My author in the spotlight is .....Wendy Percival

Please welcome

Wendy Percival

Author 

of

Blood-Tied 

Silverwood Books
October 2013

A hidden crime, kept secret for 60 years... but time has a way of exposing the truth…

*~ Wendy ~ welcome to Jaffareadstoo ~*

Where did you get the first flash of inspiration for Blood-Tied?

It started with an old photograph, set as a Photo Short Story competition in Writing Magazine. It was of a family group (Edwardian, I think) standing on a railway station. I didn’t enter the competition, eventually, but I did draft out an idea for a story. When I started researching my family history, I recalled the story line and the two things fused together and became the starting point of the plot.

What can you tell us about the story that won't give too much away?

It’s about Esme Quentin, a former journalist’s assistant, who has returned to Shropshire to embark upon a new career as a genealogist and history researcher. Her sister’s apparent unprovoked attack proves to be the catalyst for Esme coming to terms with her own tragic past, as well as resolving the awkward relationship she’s always had with her sister.

Why do you choose to write in your particular genre?

I’ve always enjoyed mysteries, which I attribute to having The Secret Garden read to me as a child! I love being intrigued and surprised in stories, particularly ones where there’s a secret to unravel along the way. And they do say write what you enjoy reading!

Have you always wanted to be a writer?        

I’ve always enjoyed writing, even before I’d ever thought about ‘being a writer’. As a child, I was always dressing up and acting out elaborate stories, and I used to write great long letters to pen friends. It wasn’t until I saw a copy of Writing Magazine in WH Smith’s about 15 years ago that I wondered about writing more seriously. Even then I nearly didn’t buy it, thinking perhaps I was being a bit flaky! But eventually I went back to the rack, grabbed the magazine and marched to the check-out before I changed my mind. I’ve been hooked ever since.

Which writers have inspired you?

I used to read Catherine Cookson avidly. She tells a story so seamlessly. I was introduced to Daphne du Maurier by my mum so I’ve always had a soft spot for her books, particularly with their links to Cornwall, where I’ve been many times on holiday. Elizabeth George’s earlier Lynley novels are favourites. I’ve always enjoyed Dick Francis’s books, although I’m not at all interested in horse riding, which says a lot about his ability to capture his reader! Susan Howatch’s novels, especially her Starbridge series, are brilliant. In recent years I’ve read a lot of Peter Robinson, PD James, Ruth Rendell, Ian Rankin and CJ Sansom, amongst others. But one of my absolute favourites, and probably the writer who I find the most inspirational, is “master of the double twist”, Robert Goddard.

Have you any other novels planned, and if so, can you give us a taster of what is to come?

So many people told me how much they liked Esme Quentin that, after much deliberation as to whether to go down the ‘series character’ route, I decided to write another Esme novel. Again inspired by genealogy and influences from the past, it’s set on the north Devon coast, near where I live. Esme finds a dying woman at the foot of a cliff and gets caught up with the mystery of a 19^th century convict, transported to Australia in 1837. I'm currently working hard to get the final draft finished!

 More about Wendy can be found here:

 http://www.wendypercival.co.uk

http://engagewritebrain.blogspot.com
http://familyhistorysecrets.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/wendypercivalauthor

Wendy is very generously giving a printed copy of Blood -Tied to one lucky UK winner of this giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Thank you so much Wendy for spending time with us.
Jaffa and I look forward to reading more stories about Esme.

*~*~*

My thoughts on Blood-Tied.

Esme Quentin is worried when her sister Elizabeth is attacked in a London park. Thinking that this is a random attack by a stranger, Esme is unprepared when the police reveal that Elizabeth’s attack may not be as random as first thought. With Elizabeth gravely ill in hospital, it falls to Esme and Elizabeth’s daughter, Gemma, to delve a little deeper into Elizabeth’s personal affairs. What they discover are long buried family secrets which span over sixty years, and which open up to scrutiny all that Esme and Gemma once believed to be true.

What then follows is a finely crafted family mystery which abounds with both trickery and deception. The author has a real skill with words, and with fine attention to detail has produced a very convincing crime story. There are more than enough twists, turns and unexpected red herrings in the story to keep you guessing until the very end. I rather liked Esme, she is a determined and feisty protagonist who uses her skill as a researcher to delve into the past; however, it is her tenacity and generosity of spirit which gives the books its heart and soul and which leads eventually to the conclusion of the family mystery.

