile range from home during the pandemic lockdowns, and since these have eased I’ve had a puppy whose joints need protecting, I haven’t been there since 2019. It’s a place that’s both private and very public, both accessible and isolated, and one that is filled with atmosphere, images and stories.

The place is Llyn Idwal, a small, beautifully clear, lake that lies a short walk up from the main A5 road between the university city of Bangor, on the coast, and Snowdon itself. During the day, and particularly in summer, it is popular with tourists from all over the world. But if, like me, you live only a few minutes away by car, it’s still possible to arrive at first light, when it’s almost completely isolated, with just the occasional serious climber heading out for a day on the surrounding peaks of Tryfan, the Glyders and Y Garn.

Being surrounded by high mountains, the light and the colours caught in the lake’s waters are constantly shifting, caught within a huge silent bowl, sometimes utterly still, with a sense of vast space and silence, at other times savage with wind and rain. At the far end is a cleft in the rock called the Devil’s Kitchen. I can remember my imagination being fired as a child by the stories that, when cloud rises up like smoke above the kitchen, you know the devil is cooking up his tea. It’s always a reminder of the uncontrolled and (if you are not careful and treat the landscape with respect) perilous wildness of the mountains, where, from the tops, you can see the train chugging away, taking visitors up Snowdon, or look down on the sea and mountains stretching out into the distance, and feel your own smallness and insignificance.

My favourite memories are of those occasional calm and cloudless mornings, when the lake itself is utterly still, with occasional ripples from the breeze. Especially in the silent clarity of first light, it has a mournful air that perfectly reflects the legend of Prince Idwal being drowned in the lake by his enemies, and the saying that no bird has since flown over its waters. There’s a feeling of being in a true wilderness there, a place to breath in clean air, clear the mind and put troubles into perspective. As a writer, it’s also the perfect place to work out particularly knotty plot lines. Not that you can concentrate on anything but watching your feet and drinking in the atmosphere, but I usually find that the mind has been quietly working underneath while the body has been doing its thing, and the solution is there once I arrive home, tired but exhilarated and desperate for toast and a strong pot of coffee.

It’s one of those place I’ve always taken for granted. The last time I went up, on a crystal clear late autumn morning in 2019, I – like everyone else I met on the way down, cheerful and friendly, and enjoying this accessible piece of wild beauty – had no idea how life was about to change. Where I walk my dog each morning nearly my house, I can see the mountains surrounding Llyn Idwal. It was a weird feeling during the pandemic to have them so close, and yet forbidden. Similarly, there was an even stranger conflict of the idyllic quiet of a landscape devoid of tourists, which now belonged only to those of us who live here, and the frightening events of the world outside.

In this vast landscape of the mountains, there was a glimpse of a world without human beings, the birds louder, the seasons quietly turning without us. When my car battery went flat (the only thing he was called out to, during lockdown, the recovery man told me wryly), I drove up the valley to recharge it, turning round as I reached the entrance to Llyn Idwal and the edges of my permitted range. I couldn’t resist stopping briefly and winding down the windows. Despite not daring to turn the engine off in case I couldn’t start it again (the mortification!), the silence and the stillness was overwhelming. Unnerving, even, like a post-apocalyptic world. For all my longing to be there after so many months, and the frustration of being so close to the lake, I hastily dashed back to the busy throng of my characters, with all their noisy troubles and conflicts.

I have so many memories of Llyn Idwal, going up as a small child, and in all weathers as an adult. It will be strange going back after the intensity of the time since I was last there. Like most of us, I’m still processing the emotions of the pandemic, and I shall have sad, as well as joyful, memories of the beloved four-legged walking companion who adored it up there, and whose time came to an end before we could go again. But I shall also have my new little walking companion, who will be deliriously discovering a new world (we’ve already had the conversation about sheep). And I’ll be remembering that, in the meantime, I’ve had another two books published, with a third completed, and now on its way to being published this May, and just how amazing that is – something you forget when you are in the middle of it all!

I know that when I so go back to Llyn Idwal, I’ll wait for one of those brilliantly magical early mornings, when I can get up there at dawn, and savour the stillness and the sense of isolation, before returning down amongst the walkers making their way up, exchanging greetings, as people (and dogs) in the mountains do, and sharing the beauty of the day and the privilege of sharing this very special place. And then I shall return to my desk and corral my Shakespeare sisters into doing what I tell them, rather than heading off on a tangent. I shall fail, of course (characters always do their own thing), which may well require another dawn adventure to the calming waters of Llyn Idwal….

Bio and Links

Juliet Greenwood is a historical novelist, whose latest novel, The Shakespeare Sisters, set near Stratford-upon-Avon during WW2, will be published in May 2023 with Storm Publishing. She has previously been published by Orion and Honno Press, with her first novel being a finalist for The People’s Book Prize and two of her books reaching the top 5 in the UK Kindle store. She has always been a bookworm and a storyteller, writing her first novel (a sweeping historical epic) at the age of ten. Juliet is fascinated both by her Celtic heritage and the history of the women in her family. She now lives in a traditional cottage in Snowdonia, North Wales, set between the mountains and the sea, with an overgrown garden (good for insects!) and a surprisingly successful grapevine.

Amazon page: https://amzn.to/3GH74Mw

Website:       http://www.julietgreenwood.co.uk/

Facebook:     https://www.facebook.com/juliet.greenwood

Twitter:         https://twitter.com/julietgreenwood

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

My Review of Lyrics for the Loved Ones by Anne Goodwin

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I received an Arc of Lyrics for the Loved Ones from the author in return for an honest review, and I gave 4* to the book.

Book Description:

After half a century confined in a psychiatric hospital, Matty has moved to a care home on the Cumbrian coast. Next year, she’ll be a hundred, and she intends to celebrate in style. Yet, before she can make the arrangements, her ‘maid’ goes missing.

Irene, a care assistant, aims to surprise Matty with a birthday visit from the child she gave up for adoption as a young woman. But, when lockdown shuts the care-home doors, all plans are put on hold.

But Matty won’t be beaten. At least not until the Black Lives Matter protests burst her bubble and buried secrets come to light.

Will she survive to a hundred? Will she see her ‘maid’ again? Will she meet her long-lost child?

Rooted in injustice, balanced with humour, this is a bittersweet story of reckoning with hidden histories in cloistered times.

My Review:

As always with Anne Goodwin’s work, Lyrics for the Loved Ones is a good story that is well written. This is the final episode of Matilda Windsor’s story.

I have previously reviewed both the first of Matty’s journey through life: Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home here and the sequel:  Stolen Summers : A heart-breaking tale of betrayal, confinement and dreams of escape (Matilda Windsor)  here. And, as with both of these books I will reiterate my words from these reviews: “I can only say how much I admire this author’s writing style and her ability to draw the reader into the world of the characters.”

None of us live in a vacuum; what goes on within our communities, and in the wider world, affects us. This is the same for Anne Goodwin’s characters. This story is set against the background of the Covid Pandemic and the protests of Black Lives Matter. So there are themes of frustration, anger, prejudices, technical and political and societal changes running through the whole book.

And, as always with Anne Goodwin’s work, every scene that portrays all of these themes, all of the reactions of the characters, are brilliantly shown. As well as the description of the actual physicality of the settings. So we are in the lounge of the care home, the cemeteries where one character goes to talk with those she knew when they were alive, the homes of the characters, and Matty’s bedroom.

The reader is also in Matty’s head; we comprehend and appreciate the confusion of her thoughts of all that is happening around her. And because the author is so expert in showing Matty’s dementia we completely believe her perspective on everything.

But her point of view (told in third person) isn’t the only one; the book alternates with other characters’ perspectives. And the backgrounds change.

