A Ray of Sunshine in Tricky Times: A Cornish Escape by Jenny Kane

The Power of Friendship

Friendship is one of the most important elements of life. Without the support of friends we all struggle from time to time. Abi Carter, the heroine of A Cornish Escape (and its forthcoming sister novel, A Cornish Wedding), had slowly been alienated from all her friends by her husband, Luke. But Luke is gone now…Many thanks to Laura for hosting part of my A Cornish Escape blog tour!

Blurb

‘A summer read as scrumptious as its Cornish backdrop. Brilliant!’ Nicola May

Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Phillipa Ashley and Cathy Bramley, this summer romance is sure to warm your heart.

Abi’s life is turned upside down when she is widowed before her thirtieth birthday. Determined to find something positive in the upheaval, Abi decides to make a fresh start somewhere new. With fond childhood memories of holidays in a Cornish cottage, could Cornwall be the place to start over?

With all her belongings in the boot of her car but no real plan, a chance meeting in a village pub brings new friends Beth and Max into her life. Max soon helps Abi track down the house of her dreams but things aren’t as simple as Abi hoped.

Can Abi leave her past behind and finally get her happy ending?

The friendships Abi makes within the novel are the pivots around which her new life in Cornwall really begins to take shape.

Chance meetings with painter and decorator, Max, and his best friend, Beth, are life changing moments for her. Suddenly, against the backdrop of beautiful Cornish scenery, she has a chance to visit new places, have new experiences, take control of her life and, most important of all, follow her childhood dream to search out Abbey’s House. And just for once, she doesn’t have to chase her dreams alone.

Here’s an extract to whet your appetite…

The arrival of lunchtime menus on their tables made both girls simultaneously check their watches.

‘Good heavens!’ Abi couldn’t believe it. ‘It’s twelve already. We’ve been chatting for two hours!’

It had been years since she’d had a proper conversation like that. A broad grin crossed Abi’s face as she allowed herself to accept that she was already making new friends here. It was more than she’d dared to hope for.

Over their empty coffee cups, Abi had heard all about Beth’s grandfather and the consequential lack of relationship opportunities beyond the occasional brief physical liaison since she’d moved in with him seven years ago. Beth had explained about how she’d not been able to face emptying the old cobbler’s shop he’d left to her, but now she knew she couldn’t put off making a decision about the property’s future any more, she was torn between running it herself, or leasing the premises to someone else.

In return Abi had told Beth about how suffocated the business wives Luke had so approved of made her feel, and how their disapproval of her working and not just being the perfect wife had worn her down. Then, when Luke had died, the wives’ inability to accept that Abi could look after herself, along with the attitude of Luke’s family, had started to drive her mad.

‘And that’s why you came to Cornwall? To escape the Carter family and the wives of the county set?’

‘That, and because I’ve always wanted to live here, ever since I was little.’

‘Since you fell in love with Abbey’s House?’

‘Yes.’ Not wanting to add that she also wanted to move far enough away from her old life as possible so she could escape, not only the ghost of being Luke’s wife, but also to make some friends that had never met him, and hadn’t known what she was like when she was with him. ‘I guess it sounds a bit strange. Of all the places I could have decided to live, and I could literally go anywhere, that I have come here. But it just felt so much like the right thing to do.’

‘Do you really have no idea where the house is?’

‘To be honest, if my brother hadn’t found an old photograph of it for me I’d have thought I’d been imagining Abbey’s House. I haven’t seen it since I was eight years old.’

‘What happened after you were eight?’

‘My father was promoted and we could afford to take holidays abroad. I was very lucky, I saw a great deal of the world, but nowhere’s stayed in my heart like Cornwall has.’

Beth drained the dregs of her cold coffee. ‘I don’t suppose you have the photograph on you?’

‘Stupidly I’ve left it in the hotel. I meant to bring it, but, well, to be honest I was a bit nervous about meeting you today. It might have looked a bit pushy if I’d brought it with me.’

Beth grinned. ‘To tell you the truth, I was nervous as well. It’s been a long time since I had a female friend.’

‘Really?’

‘I’ve always preferred male company. Women can be so darn catty. I don’t have the time or the patience for it.’

Abi laughed. ‘I can’t argue with that!’

‘So, it’s called Abbey’s House?’ Beth looked thoughtful. ‘I can’t say it’s a name I recognise off the top of my head, but I might when I see it.’

‘Maybe if it hadn’t been called Abbey’s House I wouldn’t have had a connection with it. A silly childhood ideal, perhaps. I always wondered if there was an old abbey or monastery around here that it was named after.

‘More likely to be a family name. Maybe the Abbeys were a tin mining family or something? It could be worth having a dig into the local archives at the library.’

‘That’s a great idea, thanks, Beth.’ Abi’s confidence rose a notch as she watched a group of holidaymakers passed the window, ‘I remember the house being at the end of a short row of houses. Terraced, stone built, and painted a creamy white colour. Although you can’t see it in the photograph I’ve got, I’m fairly sure that when I was sat on my father’s shoulders I could see the sea, but when I was stood on the pavement I couldn’t see it, although I could hear it and smell the salty air.’

‘Which probably means that it has sea views from upstairs, but not from the ground floor. That would place Abbey’s House somewhere up the side of slope that forms the village, not at the bottom, nor the top. So I guess that narrows the hunt a little,’ Beth smiled.

‘I really should have brought the photo.’

‘Never mind. Why don’t I come back to the hotel with you later and take a peep? You never know, I might recognise it on sight.’

‘Are you sure? That would be great. Thanks, Beth.’

‘So if you find it, are you hoping to see a For Sale sign in the garden?’

Abi blushed. ‘If I’m honest, I’d love it, but that might be a miracle too far…’

I hope you enjoyed that extract.  If you’d like to read on, then you can buy A Cornish Escape in either paperback or as an eBook, from all good retailers, including-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cornish-Escape-Jenny-Kane-ebook/dp/B0851927R4/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=A+Cornish+Escape+Jenny+Kane&qid=1586875747&s=books&sr=1-3

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08739LQ25/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=A+Cornish+Escape+Jenny+Kane&qid=1586875948&s=books&sr=1-1

Many thanks for letting me pop by to chat about my latest novel. Don’t forget to check out the rest of my tour stops!

Happy reading,

Jenny xx

Bio

Jenny Kane at Costa Coffee talking about her new book.