Blood-Tied works well as a standalone story, it is well presented and professionally produced to a high standard. However, I can see great potential for future character developments as Esme deserves to put her sleuthing skills to good use in future follow-ups.

*~*~*

Blog Tour ~ Blood's Game by Angus Donald

 Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting today's stop on the Blood's Game Blog Tour

And to give a warm welcome to the author

Angus Donald

Donald, thank you for spending time with us today and for your guest post

Thomas Blood and the theft of the Crown Jewels

By Angus Donald

A little before 7am on a chilly morning in early May, 1671, a tall, middle-aged man calling himself Thomas Ayliffe, and dressed in the sober clothes of a parson, knocked at the door of the Irish Tower in the northeast corner of the Tower of London.

He had with him three companions, two tough-looking men of about the same age as the parson and a younger fellow, who claimed to be the nephew of this respectable man of God as well as a gentleman of private means worth £300 per annum. The four men were admitted to the Irish Tower – now called the Martin Tower – by Talbot Edwards, the Assistant Keeper of the Crown Jewels, who resided there. Edwards kept the Crown Jewels – worth an estimated £100,000 pounds, a vast sum in those days – on wooden shelves behind an iron cage in a locked, windowless room below his private chambers in the Irish Tower.

Edwards, an elderly man and former soldier in the service of the noble Talbot family, had invited “Parson Ayliffe” and his “nephew” to breakfast with his wife and daughter and, as a treat, had promised them a sight of the famous royal jewels. The Assistant Keeper desperately wished to curry favour with the parson and his family, particularly with his nephew, as an engagement had been proposed by Parson Ayliffe between that apparently wealthy young man and Edwards’s ugly daughter.

Once the visitors were inside the Jewel House, with the bars of the cage open, the gang attacked Talbot Edwards, knocking him down with a blow to the head from a wooden mallet and stabbing him with daggers. Having subdued the old soldier – indeed, leaving him lying in a spreading pool of his own blood – the four men began helping themselves to the Crown Jewels, filling their pockets with priceless objects, cramming their boot-tops with handfuls of precious gem stones . . .

For Parson Ayliffe was not some mild-mannered country cleric; he was in fact the notorious desperado Thomas Blood, an outlaw with a price on his head, and the wealthy nephew was his eldest son, also called Thomas, a well-known highwayman.

I was first told the story of Thomas Blood and his attempt to steal the Crown Jewels as a child of perhaps ten or eleven – and I found it thrilling, not least because my mother, whose maiden name was Blood, told me that we were descended the crown-stealer. So, naturally, when I grew up, I wanted to tell his extraordinary story. The result is Blood’s Game, the first novel in my new 17th-century series. 

In middle-age, while I am no longer sure that I’m directly descended from him, I still find Thomas Blood to be a compelling character. However, after a good deal of research, I have also discovered that he is by no means an easy man to admire: some of his acts were shockingly violent, even needlessly brutal; he was nakedly self-serving and often rather depressingly incompetent. But he did have a quality of fearless, can-do optimism that I do find inspiring. All too often our 21st-century existences can be tame, risk-averse, coddled. I’m not suggesting anyone should pop on a ski mask, and go out and pull a bank job – but I do sometimes ask myself: would you ever have the balls to risk it all for wealth, fame and glory, as old Thomas did?

Thomas Blood was born in County Clare, Ireland in 1618, the son of a successful iron-master and grandson of a member of the Irish Parliament. At the age of 20, he married an English girl called Mary Holcroft who came from a family of Lancashire gentry and with whom he had at least seven children. 

When the English Civil War broke out in 1642, Blood initially joined the royalist side but when it became clear that the Cavaliers were losing the war, he switched sides and became a Roundhead. He rose to the rank of captain and was duly rewarded for turning his coat at the end of the wars with a gift of lands in Ireland. Thomas Blood then settled down to enjoy a gentlemanly life of moderate wealth and leisure with his growing family. 

All was well for the Bloods until the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, which was followed by the Act of Settlement of 1662, a piece of legislation that stripped lands from Cromwell’s supporters and handed them over to the resurgent royalists. 

Blood was ruined. His new estates were confiscated and he blamed the Irish government for his sudden destitution, and particularly the restored King’s personal representative, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, Duke of Ormonde. 

Not the sort of man to take an injury without retaliation, Blood was part of a doomed scheme in 1663 to storm Dublin Castle and kidnap the Duke of Ormonde and hold him for ransom. Blood was forced to flee Ireland and find refuge in Holland, leaving his penniless wife and family behind to manage as best they could. 

By 1670, Blood was back in England, living in Romford Market, a few miles northeast of London, under the alias Doctor Thomas Allen. Despite having no medical qualifications at all, he made a decent living treating the people of Romford for their various ailments. On December 6 of that year, on a foul, rainy night, Blood and his confederates attacked the Duke of Ormonde’s coach in St James Street, as it was heading up the hill to Piccadilly where the Duke lived in the rented palace of Clarendon House. Blood and his gang pulled Ormonde from the vehicle but, instead of killing him immediately, they decided to take him to Tyburn, west along Piccadilly and approximately where Marble Arch now stands, and hang him there like a common criminal. Ormonde was tied to the back of a horse – but managed to wriggle free and he was rescued by footmen coming out with torches from Clarendon House.

After the failure of the Ormonde assassination attempt, Blood laid low, probably in Romford, planning his next move. Sometime in April 1671, Blood, disguised as a well-to-do country parson, calling himself Thomas Ayliffe, and accompanied by his beautiful “wife”, an actress called Jenny Blaine, paid a visit to the Tower of London and asked if he might be allowed to see the famous Crown Jewels of England. 

At that time, Talbot Edwards made a small income, on top of his salary as Assistant Keeper, by allowing visitors to view the King’s coronation regalia. He showed Blood and his charming companion the jewels and, when she feigned an illness and fainted, he kindly took them upstairs to his private apartments to recover under the care of his wife and daughter. A few days later Blood returned with a small gift – a thank-you for the Edwardses’ kindness. Over the next few weeks, Blood wormed his way into their affections and dangling a rich “nephew” as bait, he began negotiations with the Edwardses for the hand of their daughter Elizabeth. 

Early in the morning on May 9, 1671, Blood and three companions arrived at the Irish Tower, entered the Jewel House, overpowered Edwards and began helping themselves to the jewels. They believed the Assistant Keeper to be dead or dying – and certainly no longer a threat. But Edwards was made of stern stuff. While the thieves were filling their pockets with jewels, he revived and began to call for help. By sheer chance, Edwards’s son Wythe happened to be returning on leave from his regiment in Flanders that day and he arrived with a friend called Captain Beckman at the exact time that Edwards was screaming blue murder from inside the Jewel House. 

The thieves made a run for it, spilling treasures as they went, and were pursued by Wythe, Beckman and the Tower guards. There was a running fight, pistols, muskets and rapiers, as the gang tried to reach their horses which were tied up at the end of Tower Wharf at the Iron Gate. Blood was captured. As the soldiers seized him, he said: “It was a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful! ’Twas for a crown!”

Blood was imprisoned in the White Tower and questioned by the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Robinson, but the old outlaw refused to give away any details of the plot or the names of the other people involved. Quite outrageously, Blood insisted that he would only give an account of himself in a personal audience with the King.

After weeks of negotiations, with Blood still refusing to name names, he was granted a royal audience. I still find myself shocked by this: imagine Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber, or a Kray twin or some other major criminal demanding to speak privately with Queen Elizabeth II. Nevertheless, a private audience was granted, Colonel Thomas Blood met Charles Stuart, and while nobody knows exactly what went on at that meeting, Blood emerged with a royal pardon for his crimes and a grant of lands in Ireland worth £500 a year.

Who says crime doesn’t pay?

In Blood’s Game I attempt to unravel exactly what went on during that meeting between the King and the most notorious outlaw of his age. 

Some historians have suggested that King Charles was so amused by this charming Irish rogue that he decided to pardon him. That doesn’t ring true for me. I think there was something darker going on. Blackmail, perhaps. The threat of a secret that would be revealed if Blood went to the gallows. And when I began to research the background for the novel, I did, in fact, discover a genuinely shocking secret, a royal secret of explosive proportions, something the British government kept hidden for more than a hundred years afterwards. This secret forms basis for my telling of this incredible tale about an extraordinary man . . . but I’m not going to say any more. If you want to find out, you’ll have to read Blood’s Game.

Angus Donald is the author of Blood's Game, published by Zaffre in hardback £12.99

Find out more on his website

Follow on Twitter  @angus_donald #BloodsGame

Visit on Facebook

Zaffre
5 October 2017

Huge thanks to the author for spending time with us today and for his fascinating insight into Thomas Blood and his audacious attempt to steal the Crown Jewels.