And this was my only reservation about how the plot is organised. For me, how these other characters fitted into the story was initially confusing. Many times I needed to read, go back in the narrative, and re-read some chapters, some sections, to understand where and when they fitted in Matilda’s life. And, I must admit, this did slightly spoil my enjoyment of Lyrics for the Loved Ones. Anne Goodwin has a great skilful talent for maintaining a suspension of disbelief – but with some of these characters, it was sometimes a struggle to be truly involved in the story.

And one character’s dialogue is written in dialect; at first in very strong, constant Cumbrian dialect, but which later on in the story, is less so. (For which I was grateful; I felt it was hard enough not knowing how the character fitted in, without having to struggle with understanding what was said) To be fair though, the author did insert a page at the end of the book which is a glossary of terms on the dialect. Perhaps this might be better placed at the front of the book, especially in regards to the eBook? Just a thought.

None of the above takes away from the poignancy of Matilda Windsor’s story. She is a memorable protagonist. Through her life, her situation (which, unfortunately, was once all too true in British society not too long ago) the reader is taken through a whole range of human emotions: happiness and sadness, anger and acceptance, empathy and indignation.

I have to admit I have laughed and I have cried whilst reading each of these books. And, despite the personal reservations I’ve noted above, I have no reservations in thoroughly recommending all three to readers willing to take the journey with Matilda.

About Anne Goodwin:

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.

Anne writes about the darkness that haunts her and is wary of artificial light. She makes stuff up to tell the truth about adversity, creating characters to care about and stories to make you think. She explores identity, mental health and social justice with compassion, humour and hope.

A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.

Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

Website: annegoodwin.weebly.com

Libraries are Important. #Readers #Books #Libraries #Librarians #Pembrokeshire #Wales #MondayBookBlog

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Image courtesy of Pixabay

When I was a child my mother took me every Saturday to the small library in our village. I was allowed six books – usually all read by the Wednesday (I was one of those kids who read by torchlight under the bedclothes – and got away with it for years!) I would then wait, not always patiently, until the weekend, when we would go again. I think it was a great relief to both my mother and myself when I was at last allowed to walk to the library by myself.

By the way… In the very olden days libraries were named from the Latin “liber”, meaning “book.” In Greek and the Romance languages, the corresponding term is “bibliotheca”. Or, if you want to go with the medieval version “Calque of Old English bōchord (‘library, collection of books’), equivalent to book +‎ hoard.”

Just thought you might want to know that.

Anyway, when I was a child – libraries were just… libraries. The place one went to to borrow books. For free!!

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Today, libraries are still one of the few free services left. Libraries are used for many different reasons; they contain not only books. magazines, newspapers, manuscripts, but also CDs, DVDs, e-books, audiobooks etc. They connect us to information. And, important in these days, they are also community hubs where authors (if they’re lucky) can go to give talks, hold workshops. It’s where people can connect with other people. They are safe havens.

Reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do, so what we need to make sure of is that future generations have the opportunity to do just that. Books represent the chance for us not only to enjoy the work of so many brilliant writers, but to also to grow, to change, to see life from other points of view. We will only ever see life through our own perspective … unless we read.

In our area, the Pembrokeshire County Council has approved its budget for 2023-24. We will have a Council Tax rise of 7.5%. It would be wonderful if the value of libraries and librarians were understood; if those in authority – those with access to their council budgets – acknowledged this importance for every generation. If enough funding were to ploughed into libraries to preserve them.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Each month on the Libraries Wales website, they focus on introducing an author based in or writing about Wales. I am thrilled to be the author for April 2023. And I am more than happy, alongside other friends who are also writers, to talk about the value of books and the enjoyment of reading. Just give us the chance!!

Places in our Memories – With Angela Petch #Memories #Photos

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There are places that remain in our memories, the details may become slightly blurred, nostalgia may colour our thoughts, but they don’t fade. And how those places made us feel at the time is the one thing that remains.

Today I am really pleased to welcome author Angela Petch to tell us about her special memories of her family, her wedding and Italy.

This favourite photo from an old album captures a special moment. The day before my wedding in Italy, I went on a picnic with my family: the last day as a single woman. My mother gathered a bunch of wild flowers to hand to me and the moment was spontaneously captured on film.

These poor-quality photos of long ago represent memories embedded in my brain and which creep back nowadays in my writing.

I came late to publication and I truly believe I wouldn’t have been ready earlier. I needed life experiences to write about and most of my books include something from my past or my family’s past.

In my new book, The Girl Who Escaped https://geni.us/B0BYC1V9NHcover I revisited the city of Urbino, where I married forty-five years ago, to site my story. Much of it is a true account of my husband’s Italian grandfather. Luigi Micheli was a courageous partisan. But he kept quiet about it. We found more out after he died, from papers he left in an old box, and I have threaded details into my story. I used the abbey where we married as an invented location for secret meetings of partisans. Many priests were involved in the underground movement, so who knows if somethings did go on there?

My books, published by Bookouture, are all set in Italy.

In 1960, my young suburban life was uprooted from a London dormitory suburb and planted in the Eternal City, Rome.

My father had accepted a job at the headquarters of the branch of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I still remember my first impressions as my mother and brother and sister stepped off the train at Rome Terminus into the noise, heat, bustle and bewildering babble of a strange language.

The traffic was scary and so my father swapped his new, white Ford Consul for a tiny, dented second-hand Fiat Topolino. He barely fitted in with his long legs and in the summer his head poked through the tiny roll-back soft top “lid”.  In this car he could give as good as he got and join in the terrifyingly lawless traffic that sped through the streets of Rome.

Our garden in the countryside outside Rome was surrounded by peach orchards and vineyards. Dotted around the gravel paths were a roman bath and ancient statues and columns. We cycled round fig, orange, lemon and medlar trees, always wary of snakes. The highlight was a rudimentary, unchlorinated swimming pool filled by hose pipe and emptied when the water started to go green. We shared it with tadpoles and baby frogs in spring.

Our classmates at St George’s English School were international. I sat with a Ghanaian girl called Dorcas, an Australian boy called Gregory, and there were South Africans, Italians, American, French and a handful of Brits too. I’ve always loved mixing with people from other nations and this early experience was the start.

St George’s English School Rome

Italy is an integral part of me. If I were “born again”, I’d choose to be Italian. I went on to study Italian at university, work in Sicily, marry a wonderful half-Italian, teach Italian, live in the Tuscan mountains for six months each year, and now I have had five books published by Bookouture, all set in Italy.

Little did I know that the hamlet of Castel Cavallino where I married, outside Urbino, would be an important place in my new book and that forty-four years later, I would perch again on the wall surrounding the houses, to jot research notes.

 

My sixth book comes out on April 19th and is available now to pre-order on Amazon.  Link: https://geni.us/B0BYC1V9NHcover

Blurb and a couple of reviews

Italy, 1940. The girl sobs and rages as her father tells her the terrible news. “Italy is entering the war alongside Germany. Jews are to be arrested and sent to camps. We have to be ready.”

As fascists march across the cobbled piazzas and past the towered buildings of her beloved home city, twenty-year-old Devora’s worst fears come true. Along with her Jewish parents and twin little brothers they are torn away from everything they love and sent to an internment camp huddled in the mountains. Her father promises this war will not last long…

When they are offered a miraculous chance of escape by her childhood friend Luigi, who risks everything to smuggle vital information into the camp, the family clambers under barbed wire and races for the border. But Devora is forced to make a devastating choice between saving a stranger’s life and joining her parents. As shots fire in the moonless night, the family is separated.

Haunted by the question of whether they are dead or alive, all Devora can do for their future is throw herself into helping Luigi in the Italian resistenza in the fight for liberty. But posing as a maid for a German commander to gather secret intelligence, Devora is sure she sees her friend one night, in a Nazi uniform…

Is Devora in more danger than ever? And will her family ever be reunited – or will the war tear them apart?

An absolutely devastating but ultimately uplifting historical novel about how love and hope can get us through the darkest times. Perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Rhys Bowen and Soraya M. Lane.