From the comfort of her cafe corner in Mid Devon, award winning author, Jenny Kane, wrote the contemporary women’s fiction and romance novels, A Cornish Escape (2^nd edition, HeadlineAccent, 2020),  A Cornish Wedding (2^nd edition, HeadlineAccent, 2020), Romancing Robin Hood (2^nd edition, Littwitz Press, 2018),  Another Glass of Champagne (Accent Press, 2016), and Another Cup of Coffee (Accent Press, 2013).

She has also written 3 novella length sequels to her Another Cup of…..books:  Another Cup of Christmas (Accent Press, 2013), Christmas in the Cotswolds (Accent, 2014), and Christmas at the Castle (Accent, 2016). These three seasonal specials are now available in one boxed set entitled Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection (Accent, 2016)

Jenny is also the author of quirky children’s picture books There’s a Cow in the Flat (Hushpuppy, 2014) and Ben’s Biscuit Tin (Hushpuppy, 2015)

Under the pen name, Jennifer Ash, Jenny has also written The Folville Chronicles (The Outlaw’s Ransom, The Winter Outlaw, Edward’s Outlaw – published by Littwitz Press), The Power of Three (Spiteful Puppet, 2020) and The Meeting Place (Spiteful Puppet, 2019). She also created four audio scripts for ITV’s popular 1980’s television show, Robin of Sherwood.

The Waterford Boy, Mathilda’s Legacy, The Baron’s Daughter and The Meeting Place were released by Spiteful Puppet in 2017/2018/2019.

 

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Filling the Empty Page – Lynne Shelby shares her top tips

As we brace ourselves for the last leg of NaNoWriMo, I’m utterly thrilled to have romance author Lynne Shelby guesting on my blog. There are many reasons to love Lynne. Here are three for starters: she writes fantastic romances set in the glitzy, heady world of showbiz, she’s a generous supporter of other writers and she shares a surname with Birmingham’s most (in)famous family, The Peaky Blinders. Today, she’s talking about the dreaded blank page and offering up some top tips. Take it away, Lynne.

Filling the Empty Page by Lynne Shelby

There must be few things as daunting for a writer as an empty page (or, more usually these days, a blank laptop screen), but every writer has their own writing process – the tricks and tools of their trade – that they use to fill the empty space with words, especially when they have a looming deadline! In fact, a deadline, whether it’s the date by which you have to send in your entry to a writing competition, or your edits back to your editor, or get your novel written for NaNoWriMo, is particularly effective for spurring a writer on to complete the first draft of their story. I’m a relatively slow writer, but I find that setting myself an arbitrary deadline – aiming to finish a book before going off on holiday or before Christmas – is one of the most effective ways to make me write faster!

My actual writing process hasn’t changed that much since I first started writing novels, but it has evolved as I’ve discovered which ‘tricks of the trade’ work best for me, especially when it comes to hitting a daily word count – as in NaNoWriMo. When I wrote my first novel, I edited it each day as I wrote, and also wrote the story in the order it would appear on the page, but with my second novel, on the advice of more experienced writers, I edited far less – and I found that I completed the first draft in less time, and that editing a whole manuscript resulted in less false starts and therefore less re-writing.

With my latest novel, There She Goes, I wrote the entire first draft without editing. If I came to a scene that wasn’t working, I made bullet points for the main events that needed to happen, and went on to the next chapter. Also, if I suddenly had a new and exciting idea about how an earlier chapter might be improved or thought of a scene that needed to be added, I resisted the temptation to go back and alter what I’d already written, but jotted down my new idea on a post-it note and added it in a later draft. The post-it notes spread from my noticeboard all around the walls of my writing room, but it meant that that I wrote the book more quickly!

Resisting the urge to edit until the whole story – or at least its outline – is written, is one of my most valuable writing tools. Every writer finds the tools and tricks that work best for them – and the way they do that is by writing. Don’t worry about finding the perfect word, sentence or paragraph. Write … and edit later.

Good luck to everyone taking part in NaNoWriMo.

Lynne Shelby

About Lynne

Lynne Shelby writes contemporary women’s fiction/romance. Her debut novel, ‘French Kissing’ won the Accent Press and Woman magazine Writing Competition. Her latest novel, There She Goes, is set among the drama, hopes and dreams of aspiring actors in London’s Theatreland. She has worked at a variety of jobs from stable girl to child actor’s chaperone to legal administrator, but now writes full time. When not writing or reading, Lynne can usually be found at the theatre or exploring a foreign city – Paris, New York, Rome, Copenhagen, Seattle, Athens – writer’s notebook, camera and sketchbook in hand. She lives in London with her husband, and has three adult children who live nearby.

Social Media Links

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LynneShelbyWriter

Twitter: @LynneB1

Instagram: lynneshelbywriter

Website: http://www.lynneshelby.com

There She Goes – blurb:

When aspiring actress Julie Farrell meets actor Zac Diaz, she is instantly attracted to him, but he shows no interest in her. Julie, who has yet to land her first professional acting role, can’t help wishing that her life was more like a musical, and that she could meet a handsome man who’d sweep her into his arms and tap-dance her along the street…

After early success on the stage, Zac has spent the last three years in Hollywood, but has failed to forge a film career. Now back in London, he is determined to re-establish himself as a theatre actor. Focused solely on his work, he has no time for distractions, and certainly no intention of getting entangled in a committed relationship…

Auditioning for a new West End show, Julie and Zac act out a love scene, but will they ever share more than a stage kiss?

Purchase link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/There-She-Goes-share-Theatreland-ebook/dp/B07PDZMMT2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1572031291&sr=1-1

 

 

 

 

Keep It In The Family: Guest post from Colette McCormick

Today, I’m welcoming a fellow Accent Press author to my blog to tell us all about her third novel, Not My Brother’s Keeper. Take it away, Colette.

Not My Brother’s Keeper, is not just a book about two brothers. it is a book about a whole family. Robert’s acts in his own best interest but those actions effect each member of the family in different ways.

As the mother of two sons I felt a lot of sympathy for their mother. I felt her pain when Robert left home and I could understand the way that she behaved. I am fully aware of the faults that my own son’s have but that wouldn’t stop me defending them and trying to excuse their behavior. When she says that Robert is scared, she is trying to justify something that she probably doesn’t agree with. I think that she is as disappointed in him as everyone else but it her job to defend him.