Thanks also to Emily at Bonnier Zaffre for her invitation to be part of this blog tour and for sending a copy of Blood's Game to me .

~***~

Review ~ The Indelible Stain by Wendy Percival

Silverwood Books
2014

Secrets from a tainted past....

Esme Quentin’s arrival on the North Devon coast is spoiled by the ghastly discovery of a fatally injured woman lying on the beach near Warren Cliff. What should be a pleasant interlude for Esme, helping out an old friend, soon becomes a convoluted and complex quest to find out more about the identity of the ill-fated woman. Even though the local police dismiss the woman’s death as an unfortunate accident, Esme is convinced that there is more to this mysterious accident and her intuitive form of investigation soon uncovers a tangled web of secrets and lies spanning multi generations.

This well written murder mystery, not only concentrates on the here and now, but also takes the reader on a journey of discovery into the tainted past of Britain’s brutal transportation system, when people were transported to the penal colony of Australia for little more than stealing a loaf of bread. The mystery at the heart of the novel takes some uncovering, but Esme does so with her usual confidence and tenacity. As always the fine writing of the author and the attention she pays to the smallest of details really helps to bring the story alive in the imagination. I was totally involved in Esme’s quest to uncover the truth and the many twists and turns in the plot really focus the novel so that it becomes an investigative challenge to piece together all the strands of the mystery.

Having been introduced to Esme Quentin for the first time in Blood Tied, it was a real pleasure to meet up with her again in another well written murder/mystery story. It’s rather like meeting up with an old friend whose life is rather more exciting than your own and in whose company you can sit back, relax, grab a cup of your favourite tea and just let the mystery unfold.

I can’t wait to see what Esme will do next.

My thanks to the author for sharing her book with me.

Wendy Percival

Twitter @Wendy_Percival

****

Wendy Percival's Itty Bitty Christmas ...

Wishing you a Merry Christmas 

from 

Wendy Percival

What’s your earliest Christmas Memory?

My earliest memories seem to be dominated by that of waking up really early, convinced it’s time to get up and being told to go back to sleep because it’s still only two o’clock in the morning!

Do you have any special Christmas Traditions?

Delia’s Christmas Chutney (from her Christmas book) is always made in November as it needs a month to mature and is a must-have with cheese or cold meat over Christmas.

On Christmas Eve a stocking for everyone hangs on the beam above the fireplace and we open these first thing on Christmas morning while still in our jim-jams. Inside are a couple of small gifts, some tasty treats (for later) and a magazine or comic. (Father Christmas’s plan was that it gave the children something to keep them amused before the main present opening event after breakfast - and while the grown-ups got dressed and took their turn in the bathroom which, from what I remember as a child, always took forever!).

What’s your favourite festive carol or song?

Years ago we bought a CD called Spirituality which is a collection of beautiful choral singing. We only tend to play it at Christmas because it evokes just the right atmosphere. Our youngest always referred to it as the Monk Music! Our old cat used to hate it, especially the track called Miserere which has some spectacularly high notes.

Do you have a favourite festive film?

We always enjoy watching The Snowman, though I’ve a soft spot for the film (A Christmas Story) about a young boy who wants a special gun for Christmas (a Red Rider BB) but everyone else (his mother, teacher and even Santa Claus) isn’t very keen on the idea. It’s very funny in a Bill Bryson-esque sort of a way. Otherwise, I do love a good snowy Victorian/Dickensian drama.

What’s your favourite festive read?

 As a child, my mum would read me and my sister The Christmas Book by Enid Blyton in the weeks leading up to Christmas. By the time we reached the chapter about Father Christmas coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve, and the youngest child Ann hiding behind the sofa to give him a present of a jar of sweets, we would be beside ourselves with excitement (which probably accounts for how badly we slept on Christmas Eve!).

Are you organised or do you leave everything until the last minute?

As in my writing, I’m a planner. Lists are crucial!

Christmas Tree – real or artificial?

Definitely real! I love the smell. And with the new varieties, the needle drop is not such a problem. We’re lucky enough to have a local grower a few miles away where we can go and choose a tree in the field.

Tinsel or Glitter?

Tinsel, as long as it’s not too gaudy, and I have fond memories of glitter which makes me think of making sticky pictures and cards with my class when I used to be a primary school teacher. It would enhance even the most primitive of pictures!

Gingerbread Latte or Orange spiced Hot Chocolate?

Orange spiced Hot Chocolate sounds my sort of thing… (see Christmas tipple!)

Mince Pie or Yule Log?

I love both but you can’t have Christmas without mince pies.

Christmas Tipple – Bucks Fizz/Mulled Wine or something stronger?

Cointreau on ice. I only buy Cointreau at Christmas so it’s a nice treat. And I might try it in a Hot Chocolate this year, too (see above!).

Christmas Dinner – Traditional Turkey or something Different?

We don’t often have turkey, though it depends how many people I’m catering for. Duck or guinea-fowl are favourites.

A fun game of after dinner charades or more chocolates and the television?

If there’s a crowd of us, games are always good and we’ll not bother with the TV. Otherwise, if we’re having a quiet Christmas, we’ll light the fire and settle down for a cosy read (there’ll invariably be books amongst the presents) or if there’s something extra special on the television later in the evening we’ll watch that.

Wendy's books are available to buy on Amazon

 

Wendy is giving away one copy of The Indelible Stain
 to one lucky UK winner of this giveaway



a Rafflecopter giveaway

My thanks to Wendy for sharing her Christmas with us.

Jaffa and I wish you a very Happy Christmas

Book Beginnings on Fridays...

Hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader

Book Beginnings on Fridays as stated by the host was started:

 "to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires."

You can share on Google + and social media , please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings

and there's also a Mr Linky on the host's blog.

 Book Beginning : Once Upon A River by Bonnie Jo Campbell

October 2012
4th Estate
An imprint of Harper Collins Publishers

Chapter One

The Stark River flowed around the oxbow at Murrayville the way blood flowed through Margo Crane's heart. She rowed upstream to see wood ducks, canvasbacks, and ospreys and to search for tiger salamanders in the ferns. She drifted downstream to find painted turtles sunning on fallen trees and to count the herons in the heronry beside the Murrayville cemetery. She tied up her boat and followed shallow feeder streams to collect crayfish, watercress, and tiny wild strawberries. Her feet were toughened against sharp stones and broken glass. When Margo swam, she swallowed minnows alive and felt the Stark River move inside her.

**

......This opening paragraph is so descriptive, I can sense the river as it meanders along, and the wildlife on the bank of the river is so tantalisingly close, I feel like I can almost reach out and touch the ferns and watch the ducks as they glide in the water. 

I yearn for the creaminess of the crayfish, the pepper of the watercress and the explosion of sweetness as the tiny wild strawberries shatter in my mouth, but more than anything, I want to know about Margo Crane ....

**

A Bit of Book Blurb..

..thanks to Goodreads..

Bonnie Jo Campbell has created an unforgettable heroine in sixteen-year-old Margo Crane, a beauty whose unflinching gaze and uncanny ability with a rifle have not made her life any easier. After the violent death of her father, in which she is complicit, Margo takes to the Stark River in her boat, with only a few supplies and a biography of Annie Oakley, in search of her vanished mother. But the river, Margo's childhood paradise, is a dangerous place for a young woman travelling alone, and she must be strong to survive, using her knowledge of the natural world and her ability to look unsparingly into the hearts of those around her. Her river odyssey through rural Michigan becomes a defining journey, one that leads her beyond self-preservation and to the decision of what price she is willing to pay for her choices.

I picked up this book this week in one of my cheap book shops and was primary intrigued by the cover of the beautiful girl pointing a gun at something or someone, and was tempted to read more...

Please let me know if you would be tempted by this book.

Thanks for looking at my Friday Book Beginnings.

Close to Home ~ Kate Rigby

As a book reviewer I have made contact with authors from all across the globe and feel immensely privileged to be able to share some amazing work. However, there is always something rather special when a book comes to my attention which has been written by an author in my part of the North of England. So with this in mind I have great pleasure in featuring some of those authors who are literally close to my home. Over the next few Saturdays, and hopefully beyond, I will be sharing the work of a very talented bunch of Northern authors and discovering just what being a Northerner means to them both in terms of inspiration and also in their writing.

Please welcome Northern writer

Kate Rigby

I was born in Crosby in the late 1950s but don’t remember much before the age of three. We moved away when I was seven and returned to Thornton when I was 13, about a mile away from Crosby, but I see those as two very different phases of my life. Crosby very much associated with my childhood and Thornton with my teenage years and growing into adulthood.

Of course, Beatlemania was happening in my living memory in Liverpool in the early 60s. I was just a tot, though one of my earliest memories is of singing ‘She Loves You’, and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ not only makes reference to our family name but its haunting strings and poignant lyrics evoke strong memories of our last few months in Crosby! It evokes childhood angst on autumn Sunday evenings, tied up with Evensong at St Faith’s High Church, and the fear of school the following day. My teacher put the fear of God into me with a perishing look of her eye and a stern presence. It’s hardly surprising then, that moving away to the Cotswolds, seemed to my young mind, like an adventure and a great escape!

But during those early years at Crosby, some of the most striking memories are in relation to the landscape and the shore. When we ventured down there as a family, we took our buckets and spades and had a paddle, though the tide was often a long way out, but there were dollops of oil coated in sand across Hall Road beach - deposits from passing tankers no doubt.

 My sister and me (right) at Blundellsands in 1964

Sometimes we would venture further afield to New Brighton or Freshfields. We’d do the interminable walk through the pine woods at Freshfields (or so it seemed to my little legs) with red squirrels delighting us along the way, before coming out to rock pools and dunes with long grassy clumps where caterpillars uncurled while we crunched our sandy sandwiches.

But when we returned to Thornton in the early 1970s, it seemed like a backward step and so Crosby was avoided where possible. We (that is me and my sister closest to me in age) were soon venturing regularly into town (Liverpool city centre). That was the place to be. For the size of it, Crosby didn’t offer much for the young who’d outgrown youth clubs.

My sister and I doing the bump (74) before going out on the town in Liverpool
Photo courtesy of Chris Rigby

So it was with a certain amount of incredulity, when, some thirty odd years later, I heard Crosby was the chosen place for Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’ exhibition. His 100 iron men became a permanent fixture, putting Crosby well and truly on the map. I last returned to Crosby in 2009 for a trip down Memory Lane and to see the Iron Men. It is quite an experience and Crosby beach, cleaned of oil, is still unspoiled.

 

 One of the Iron Men in a Waterloo sunset, and me resting my head on an an Iron Man

Naturally all these early experiences on Merseyside have had a big influence on my writing. My first novel ‘Did You Whisper back?’ was written when I was still living in Thornton. It’s about a young woman who slowly descends into mental illness and is largely set in Blundellsands and Waterloo, with many references to Liverpool and Seaforth in a 1970s setting. It won a Southern Arts Bursary in 1991 under its previous title (Where A Shadow Played).


However, the book of mine that is most influenced by my early life in Crosby and Liverpool is ‘Suckers n Scallies’(previously published in paperback as Sucka! by Skrev). It begins in the 1960s, moving through the 70s and 80s, interweaved with present day (1990s in this case). It’s a gritty story with lots of Scouse dialect and retro sweets and is about a life long friendship between two men from different backgrounds, beginning in 1960s Liverpool when they are children. It’s a bit of a marmite book as there are a lot of time and viewpoint shifts but these are clearly marked with sub-headings. There are no actual references to Crosby as such, but rather north Liverpool, and also Kirkby. References to Terry’s grandpa painting ships in his blood came from a similar story about my own great grandfather. My father also painted the docks in the 1970s/early 80s.

Pier Head picture (taken by my father in 1964 as a slide – the skyline has sprouted more buildings since!)

My very short novella ‘She Looks Pale’ is also set in Liverpool and has references to Waterloo Park school in the 1970s. In fact the title is taken from a schoolgirl ritual we used to do in lunch hours! It is quite a sad and poignant tale, however, about a child confined to the house by her over-protective parents, until her only view of the world is through diaries and photo albums of her mother’s past. It is an e-book in its own right but also fronts a short story collection of mine in paperback. ‘She Looks Pale & Other Stories’.

‘Our Marie’ is about generational differences and conflicts between a mother and her daughter, and is also available in the e-collection of short stories ‘Tales By Kindlelight’.

Liverpool is also referenced in some of my other books and short stories, for instance, the Freshfields walk makes a brief appearance in The Dead Club and the novel I’m working on at the moment has the main character from Crosby, although she now lives in Devon! I think that’s called coming full circle as that’s where I live now. I am hoping to write something autobiographical in the future so Crosby will definitely feature again.

Find out more about Kate on her website

Many thanks to Jo – and Jaffa! - for inviting me to be a guest on your blog.

Amazon links to books:

 

Warmest thanks to Kate for sharing her thoughts about growing up in Crosby and of how her childhood in Liverpool has shaped her stories.

I hope that you have enjoyed this week's Close to Home Feature

Coming next week : Claire Brown

~***~