Read what everyone’s saying about Angela Petch:

‘Wow!… The writing is magnificent… A story of love, loss, secrets and hope… I have truly fallen in love… A beautiful, touching story that I would recommend to everyone.’ Cooking the Books

‘The mysteries and the discoveries come fast and furiously: leaving the reader often gasping for breath… A lovely read.’ I am, Indeed  

BIO:

Angela Petch is an award-winning and bestselling writer of fiction – plus the occasional poem.

Every summer she moves to Tuscany for six months where she and her husband own a renovated watermill which they let out. When not exploring their unspoilt corner of the Apennines, she disappears to her writing desk at the top of a converted stable. In her Italian handbag or hiking rucksack she always makes sure to store notebook and pen to jot down ideas.

The winter months are spent in Sussex where most of her family live. When Angela’s not helping out with grandchildren, she catches up with writer friends.

LINKS

Blog: https://angelapetchsblogsite.wordpress.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Angela_Petch

  Instagram:     @angela_maurice

Buying link for new book:  https://geni.us/B0BYC1V9NHcover

One of the highlights of my time so far on www.showboat.tv – my interview with Debby Campbell, daughter of Glen Campbell. #Interview #starstruckwho me? #songs #books #TuesdayBookBlog

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Interviewing Debby, who is one of the easiest people to talk to, despite her and her father’s fame. She is so open, so honest, so interesting. And it was fascinating to delve into the reasons she wrote her book.

Over the last few years, I have interviewed many authors and writers of various genres. It’s fun, something I enjoy. Pre-pandemic it was in the studios, but since it’s been through zoom which means it’s easier to chat with anyone from all over the world.

The great thing about www.showboat.tv is that, unlike many other online interviews, these chats are edited. So any waffling (usually on my part), any stumbling or stuttering, or, as they say “Up North” any faffing about, is never seen by the audience.

And the other, brilliant part of the whole process, is that it brings the authors and their books, to the attention of readers and viewers all across the world.

What more could a writer ask? My future posts will be about some of the authors I’ve interviewed so far. I’ll be asking them a little more about them selves and how they enjoyed ( or dreaded!) the experience. How it was for them… kind of thing!!

About Debby Campbell

Country music singer and activist for Alzheimer’s, Debby Campbell was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1956 to Diane Kirk and Glen Travis Campbell. She is the eldest of 8 children and the daughter of the most famous “Rhinestone Cowboy” Glen Campbell. Debby loved singing from an early age and spent many summers with her dad on tour, and in the television studios with his Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour television show.

Debby graduated high school in England living with her mom and step-dad Jack, while her step-dad was in the Air Force. Her dad, Glen became a world sensation, and would perform in England and send for Debby so she could spend time with him.

In her early 20’s, Debby married and became a mother of 3, two boys and a girl. She lived in Italy, and the US during this time and currently loves being a grandmother to 6 grandchildren and 1 great-grand child.

In the mid 80’s Debby became a flight attendant and today, remains flying international as well as domestic.

In 1987 Debby became part of her dad’s show on tour as a featured singer, along with her full time job as a flight attendant. She toured and traveled with the Glen Campbell show for 24 years, which included travels to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and Bermuda and so many more. Many of the Glen Campbell fans became loyal fans & friends of Debby’s and she has remained friends with them today.

Her appreciation for Country music landed her with her own show in Branson, Missouri at the Roy Clark Theatre in the early 90’s. She continued her career as a featured singer at the Grand Palace with her dad and then on to her Dad’s Theatre –The Glen Campbell Goodtime Theatre and ending with a residency at the Andy Williams Moon River Theatre.

Debby’s bragging rights include hosting the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, performances at the Grand Ole Opry, opened for greats and Grammy Award artist such as Charlie Daniels, Jerry Reed, Eddie Rabbit, Colin Raye, and performing the National Anthem for the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. She is an author of her recently released book titled “Life with My Father Glen Campbell”. She has also been credited with recording duets with her dad on “United We Stand”, “Let It Be Me”, and “Little Green Apples” and on multiple recording of Glen’s “Live with South Dakota Symphony” on CD and DVD. As Glen recorded some of his final music, Debby was instrumental on background vocals.

Debby is active with the Alzheimer’s cause and finds time for her first priority, family and friends. She golfs, enjoys bowling, travel and of course singing.

Link to Debby’s website: http://DebbyCampbellmusic.com/

Burning Bridges: Life With My Father Glen Campbell

The Glen Campbell story is one of exceptional musical talent, a glittering career and a frequently disturbed personal life. In August, 2017, after battling Alzheimer’s disease, his death was announced to the world.

This celebratory Omnibus enhanced edition of Burning Bridges: Life With My Father Glen Campbell includes both an interactive digital timeline of his life, filled with videos and images of live performances and interviews, as well as a Spotify collection of the greatest recordings that Glen Campbell ever made.

As a studio musician Campbell contributed to countless Sixties and Seventies records; as a solo artist he produced the classic hits Galveston, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Wichita Lineman and Rhinestone Cowboy; he had a successful US TV show, co-starred with John Wayne in the film True Grit, and was lauded for his talents. However, a series of failed marriages saw this shining star fall heavily into serious substance abuse, and the fabric of his life unravelled.

Persistent short-term memory loss resulted from this turbulence and Glen Campbell would have few constants in his life as the years waned on. One of them, however, was the co-author of this book, his daughter Debby. She witnessed his struggles and suffering, both musically and personally, as well as the beginning of his decline into Alzheimer’s disease.

Burning Bridges: Life With My Father Glen Campbell is a loving but unflinching reminiscence of a multi-talented musician, a troubled man and a father. Debby Campbell provides a poignant, eye-witness account of a musical legend like no other.

Links to buy:

Amazon – kindle version: Burning Bridges: Life With My Father Glen Campbell

Amazon hard Cover: Burning Bridges: Life With My Father Glen Campbell

A short note from Showboat tv…

Actually, two zoom interviews have been uploaded with the incredible Debby Campbell, daughter of the legendary country singer, Glen Campbell. In Booksmart, she talks to Judith Barrow about her book documenting her life of the road with her father, while on Inside Notes, she discusses her latest album plus her new single “Sunflower”.Watch them for a limited time free of charge on the homepage www.showboat.tv

And here Showboat TV tells us how to watch anytime

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My Review of The Safe House by Louise Mumford  #TuesdayBookBlog #Review #Thriller

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Book Description:

She told you the house would keep you safe. She lied.

Esther is safe in the house. For sixteen years, she and her mother have lived off the grid, protected from the dangers of the outside world. For sixteen years, Esther has never seen another single soul.

Until today.

Today there’s a man outside the house. A man who knows Esther’s name, and who proves that her mother’s claims about the outside world are false. A man who is telling Esther that she’s been living a lie.

Is her mother keeping Esther safe – or keeping her prisoner?

My Review:

I enjoyed The Safe House, it’s just the kind of psychological thriller I enjoy: well written, character driven, with many twists and turns. Told in two timelines, the past when the protagonist, Esther, is a child who develops asthma (described throughout as the demon living in her chest) and living with her parents in an industrial town with all the accompanying toxic pollutants. A situation that the reader sees her mother being driven to acute mental stress. And then the present where she and her mother, Hannah, are living in hidden in The House, with filtered air and  away from all civilisation. It’s a structure designed and devised by Hannah, to keep Esther safe from asthma attacks.

But it’s a life forced upon the protagonist, and it’s not long before both the extreme, almost unbelievable, conditions and the length of time they have lived like this, is revealed. And, from the start, the restlessness of Esther, at twenty-one years old, and the maniacal determination to keep the status quo by her mother, becomes a tense standoff.

It’s very difficult not to give spoilers in a story such as The Safe House, so I will try to concentrate on the way it is written.

The two main characters, Esther and Hannah are well rounded, created to reveal the many sides of human nature – and then given extreme emotions – entirely acceptable given their claustrophobic and almost dystopian lifestyle.

A lifestyle that Esther is given chance to compare with Out There when a stranger eventually finds her and coaxes her to escape, to meet her father, who she has been told is dead – to go into a “rushing, flashing world” inhabited by people. The description of the settings, from the House to the countryside, the town, the first pub Esther has ever been in, the music festival, the night sky, seen for the first time. (there are so many first times in this section of the plot), give a brilliant sense of place.

This is not a book with many characters but each character is well drawn, each has their own personality, their own distinctive voice to add to the story. But it is the protagonist’s internal dialogue that carries the story; densely written, with each of her actions being considered, each thought, each physical sensation explored and described in a simple yet evocative way. This is powerful writing.

The story begins a little slowly, probably to evoke the sense of normality in a world that is totally artificial, but then moves with sudden twists and turns, some expected, others less so. It’s a good plot that held my attention all the way through to the end.

About Louise Mumford:

Louise was born and lives in South Wales. She studied English Literature at university and graduated with first class honours. As a teacher she tried to pass on her love of reading to her students (and discovered that the secret to successful teaching is… stickers! She is aware that that is, essentially, bribery.)

In the summer of 2019 Louise experienced a once-in-a-lifetime moment: she was discovered as a new writer by her publisher at the Primadonna Festival. Everything has been a bit of a whirlwind since then.

Louise lives in Cardiff with her husband and spends her time trying to get down on paper all the marvellous and frightening things that happen in her head. She is Co-Chair of Crime Cymru, a co-operative of Welsh crime writers, and is part of the team bringing Wales’ first ever in-person crime fiction festival to Wales. Gwyl CRIME CYMRU Festival will take place in Aberystwyth in April 2023.

Her thriller called SLEEPLESS was published by HQ in December 2020 and THE SAFE HOUSE came out in May 2022. SLEEPLESS was the July Asda Karin Slaughter Killer Read in 2021. Her new thriller THE HOTEL will be out in June 2023.

Twitter: @louise_mumford

Instagram: @louisemumfordauthor

Facebook: @LouiseMumfordAuthor

Website: www.louisemumfordauthor.com (sign up to the newsletter for a free short story, giveaways, updates and sneak peeks at new work!)

My Review of Snow Angels by Jenny Loudon #TuesdayBookBlog #review #WomensFiction #RBRT

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Many thanks to Jenny Loudon for sending a digital copy of Snow Angels to me, in return for an honest review as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT

I gave Snow Angels 4*

Book Description:

An accident. That’s all it was.

Amelie Tierney is working hard, furthering her nursing career in Oxford. She has a loving husband and a small son, who is not yet two. She jogs through the streets of her beloved city most days, does not see enough of her lonely mother, and misses her grandmother who lives in a remote wooden house, beside a lake in Sweden.

And then, one sunny October morning, it happens—the accident that changes everything and leaves Amelie fighting to survive.

Set amid the gleaming spires of Oxford and the wild beauty of a Swedish forest, this is a story about one woman’s hope and her courage in the face of the unthinkable.

My Review:

This is a story of love, of grief, of acceptance, of guilt, of survival, of secrets. There are many themes interwoven throughout: the love of nature, the inevitability of life moving on, the change of seasons, the exploration of human nature, as well as the more disturbing themes of racism, cynicism, suspicion, antagonism. All thoroughly explored by the author of Snow Angels.

And, as I wrote in my review of the last book I read by Jenny Loudon, Finding Verity, here, there are exquisite descriptions as well in Snow Angels that give a wonderful sense of place. Set in Oxford and Sweden, it is obvious that the author both knows and has researched both places extensively, and brilliantly captures the tone of each. As a consequence the pace of the narrative is vastly different.

The first quarter of the story narrates the inciting incident, the accident which completely changes the life of Amelie from wife, mother, daughter, to a grieving woman who has lost her husband, her child, her mother. The action in this section moves quickly, and in itself is shocking, portraying a reality that is distressingly realistic, and shows how tenuous life can be. It is well written, and the breadth of emotion explored here gives the characters so many layers that it is easy for the reader to see them, to immediately empathise with them.

In an almost unconscious need to escape the loss of the life she has known in Oxford, Amelie leaves her home, the friends she has there, and her work as a children’s nurse in a hospital, to escape to Sweden to stay with her grandmother, Cleome, who lives in a small cottage surrounded by a forest and close to a lake. And so begins the next phase of the book.

And this is where I show my subjectivity as a reader. Before I say anything about this I need to say that Jenny Loudon’s writing, when it comes to setting the scene is superb. This is truly poetic prose: expressive and lyrical, she conjures up wonderful images that juxtapose the emotions of her characters. The descriptions in these chapters, each headed to portray the different stages of the moon, the shifting of seasons, parallels the action within the plot.

However, as I say, this is where I reveal my preference in stories. The narrative slows up too much for me. I became aware that some scenes, some thoughts, some actions, some dialogue of the characters, were returned to, too often. And described in similar ways. I realise that this whole section is written to show the stages of grief, of acceptance, of moving on. But the repetition, albeit presented in numerous similar ways almost … not quite… but almost, tempted me to skip parts. I promise I didn’t!

What frustrated me was the fact that there were other subjects, other characters introduced into the plot that I feel could have been explored to more depth, integrated to balance the introspection of Amelie and Cleome. I became impatient of the contemplative mood within the text. There really are some brilliant minor characters in Snow Angels. But I felt they were only given a voice in a retrospective way; the reader is told their stories in a distanced, almost objective way, which, for me, lost the immediacy of their tragedies, their losses, the way their lives had fallen apart.

Which leads me to the last part of the story, the summing up of the action when the story is over. In one way it satisfied my curiosity; We are told what eventually happens to each and every one of the characters. In another, it disappointed me. The résumé almost felt like a synopsis, and, for me, emphasized the comparative slowness of the main section of the story.

Having said that some might wonder why I gave Snow Angels four star. Well it’s because I realise that, despite my preference for more action packed novels, I do like character led stories as well, and there are great characters in Jenny Loudon’s book. She also has a a very evocative style of writing that gives instant imagery that will appeal to many. In that vein I recommend Snow Angels to those readers.

About the Author:

Jenny Loudon is a British novelist whose work includes SNOW ANGELS, a moving and uplifting tale of recovery after loss, and the bestselling love story FINDING VERITY. She read English and American Literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury and holds a Masters in The Modern Movement. She lives with her family in the English countryside.

Learn more about Jenny Loudon at www.jennyloudon.com

My Review of A Killer Strikes by Georgia Rose. #weekendwanderingsthroughmyreviews #crime #Thriller

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The perfect family… The perfect murders…

A family massacred. A village in mourning. Can anyone sleep safely while a killer is on the loose?

Laura Percival, owner of The Stables, notices something wrong at her friend’s house when out on her morning ride. Further investigation reveals scenes she’ll never forget.

While the police are quick to accuse, Laura is less so, defending those around her as she struggles to make sense of the deaths. And all the time she wonders if she really knew her friends at all.

A chance encounter opens up a line of investigation that uncovers a secret life. One that Laura is much closer to than she ever realised.

A Killer Strikes is a gripping domestic thriller. If you like character-driven action, suspenseful storytelling and dark revelations then you’ll love this exciting novel.

My Review:

Well, I wholeheartedly agree with that last sentence of the book description above, this is what is sometimes called an unputdownable read. I loved it!

I’ve long admired Georgia Rose’s writing and really enjoyed her stories ( here’s my review for one of her earlier books: (Parallel Lives: https://tinyurl.com/9ek6hc93 ).

A Killer Strikes is a true thriller and, as I expected, it’s written in this author’s usual evenly paced writing style, with great characters and a riveting plot.