As a father, Keith isn’t able to hide his disappointment and I think in some way feels for what Robert does. Like he should have been a better father. When he says ‘I thought I’s brought my sons up better than that,’ it’s like he feels that he has let his son down, like his best wasn’t good enough.

For his brother Tom, things are more cut and dried. The brother that he idolised has fallen from grace and turns out not to be the hero that he thought he was. For years he had survived on the crumbs that Robert threw his way and was happy to live his brother’s shadow so when Robert leaves without a care for what he is leaving behind him Tom feels the disappointment acutely. However, is this Tom’s chance to finally live what could have been his brother’s life and subconsciously is that what he is doing? That is a question that he will ask himself many times over the years

For Michelle, Robert’s departure I her worst nightmare happening in front of her. She loved Robert and he deserts her when she needed him the most. Clearly, he isn’t the man that she thought he was. With Tom is she settling for second best?

Last but not least there is Robert himself. Like the rest of the family he has had to live with the consequences of the decisions that he made. At first it seemed like the right thing to do, the only thing that he can do if he is to live the life that he wants to but does he ultimately regret his choices and will it be too late to make amends?

Blurb

My brother. Not my responsibility.

Robert and Tom are practically identical – same height, same hair, equally good looking – but Tom never had the same confidence as his older brother, and for that reason, he is in awe of him.

When Robert’s girlfriend, Michelle, tells him that she’s pregnant, Robert disappears leaving Tom to clean up his mess. As Tom spends time with Michelle, reassuring her that she is not alone in this, they both begin to fall in love.

Sixteen years later, without warning, Robert comes home and Tom has to find the courage to stand against the brother he idolized.

Buy Not My Brother’s Keeper on Amazon

Facebook Author page

@colettemcauthor

Colette McCormick on Books and Life in General

About Colette

Originally a city girl, Colette has made her home in a one of the many former mining villages in County Durham. When not working as a retail manager for a large children’s charity she will more than likely be writing, even if it’s only a shopping list. She also enjoys cooking, gardening and taking the dog on long walks in the countryside near her home. She has been married for almost forty years and has two grown up sons.

Sounds fab! Thanks for popping by, Colette. And good luck with the book.

Follow the tour!

 

 

The Cornish Hotel by the Sea by Karen KIng. Extract.

I’m delighted to introduce readers to author Karen King today. Karen’s work is new to me and her delightful romance set in gorgeous Cornwall, The Cornish Hotel by the Sea, is the first of her novels I’ve read – it won’t be the last. A charming sweet romance it’s perfect for lazy days on the beach. Here’s an exclusive extract with information about Karen and the novel following. Enjoy!

The Cornish Hotel by the Sea

“Excuse me.”

The man’s voice made her jolt. Ellie tore her eyes away from the figures on the computer screen and looked up, straight into a pair of deep grey eyes set in a ruggedly handsome face topped by chocolate-brown hair. Very nice. It took her a few seconds to realise that it was Merc Guy, now wearing a black tee shirt and jeans, and to notice the angry set of his jaw and the frown lines in the middle of his thick eyebrows. He was staying here then. Great.  An unhappy customer was all she needed.   She just hoped he didn’t recognise her from this afternoon when he was blasting his horn at her. Thank goodness she’d been wearing sunglasses.

She fixed a pleasant smile on her face. “Can I help you?”

“The shower isn’t working in my room and I have an important business meeting in less than an hour,” he informed her curtly. “So will you either arrange for it to be fixed immediately or provide me with the use of a shower in another room?”

Great. Problems already.

“Did you hear what I said? I haven’t time to waste. I have an important meeting to go to.”

The man’s abrupt tone annoyed her but she kept calm. “Of course, Mr…er…” she glanced at the hotel register for the man`s name.

“Mitchell.” He supplied. “Reece Mitchell. I arrived earlier today. And I’m in a hurry.”

Yes, I got that. A quick glance at the register told her that Reece Mitchell was in Room 12. Luckily the room next to him was empty and there was a connecting door between the rooms. Problem solved.

“I do apologise, Mr Mitchell. I’ll get it sorted for you today. Meanwhile, please use the shower in the room next to you. It’s vacant at the moment and you can access it through a connecting door.” She reached for the key and handed it to him. “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. Would you mind popping the key back on your way out?”

He didn’t look too pleased. “Well, I guess it will have to do. I must say this hotel isn’t what I’d expected. I’m surprised you do any business at all.” He almost snatched the key out of her hand.

She swallowed the angry retort that sprung to her mouth reminding herself of Mum’s mantra that the customer was always right. And if they weren’t you didn’t tell them so. She watched, fuming, as Reece Mitchell stormed off.

What an arrogant man!  

Author Bio.

 A member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists, Karen King writes sassy, fun, heart-warming romance. The Cornish Hotel by the Sea is her second chicklit for Accent Press, her first – I do?… or do I? was published last year and there is another one in the process of publication. In addition, Accent Press have republished her earlier romance novels, The Millionaire Plan and Never Say Forever.

Karen has also written several short stories for women’s magazine and had 120 children’s books published.

When she isn’t writing, Karen likes travelling, watching the ‘soaps’ and reading. Give her a good book and a box of chocolates and she thinks she’s in Heaven.

Author links

Website: http://www.karenking.net/

Twitter: @karen_king

Karen King Romance Author Facebook Page

Karen King Young Adult Books Facebook Page

Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/karenkingauthor/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenkingauthor/?hl=en

Blurb

The Cornish Hotel by the Sea: Escape to Cornwall with this perfect summer read

“A feel-good summer escape.” Mandy Baggot

Ellie Truman’s widowed mum is struggling to keep Gwel Teg, the family hotel in Cornwall, afloat.  Ellie is determined to do everything in her power to help her, even if that means moving back to the sleepy Cornish village she fled from broken-hearted a few years ago.
Things go wrong from the start and she’s grateful for the help from hunky guest, Reece Mitchell. But does Reece have ulterior motives? Will Ellie’s efforts be for nothing?

Buy Links

Amazon

Waterstones

W.H.Smiths

Thank you for hosting me!

Thanks for coming over! Do follow the rest of the tour. Dates here.

Money Makes the World Go Around? Guest post from Karen King

Thanks so much, Laura, for asking me onto your blog to talk about my romance novel, The Millionaire Plan.

Delighted to have you here!

In my book, Amber decides to marry a millionaire because her parents are nearly bankrupt and forced to sell the family home, a beautiful Tudor house that had been in the family for generations. And it’s all thanks to Amber’s ex-fiancé Rod persuading them to invest in his dodgy shares. So she arms herself with a ‘How to Hook a Millionaire’ book and a ten point plan and heads of the yacht race at the exclusive Coombe Bay, Devon to hook herself a rich husband.

But is that really the best way to hook a millionaire? Modern day dating gives us a lot more options than hanging around an exclusive marina and trying to mix with the rich and famous. With the internet and phone apps like Tinder we can get straight to the chase without moving from our chair. An Internet search on dating millionaires brings up several sites such as  http://www.datingmillionaires.co.uk/ or http://sugardaddie.com/  You can have a browse at the members first before signing up and selecting any who appeal to you. You both know that you’re looking for a rich guy to date, it’s right out there no deceit.

Or if you want to see if there’s anyone rich in your area you can try Tinder – browse the profiles, swipe right for yes if you like them and left for no. Zooks and Match.com are also popular. It’s all very simple.

So Amber could have simply signed up to an online dating site or app and found herself a millionaire that way. But, then she wouldn’t have met Jed. That’s the trouble with online\mobile dating sites, it doesn’t leave anything to chance. You’re only selecting the person who fits your requirements but actually your ideal man might be someone who is the opposite of what you think you like. So maybe Amber’s plan of hanging out with some millionaires and trying to hook the one that appeals to her most is the best idea, after all.  Or maybe, she should forget about the plan and marry for love instead?

Love or Money – what would you marry for?

The Millionaire Plan

Love or Money – what would you marry for?

Extract

Chapter One

 Rule number 1: Make sure you’re seen at the right places

Great. Here she was, dressed to kill and without a clue what to do, Amber thought, tugging self-consciously at the hem of her dress. Everyone else was walking around in groups, or at least in pairs, chatting and laughing together and making her wish that she’d taken up Callie’s offer to go sailing with her and Simon instead of wandering around Coombe Bay Marina alone. Honestly, dressed in this skin-tight, short white designer dress, high heels, and the pile of make-up Callie had insisted she wore, she might as well have the words ‘gold-digger’ written on her forehead.

Well, that’s what she was, wasn’t it?

Not for the first time she wondered how she’d let Callie talk her into coming here to try and hook a millionaire. It was mad. Insane. Immoral.

And her only option if she didn’t want her parents to lose their home as well as their business.

Spotting a café overlooking the marina, she bought herself a latté and was making her way over to one of the tables when a white yacht caught her eye. It wasn’t huge or brash, like some of the yachts in the marina, but it was definitely classy. The sort that a millionaire would have for his own use, to sail around in rather than show off and entertain his friends. As she peered over at it, trying to read the name painted on the side, she collided into something hard. Her coffee cup went flying off the saucer, emptying its contents over a pair of cut-off denim shorts that were hugging lean, definitely male, hips.

‘Whoa!’ Strong, suntanned arms held her steady. ‘You want to try looking where you’re going,’ an incredibly sexy voice drawled in an unmistakeably American accent.

‘Sorry.’ She looked up into a pair of twinkling tawny eyes that laughed at her from a ruggedly handsome face, topped by thick, light brown hair with sun-kissed highlights. Phwoarr! was her immediate reaction, but she quickly pulled herself together. She’d just spilt coffee over this guy, for goodness sake, the least she could do was apologise instead of drooling over him like a lunatic.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she apologised again. ‘I was looking at that yacht over there. It’s fantastic, isn’t it? I’ve never seen one like that before.’ Not the thing to say, Amber, she scolded herself. You’re supposed to be acting smart and sophisticated as if you come to these sort of events all the time, not twittering away like an idiot and letting the first person you bump into know that you’ve never seen anything bigger than a dinghy before. Then she remembered that she had quite literally ‘bumped’ into this man and drowned him in coffee in the process.

‘Gosh, I’m so sorry,’ she said, fully aware that this was the third time she’d apologised but unable to stop herself gabbling. She looked down at his wet denim cut-offs, trying not to let her gaze linger on the sun-tanned legs below them, then shifted her eyes hurriedly back to his face. ‘Er, I’ll go and get a cloth so you can clean up.’

‘No need. I’m working on that yacht you were admiring so I haven’t got far to go and get changed,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps you’d like to join me and clean yourself up too? You don’t want to leave that to stain. It’ll ruin your dress.’

What? She glanced down in confusion and saw that coffee was splattered all over the bottom of her – or rather, Callie’s – dress and running down her legs. How could she have not noticed? Because I was too busy gawping at him, that’s why.

She hesitated. He had said he was working on the yacht, which meant he didn’t own it – more’s the pity. So his boss could well be on board. And whilst the ‘How to Hook a Millionaire’ book Callie had brought and insisted she read from cover to cover had declared she should ‘seize any opportunity to mix with the seriously rich’ – and let’s face it, anyone who owned that yacht was seriously rich – meeting them with a coffee-stained dress and legs was not a good idea. ‘Always be perfectly made up and elegantly dressed’ was another rule.

‘Is your boss on board?’ she asked.

‘No, only me.’ He was looking at her intently. ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself, I’m sure your mother drilled it into you to never go off with strangers.’ He held out his hand. ‘Jed Curtess.’

She took his hand. It was strong and warm and his touch sent tingles running up her arm. ‘Amber Wynters,’ she told him.

‘Now we’ve been introduced, Amber Wynters, would you like to come on board and get cleaned up?’ he asked, a playful smile hovering on his lips.

She most definitely would but should she? She didn’t even know this man, although she had to admit that she definitely found him appealing. Should she risk going onto the yacht with him? He might not be as harmless as he seemed. She saw the teasing twinkle in his gorgeous tawny eyes and her heart flipped. Cancel harmless. This guy was a danger to her blood pressure if nothing else.

‘I promise I won’t try to seduce you,’ he said solemnly. ‘Unless you beg me to, of course.’ His eyes danced with humour and she thought there was probably a queue of women who would love him to do just that.

Buy Links

Amazon

About Karen

A member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists, Karen King writes sassy, contemporary romance just right for reading on the beach.  ‘I DO – or Do I?‘ her first chick lit for Accent Press, was published in May. She has been contracted for two more. And she is delighted that Accent Press have republished her earlier romance novels, The Millionaire Plan and Never Say Forever. The Millionaire Plan was nominated for the RONE Award in 2014.

Karen has also had several short stories for women’s magazine and 120 children’s books published.

When she isn’t writing, Karen likes travelling, watching the ‘soaps’ and reading. Give her a good book and a box of chocolates and she thinks she’s in Heaven.

 

Author links

Website: http://www.karenking.net/

Twitter: @karen_king

Karen King Romance Author Facebook Page

Karen King Children’s Books Facebook Page

Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/karenkingauthor/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenkingauthor/?hl=en

Revenge: A dish best eaten cold? Guest Post by JA Corrigan

Please welcome debut author JA Corrigan to the blog. JA’s novel, Falling Suns, is published on 14th July by award-winning press, Accent, and it is a cracking read. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Here, she talks about revenge and its links to tragedy tradition. Thank you, JA.

The Revenge Plot is one of the oldest in history and sits easily alongside The Tragedy Plot. In fact, as the most famous of revenge plots shows us – Shakespeare’s Hamlet of course – revenge and tragedy are inextricably linked.

I pondered on this for some time.

Are they linked because essentially revenge is an unethical act and so therefore the result of retribution will always be tragic or, is the desire for revenge a natural human instinct that through religious and spiritual teachings has been demonised? The ultimate act of revenge is murder; a sin within all the major religions of the world, and in all civilised societies, a crime.

The thirst for revenge is one of the oldest human compulsions, and so using it as a theme in a novel, play or poem, stands up there as a premise that will always be interesting, throw up questions and cause angst – for both the writer and the reader. Revenge is often the precursor to a tragedy, just as much as the love story. The outcome of the act of retribution, I decided, could never be a good one.

And yet, the need and desire to ‘put right’ a wrongdoing, a brutal act, is so strong, and so much built into the human psyche that it is a storyline that for me, was hard to resist.

There can be no revenge without its ramification – that of tragedy.

Alongside the theme of revenge sat the idea of the strongest of human emotions – that of maternal love – and this too emerged as part of the premise for my story. Rachel adores her son and yet … in the opening of the novel we sense that this is not enough for her, that she wants and needs to return to her job, and with this realisation the seed is sown that Joe’s disappearance is somehow her fault.

In the early stages of planning my story, and with the theme of uncompromising maternal love imprinted inside my mind, I began to have the thought of how I could turn the trope of maternal love upside down and push it inside out. How an emotion that is considered good and nurturing can become bad and parasitic.

I knew I had to explore both.

When I first began to outline the plot for Falling Suns I did wrestle with myself. Could I possibly have a protagonist, and maintain my readers’ sympathy for her, when she is planning revenge and cold-blooded murder?

In the comfort of our own home, sitting on the sofa, many of us have said: ‘If he/she did that to one of mine I’d kill them.’ Fortunately this scenario is rare; i.e. that the person saying the sentence will actually be placed within the tragic circumstances to carry out such a threat. But what if you are placed in that position? What if your child was brutally murdered by a person that in time you were able to confront … and take revenge by taking the murderer’s life? What if you possessed all the tools, the emotional and mental strength to do what others could only imagine? What if?

This is the premise for Falling Suns: that Rachel Dune, the distraught and grieving mother, plans her revenge on the man who has been placed in a psychiatric unit for the brutal murder of her son. But as the story unfolds and as Rachel begins to unearth from the depths of her consciousness her own past, she begins to question that perhaps revenge is not what will appease her grief. As with many revenge plots there are other variables at play for Rachel, and it is not until she is able to explore these other factors that she slowly recognises the flaws in her plan, and the defects within her own family.

Revenge for Rachel is a need; a need that could destroy her, a need that can only end in tragedy – but not the tragedy that she herself foresees.

It is the tragedy of her past and all that lives there.

Blurb:

A psychological thriller for fans of Belinda Bauer, Mark Edwards, Clare Mackintosh – a dark and brooding tale about the horrors that can lurk within a family.

Ex-DI Rachel Dune’s small son is missing. Then his body is discovered. Her cousin Michael is found guilty of his murder and incarcerated in a secure psychiatric unit.

Four years later, now divorced and back in the police force, Rachel discovers that Michael is being released to a less secure step-down unit, with his freedom a likely eventuality. Unable to cope with this, she decides upon revenge, assuming a new identity to hunt him down. However, as she closes in on her target, her friend Jonathan, a journalist, uncovers unnerving information about her mother and others in her family. Jonathan begins to suspect that Rachel’s perception of the truth might not be as accurate as she thinks.

About JA Corrigan

JA Corrigan is originally from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, but now lives in Berkshire and shares her life with a husband, a teenage daughter and a cute cockapoo.

When not writing she is either walking the dog, reading, or cooking. She also likes to run, and drink white wine infused with hints of vanilla or gooseberries.

Falling Suns is a great, tense read. You can check out my review here.

To buy Falling Suns:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/falling-suns/julie-ann-corrigan/j-a-corrigan/9781786152497

https://bookshop.theguardian.com/catalog/product/view/id/414323/

http://amzn.to/1YbkLHg (PB)

http://amzn.to/1OekOQZ (Kindle)

http://www.whsmith.co.uk/products/falling-suns/9781786152497

Guest post: Unsticking Words with Another Glass of Champagne by Jenny Kane

I’m delighted to be here today to chat about my latest contemporary novel, Another Glass of Champagne. And I’m more than delighted to have you here, Jenny!

Following on from the bestselling novel, Another Cup of Coffee, and the seasonal Christmas novella’s Another Cup of Christmas, Christmas in the Cotswolds, and Christmas at the Castle; Another Glass of Champagne is the final instalment in the Pickwicks Coffee House adventures.

Revolving around the coffee obsessed lives of Amy, Kit, Jack, and their friends, Another Glass of Champagne finds each of the Pickwicks friends facing exciting changes in their lives. Yet, unexpected challenges will need to be overcome if those celebratory glasses of champagne are ever going to be raised…

Blurb

A warm-hearted, contemporary tale about a group of friends living in a small corner of busy London, by bestselling author Jenny Kane.

Fortysomething Amy is shocked and delighted to discover she s expecting a baby not to mention terrified! Amy wants best friend Jack to be godfather, but he hasn’t been heard from in months. When Jack finally reappears, he s full of good intentions but his new business plan could spell disaster for the beloved Pickwicks Coffee Shop, and ruin a number of old friendships…

Meanwhile his love life is as complicated as ever and yet when he swears off men for good, Jack meets someone who makes him rethink his priorities…but is it too late for a fresh start?

 Author Kit has problems of her own: just when her career has started to take off, she finds herself unable to write and there s a deadline looming, plus two headstrong kids to see through their difficult teenage years…will she be able to cope?

A follow-up to the runaway success Another Cup of Coffee.

***

One of the main characters in the Another Cup of… series is a writer called Kit Lambert. When we first met Kit in Another Cup of Coffee, she was making a name for herself by writing erotica. As her career progressed Kit moved into contemporary fiction, and now she has a novel publishing contract, with all the pressures of having to produce work to tight deadlines upon her.

Mum of twins, and wife to bookshop owner Phil, Kit suddenly finds herself unable to write at all, but he can’t understand why. Surely writer’s block is something that can be easily shaken off- or is just a myth invented by those who can’t be bothered to write today…or is it?

Not even sitting at her usual table in the corner of Pickwicks Coffee House, (run by her friend Peggy) is helping the words become unstuck…

Extract

When she got back, Kit found Peggy looking thoughtful, ‘Why have you closed your work down, honey? I usually steal a read of your latest work in progress when I think you’re not looking.’ ‘I haven’t got much done today.’

Kit mumbled. ‘It’s been a mulling things over sort of a day.’ Changing the subject, she said, ‘Scott says there are some sandwiches ready for your lunch when Megan comes back through.’

‘Good, I’m starving.’

‘Are you and Megan managing alright with only two of you on the serving team? It’s already busy, but by July it’s going to be packed between eleven and two.’

‘Actually, Scott and I were talking about that over the weekend. Would your Helena fancy giving us a hand and earning some money before she heads off to university? Where is she going again?’ Flinching slightly, and hoping Peggy hadn’t noticed, Kit said, ‘She’s aiming for Bath to do Chemistry, and Thomas’s hoping to be off to Exeter. Assuming they get their grades, that is.’

‘Of course they will. What’s Thomas going to study?’

‘History.’

‘Sounds good. So, do you think Helena will want the job? It would save me a lot of bother with adverts and stuff.’

Kit nodded. She knew exactly how much time it took to go through interviews and training staff in this place, so someone who was already familiar with Pickwicks layout would be a real advantage to Peggy. ‘I’ll ask her. Helena’s bank balance could certainly do with a top-up. Goodness knows it’s time she stood on her own two feet financially.’

Megan came back into the café and Peggy got up to go and have her lunch before another influx of customers forced her to forego her only real break of the day. As an afterthought, she turned back to Kit. ‘If you’d rather your daughter wasn’t here during the day, just say. I mean, this is your office after all!’

‘I don’t mind at all. I’ll ask her this evening, assuming she comes home She seems to live at her mates’ houses these days.’

‘Making the most of seeing her friends before she heads west, I suppose.’

Peggy waved as she disappeared into the kitchen, to what Kit hoped wasn’t a tuna sandwich, before she could see the tell-tale glint of tears fighting to form at the corner of her eyes. Cross with herself for being so emotional, Kit looked at her screen. Peggy had opened a new document and typed the words You can talk to me, you know. Love Peggy xx across the top of the page.

Kit should have known that she couldn’t hide anything from Peggy. The manageress knew her habits better than anyone, having been host to them for the past decade or so. Kit didn’t even want to guess how many cups of coffee, scones, and slices of toast she’d consumed at that table in that time. Just the thought of the amount of butter she’d spread over her early morning snacks was enough to make her feel as though her hips were expanding right there on the seat.

Making her mind up to talk to Peggy soon, she picked up her mobile and sent Helena a text, telling her about the possible employment opportunity at Pickwicks. Kit wasn’t sure if she did actually want Helena around all day while she was writing. But then, she thought, I’m not exactly writing now, am I…

***

You may be thinking that Kit sounds like a real writer you’ve come across- and you’d be right. Kit and I are pretty much the same person- but with huge exaggerations into fiction of course!! For a start, I do not have twins!

However, a little while ago I did suffer a bout of writer’s block. I had been a little flippant about the condition until then- but now I know it is truly horrid. Feeling all the words backing up in your head and not being able to get them out is just awful- especially when you live for your words! I lost weeks to the confusion of not being able to compose even the simplest sentences.

If you want to discover if Kit manages to get to the root of her own word block, and see what else the Pickwick’s crew are up to, then you can buy Another Glass of Champagne from all good bookshops and eBook retailers, including-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Another+Glass+of+Champagne+Jenny+Kane

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/188-7813436-7626710?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Another+Glass+of+Champagne+Jenny+Kane

Many thanks for letting me visit today,

Happy reading,

Jenny x

Good luck with the book, Jenny; I’m so looking forward to the read.

Bio

Jenny Kane at Costa Coffee talking about her new book.

Jenny spends a large part of her time in the cafe’s of Mid Devon, where she creates her stories, including the novels Another Glass of Champagne, (Accent Press, 2016), Abi’s House (Accent Press, June 2015), Romancing Robin Hood (Accent Press, 2014), the best selling contemporary romance Another Cup of Coffee (Accent Press, 2013), and the novella length sequels Another Cup of Christmas (Accent Press, 2013), Christmas in the Cotswolds, (Accent Press, 2014), and Christmas at the Castle, (Accent Press, 2015).

Her next full length novel, Abi’s Neighbour, will be published by Accent Press in Summer 2017. She is also working on a short historical novel, which will be published in November 2016.

Jenny Kane is also the author of quirky children’s picture books There’s a Cow in the Flat (Hushpuppy, 2014) and Ben’s Biscuit Tin (Hushpuppy, 2015).

Keep your eye on Jenny’s blog at www.jennykane.co.uk for more details.

Twitter- @JennyKaneAuthor

Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/JennyKaneRomance?ref=hl

Guest post from Kristen Bailey: Flippin’ Fish & other culinary delights

Kristen Bailey’s debut novel, Souper Mum, is published today by Accent Press and I have the great honour of welcoming her to my blog. Kristen is a kindred spirit; she’s as hopeless in the kitchen as I am! Some of you might remember my Great British Burn Off? But today’s all about Kristen. Over to you…

Can I cook?  Well, in theory, yes.  For example, if you gave me a chicken breast, I could season it, apply heat to it and you’d end up with one cooked chicken breast.  Ta-dah!  The problem is I’d probably overcook it.  It’d be charred (code for burnt) on the outside and inside the consistency of chalk but yes, definitely cooked.  Bon Appetit!

My culinary prowess is a bit of a running joke in my family.  It started back at school where I had to create a dish for my Home Economics lesson.  I had the truly great idea that I’d coat bits of cod in cornflakes.  I called them Fish Flips.  I didn’t use any binding agent like egg or flour.  So it just ended up as shrunken rubbery pieces of cod in a sea of baked cornflakes.  Yum.  My brother still brings up this spectacular culinary fail fifteen years down the line.  When there is talk of Christmas, family birthdays and celebration meals, the conversation often goes as such:

Mum:  It’s my birthday!  Let’s go out for dinner!

Me:  I could cook?

Mum:  Or we could go out for dinner?

And I’m not sure why I’m so bad at cooking, I give it a good ol’ stab.  I have cookbooks about my person which I bookmark and drool over.  I watch the odd cookery show and help myself to those random recipe cards you find at the back of supermarkets.  But for some reason, those glossy pictures of burnished lamb shanks with crowns of rosemary, and lustrous fruit tarts usually get lost in translation through my cooking skills.  I’m not sure if it’s my bad maths that can never work out the timings or perhaps there is something fundamentally wrong with my palate but many a time, my kids curiously drag their forks around their plates.  Children who are essentially, the worst food critics, ever. ‘I don’t like it.’  Imagine that as a restaurant review in The Times, just that.  Ouch.

The general reaction to my cooking

And what is worse is that I come from a family of foodies.  My mother is the archetypal kitchen-dwelling matriarch.  When you eat at her table, it’s a veritable feast of courses and flavours and love.  My sister produces layered, well-iced cakes that are GBBO worthy. I have aunts, cousins, grandmothers who have recipes and dishes that are firm family favourites.  And then there’s me.  Mac and cheese, anyone?  I make a decent mac and cheese?  With a side of frozen peas?

So in a market saturated with cook books, foodie blogs and faddy diet advice, I wrote Souper Mum for mums like me, the non-cooking sorts.  The ones who try, who let occasional junk pepper their dining tables but who also level it out with a bit of broccoli.  Mums who have limited cooking skill, fussy little customers and who have to think about other constraints like time, fatigue and budget.  It’s like the proper Hunger Games.  Your kitchens are the battlefields; they’re not the pastel, beech work-topped utopias you see in your cookbooks.  These kitchens are covered in yesterday’s washing up, school newsletters, Lego and a remote control without any batteries.  The mums within have little to no foodie wisdom or ability; they’re literally just winging it with a bag of pasta, a tin of chopped tomatoes and half a block of cheddar cheese.

My Souper Mum is Jools Campbell: she grills cupcakes, messes up scrambled eggs and has never really worked out the secret mastery involved in chopping onions.  Let’s just say I had a catalogue of excellent bad-cooking anecdotes to lend to her story.  Her journey is one of self-discovery – the same one that I think most mothers go on when they find themselves embroiled in parenthood and are trying to dig through the debris to remember what’s important in life and reclaim their sense of identity.  Her story is set against a foodie culture she decides to take a stand against with hilarious if life-altering consequences.  If your life is full of quinoa, samphire and you’re one of those full-on crazy people who feel the need to make their own puff pastry, then I warn you, you may not like what Jools has to say.  However, if tonight you’ve opened your kitchen cabinet, reached for the baked beans and are examining those last few slices of bread for mould then Souper Mum might just be your new best friend….

Souper Mum is the story of Jools Campbell, a stay-at-home mother of four, who becomes an unlikely foodie hero when she stands up to a pompous celebrity chef, Tommy McCoy on a reality show.  Armed with fish fingers and a severely limited cooking repertoire, we watch as she becomes a reluctant celebrity and learns some important life lessons about love, family and the joyless merits of quinoa.

To buy Souper Mum, click on this link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Souper-Mum-Kristen-Bailey/dp/1786150689/

BIO

Mother-of-four, gin-drinker, binge-watcher, receipt hoarder, hapless dog owner, enthusiastic but terrible cook.  Kristen lives in Fleet, Hampshire and has had short fiction published in several publications. The sequel to Souper Mum will be published later in the year.

She writes a weekly blog about being a modern mother.  That and more can be found at her website: http://www.kristenbaileywrites.com

You can also find her on:

Twitter @baileyforce6 and Facebook www.facebook.com/kristenbaileywrites

Sounds fantastic, Kristen. Best of luck – with the book (and tonight’s supper!). x

In The Future Will Everyone Be Crowd-funding? Guest post by Erinna Mettler

I’m pleased as punch to introduce my fellow Beach Hut Writer, Erinna Mettler. Erinna is stupendously talented; her stories are perceptive, thought-provoking, laced with subtle humour. Magical.Over to you, Rin.

I write short stories. My first book, Starlings, was what is known as a daisy chain novel, which is a set of interlinking short stories with characters and settings in common. My second book, In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes, is not a novel but a collection of short stories themed around fame and that’s as far as the connection goes. In the UK, short story collections are not looked upon favourably by agents or publishers. This is not the case in the US, India or even Ireland.  A handful of companies do consider collections but to be honest you have to either be a best-selling author or have won a major short story prize to get past the slush pile. I haven’t got an agent and with this second book I didn’t really try to get one. I half-heartedly sent it off to a few US publishers until somebody suggested I try the innovative crowd-funding publisher Unbound.

Since the company was established in 20 Unbound has gone from strength to strength. Their catalogue includes books by Jonathan Meades, Terry Jones, Kate Mosse and a Booker Prize listee (Paul Kingsnorth with The Wake).  In the promo video Unbound states that, ‘authors get to write the books they want to write and readers get to read real books, that in a crowded, celebrity obsessed market place might never see the light of day.’ This statement really appealed to me. I have not forgotten my rejection from a high profile literary agent a few years ago telling me they just weren’t in  love with my writing on the very day they announced a 2 book deal with Martine McCutcheon. She only wrote one and that went into bargain bins straight after it was released. I submitted my manuscript to Unbound. They accepted it within a month.

The thing with crowd-funding is that everything moves at a super-fast pace. I got the email from Unbound Digital on a Friday asking for a biography, an extract, photos, a cover and a short promotional film by Sunday! If you are thinking of submitting to them I would suggest you have all of this ready to go at a moment’s notice. They give you around 90 days to raise the funds to get your book published, which works out at about 350 £10 pledges. When you are fully funded you are assigned an editor and then, about a year later, you get the full marketing and distribution you would from any major publisher.

SONY DSC

I have quite a large social media network but it has been very hard to gain pledges. I blog weekly, I post daily on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve done events, press releases, radio and sent out emails to everyone I know and still each pledge has to be eeked out. As I reach the end of my 90 days I am spending several hours a day marketing and no time actually writing, luckily for me I have the book finished and ready to go. When someone does pledge I want to shout their name from the rooftops. One thing that has worked for me was getting a short film made by Brighton’s Latest TV. This has been like a visual press release and I have gained many pledges since it went live. Wish me luck, I have 150 pledges still to get and time is running out.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame? No Thanks!

 

Therapy, Poetry & Non-fiction: a Path to Crime by Nell Peters

Nell Peters is another Accent Press author and one whom I had the pleasure of meeting face to face at the launch of yet another Accent author, Tom Williams. Welcome to my place, Nell.

Thank you, Laura, for inviting me along – promise I’ll try not to disgrace either of us too much.

I’ve written a lot of guest blogs recently, one of which was for fellow Accent author Jenny Kane’s fab new series, My First Time – about first publications etc. Her opening question was something like what was the first story you wrote because you wanted to, not because you had to at school. My answer was that I started to write (truly, beyond awful) children’s stories one summer in Montreal, when I was in my early twenties, childless and at a loose end. I sat in a garden that stretched down to the St Lawrence River with pen and notebook poised, as I sweated buckets from the intense humidity and got eaten alive by mosquitoes. After I’d given Jenny my answer, however, I realised it wasn’t wholly correct – I’ve always had some form of writing project on the go, ever since I can remember. And trust me, that’s a very long way back.

My parents thought children should be neither seen nor heard, and so I spent a lot of time alone in my room, both reading and writing. With just a sister seven years younger, I was practically an only child and I was a painfully shy, introverted kid who lived vicariously through their imagination. Actually, I haven’t changed that much … weirdo alert!

I daydreamed my way through a high percentage of my schooling – a traditional grammar with stringent conduct and uniform rules, where thinking outside the box was most definitely not encouraged. There was a detention for every perceived misdemeanour – and no ChildLine. Goodness knows how I managed half-decent results – do examiners give sympathy marks? Having a retentive memory probably helped – I passed English Lit, for instance, purely by remembering what had been said during class discussion. Luckily, my form mates (including author Judy Astley) had read the books and done their homework, so (very) belated thanks, gels! Even if I do say so myself, I did a pretty good job of winging it through questions on Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale – that would definitely not be my chosen subject on Mastermind (like I’d even make it onto the ‘Maybe, But Only If Everyone Else Contracts Bubonic Plague’ pile of applications). My leisure reading included all the usual suspects – much Enid Blyton from Noddy up, including the Mallory Towers books passed on by a neighbour, and I ploughed through Agatha Christie from an early age, thus planting the seeds of murder and mayhem in my impressionable young mind, and revving up zee leetle grey cells. The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes did nothing to sway my enthusiasm from dastardly deeds, mystery and convoluted plots either, and I guess the dye was cast – but it was many years before I actually started writing crime.

Fast forward through uni, a scary career, marriage, a move overseas – the Montreal years – and back again (though not necessarily in that order) and I’m living in London with four sons. And writing poetry – something that happened pretty much by accident. By Easter one year, I’d gotten thoroughly fed up with the older boys’ procrastinations about writing their thank you notes for Christmas presents received, so I penned a collective thank you to relatives in rhyme. And lo, I got the bug.

Writing poetry as a form of therapy is something that continues to interest me, but that’s another story … or verse, perhaps. It was, nonetheless, how I came to write crime, bizarre as that might sound. Based loosely on empirical research (not mine), I wrote a non-fiction around the premise that writing poetry can alleviate the symptoms of depression, and I sent it to Hodder, where it was picked up by the submissions editor. Imagine my shock/horror/surprise/disbelief/embarrassing happy dancing when I received an enthusiastic email by return, telling me that although the non-fiction wasn’t for them, could I write a novel for their consideration? She liked my style apparently – someone has to.

Obviously, I didn’t have to be asked twice and set to work on a crime novel – what else? Sadly, I hadn’t even finished the thing, when the editor was made redundant – cue very sad face. Me, that is, but I don’t expect the subs editor was deliriously happy either. That book was called Curry Favour, and the protagonist was a cleaning lady called Amelia Vanderloo (do you see what I did there?) She was quite posh and refined, but had landed upon hard times, and being trained for nothing in particular took to cleaning others’ houses to earn a crust. I think I finished the book, but never did anything with it and veered off to other endeavours, time permitting.

Before this turns into War and Peace, let’s fast forward again, glossing over a move to Norfolk, years spent on my own with the children (a contradiction, I know – but I’m sure you understand my meaning) while the OH worked all over the world, and a return to uni to read psychology. I continued to write crime fiction whenever I had a spare moment, at that time in between churning out assignment essays on serial killers and terrorists, and a dissertation on Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The guy was a Class A basket case – Liberty, Equality and Fraternity notwithstanding, I suppose. He definitely showed schizophrenic tendencies, long before the condition was identified by the German psychiatrist, Emil Kraepelin. I do believe I mentioned JJR’s fluid grip on reality in my diss (I may not have used the term ‘basket case’, but t’was sacrilege nonetheless) and rather surprisingly ended up with a scraped 2:1 Hons, plus an implied award for being the oldest student on campus.

After that, I took a serious look at my backlist and did a lot of work – my efforts were rewarded two years ago, when Editor Greg at Accent Press picked up By Any Other Name. Yay! He also liked my style – and warped sense of humour. Of course, I became rich and famous overnight, but sadly only in my dreams.

Accent subsequently published Hostile Witness in February ’16 – it can be found on Amazon, link below.

Right – I have a ravenous chicken to feed (yet again – she’s more gannet than chook), so again I’ll say thank you very much for having me to Laura and go find the birdseed.

Have a good day, y’all.

NP

Hostile Witness is here: http://mybook.to/hostilewitness

Nell Peters is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NellPetersAuthor

And on Twitter as @paegon