I can’t believe it’s almost a year since Mark Tilbury was last here on Linda’s Book Bag. On that occasion I was interviewing Mark about The Liar’s Promise in a post you can read here. Today Mark has agreed to stay in with me to tell me about another of his books.

Staying In With Mark Tilbury

Welcome back to Linda’s Book Bag Mark and thank you for agreeing to stay in with me.

Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it?

First off, thanks so much for asking me to stay in with you, Linda, and giving me the opportunity to talk about one of my books.

(My pleasure Mark.)

The one I’ve chosen is The Abattoir of Dreams. This was my third book, and a complete change in direction from my previous two, The Revelation Room and The Eyes of the Accused. I wanted to add a supernatural edge to my writing that was set in the framework of a psychological thriller.

(Oo. You managed that all right Mark. Although reading The Abattoir of Dreams was way out of my comfort zone I thought it was brilliant and reviewed it here. It even made it onto my books of the year!)

The basic idea for The Abattoir of Dreams came from a dream. It was a bit muddled, as most dreams are, but I held on to the gist of it, put it down on paper and made sense of it. As with most of my story ideas, they seem to come in the form of clues and odd one-liners (usually from the antagonist).

I think the dream was inspired by news that a high-profile figure had been named by a man in his forties as his abuser in a children’s home. Subsequently, the man said he’d made a mistake – no one leaning on him there, then– and the whole case was dropped. This made my blood boil. This poor guy had obviously been through hell as a child, and all these years later, the authorities still slammed the door in his face.

The finished book bore no resemblance to the dream, or the story in the news, but it focused on the plight of those kids in children’s homes who have been abused. I wanted to give them a voice, and I’m satisfied that the Abattoir of Dreams did that. There was so much more I wanted to say in the book, but I ended up cutting about 50,000 words to make it a more readable length.

I was pleased with the positive response to the book. The mix of genres seemed to work well, and although it was a hard-hitting read, and quite gut-wrenching, I think I conveyed everything I wanted to. I have to say, although the book is not for the faint-hearted, I had to leave out a lot of what goes on in those so-called care homes. The systematic abuse of children is appalling. There is so much more I want to say on the subject, but for now I’ll let The Abattoir of Dreams do the talking.

(I think you did a magnificent job in conveying your message Mark.)

What can we expect from an evening in with The Abattoir of Dreams?

Here’s a small snippet from The Abattoir of Dreams. The protagonist, Michael Tate, is in hospital suffering from amnesia and paralysis after leaping from a block of flats. He is accused of murdering his girlfriend before trying to commit suicide:

DI Carver took a picture from the breast pocket of his suit. He handed it to me. ‘This is what you did Michael. Take a good look. See if it jogs your memory.’

I gawped at the mutilated corpse of a naked young girl lying on a blood soaked double bed. Her hands were bound to the brass headboard with a scarf. Blood covered her upper body, and her long blonde hair was streaked a murderous shade of red. One eye stared at the ceiling, as if searching for salvation, the other, a bloody unrecognisable pulp, bore no relation to its sightless counterpart.

‘Becky Marie Coombs. Twenty-one years of age. Do you recognise her, Michael?’

Of course I fucking well don’t. How many more times? ‘No.’

(I found the manipulation of Michael absolutely chilling.)

Here are a few reviews from authors and book bloggers. So many kind and generous people out there willing to help and share. I have to say this has been the thing which has surprised me most about writing. I don’t quite know what I expected, but the level of helpfulness and encouragement has given me a renewed faith in people. The bloggers, fellow authors and readers have been so kind, and I can’t thank them enough.

Wow, this book stirred up so emotions in me whilst reading it. Mark did a wonderful job of creating credible characters and a heartbreaking story.
5* review from author, Mel Comley,

Extremely well told from the first person so you feel this is happening to you. You feel the pain, despair and total vulnerability – not to mention confusion. I’ve had this on my reading list for a while and was in no way disappointed…An author to watch for sure!!
5* review from author, Sarah England.

This book stirred up many emotions – anger, sadness, disbelief, horror, distress, shame (for the human race) and the desire for revenge. I can honestly say I have never experienced so many emotions at once whilst reading a book. I don’t think an author could wish for a better result than to have that much of an impact on a reader.
5* review from author, Jane James.