Told in first person point of view by the protagonist, Laura Percival, we are immediately thrown into her life as it begins to be revealed that all is not as she thinks, even if she doesn’t always understand the implications. We get an insight both to the way the plot is progressing and also to the subtle, inevitable changes in the protagonist.

Each character is brought too life, by the depictions of them, and by their dialogue. There are those I instantly loved, those I instantly disliked – those I wasn’t sure of; who gave me an uneasy feeling. I love character led stories, if the book also has an intriguing plot it’s a great bonus. And A Killer Strikes certainly gives both elements.

As with all of Georgia Roses’ books the descriptions of the settings give a good sense of place. In the stables I could almost hear the activity there: the snuffle of the horses – smell their coats, the straw. I could see the vaguely threatening adult club Laura finds herself in, surrounded by strangers. And I wandered through her home with her. The portrayal of the rooms shows the comfort the protagonist lives in, the place she feels most safe – (yet is she ?)

A Killer Strikes is a most satisfying read that had me empathising with the protagonist every step of the way, with a plot that kept me guessing the whole time. This is a book I thoroughly recommend.

The author:

Georgia Rose is a writer and the author of the romantic and suspenseful Grayson Trilogy books: A Single Step, Before the Dawn and Thicker than Water. Following completion of the trilogy she was asked for more and so wrote a short story, The Joker, which is based on a favourite character from the series and the eBook is available to download for free at the retailer of your choice.

Her fourth novel, Parallel Lies, encompasses crime along with Georgia’s usual blending of genre and its sequel, Loving Vengeance, has now completed The Ross Duology.

Georgia’s background in countryside living, riding, instructing and working with horses has provided the knowledge needed for some of her storylines; the others are a product of her passion for people watching and her overactive imagination.

She has also recently started running workshops and providing one-to-one support for those wishing to learn how to independently publish and you can find her, under her real name, at http://www.threeshirespublishing.com.

Following a long stint working in the law Georgia set up her own business providing administration services for other companies which she does to this day managing to entwine that work along with her writing.

Her busy life is set in a tranquil part of rural Cambridgeshire in the UK where she lives with her much neglected husband.

Links to Georgia:

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georgia.rose.books

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GeorgiaRoseBook

Places in our Memories

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There are places that remain in our memories, the details may become slightly blurred, nostalgia may colour our thoughts, but they don’t fade. And how those places made us feel at the time is the one thing that remains.

Today I’m pleased to welcome Gail, who writes as, G B Williams and who tells us about an embarrassing incident she had in Paris, France many years ago, that inspired a moment in her book, Breaking Free

The city of Paris is beautiful. It is also dirty, busy, and crowded, like all cities. There are many places I remember well of my visits to Paris, I could wax lyrical about the Eiffel Tower swaying in the wind (hope you’re not seasick), or the Louvre (which in places really needed more ventilation to keep the visitor going), perhaps I could tell you about the Mona Lisa (overwhelming impression – is that it?), how about the boat ride down the Seine (have actually done this every time I’ve visited Paris because it’s spectacular).

But no, the place in my memory that I’m going to tell you all about is in the Metro.

Now the Paris Metro is, historically a fascinating place, the art nouveau signage and features are gorgeous, the history should be read more, the engineering that went into the building the Metro was ground breaking (and I mean that in every sense). Really, read up about how the Metro was built and you will find out about a lot of innovation in civil engineering.

But the place I’m going to tell you about didn’t have any art nouveau signage or features. There’s nothing historical about it. I don’t even remember which station this happened in. What stuck is my mind about the place was the incident of my own sheer stupidity.

Imagine if you will, it’s 2008, not a year of much note, but it was when this happened. I’m with my husband and our two children, both young at the time (14 and 10). Not one of us can speak French and we needed assistance with our journey. We needed to ask someone.

Now I’m not afraid of admitting I don’t know something, and I’m not afraid of making mistakes, but I do get hugely embarrassed when I make them. I’m not shy, but if a mess up, I will crawl back inside my shell and try to hide from the world, this was one of those times when I didn’t have that luxury, which is probably why it sticks so much in my mind.

Without any confidence at all, I thought I could at least ask the woman at the information desk if she spoke English. That’s not hard really, we’re all taught phrases like that. The phrase in this case is: “Excusez-moi parlez-vous anglaise?”

Did I say that? No, of course I didn’t. I said: “Entschuldigen Sie sprechen Sie Englisch?”

So, just in case like me, you are not a linguist, let me lay that out for you. I asked a French woman if she could speak English, in German.

The worst thing about this is that she switched to English, was very helpful and I thanked her, with “Merci” which for once was French. She never said a word about my idiocy. It was my husband pointed out it out as we were walking away.  I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. That woman must have thought me a total idiot.

So why pick this as the place in my memory? Because this memory has stayed with me. Because when I wanted to demonstrate a woman out of her depth, Elaine Blake in Paris, travelling alone for the first time ever, and abroad for the first time in over 25 years, what did I write about?  That’s right. I had her ask a French woman if she could speak English, in German. If you want to see that, read Breaking Free, if you want to know what other trials of being human Elaine goes through, finish the story in “Play The Game”. Either way, I hope you enjoy my embarrassment more than I did, am now going to go hide in my shell for a while.

Links etc:

Twitter:                @GBWilliams

Facebook:           @GBWilliamsCrimeWriter

Instagram:          @gbwilliamsauthor

Blog:                     GB Williams Crime Blog 

Website:             gailbwilliams.co.uk

Book Links:         The Elaine Blake Novels are Breaking Free and Play The Game

Bio:
GB Williams specialises in complex, fast-paced crime novels, most recently, the Elaine Blake Novels – “Breaking Free” and “Play the Game” – and the standalone novel “The Chair”.  GB was shortlisted for the 2014 CWA Margery Allingham Short Story Competition with the story Last Shakes, now available in “Last Cut Casebook”. GB is a member of the Crime Writers Association, Crime Cymru, and with working with others to organise the Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival in Aberystwyth while working as a writer and freelance structural editor. GB hates every photo ever taken of her including the publicity shots.

Woman by Trish Power aka @AlexCraigie #poem #woman #wednesdaythought

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As some of you may know, I hold creative writing workshops and I also tutored creative writing for the local council for many years before Covid came along. Tutoring adults can be  rewarding (discovering wonderful writers), chaotic (my lesson plans were rarely followed – someone inevitably took things off at a tangent) hilarious (the undiscovered comedian/ the completely unaware comedian) and thought-provoking (especially with memoir writing and poetry) I’ve kept promising to share some of their work. Here is a thoughtful piece of free verse poetry, written quite a few years ago, by the now very successful author, Alex Craigie. It’s one of my favourites., and, I feel, appropriate for these times.

In the beginning:

Woman

Is an

Afterthought;

An off-cut

Of rib.

1917

Woman

Has no

Vote.

A chattel

Trapped in

Relentless

Domesticity.

1957

Woman,

Given by

Her father,

Pledges to

Obey

At the altar.

1967

Woman

Drinks from the

Poisoned chalice

Of permissiveness.

Prude or slapper

To

Jack the lad.

2017

Woman

Cracks

Glass ceilings

Occasionally.

Tables turning,

Upended.

Man

Vulnerable

Now.

As a Woman

I cheer

The Rightings

Of abusive

Wrongs.

The safety net

Growing

Underneath.

But as a Woman,

Anxious

At the

Blurring between

Friendship and

Lust.

A Woman

Welcoming

Kindness

In touches,

Supportive hugs,

Compassion

In a hand on

Shoulder.

A WOMAN

Who doesn’t

Bridle at

‘My lovely’ or

‘Pet’,

I want to be

Safe,

Not detached.

Feel friendship

Without fear.

Keep predators

At bay.

Keep companionship

Alive.

If Woman is

Enigma

So are

Her problems.

hands

© Trish Power

Alex Craigie is the pen name of Trish Power.

Trish was ten when her first play was performed at school. It was in rhyming couplets and written in pencil in a book with imperial weights and measures printed on the back. When her children were young, she wrote short stories for magazines before returning to the teaching job that she loved. Trish has had three books published under the pen name of Alex Craigie. The first two books cross genre boundaries and feature elements of romance, thriller and suspense against a backdrop of social issues. Someone Close to Home highlights the problems affecting care homes while Acts of Convenience has issues concerning the health service at its heart. Her third book. Means to Deceive, is a psychological thriller.Someone Close to Home has won a Chill with a Book award and a Chill with the Book of the Month award. In 2019 it was one of the top ten bestsellers in its category on Amazon.

Book lovers are welcome to contact her on alexcraigie@aol.com

Link to Alex’s books: https://tinyurl.com/2p8ucfr7

Alex’s latest book…https://tinyurl.com/vfkew4zy

#TuesdayBookBlog #Bookreview for Finding Verity by Jenny Loudon, Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT #WomensFiction

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Many thanks to Jenny Loudon for a digital copy of Finding Verity in return for an honest review as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT

I gave Finding Verity 4*

Book Description:

An unhappy woman. An unfinished romance. A sense that time is running out…

Verity Westwood is a successful London businesswoman whose husband is handsome but selfish. When Edward Farrell, a nomadic American journalist from her past, returns unexpectedly, she is swept by the irresistible desire to fulfil her dreams of working as an artist, like her famous father before her. After being caught in a storm on the Cote d’Azur, she vows to change her life.
What she does not foresee is the struggle involved, the ultimate price she will pay, and the powerful force of enduring love that changes everything.

My Review:

The premise of this story is a woman searching for her true self: for the person she left behind years ago, the girl who had dreams and hopes, but has instead found she has been subsumed by the selfishness of a husband, the thoughtlessness of her daughters, and the need for her to make money using the talents she has, but not in the way for which she yearns.

I found this book a difficult one to review. On the plus side there was much for me to enjoy about the story. It’s an interesting insight to a marriage long since settled into a pattern of sacrifice and barely hidden resentment by the middle-aged protagonist, Verity, and the indifference of her husband, Matt. Put into the mix one unforgotten friendship with Edward, an American journalist, who Verity met before she married Matt, and a purely coincidently meeting on a short break in Cote d’Azur, and there you have the plot. With all the intricacies of a relationship floundering, and the insertion of various disasters, the author has produced a very real feel to life that many women endure – have settled for.

 I liked the portrayal of Verity. The character is nicely rounded, the internal dialogue adding layers as she struggles to make sense of what is happening. The reader becomes increasingly aware of her emotional and mental fragility as the story progresses, and, for me, anyway,  more and more exasperated by Matt and his refusal to even acknowledge her needs. So, when Edward is back on the scene I found myself urging her to see what is under her now; a man who loves her. Until he also is shown to be struggling with his life, and a past that affects his ability to be truly honest with Verity.

All the above is a big plus; it’s an emotional read, one with which the reader can truly empathise. The author writes with a brilliant understanding of the human psyche, and I admired that. I really did.  

But then, for me, the descriptions of some of the settings stopped the story in its track. The narrative is mainly divided between London and the south of France, with a section given over to the Isle of Skye. The London scenes give a succinct and very real sense of place, and paralleled Verity’s internal dilemma. So far so good. But it was the descriptions of France and the Scottish isle that jarred.   Beautifully written, evoking such imagery that I don’t doubt that most readers would read and reread just for the pleasure of savouring the words. And I understood the need for the lengthy portrayals to give a sense of the scenery at times; they reflected the protagonist’s internal dialogue, the slow moving on of her future. But these scenes made me impatient, I wanted to get on with the story.

And I had the same problem with some sections of dialogue where I felt the same emotion, the same interaction between the characters, were repeated, but in a different way, it felt as though it dragged the scene along, the repetition  almost used as a filler to the action.

 I realise this obviously reveals the kind of reader I am. I like fast moving books, rather than introspective ones. So in no way does this review detract from what a good read Finding Verity is. It’s a purely personal and subjective opinion. And, despite these last points, I have no qualms in saying that this is a good story that epitomises the feelings that many women in mid-life, and will suit many readers

And I just need to say – I loved the cover!

Places in our Memories: With Patricia M Osborne #Memories #MondayBlogs

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There are places that remain in our memories, the details may become slightly blurred, nostalgia may colour our thoughts, but they don’t fade. And how those places made us feel at the time is the one thing that remains.

Today I’m really pleased to welcome Patricia M Osborne, friend, author and poet and supporter of many writers, whose work she highlights every week.

When Judith asked me if I’d like to submit a blog about a place in my memory it was Bolton that instantly jumped out. I often wonder why my years as a child from the age of seven to ten were so impressionable. Maybe it was because we first arrived in Bolton after becoming homeless and were housed in a half-way house.

 It was January 1963, I was seven coming up to eight, and the snow was thick on the ground when my dad made me go to the shops with him so I’d know where to go in future. Freezing, I sobbed. I wanted to go home, but Dad told me off for whinging, saying he was cold too. The day afterwards I got sick and couldn’t keep food down for weeks other than a bowl of Oxo. Maybe that’s why I hate snow so much because it takes me back to being so poorly.

 Our two-up-two-down terraced house in Bamber Street, Daubhill, had a front room, a sitting room, a tiny scullery and two upstairs bedrooms. There was no bathroom, just a tin bath stored in the yard which Mum had to drag in, fill with hot buckets of water from the stove, and bath us in front of the fire. The toilet was at the bottom of the yard and I was terrified to go out there on my own in case there were any daleks.

 It was at this house my late sister, Heather, got carried out on a stretcher to hospital. We were like inseparable twins and after being left alone without a playmate for two whole weeks, I was jubilant when she returned home. We’d play upstairs in the cold bedroom for hours. She’d be John Steed banging a large umbrella on the wooden floorboards while I was Cathy Gale.

 I loved the museum in the town hall which also consisted of a library and aquarium. It’s still there. This was a place where Heather and I spent most of our time. If not choosing Milly-Molly-Mandy books in the library, we’d be exploring the mummies in the museum or hovering around the glass case of porcelain dolls. There was something about those dolls that made me yearn to own one while Heather found them spooky.

The tiny church school we attended consisted of only three classrooms. It was situated at the bottom of our cobbled street, and although only five minutes away, Heather and I managed to be late most days. A lot of the time was spent being taught the catechism, or learning subjects via the wireless such as the Monday morning singing lesson. Whenever I hear The Skye Boat Song it takes me back to those times.

 In the playground the older kids loved swinging me around because I was so light. It was in that same playground during out of school hours when a flasher exposed himself to Heather and I, but we were too frightened to tell Mum and Dad. And then there was the kind teacher who at the end of term offered me the three-foot Christmas tree from our classroom to take home because she knew we didn’t have one.

 My best friend, Susan Brown, lived over a wallpaper shop. Sometimes when I’m playing table tennis out on my patio, I experience a kind of déjà vu when I’m back in Bolton as an eight-year-old in my best friend’s backyard pushing her doll’s pram.

 On my ninth birthday party, the landlord, who was a taxi driver, turned up at the door. He grabbed my mum by the wrist and made her cry as he tried to pull her out of the house because he wanted it back for himself. It was only when Dad came home from work we were safe. My sisters and I used to lie in bed at night petrified at the sound of a car going by or when car lights shone over the ceiling in case it was the bad man back.

Daubhill holds a lot of memories for me, good and bad. Two years later we were housed in Tong Moor, a different area of Bolton, in a three-bedroom house with a bathroom and garden but still an outside loo. It was here that my youngest sister was born. But then that’s another set of memories.

 Thank you, Judith, for letting me share some of my memories.  

Thank you, Patricia for sharing. Your memories brought back many of my own, especially the outside loo, where my fear was the spiders!

