With it firmly on my ‘to be read’ list, I’m delighted to be supporting the launch of Summer at the Cornish Cafe by Phillipa Ashley which is out in e-book today, May 5th 2016, from Avon Maze (part of Harper Collins). The first book in the gorgeous new Penwith series, Summer at the Cornish Cafe is recommended for readers who loved Summer at Shell Cottage, The Cornish House, Tremarnock and Poldark. Summer at the Cornish Cafe is available for purchase here.

Summer at the Cornish Cafe

One summer can change everything . . .

“Warm and funny and feel-good. The best sort of holiday read.” Katie Fforde

“Filled with warm and likeable characters. Great fun!” Jill Mansell

Demi doesn’t expect her summer in Cornwall to hold anything out of the ordinary. As a waitress, working all hours to make ends meet, washing dishes and serving ice creams seems to be as exciting as the holiday season is about to get.

That’s until she meets Cal Penwith. An outsider, like herself, Cal is persuaded to let Demi help him renovate his holiday resort, Kilhallon Park. Set above an idyllic Cornish cove, the once popular destination for tourists has now gone to rack and ruin. During the course of the Cornish summer, Demi makes new friends – and foes – as she helps the dashing and often infuriating Cal in his quest. Working side by side, the pair grow close, but Cal has complications in his past which make Demi wonder if he could ever truly be interested in her.

Demi realises that she has finally found a place she can call home. But as the summer draws to a close, and Demi’s own reputation as an up and coming café owner starts to spread, she is faced with a tough decision . . .

A gorgeous story exploring new beginnings, new love and new opportunities, set against the stunning background of the Cornish coast. Phillipa Ashley has written a feisty, compelling heroine who leaps off the page and encourages you to live your summer to the full.

About Phillipa Ashley

Phillipa Ashley studied English at Oxford before working as a copywriter and journalist. Her first novel, Decent Exposure won the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers Award and in 2009, it was filmed as a US TV movie called 12 Men of Christmas starring Kristin Chenoweth and Josh Hopkins. Miranda’s Mount won Best Ebook at the Festival of Romance Reader Awards 2012 and It Happened One Night was shortlisted in 2013.

As Pippa Croft, Phillipa also writes as the Oxford Blue series which is published by Penguin Books.

She lives in a Staffordshire village with her husband and has a grown-up daughter. When she’s not writing, she loves falling off surf boards and following Poldark around in a camper van.

You’ll find more about Phillipa on her website and on Facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter.

It gives me great pleasure to be sharing the cover for Sheryl Browne’s latest novel Learning to Love. Learning to Love is published by Choc Lit and is now available to pre-order as an eBook! You’ll find Learning to Love on Kindle UK, Kindle US, Kindle AU and Kindle CA.

Learning to Love

Sometimes help comes from the most unlikely places …

Living in a small village like Hibberton, it’s expected that your neighbours help you in a time of need. But when Andrea Kelly’s house burns down, taking all her earthly possessions with it, it’s the distant and aloof Doctor David Adams – the person she would least expect – who opens his door not just to her, but to her three kids and slightly dotty elderly mother as well.

Andrea needs all the help she can get, dealing with aftermath of the fire and in the suspicious absence of her husband, Jonathan. But, as she gets to know David and his troubled son, Jake, she begins to realise that maybe they need her help as much as she needs theirs …

You can find out more about Sheryl Browne on her Website, by following her on Twitter and on Facebook. You’ll find all her books here in the UK and here in the US. Sheryl is also on Pinterest.

As a blogger I ‘meet’ an awful lot of authors and I’m delighted that Steve Cavanagh is one of them. Steve writes gripping thrillers that are published by Orion and which can be found on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Waterstones, WH Smith and purchased directly from Orion.

Steve’s latest book, The Defense was released March, but is also out today, 3rd May 2016, in the US with Flatiron Booksand he kindly agreed to answer some questions I had about place and character in a guest post that you can read below.

The Defense

Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist. Then he became a lawyer. Turned out the two weren’t that different.

It’s been over a year since Eddie vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn’t have a choice. Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Eddie’s back and kidnapped his ten-year-old daughter, Amy. Eddie only has forty-eight hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial – and win – if he wants to save his daughter.

Under the scrutiny of the media and the FBI, Eddie must use his razor-sharp wit and every con-artist trick in the book to defend his ‘client’ and ensure Amy’s safety. With the timer on his back ticking away, can Eddie convince the jury of the impossible?

A Sense of Place and Character

A Guest Post by Steve Cavanagh

Is there a link from your Irish background to New York?