Mark Tilbury has written a roller coaster of a thriller for sure, but this novel is also a rich and harrowing story of the psychology of evil and those who strive to stop it, this is certainly one read that will stay with you long after you’ve finished the book.
5* review from Lorraine @ The Book Review Café.

Mark Tilbury has taken on a very dark and almost taboo subject and deftly created a story that deals with these issues sensitively and with compassion and the end result is a book that I honestly can’t recommend highly enough.
5* review from Neats @ The Haphazardous Hippo

(I agree with every word of those reviews – which you must be thrilled with Mark. Again, readers can see my review here.)

What else have you brought along and why?

I’ve also brought along a photo of my mother who passed away twenty-two years ago. She came to me in a dream after finishing writing the first two books. I can’t remember all the detail, but it went something like saying I could do better. That I had to believe in myself. She was holding a hardback book with gold lettering embossed on the front. The letters were flashing. She held the book up and said,‘You can do this’. Of course, it was only a dream, but it was a defining moment that made me change direction and write The Abattoir of Dreams. I’m so glad I did, and proud that people are still talking about the book eighteen months after its publication. A special thank you to my mother, who was the only person to show enthusiasm all those years ago when Best magazine published one of my short stories. The Abattoir of Dreams is for her, and a massive thank you for all the unsung things she did for me.

Oh, that’s fabulous and actually, you just brought a tear to my eye. Thanks so much for coming back to the blog and staying in with me Mark. I can’t recommend The Abattoir of Dreams highly enough so thank you for sharing more about it.

The Abattoir of Dreams

The past is never far away.

Michael Tate has not had an easy life. With his father in prison, and his mother dead, Michael was sent to Woodside Children’s Home.

Now an adult, Michael wakes up in hospital from a coma suffering from amnesia and paralysis. Confused and terrified, he is charged with the fatal stabbing of his girlfriend, Becky. He also learns he attempted to end his own life.

Detective Inspector John Carver is determined that Michael is sent to prison. With no way of defending himself, Michael is left in his hospital bed awaiting transfer to remand.

But then strange things begin to happen and his childhood comes back to haunt him.

Can Michael ever escape the past?

Will he ever discover the truth about Becky’s murder? And why is DI Carver so eager to make him suffer?

The Abattoir of Dreams is a bitter sweet story of murder, innocence and abuse.

The Abattoir of Dreams was published by Bloodhound on 28th February 2017 and is available for purchase here.

About Mark Tilbury

Mark lives in a small village in the lovely county of Cumbria, although his books are set in Oxfordshire where he was born and raised.

After serving in the Royal Navy and raising his two daughters after being widowed, Mark finally took the plunge and self-published two books on Amazon, The Revelation Room and The Eyes of the Accused.

When he’s not writing, Mark can be found trying and failing to master blues guitar, and taking walks around the beautiful county of Cumbria.

You can follow Mark on Twitter @MTilburyAuthor, visit his website and find him on Facebook.

It’s an absolute delight to be supporting fellow blogger Ronnie Turner with her debut thriller The Lies Between Us today. I’m thrilled to be sharing my review.

Published by HQ Digital on 1st October 2018, The Lies Between us is available for purchase here.

The Lies Between Us

John has a perfect life, until the day his daughter goes missing.

Maisie cares for her patients, but hides her own traumatic past.

Miller should be an innocent child, but is obsessed with something he can’t have.

They all have something in common, though none of them know it – and the truth won’t stay hidden for long . . .

My Review of The Lies Between Us

Not everyone is quite what they seem!

I was so impressed by The Lies Between Us. This may be a debut novel, but it is assured, eloquently written and brilliantly plotted so that I was absorbed into the story from the very first moment. Ronnie Turner writes with a lively and vivacious style through a fantastic range of sentence structure that really appealed to me as a reader. The short chapters add a breathless pace too so that there’s an urgency and dynamism to the narrative.

The characters are vividly drawn and the first person sections are so chilling that I felt unsettled as I read them. What is so good is the utterly convincing portrait of obsession Ronnie Turner paints. She presents, with terrifying accuracy, the way in which love can become evil in an unbalanced mind. It’s hard to say too much without spoiling the story but I found the terrifying brutality contrasted and balanced by supreme love so effective.

Although I found keeping tack quite challenging at times, I loved the skilful manner in which the strands of the narrative are drawn together like inevitable DNA. I was entirely enthralled, entertained and often appalled in a manner that didn’t allow me to stop reading.

I found The Lies Between Us scarily convincing and completely absorbing. What a debut!

About Ronnie Turner

Ronnie Turner grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature and dreamed of being a published author. Ronnie now lives in Dorset with her family and three dogs. In her spare time, she reviews books on her blog and enjoys long walks on the coast. She is currently working on her second novel.

Ronnie’s debut novel, Lies Between Us, is published by HQ Digital.

To find out more, follow Ronnie on Twitter: @Ronnie_ _Turner, find her on
Facebook and Instagram or visit her website.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

It’s a very welcome guest here on Linda’s Book Bag today as Jan Ruth celebrates her latest book, Gift Horse, with a smashing guest post all about where she gets her ideas for writing.

I have previously reviewed another of Jan’s books, Away for Christmas, here.

Gift Horse is available for purchase here.

Gift Horse

Imagine living eighteen years of your life around a mistake…

Caroline Walker’s daughter suffers a horrific riding accident. Her distraught parents wonder if she’ll ever walk again, let alone ride. And when Mollie’s blood group is discovered as rare, her husband offers to donate blood. Except Ian is not a match. In fact, it’s unlikely he’s Mollie’s father.

Eighteen years previously, Caroline had a one-night stand with Irish rock star, Rory O’Connor. Caroline fell pregnant. Deeply flawed boyfriend, Ian, was overjoyed. And Caroline’s parents were simply grateful that their daughter was to marry into the rich, influential Walker family.

Caroline turns to Rory’s friend Connor; and although his almost spiritual connection with his horses appears to be the balm she needs, Caroline cannot forget Rory, or her youth – both lost to a man she never loved. Eighteen years on and after surviving cancer Rory lives as a virtual recluse in the Welsh mountains. Through his well-meaning but interfering sister, he is shocked to discover he has a teenage daughter. Or does he?

Someone has made a terrible mistake… someone is going to get hurt…

Ideas!

A Guest Post by Jan Ruth

Where do ideas come from? Even if I tell myself I’m done with writing for a while – and I do, frequently – something will eventually worm its way out of my subconscious. This mutation of daydreaming is often coupled with observations of other people and happenings in their lives, as well as my own, until eventually all of these considerations are pulled together and mulled over, like some sort of fictional tombola. And for me, it’s those personal stories which add an extra layer of reality to a work of fiction. Write what you know is all about understanding your subject thoroughly, and preferably having experienced some of it first-hand.

I’ve been working with disabled people through my local RDA (Riding for the Disabled) for some eighteen months. Then earlier this year I was offered the opportunity to train as an assistant to a therapist working for WITH (Welsh Institute of Therapeutic Horsemanship). This is all about people with mental health problems, and the astonishing success of equine therapy relies purely upon the interactions between people and horses. I hope my modest experience adds a touch of reality and richness to the story of Gift Horse.

Of course, I’ve touched on horse-whispering techniques, therapies, and mental health issues in the Midnight Sky series, and part of Gift Horse is a natural continuation of that theme, one which this time connects more directly to my main character. Caroline is a product of her sheltered upbringing. In direct contrast her flat-mate, Niamh, is part of a loud, sprawling Irish family – including the gorgeous but licentious Rory O’Connor; Caroline’s nemesis. Unfortunately, Caroline is intent on pleasing everyone except herself, and there’s a price to pay…

Gift Horse is a contemporary time-slip novel about the choices women make, the healing power of horses, and the devastating consequences of human error.

I tend not to plan too much, other than factual things like dates, and timelines. And I don’t have a messy desk with endless notes stuck to my screen or big notebooks overflowing with complicated scribblings. What I do have is a good instinct for the order of things. I think this comes from reading a lot of good fiction and learning why and how something works; what to hold back, when to reveal, how much to tell, what to show, which scene works best as dialogue, or narrative. This balance will be slightly different for every writer, the literary stamp of personal style?

If there’s a parallel to be drawn between trying to break into commercial publishing and staying true to myself as a writer, then for me it’s the creative freedom to write the books I want to write. So many mainstream books are all following the same trend, and some of them feel like different versions of the same book. This might sound a bit like sour grapes (yes, of course big sales would be nice too!) but I think I know I’m not a mainstream author. I actually enjoy going against the grain. I like to let a story grow and mature until it’s ready to be picked from the vine, and there’s a tremendous satisfaction in penning a story which is unique to me.

(And as a reader of your work Jan, I can vouch for the success of your approach! All the very best with Gift Horse. I’m so looking forward to reading it.)

About Jan Ruth

Jan Ruth lives in Snowdonia, a mountainous area of North Wales, UK. Jan writes contemporary fiction about the darker side of the family dynamic, often blending life in rural Wales with a touch of city business. Her style is best described as fast-paced and realistic, with a sprinkling of dry humour.

The real story began at school, with prizes for short stories and poetry. She failed all things mathematical and scientific, and to this day struggles to make sense of anything numerical.

Her first novel – written in 1986 – attracted the attention of an agent who was trying to set up her own company, Love Stories Ltd. It was a project aiming to champion those books of substance which contained a romantic element but were perhaps directed towards the more mature reader and consistently fell through the net in traditional publishing. Sadly, the project failed to get the right financial backing.

Many years later Jan’s second novel, Wild Water, was taken on by Jane Judd, literary agent. Judd was a huge inspiration, but the book failed to find the right niche with a publisher. And then Amazon changed the face of the industry with the advent of self-publishing. Jan went on to successfully publish several works of fiction under her own imprint, Celtic Connections.

After a brief partnership with Accent Press in 2015, Jan chose to return to the freedom of independent publishing.

Jan’s books are available globally here in paperback and for Kindle; and locally, you’ll find them in North Wales libraries and Hinton’s bookshop of Conwy.

You can follow Jan on Twitter @JanRuthAuthor, find her on Facebook and visit her website.

One of the absolute joys of book blogging is being there at the ‘birth’ of a book. Today I’m thrilled to welcome Julie C. Gardiner to stay in with me on Linda’s Book Bag on publication day for her latest novel in her Friendship and Secrets series.

Staying in with Julie Gardiner

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Julie. Thank you for agreeing to stay in with me.

Thank YOU so much for inviting me!

A pleasure! Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it? 

Tonight I’ve brought along my newest release, Forgetting Ophelia. It’s Book Three of the Friendship and Secrets series, and I’m absolutely thrilled to share it with you.

I understand it’s Forgetting Ophelia publication day Julie so huge congratulations. Tell me a little bit about what we can expect from an evening in with Forgetting Ophelia.

Forgetting Ophelia follows one woman’s transformation from “meek pleaser” to strong self-advocate. When her plans for the future go up in smoke, Lia Townsend must forge a new path to happiness or else remain mired in the past life of sacrifice.

(Hmm. I’ve never been a “meek pleaser” so I think I’d find this concept really interesting.) 

Best-selling author Robin Townsend calls Forgetting Ophelia “An emotionally compelling story about love, the lies we tell, and new beginnings. I couldn’t put it down.”

(That sounds like my kind of read!)

I hope you’ll feel for Lia too—that you’ll root for her, and celebrate her triumphs. There’s also a love triangle (or square) in this book. I never can resist a little romance.

(Oo, I think we all need a little romance in our lives!)

What else have you brought along and why? 

I had to bring along my three dogs, the constant companions in my life as an author.

(This is very much a cat household Julie so I hope they won’t mind!)

While my husband is at work all day, my rescue pups stay home with me.

You can usually find one or more of them lying across my laptop or pawing at my arm to get my attention. If I’m stuck on a particularly tough scene, I just throw on my shoes and we go for a walk.

Plus, my dogs don’t care about book sales or reviews; they love me just the way I am. (For the record, my husband does, too. I’m sure he’s waiting for me right now with a bottle of Champagne and a couple of glasses to celebrate the launch of Forgetting Ophelia!)

I’m sure he does Julie! Thanks so much for staying in with me to tell me all about Forgetting Ophelia and happy publication day once again.

Thanks again for having me, Linda. It’s been a real treat, and I hope you enjoyed your time with my book in your bag!

I have indeed!

Forgetting Ophelia

Ever-hopeful Lia thinks she’ll be with handsome, brooding Jake forever. Until one day he completely blindsides her and makes her question everything she knows…

Lia Townsend is expecting a ring and a trip to Hawaii for her fifth wedding anniversary. Instead, her husband, Jake, walks out on her. Out of the blue.

Devastated, