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Showing posts from June, 2016

Cover Reveal: Little Girl Lost by Janet Gover

When a little girl goes missing, an entire town comes together to find her ...  When Tia Walsh rides into the small town of Coorah Creek on a Harley Davidson, Sergeant Max Delaney senses that everything about her spells trouble. But Tia's trouble is not all of her own making, and the dangerous past she tried to leave behind is hot on her heels.  Sarah Travers has returned home after three years of college to find that her parents have been keeping a devastating secret. Her childhood crush, Pete Rankin, is facing his own struggle with a harsh reality that will take him away from the girl and the life that he loves. Tia, Max, Sarah and Pete are all trying to find their future, but when a little girl goes missing in the harsh outback, nothing else matters except finding her safe ... About the author Janet lives in Surrey with her English husband but grew up in the Australian outback surrounded by books. She solved mysteries with Sherlock Holmes, explored jung

Nothing but the truth: when a novelist writes non-fiction by Helen Barrel

I’d always written fiction. If you’d said to me, “the first published book with your name on the cover will be non-fiction,” I wouldn’t have believed you. But so it is. There might seem to be a gaping chasm between the two forms; airy-fairy imaginative stories over on the fiction side, and on the non-fiction side, a desert of hard, dry fact. But I’ve found that my background in fiction has come in very handy for writing non-fiction, and I’ll explain why. Staying the course By signing the contract for Poison Panic , I was promising Pen and Sword, my publisher, that I would write 60,000 words. I thought back to the longest piece of non-fiction I’d written up until that point – my undergraduate dissertation on Agatha Christie (can you see a theme developing?) – and that was 12,000 words. How the heck was I going to write 60,000? But it didn’t scare me.  Although none of my novels have ever been published, apart from a self-published spy thriller back in the late 1990s (when se

Networking - Dispelling the Preconceptions

At the weekend I attended a writer/blogger networking event. Throughout my working life I have successfully managed to avoid any kind of networking event. Somehow I always manage to find a convenient excuse.  Why?  Because I conform to that stereotypical image of a writer, or more accurately the stereotypical image of what I thought a writer is like.  Quiet. Reclusive. Prefers to hold conversations via a keyboard than in person. Maintains the closest and longest relationships with the fictional characters in their head than actual human beings. In essence a loner. There's just one problem.  It turns out that a writer is absolutely nothing like this.  Or if they were, these characteristics were quickly drummed out of them the second they set their sights on the lofty goal of being published. Being a published author isn't, as I had once so naively thought, just about writing books. It's about so much more. It's about persuading agents and publishe

Cover Reveal: House of Secrets By Lynda Stacey

A woman on the run, a broken man and a house with a shocking secret …  Madeleine Frost has to get away. Her partner Liam has become increasingly controlling to the point that Maddie fears for her safety, and that of her young daughter Poppy … Desperation leads Maddie to the hotel owned by her estranged father – the extraordinarily beautiful Wrea Head Hall in Yorkshire. There, she meets Christopher ‘Bandit’ Lawless, an ex-marine and the gamekeeper of the hall, whose brusque manner conceals a painful past.  After discovering a diary belonging to a previous owner, Maddie and Bandit find themselves immersed in the history of the old house, uncovering its secrets, scandals, tragedies – and, all the while, becoming closer.  But Liam still won’t let go, he wants Maddie back, and when Liam wants something he gets it, no matter who he hurts … About the author Lynda, is a wife, step-mother and grandmother, she grew up in the mining village of Bentley, Doncaster, i

Publication News - Carrying The Past

I'm thrilled to announce another of my short stories has been published in this months edition of Scribble magazine. 'Carrying the Past' is, as its title suggests, about the inability to leave the past behind, and the art of perfecting the act of pretending we can. It was inspired by Tim O'Brien's 'The Thing's They Carried'. Whilst my story isn't set in the midst of a war, and it doesn't consider the weight of any physical items, 'The Things They Carried' inspired me to consider the weight of the emotions that we carry. Are we weighted down by guilt from our mistakes and failures? Do our choices haunt us like ghosts at our backs? Do we carry the past with us as we move through each day? Is moving forward and starting over ever truly possible? I didn't say it was a cheery piece now did I?

Book Excerpt: Where Dragonflies Hover by Annemarie Brear

Where Dragonflies Hover blurb: Sometimes a glimpse into the past can help make sense of the future … Everyone thinks Lexi is crazy when she falls in love with Hollingsworth House – a crumbling old Georgian mansion in Yorkshire – and nobody more so than her husband, Dylan. But there’s something very special about the place, and Lexi can sense it. Whilst exploring the grounds she stumbles across an old diary and, within its pages, she meets Allie – an Australian nurse working in France during the First World War. Lexi finally realises her dream of buying Hollingsworth but her obsession with the house leaves her marriage in tatters. In the lonely nights that follow, Allie’s diary becomes Lexi’s companion, comforting her in moments of darkness and pain. And as Lexi reads, the nurse’s scandalous connection to the house is revealed … Excerpt: The late sunshine enveloped the house in a golden glow. Again, it seemed to call to her, begging for attention. A path on the left of the drive