And If ever you feel like coming back to tell us more of your memories you will be very welcome.😊

Photograph of the places that Patricia remembers can be found through the links below…

Picture of Bamber Street – Bottom right
https://www.boltonrevisited.org.uk/a-daubhill.html

Bolton Town Hall
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-bolton-town-hall-bolton-town-centre-bolton-england-uk-135468774.html

About Patricia:

Born in Liverpool, she now lives in West Sussex.

In February 2019, she graduated with an MA in Creative Writing via the University of Brighton. She is a novelist, poet, and short story writer. When she’s not working on her own writing, she enjoys sharing her knowledge and acts as a mentor to fellow writers.

In 2017 she was a Poet in Residence at a local Victorian Park in Crawley and her poetry was exhibited throughout the park. In 2019 her poetry was on display at Crawley Museum.

Patricia has had numerous poems and short stories published in various literary magazines and anthologies.

Where to find Patricia M Osborne and details of all her books are here…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PMOsborneWriter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/triciaosbornewriter
Website: https://whitewingsbooks.com/
Amazon author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/~/e/B06XHLKG1N

My Review of 6 Ripley Avenue by Noelle Holten #crime #thriller

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An absolutely gripping new crime thriller of secrets and lies from the author of Dead Inside.

I was lucky enough to win  6 Ripley Avenue by Noelle Holton in a competition held by https://twitter.com/ScotlandYardCSI.

Book Description:

ONE HOUSE
EIGHT KILLERS
NO WITNESSES

Jeanette is the manager of a probation hostel that houses high risk offenders released on license.

At 3am one morning, she receives a call telling her a resident has been murdered.

Her whole team, along with the eight convicted murderers, are now all suspects in a crime no one saw committed…

Don’t miss the first nerve-shredding standalone thriller from Noelle Holten, author of the Maggie Jamieson series.

My Review:

6 Ripley Avenue is the first book I’ve read by Noelle Holten, but I’d heard enough of her brilliant books, and her skilful writing from other readers, to enter the competition run by @ScotlandYardCSI for this book, and I was thrilled to win.

I was thoroughly engrossed from the first page. It’s no spoiler to say it opens with the murder of one Danny Wells, a criminal on probation at the hostel, the main setting for this book, which is so evocatively described that the reader can envisage the characters moving around and outside the building.

This author is certainly talented, I loved her swiftly paced writing style, and the intriguing plot she has conjured up, that twists first one way and then the other to keep the reader guessing until the denouement. And her knowledge of the criminal justice system is exemplary. Something I knew nothing about and found fascinating.

The story is written from the points of view of four of the characters.  The murderer who speaks directly to the reader in an almost conversational manner, which becomes more sinister and intriguing as the story moves on. Then there is Jeanette, the overworked and dedicated Senior Probation Officer at the hostel, who is desperate to keep the place open, yet gradually begins to doubt the honesty and integrity of her staff. Her role, for much of the time, is to keep any information about the murder and all details of the residents at 6 Ripley Avenue from the young journalist, Sloane, a woman with an intriguing background who will go to any lengths to get her story. And then there is Helen, a widow in her late sixties, an unwilling neighbour to the hostel, who volunteers there, with the sole reason to infiltrate and discover anything she believes could close the place down. (And who, by the way, is the one character I found to be flawed in her portrayal – the way the author has written this character shows her as a much older woman: in both her spoken and internal dialogue, her habits, the way she moves, the way she lives. She becomes almost a caricature and, for me, this weakens her part in the story. This is my only criticism of the book, and no way detracts from the virtuosity of the plot – and is obviously my own opinion)

Despite this small negative observation, I found this to be a powerfully written thriller, woven throughout with subtle clues, suspense and danger. I loved it. And I have no qualms in recommending 6 Ripley Avenue to any reader who is a crime genre, addict.

And, as a last word, I like to say that I’d be delighted if there is another opportunity for the journalist, Sloane, to return to investigate and report on another crime in her own inimitable way. And, also by the way, for the reader to learn more about her background.

About the author:

Noelle Holten is an award-winning blogger at http://www.crimebookjunkie.co.uk. She is the PR & Social Media Manager for Bookouture, a leading digital publisher in the UK, and worked as a Senior Probation Officer for eighteen years, covering a variety of risk cases as well as working in a multi agency setting. She has three Hons BA’s – Philosophy, Sociology (Crime & Deviance) and Community Justice – and a Masters in Criminology. Noelle’s hobbies include reading, attending as many book festivals as she can afford and sharing the booklove via her blog.

Dead Inside – her debut novel with One More Chapter/Harper Collins UK is an international kindle bestseller and the start of a new series featuring DC Maggie Jamieson. 6 Ripley Avenue is her first stand-alone crime thriller.

Connect with Noelle on Social Media here:

Subscribe to Newsletter: http://ow.ly/cgww50BkBtt

Twitter: (@nholten40) https://twitter.com/nholten40

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

Blog FB page: https://www.facebook.com/crimebookjunkie/

Instagram: @author_noelleholten

Website: https://www.crimebookjunkie.co.uk  

Bookbub Author page : https://bit.ly/2LkT4LB

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My Review of Remember No More by Jan Newton – Now an Audio Book #review #DSJulieKit #Crime @CrimeCymru #audiobook #families #FrometheArchives #Wales

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I can’t believe it is almost five years ago since I wrote this review of Jan Newton’s brilliant crime story. Originally, I was given an ARC of Remember No More by the publishers, Honno, for a fair and honest review. I said at the time:”Believe me, this is one to look out for!!“ I wasn’t wrong. And now Honno have released Remember No More as an audio book: https://tinyurl.com/32cm2n8s. So now we have a choice… read, or listen – it’s brilliant.

Book Description:

Newly promoted DS Julie Kite is at a crossroads. Her husband’s new job takes her away from urban Manchester and its inner city problems to a new life in tranquil mid-Wales. It is to be a new start for them both. On her first day at Builth Wells police station, Julie is thrust unexpectedly into the centre of a murder investigation in a remote farming community. At the same time, Stephen Collins is set free from HMP Strangeways. He immediately makes his way back to mid-Wales, the scene of his heinous crime, in order to confront those who had a hand in his incarceration.

The twists and turns of the investigation into the death of solicitor Gareth Watkin force DS Kite to confront her own demons alongside those of her new community and the lengths to which we’ll go to protect our families.

My Review:

This is a plot with many twists and turns. The depths of the historic layers are slowly revealed alongside the introduction of the protagonist, Detective Sergeant Julie Kite and her struggles in both her work and home life. I loved the author’s ability to balance  – and juggle – both, and to keep the reader interested throughout the story. For me the genre of crime fiction can only work if there are false leads, clues that baffle or can give a ‘eureka’ moment. Remember No More does all these.

The story is told from an omniscient point of view, weighted mostly from the protagonist’s viewpoint and this works, as I have the feeling we will be hearing more from DS Kite. But there is also an insight to the other characters and this adds depth to the them; to their struggles, their loyalties, their place in both the community and their families. The characters are well rounded and it is easy to empathise with some of them – and to recognise the weakness and malevolence in others. 

The dialogue works well, differentiating the Welsh born characters and contrasting with the accent of Julie Kite and other Northern England characters. The internal dialogue gives greater perception to them all. I liked the slow internal acceptance of the protagonist’s change of life and work situation from Northern England to Wales.

I think one of the great strengths in the author’s writing is the descriptions of the settings. If I can’t picture the world the characters live in, it doesn’t work for me. Jan Newton  bases her book in mid Wales. The details are authentic and give a tangible sense of place. I admired  her ability to bring the sense of place alive. I was immediately drawn in by a very early description: ” the road was hemmed in either side by reeds and grasses, which had been bleached by the winter’s snow and were still untouched by the spring sunshine…”.And later, “the car rattled over a cattle grid and a vista of villages and isolated farms opened up below them as the road hair-pinned to the right, before descending along the edge of a steep valley. the tops of the hills were the pale browns of moorland, but the valley bottoms were already lush with meadows and hedges.” Good stuff!!