New York is one of those cities in the US which has very strong links to Ireland. And Brooklyn, in particular, had a large Irish population. I wanted my main character to be at least partly Irish so that I would have some kind of basic connection to him. So I made Eddie Flynn’s father Irish, and his mother Italian: A deadly mixture. In terms of creating a sense of place, I relied on the characters to do a lot of that work for me. If the characters are authentic, I think you get a real sense of where they come from and what shaped them through their actions, their dialogue, and sensibility. In terms of creating a real sense of New York, well, I have two confessions. First, I cheated. If I had set the book somewhere like Atlantic city, or Austin, or somewhere like that – I would’ve had to do a great deal of work in describing that city. When you read the words “New York city,” or even “Manhattan,” because that place is already indelibly inscribed in our psyche via TV shows and movies, I don’t have to do a great deal of work describing the place. The reader’s imagination does it for me. Second confession – I have never been to New York. Or the United States. But I am going at the end of April for the first time…

Does your legal background help or hinder your settings in your novels – do you have to curb your descriptions or is it difficult to summon enthusiasm for things you know too well?

At first I didn’t take too much time describing the courtroom. Nearly everyone has seen the inside of a courtroom, so you know the basic set up. But for this novel I wanted to create a fictional courthouse with real character. Most of the novel is set in the Chambers Street Courthouse which is no longer a functioning courthouse – it’s now part of the Department of Education. So I took the basics of that building and exaggerated it, made it a lot more gothic. So it’s much larger, more imposing and the building itself is falling to bits. In a way, the courthouse is a metaphor for the justice system itself. My editor did suggest a more detailed description of the courtroom, and with my legal background I suppose I had overlooked it a little so I added that in just to orientate the reader.

Did your early attempts at screen writing help or hinder a sense of place?

My screenplays were full length features, and none of them were optioned. Writing for the big screen is very much a director’s medium, so I was always careful to be sparse with describing the geography, and the setting.

Is place important at all in character driven writing with Eddie Flynn? And can setting constrain or enhance the plot?

I think setting is important, but it’s not the defining aspect of my style of writing. Some novels have setting as one of their main focal points, and I’m thinking about Scandi-crime I suppose when I talk about this. For me, setting is important for the tone, and for centering the reader in a world, but character is much more crucial to me. I suppose some readers will pick up a book because of the location, but I can’t write those sorts of books. I’m always much more interested in people than places or weather. People make stories, not windswept beaches or skyscrapers. In terms of plot, the setting can be a force in that story, but it’s always merely the stage. People come back to books for the actors on that stage.

About Steve Cavanagh

Steve Cavanagh was born and raised in Belfast and is a practicing lawyer. He is married with two young children. The Defense was longlisted for the UK Crime Writer’s Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for THRILLER OF THE YEAR 2015, and shortlisted for two Dead Good Readers Awards for MOST RECOMMENDED BOOK and BEST ENDING.

Steve writes fast-paced legal thrillers set in New York City featuring former con artist, turned trial lawyer, Eddie Flynn. The Defense is his first novel.

You can find out more about Steve Cavanagh on his website or follow him on Twitter. You’ll also find him on Facebook.

The Plea

Steve’s next novel, The Plea, will be released by Orion on 19th May and is available for pre-order here.

When David Child, a major client of a corrupt New York law firm, is arrested for murder, the FBI ask con-artist-turned-lawyer Eddie Flynn to secure Child as his client and force him to testify against the firm.

Eddie’s not a man to be coerced into representing a guilty client, but the FBI have incriminating files on Eddie’s wife, and if Eddie won’t play ball, she’ll pay the price.

When Eddie meets Child he’s convinced the man is innocent, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. With the FBI putting pressure on him to secure the plea, Eddie must find a way to prove Child’s innocence while keeping his wife out of danger – not just from the FBI, but from the firm itself.

Today I’m delighted to be revealing not one, but two covers for Catherine Freguson’s Four Weddings and a Fiasco to be published by Avon Books in e-book and paperback on 16th June 2016.

Four Weddings and a Fiasco

Katy Peacock lives a life as colourful as her name.

As a wedding photographer, she spends her days making other people smile as she captures all sorts of fun and capers at celebrations that range from the wacky to the wild.

But her own life isn’t looking quite so rosy. Her mum is acting out of character, her menacing ex is back on the scene, and she is torn between two gorgeous men. And that’s before we even get started on the trouble her sister is causing . . .

As Katy weathers the ups and downs of the season, she revisits problems from the past, discovers new friendships and finds that four weddings and a fiasco have the power to change her world beyond measure.

A funny, feel-good read, perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan.

You can order Four Weddings and a Fiasco on Amazon, or directly from Harper Collins.

You can find all Catherine’s books here and follow her on Twitter.

I am indebted to Charlotte Ledger from Harper Impulse and to Netgalley for an advanced reader copy of Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe by Debbie Johnson in return for an honest review. Published in e-book by Harper Impulse on 29th April 2016 Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe will also be available in paperback from 16th June 2016. It can be found with all Debbie’s books here.

My Review of Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

Laura is still grieving for her husband, killed as the result of a tragic accident and so when the opportunity arrives to spend the summer working in a cafe in Budbury in Dorset, she decides to take it. Laura, son Nate, daughter Lizzie and aged Labrador Jimbo head off for a summer that will impact their lives for ever.

I have a confession to make. I have never read anything by Debbie Johnson before and, because there seem to be so many books based during a particular season in a cafe, I thought this would be an entertaining, lightweight read that I could forget as soon as I read it. It is indeed entertaining, but it is certainly not superficial and I absolutely loved it.

There are so many qualities to Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe. The setting is brilliantly described so that it took me back to my own visits to Dorset and made me want to return immediately. I may well be staying at the Lancombe Country Cottages Debbie Johnson refers to at the end of the book very soon!

The characters are typical of the cast one might expect in this kind of read, but that does not mean they are two dimensional. I found them all believable and realistic. I particularly liked Jimbo the dog who not only seems a character in his own right, but is also a highly effective catalyst for action. Laura’s first person account is totally engaging so that she feels like a friend rather than a character. I was desperate for her to find happiness and I think all readers, regardless of age or gender, will recognise elements of their own personality in Laura’s depiction. Indeed, I thought even the most minor characters had a depth to them that helped enhance the well plotted and entertaining story.

The emotions presented are so well done that I found myself smiling frequently, laughing aloud on several occasions and crying a few times too. Again, Debbie Johnson manages to avoid cliche even when food is seen as a healing property. There are some weighty themes presented with a clever hand in Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe – grief, friendship, family, relationships – all of which are satisfyingly explored. Even ageing and dementia are represented, giving depth to what might otherwise wrongly be dismissed (by readers like me who sometimes make judgements without having read a book) as a frivolous story. There is, in fact, a sense of classical literature as there is unity of time, place and action which serve to enhance the reader’s experience.

I found Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe a delightful, satisfying and well written read that I loved. I would recommend it to any reader who wants to understand emotions in a wide range of characters whilst enjoying the beauty of a wonderful setting. And even better – there are lots of wonderful recipes to try too!

Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

The Comfort Food Cafe is perched on a windswept clifftop at what feels like the edge of the world, serving up the most delicious cream teas; beautifully baked breads, and carefully crafted cupcakes. For tourists and locals alike, the ramshackle cafe overlooking the beach is a beacon of laughter, companionship, and security – a place like no other; a place that offers friendship as a daily special, and where a hearty welcome is always on the menu.

For widowed mum-of-two Laura Walker, the decision to uproot her teenaged children and make the trek from Manchester to Dorset for the summer isn’t one she takes lightly, and it’s certainly not winning her any awards from her kids, Nate and Lizzie. Even her own parents think she’s gone mad.

But following the death of her beloved husband David two years earlier, Laura knows that it’s time to move on. To find a way to live without him, instead of just surviving. To find her new place in the world, and to fill the gap that he’s left in all their lives.

Her new job at the cafe, and the hilarious people she meets there, give Laura the chance she needs to make new friends; to learn to be herself again, and – just possibly – to learn to love again as well.

For her, the Comfort Food Cafe doesn’t just serve food – it serves a second chance to live her life to the full…

You can follow Debbie on Twitter, visit her website and find her on Facebook.

While My Eyes Were Closed by Linda Green is on my TBR and so I’m delighted to be featuring an extract from the book today in celebration of the paperback launch. Already available in e-book While My Eyes Were Closed will be available in paperback from 5th May 2016 from Amazon and directly from the publishers Quercus, Waterstones, WH Smith and all good book sellers.

While My Eyes Were Closed

One, two, three . . . Lisa Dale shuts her eyes and counts to one hundred during a game of hide-and-seek. When she opens them, her four-year-old daughter Ella is gone. Disappeared without a trace. The police, the media and Lisa’s family all think they know who snatched Ella. But what if the person who took her isn’t a stranger? What if they are convinced they are doing the right thing? And what if Lisa’s little girl is in danger of disappearing forever?

An Extract from While My Eyes Were Closed

Your body realises you have lost your child before your brain does. The invisible umbilical cord between you snaps. Everything inside you goes loose and limp. Only then does your brain register what is happening. It kicks into action, trying to prove to your body that it is wrong. You do what it tells you, of course. You scramble in every direction. Pulling and pulling on your end of that cord. Hoping that if you pull hard enough, if you shout and kick and scream, if you can only get to the other end, you might somehow find your child still there.

When they are not. When it is clear that they have gone. That is when the guilt kicks in. You are their mother. You have a duty to look after them. And you have failed in that duty of care, therefore you are a failed mother. How can you be anything else when it happened on your watch? While your eyes were closed, for goodness’ sake.

That is when you start to shut down inside. One by one, your vital organs cease to function. It is hard to know how you carry on breathing, how the blood pumps around your body, because you are certainly not doing it willingly.

You wish that somebody would be kind enough to put you out of your misery. Until you realise that this is the price you must pay – to suffer in the way that your child has. You deserve nothing less for letting them down so badly. And so you live your non-existent life. And every day when you wake up, if you have been lucky enough to get any sleep at all, the first word you say is sorry. They can’t reply, of course. But you say it all the same. In the hope that somehow they will hear and forgive you. Even though you know you will never forgive yourself.

You can find out more about While My Eyes Were Closed and Linda Green on Linda’s website and by following her on Twitter. You’ll also find her on Facebook.

There’s also more about Linda and While My Eyes Were Closed with these other bloggers:

I absolutely adored The Wacky Man by Lyn G. Farrell as you can tell if you read my review here. Published today, 2nd May 2016, by Legend Press, The Wacky Man is available for purchase here.

Having so enjoyed reading the novel, I’m thrilled that Lyn G. Farrell has agreed to be interviewed for Linda’s Book Bag.

The Wacky Man

The Wacky Man was winner of the Luke Bitmead Bursary.

My new shrink asks me, ‘What things do you remember about being very young?’ It’s like looking into a murky river, I say. Memories flash near the surface like fish coming up for flies. The past peeps out, startles me, and then is gone…

Amanda secludes herself in her bedroom, no longer willing to face the outside world. Gradually, she pieces together the story of her life: her brothers have had to abandon her, her mother scarcely talks to her, and the Wacky Man could return any day to burn the house down. Just like he promised.

As her family disintegrates, Amanda hopes for a better future, a way out from the violence and fear that has consumed her childhood. But can she cling to her sanity, before insanity itself is her only means of escape?

An Interview with Lyn G Farrell

Hi Lyn. Huge congratulations on your debut novel The Wacky Man which is published today. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your debut and your writing.

Firstly, please could you tell me a little about yourself?

I am a great believer in lifelong learning and in finding happiness in the smaller things in life. I am determined to learn Tibetan (at the moment I speak it very badly) though I think my guitar study is dying a death. I love reading, world cinema, singing, comedy and theatre though I don’t have time to do enough of any of those as I’d like – I need 7 hours sleep a night minimum. I’m learning to drive at the moment so a current little happiness is reversing around corners. I would love to visit Tibet and it’s my dream to write comedy into one of my future novels. Occasionally I get to my allotment to grow a few things and am envious of the beautifully kept plots all around the scruffy chaos of my own.  I also campaign on human rights and animal welfare. I think it’s important to use freedom responsibly as everyone has the right to a happy life.

My goodness – are you sure you have time to sleep with all that going on in your life?

When did you first realise you were going to be a writer?

Until I won the Luke Bitmead Bursary Award, I never thought of myself as a writer. I kept my writing secret for the longest time because I was learning how to write for the first seven years or so of working on The Wacky Man… At the Award ceremony my niece said ‘I didn’t even know you’d written a novel!’ because it was the first time she’d heard anything about it. So I suppose I’m only just now thinking of myself as a writer.

The Wacky Man is your debut novel. Please would you tell me a little about your journey to publication?

When I finished the book at the beginning of 2015, my mentor encouraged me to try the major agencies and I was amazed to get some personal responses back along with the standard rejections. However the feedback was ‘…really like your writing but the subject matter is too brutal’. By May 2015, when the last agency has written to say ‘no, and after ten years of work on the novel, I felt it was the end of the road for the book. A month or so later a fantastic academic job opportunity came up. Six weeks into the new job, I was notified by Legend Press that I’d been shortlisted for the Luke Bitmead Bursary Award. I’d applied a long time before and assumed that I’d not been successful so it was an incredible feeling to get the news.

What are your writing routines and where do you do most of your writing?

I don’t have a set routine as I work it around a full time job and some days I finish work and I’m shattered mentally. I like to wake early if I can; there is something magical about starting writing as fresh as the morning that has just started and I feel far calmer and less stressed than after work. However, sometimes my body won’t cooperate so I have to write in the evening or at the weekend.  I might write for only half an hour on a bad day. I just grab what time I can.

I write all over the place; in bed, at my ‘writing’ PC, on the sofa, on the bus. I write in notebooks and on the backs of envelopes and I’ll write in the margins of a book I’m using for research to get my ideas down immediately.

How did you get involved with the Luke Bitmead Trust?

My novel mentor, Clio Gray, told me about the competition and I was impressed to see a charity so dedicated to helping emerging writers. Thanks to Luke’s passion to help other writers, and his mother Elaine’s dedication to carry out his passion after he tragically died, I am now a published writer with lots of new friends I’ve made along the way. I am really looking forward to meeting future winners and I also hope that I can do something in partnership with the Trust at some point in the future.

How do you go about researching detail and ensuring your books are realistic?

My second novel involves such a lot of research on a particular kind of organisation. I’ve read about ten books, from personal accounts to academic explorations on the subject. I’m also reading a lot of newspaper, journal and blog articles online and talking to people who have experienced the things I need to know more about. I’m still finding out new things every day and that is for the first character. I’m now moving in to research for my second character and will repeat all the above processes. I find talking to people gives you the best research – they supply little details that you wouldn’t realise yourself. I’m a bit nervous about translating all this research into a novel because it’s such a different approach to my debut book.

Which aspects of your writing do you find easiest and most difficult?

I love jotting down ideas for the characters and writing passages of prose in that stream of consciousness, first draft style. I’m completely engrossed in my writing then and things just flow because I’m not thinking about where they’ll fit or whether I can include them as characters take shape in front of me I feel a real rush of excitement and achievement.

The hardest part is editing. It’s painstaking and slow and you have to be constantly on the ball to notice flaws with tenses or gaps in timing or plot. There are also, inevitably, times when the editor will say something needs to come out and you feel it will wreck everything you’ve worked so hard for (it nearly always has the opposite effect). The editing process makes the novel far, far better than the first draft, but you have to view it using the technical and systematic part of your mind and that level of concentration is exhausting, especially if you have just put in an eight hour shift at work. However, there were times when I really enjoyed using that side of my brain and I think learning those skills is invaluable to any writer.

I thought the title of your debut, The Wacky Man, had multiple interpretations. How far was this your intention?

It was written to have two interpretations but I’m intrigued if people have found more. One reader told me she thought it was drug related (perhaps because of ‘wacky baccy’) but that has nothing to do with the story.

The Wacky Man has a very striking cover, reminding me of Rorschach tests. How did that image come about and what were you hoping to convey (without spoiling the plot please!)?

That’s exactly what it is so it’s great that you saw that in the cover. It came about because of the brilliant graphic designer, Simon Levy. The cover conveys things hidden under the surface, things that can slip past unnoticed or that suddenly reveal themselves to you. I think it’s extremely clever and I love it.

I agree – it’s a fantastic image.

How did the character of Amanda evolve? Is she entirely fictional or does she have her origins in someone you know?

The character is based on events from my own childhood. We suffered extreme violence at the hands of our father so a lot of the depictions of violence come from real life. I was also a chronic truant who was too traumatised to continue at school. I really love your phrasing ‘has origins in’ because it’s very accurate in terms of this novel. I always wanted The Wacky Man to be fiction, to have that freedom in approaching the story. I think the two characters closest to real people are Amanda and Seamus, but my novel weaves fiction and history together to better help convey the consequences of abuse.

After reading The Wacky Man I felt I had a better understanding of humanity. What were you hoping to convey through your writing?

I hoped it would give a voice to battered children who are usually rendered voiceless about their horrific experiences. I also wanted to depict, with no holds barred, the raw brutality involved in battering a child, the lifelong consequences of it on that child and the way a traumatised child’s behaviour can be misinterpreted as bad or crazy. I hoped to highlight how reluctant we can be in a society to face these things head on, and how that makes it harder to help the children who suffer.

I think you did that utterly brilliantly Lyn.

Why did you choose to contrast Amanda’s first person account with the third person events in the alternate sections of the book?

I thought it would be more powerful if the reader is ‘sitting’ with Amanda who is damaged and crumbling, to feel they are almost trapped inside that room. That would have been impossible to keep up throughout the book. The third person events I felt were better than a long series of flashbacks narrated by Amanda. And also it helped me structure them chronologically. At this point I’m not sophisticated enough to play around with alternative structures in stories.

I had sympathy for, if not empathy with, Seamus. How far was this your intention well as developing reader empathy with Amanda?

It was important for me that readers empathise with Amanda, even though she is a pain in the arse at times and often lashing out. They can be angry or frustrated with her but I hope they keep hold of their compassion towards her and understand her complete lack of trust even in those who could help her. With Seamus, I’m not so sure; I definitely wanted him to be seen as human rather than a monster because it is fathers (and mothers), not monsters, who do this to their children. I see room for pity, because he can’t overcome his own problems enough to care for his children, though he does try on occasion. I am hugely satisfied if readers react to the novel in any way. I want them to feel any one of a range of emotions because I wouldn’t want to contrive the book so as to steer everyone towards a restricted set of feelings. I think I might react very differently to it when I read it again, especially as time passes on, so however readers react to it is valid.

How much did you need to rely on your background in psychology when writing The Wacky Man?

There may have been something unconscious filtering through my brain but on the surface, there wasn’t much at all. I studied psychology a long time ago and I wanted readers to feel the story rather than process it. I actually wanted something almost the opposite from the way these subjects are talked about in academia, with theories, statistics and charts and that objective, impersonal tone. I’m not criticising psychology in any way at all. I am passionate about research as it is crucial in order to better understand behaviour. It’s just that I wanted Amanda’s life to be felt in the gut rather than the brain if that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense and is exactly what you’ve achieved I think.

If you could chose to be a character from The Wacky Man, who would you be and why?

I don’t want to be any of them. It’s too near the knuckle for me. I would have to write a new part, that of a fairy godmother who grants happiness to all and then the book would be ruined.

I agree – I loved the rawness of Amanda’s emotions and to have done things differently would have ruined the read for me.

If The Wacky Man became a film, who would you like to play Amanda and why would you choose them?

Molly Wright was excellent in The A Word, I think she’d do a fantastic job. And definitely Sarah Lancashire for the mother. I’m a super fan as are my family and friends. She is one of the best actors of our time, her talent is breath taking. I know you didn’t ask about that character but I had to tell you!

Do you have other interests that give you ideas for writing?

I have an allotment which gave me the opportunity to incorporate things about the way plants grow into Amanda’s anxious thoughts in The Wacky Man. I also kept a blog for three years about growing veg and I’m hoping to work a lot of that writing into my third novel. I am drawn towards people outside of dominant culture, especially those who are silenced easily. Ideas bubble away in the back of my mind so I make endless notes about things that interest me in the hope that I can return to them later.

When you’re not writing, what do you like to read?

I love reading novels of course. I have a back log, digital and physical that just keeps growing but I love having so many choices when I do sit down to read. I also read travel, history, political books, online news, articles and campaigns or anything on Facebook or Twitter that catches my eye.  Right now I’m reading ‘A diary of interrogations, about torture in Tibet and have literally just started Fifteen Dogs as well.

If you had 15 words to persuade a reader that The Wacky Man should be their next read, what would you say?

This is so difficult and the only thing I can say is: ‘Amanda will take you on a journey you need to witness. Please allow her to.

Thank you so much for your time, Lyn, in answering my questions. I absolutely loved The Wacky Man as a thought provoking and emotional read and feel honoured to have had you on Linda’s Book Bag today. 

About Lyn G. Farrell

Lyn G. Farrell is the winner of the 2015 Luke Bitmead Bursary andThe Wacky Man is her debut novel.
Lyn grew up in Lancashire where she would have gone to school if life had been different. She spent most of her teenage years reading anything she could get her hands on.
She studied Psychology at the University of Leeds and now works in the School of Education at Leeds Beckett University.

You can follow Lyn on Twitter and find her on Facebook.

I’m delighted to be taking part in the cover reveal for Polly James’s new novel Would Like To Meet which will be released by Avon Books in e-book and paperback on 30th June 2016. Would Like To Meet is available on Amazon, from Waterstones, W H Smith and Harper Collins.

Would Like To Meet

A hilarious, heart-warming read perfect for fans of Shirley Valentine and You’ve Got Mail.

Could the worst thing that’s ever happened to Hannah Pinkman also turn out to be one of the best?

She and her husband Dan have reached the end of the line. Bored with the same gripes, the same old arguments – in fact, bored with everything – they split up after a trivial row turns into something much more serious.

Now Hannah has to make a new life for herself, but that’s not easy. She’s been so busy being a wife and mum that she’s let all her other interests slip away, along with her friends. And when Hannah is persuaded to join a dating site, her ‘best match’ is the very last person she expects it to be . . .

A clever, funny and poignant novel about life after a long relationship, the importance of friendship, and rediscovering your identity.

You can find out more by following Avon Books and Polly James on Twitter and by visiting Polly’s website and blog.

I am indebted to Andrea Amosson for sending me a copy of her volume of short stories Told from the Hips after an initial approach to me from Kelsey at Book Publicity Services. Told from the Hips is available in e-book and paperback on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Told from the Hips is a collection of nine pieces, although the Foreword by Claudia Martinez Echeverria is absolutely worth reading too, in order to understand more clearly the title and the presentation of male and female roles within Andrea Amosson’s writing. There is a feminist bent to the volume, but that is not to say that male readers would not appreciate them too, even if the women are much more prominent and well developed characters.

I really enjoyed these stories. Perhaps ironically, my favourite of all the entries was the shortest of all, FIERCE, written in homage to the author’s grandmother. With slightly different structure this one page passage would look like poetry and it certainly has the timbre and style of the most moving poetry. The language used is highly evocative and poetic at times and then quite prosaic and stark at others giving a balance to the stories that makes them easy to read and appreciate. I don’t usually quote from what I’ve read for fear of spoiling the read for others, but one line that really summed up the beauty of Andrea Amosson’s writing for me was from Rhizomatica: Rhizomatica doesn’t want to be a woman, she wants to be a book, and extends her arms like desperate lines of poetry seeking the light. I thought that was beautiful.

I loved the author’s South American Chilean heritage that resonates throughout (and I also appreciated the footnotes that defined one or two unfamiliar pieces of language). Although these stories have been translated from the Spanish, they have lost none of their beauty and power.

Told from the Hips is a collection I will return to several times as I think there are layers that I haven’t fully appreciated in just one reading. A lovely book.

You can find Andrea on Facebook and Goodreads and follow her on Twitter. She also has a website.

It has been my pleasure to feature Chris Tetreault-Blay on Linda’s Book Bag previously when he wrote about using NaNoWriMo as a stimulus to completing his first novel Acolyte. You can read that post here and buy Acolyte here.

Now Chris has a new novel, a sequel to Acolyte called The Sowing Season which was published yesterday 29th April, and as part of the launch celebrations he has agreed to be interviewed on the blog. The Sowing Season is available for purchase here.

The Sowing Season

March 1684

After witnessing her lover’s brutal ritualistic murder, Katrina Childs returns home a shell of her former self. Her only hope is of the child growing inside of her.

A mysterious old man appears in the village one night with a warning for her brother, Ewan: Protect Katrina and her child at all costs. Lucas Stamwell will return to claim them both.

March 2012

Jacob Crowe is living a simple life, surrounded by the tranquillity and protection that only Wildermoor can bring. Until the night that his wife is torn away from him by dark spirits, as he is stalked by a hooded phantom. Jacob is saved from The Reaper’s clutches by Truman Darke, who has returned to Wildermoor ten years after he was abducted by The Council of Eternal Light.

The Council’s plans for a new world enter the next terrifying phase as The Reaper grows his demon army, by setting his umbras free to claim souls to add to their ranks…and feast on those that are left. A process that He refers to as ‘The Sowing Season’.
DI Thomas Laing is forced to aid their case, having had to choose between his family and his future.

December 2012

As the planned apocalypse rapidly approaches, the Council’s own security is compromised by a rookie journalist interested in the whereabouts – and importance – of the mysterious Patient 29; a man said to be housed within the walls of St. Dymphna’s Research Facility.

To find the answers to save their future, they must all look to their past.

An Interview with Chris Tetreault-Blay

Hello Chris. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your writing.

Firstly, please could you tell readers a little about yourself?

Certainly.  I am first and foremost a husband and a father; my writing comes a close third.  I live in Newton Abbot with my wife and twin children.  I am originally from Basingstoke but I moved to Devon 11 years ago this year after graduating from Staffordshire University.  I have a full-time job around which I plan my writing.  My first novel ‘Acolyte’, the first part of my Wildermoor Apocalypse series, was published last summer by Bloodhound Books, and in January I took the plunge and released my first self-published effort, ‘House Of Courtenay’.

When did you first realise you were going to be a writer?

I think it actually took me until the moment that I first received an email back from my eventual-publishers saying that they were interested in ‘Acolyte’.  Up until then, it had been more of an experiment.  NaNoWriMo 2014 provided me with the platform and motivation to turn my ideas into a bigger story, but I still didn’t have any plans for the book once it was finished.  It wasn’t until I had received a professional’s feedback that I seriously started thinking that I was good enough, to have written something which could potentially be released on the market.  Believe it or not, even now there are times that I hesitate to call myself a writer.

If you hadn’t become an author, what would you have done instead as a creative outlet?

Given the chance (and maybe a little more talent) I would have probably travelled down the musical route.  I am also a self-taught (bedroom) guitarist and a big heavy metal fan.  Before deciding to try my hand at writing fiction, my earliest work consisted of lyrics just waiting for the music to fall behind them.  Who knows, maybe one day they may still find the light of day.

The Sowing Season is the second in your Wildermoor Apocalypse trilogy after Acolyte. Why did you decide that you would write a trilogy rather than three stand-alone novels?

Because the story I was creating in my head kept growing and evolving, it naturally leant itself to being written over more than one book.  I envisaged the complete story in three clear parts early on.  I have always believed in the very simple method of creating stories that have a definable beginning, middle and end.  Each part of The Wildermoor Apocalypse represents these three stages; ‘Acolyte’ introduced the characters and the threat of The Reaper and The Council , and their plans to bring about the end of civilisation as we know it, ‘The Sowing Season’ is the transitional part of the overall story, helping to move the story from the past (1680s – 2002) to the characters’ present (2012).  The final part, ‘Rapture’, will focus mainly on the final days leading in to the planned apocalypse, as well as tying up loose ends from the very roots of the story by returning (in one way or another) to the past.

Your Wildermoor Apocalypse trilogy spans several centuries. How tricky did you find making it authentic and keeping a unity of authorial voice?

Very, it would seem.  Before I decided that ‘Acolyte’ was going to be a full novel, I started writing a short story called ‘The Pit of Harper Falls’, based on a little local history surrounding a place in Newton Abbot which I am very fond of (‘Devil’s Pit’, Bradley Woods).  From there, the religious undertones started to emerge and dominated the ideas behind the whole story, so I had to ensure that any historical, religious or scientific references were not only correct, but also had a rightful place within the story, not only at that certain point but within the trilogy as a whole.  Trying to think ahead to how one certain event may be able to be explained near the end of Book Three, for example, was a major challenge.  I think this will be my main obstacle when writing the final part, as I will have to ensure that it all still flows and fits to events that occurred three hundred years (or two books) earlier.

What drew you to horror as a genre and can you see yourself writing other kinds of fiction in the future?

Horror has always been a love of mine since the days of my early teenage-hood when I saw my very first horror film, which I believe may have been Halloween 5 (although  by then I think I had also discovered the Critters series).  It was only natural that the stories that grew within me would lean more towards this genre, I suppose.  I would like to try something new at some point in the future, when I believe that I have written all the blood and gore that I feel compelled to.  I am quietly working on a short story/novella which is more sci-fi than horror (and the first fiction that I started writing a few years ago), and would also like to put onto paper another idea I have for a Rocky-esque underdog-comes-good story.  Once I left Wildermoor behind, we will see where my imagination takes me.

Do you ever scare yourself when you write?

I think in the sense of being frightened of a character or scene that you put on a page, especially within the horror genre, as a writer you tend to become immune to a lot of the things that may shock or scare the readers.  What I will say is that at certain points so far, especially whilst writing ‘House Of Courtenay’, there have been moments that I have surprised myself as to how twisted my imagination can be.

Which aspects of your writing do you find easiest and most difficult?

I will definitely say that I find the beginning of a story the easiest time for me, letting my imagination just flow with no boundaries, and giving it time and space to lead me wherever it needs to go.  On the flip side, trying to hone and tame the story for it to reach its climax is something I tend to struggle with.  I am constantly thinking of new ideas of how to end scenes or even the entire story, when a new one will pop into my head and take me in another direction.  Coupled with this, the editing process is my least favourite part.  I struggle to want to let any of my story hit the cutting room floor and the more I read my manuscripts, the less confident I become about it (regardless of how great I thought it was to begin with).

What are your writing routines and where do you do most of your writing?

For my first three books, I tried to keep to the same kind of schedule, usually based on achieving a word count of around 1600-a-day.  I tend to spend my commute to and from Exeter each day going over plot lines, improvements, endings etc. in my head, so by the time my writing stint rolls around the next day I already have an idea of what part of the story I am going to try and attack next.  Most of my writing takes place in my car on my lunch breaks, though one day – success permitting – I hope to be able to acquire a more comfortable working space.

When you’re not writing, what do you like to read?

Naturally, I am a big horror fan and turn to anything by James Herbert as a form of escapism or even inspiration.  I am also an admirer of Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas series, of which I am currently reading the final instalment.  The character of Odd actually inspired one of the central characters in The Sowing Season –  Jacob Crowe – so I feel I owe a lot to Koontz for that.  Sometimes, particularly if I am exploring new ideas for a story, I embark on reading historical texts, anything I can find to strengthen my knowledge of the time or place that I wish to write about.

Do you have other interests that give you ideas for writing?

Music in a massive form of inspiration to me and has been for years.  When I was younger, I used to spend hours laying on my bed listening to music as stories – daydreams – formed in my mind, with the music providing a soundtrack to them.  I guess I still do that now, although when the stories form I have learned to write them down.

Which of your characters would you most like to be and why?

I have two answers to this, if that’s okay.  In terms of The Wildermoor apocalypse (‘Acolyte’ and ‘The Sowing Season’), when I first started writing them it was Truman Darke that really grabbed me.  I was really proud of how he turned out in ‘Acolyte.’  But as I wrote ‘Season’ I developed more of an affinity with Thomas Laing.  In the second book, you really learn more about Laing and get to see his human side – his struggle between wealth or power and his own family.

But if I had to pick a character to trade places with from everything I have written, one stands out way above the rest; Ackerley Patterson-Thorne, aka the ‘Trickerjack.’

For those who have not yet read ‘House Of Courtenay’, I will try not to spoil too much for you but to say that Trickerjack is suave and successful, but also manipulative and dangerous.  I imagine that there are so many layers to him that I have not yet explored, but who wouldn’t want the power of immortality?  Sounds like a winner to me.

If your books became a film, who would you choose to play Colin Dexler and why?  

That’s actually a tough one as I have never really thought of the movie version of Dexler, maybe because the character was already loosely- based on an actual person that I used to see walk the streets in Exeter.  A couple of the other characters have lived in my imagination as certain actors as I have been writing, but not Dexler.

If I had to choose, though, I would probably pick Robert Knepper (‘Theodore Bagwell’  from Prison Break).  Knepper is an actor who can make you feel sorry for him and hate him all at the same time, and is a natural at playing characters who may have a screw loose.  Both qualities are a must for Colin Dexler.

When can we expect the final part in Wildermoor Apocalypse trilogy?

I am planning to start work on it at some point before the end of this year, and hoping for a 2017 release.  For this one, I am hoping to spend the summer researching for a few of the plot lines.  I want ‘Rapture’ to be the most powerful, emotional and shocking of the trilogy so am going to take my time, not run to a tight deadline so much as I did on ‘Acolyte’ and ‘Season’ and give it as much attention as it deserves.

If you had 15 words to persuade a reader that a Chris Tetreault-Blay book should be their next read, what would you say?

“If you want something to challenge how you see the world, this may be it.”

Is there anything else you would have liked to be asked?

I don’t think so, thank you.  I have very much enjoyed answering these questions.  A great variety and some that really got my mind bending a bit 🙂

I’m pleased to hear it! Thank you so much for your time in answering my questions Chris.

Catch up with Chris on Twitter, Facebook and his website.

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