If I had any reservations about the story it would be about the relationship between the protagonist and her husband. But this is only because I wanted to know the background of their marriage. Maybe this is something to be revealed in the next story of DS Julie Kite. 

A couple of last mentions; I love the cover, the image is wonderful, I feel it is the scene that the buzzard sees in the Prologue. Oh, I do like prologues!

This is  a book I have no hesitation in recommending to any reader who enjoys a good strong crime mystery.

 I enjoyed reading Remember No More, and, by the way, there’s another offering from DS Julie Kite …

Book Description:

Newly promoted DS Julie Kite has been in sleepy mid-Wales for mere months when she’s faced with her second murder case. A man’s body has been found by school kids trekking the Monk’s Trod. The trail takes her back north to her parents in Manchester and to a housing estate in Blackpool. It’s not a simple case – a young mother has disappeared, but so has her son and her next door neighbour’s wife. And the husband of the landlady of the B&B where the girl was staying. When an ex-serviceman farmhand with PTSD attempts to take his own life the case gets more complex still.

Buying Links:

Amazon.co.uk: https://tinyurl.com/2p9adcpx

Amazon.com: https://tinyurl.com/2p87s9fm

About Jan:

Jan Newton grew up in Manchester and Derbyshire and spent twenty years in the Chilterns before moving to mid Wales in 2005. She has worked as a bilingual secretary, an accountant, and in the Welsh stream of Builth Wells Primary School. She plays the euphonium in Llandrindod and Knighton brass bands

Jan graduated from Swansea University in 2015 with a Masters in Creative Writing and has won the Allen Raine Short Story Competition, the WI’s Lady Denman Cup, the Lancashire and North West Magazine’s prize for humorous short stories and the Oriel Davies Gallery’s prize for nature writing. She is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association.

Places in our Memories: With Chris Lloyd #Memories #MondayBlogs #Crimewriter #CrimeCymru

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There are places that remain in our memories, the details may become slightly blurred, nostalgia may colour our thoughts, but they don’t fade. And how those places made us feel at the time is the one thing that remains.

Today I’m really pleased to welcome Chris Lloyd, who I seem to have known for quite a while, yet I can’t remember where we met, but who has since become a good friend.

Over to you, Chris…

Thanks, Judith.

So here I am, remembering Girona …

You can’t help but feel love for a city that puts up a statue to books.

I knew very little about the language of Catalonia and nothing of its history when I went to live in Girona for six months in 1979, my year abroad on my degree course in Spanish and French. Sending me to study Spanish in the heartland of Catalan language and culture wasn’t perhaps the wisest move, but in the end I had no complaints. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was the first and one of the most important of the turning points in my life.

When I turned up one very hot morning at the end of August to start a teaching job in September, Franco had not yet been gone four years. Institutions were changing, slowly. Spain’s new Constitution had been approved, and a Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia voted in and enacted shortly after I turned up. Changes small and large, visible and not so visible, were taking place all around us. The most disreputable street names had been changed – either back to their original pre-dictatorship names or to new ones to mark the passing of the dictator and the return of democracy – but there were still others high up on the walls of buildings that were still in Castilian Spanish, waiting to be replaced.

The Catalan language had been banned under Franco, its use in public office prohibited, no songs recorded or books published (with the exception, eventually, of a small set of Catholic-funded tomes few people read). No Catalan holidays were observed or traditional celebrations allowed, and a pan-Spanish pseudo-culture was imposed on the country, not just in response to a burgeoning tourist industry but to dilute national and regional differences.

Catalan hadn’t been taught in schools since 1939, and there were at least two generations of Catalans who could speak their language, albeit with many ‘Castilianisms’ creeping in, but few of them could write it. So much of what had been taught about history and culture, hijacked by a petty and brittle dictatorship, had to be untaught and old subjects and thoughts rediscovered. Years later, researching for a guide book, I came across stories of archaeological sites that had been destroyed during the Franco years as the evidence they provided didn’t fit in with the new narrative that the dictatorship had demanded.

All around me, it felt like a people sloughing off a hide of oppression. More than that, it was a rebirth. A nation emerging dazzled into the sunlight after decades of darkness, suddenly being given a second chance, this time with a determination to get it right.

It was the most exciting and optimistic of times. And it just seemed to fit in with me and with my stage in my own history. I’d grown up in an insecure Wales that was torn between trying to revive its old identity and searching for a new one. I was the same. I was the youngest of three siblings, a bit of an age gap between me and my brother and sister, uncertain of where I fitted in. At twenty, when I went to Girona, I still had no real idea of who I was, collectively or individually, or of my place in the world.

Girona – and Catalonia – changed that. I was swept up in their renewal, in awe of their determination never to return to the days of every decision taken away from them and to move forward in asserting their own identity. It formed a sense of community in me and a sense of me in a community. The Catalans’ belief in the validity of their own language and culture made me take a fresh look at my own, at Wales. Beyond all of that, it made me take a fresh look at myself, at where I fitted in. And the lynchpin of that was the language. Lacking in self-confidence but blustery to hide shyness, I found that speaking in another language allowed me to overcome that. It was a façade I could hide my real uncertainties behind – my initial lack of fluency gave me an excuse for my lack of confidence and a way of overcoming it, while becoming fluent over time and the kind words said about my Catalan finally dispelled some of that insecurity.

Quite apart from the effect that that period in that place had on me, Girona itself is a beautiful city. To a twenty-something me, it was a whole new school and playground. An old quarter half-encircled by medieval city walls – in one of the most unfortunate urban decisions in history, the city council decided to knock down the other half of the walls in the 1930s to create an avenue – that was a den of minuscule alleys, smoke-filled jazz bars and elderly people sitting on upright chairs outside their front doors. A Jewish Quarter that had been so forcibly cut off from the rest of the city, it had created its own micro-climate. A cobbled hill that eventually led to Rome, part of the Via Augusta, and a towering Baroque cathedral atop Europe’s largest flight of Rococo steps that dominated the city as far as the Pyrenees.

And bookshops. A city with barely 100,000 people and there are about twenty bookshops, the vast majority of them independent. That’s why the city put up a statue to books. And it’s probably why, thirty-five years later, I set my first three novels in Girona, the first a story of clinging to the past while embracing the new. Full circle. From that first day in Girona, it gave me exactly that: the confidence to write and the curiosity to pursue it. Even my new series, set in Occupied France, owes its genesis to the lessons I began to learn in Girona.

I stayed in Catalonia. I went back to Girona for a few years after graduating before moving on to Bilbao, Madrid and Barcelona. In all, I stayed twenty-four years in Spain, twenty of them in Catalonia, and while Barcelona was where I lived the longest and the city I loved the most, Girona has always stayed with me as that first love you never forget and to which I owe so much.

Straight after graduating in Spanish and French, Chris Lloyd hopped on a bus from Cardiff to Catalonia and stayed there for over twenty years. He has also lived in Grenoble – researching the French Resistance movement – as well as in the Basque Country and Madrid, where he taught English and worked in educational publishing and as a travel writer. More recently, he worked as a Catalan and Spanish translator.

About Chris:

Chris now lives in Wales, where he writes the Occupation series, featuring Eddie Giral, a French police detective in Paris under Nazi rule. The first book in the series – The Unwanted Dead – won the HWA Gold Crown Award for best historical novel of the year and was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award for the best historical crime fiction. It was chosen as Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month. The second book in the series, Paris Requiem, will be published in February 2023.

He has also written a trilogy set in present-day Girona, in Catalonia, featuring Elisenda Domènech, a police officer in the devolved Catalan police force.

Links:

Website: https://chrislloydauthor.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrislloydbcn

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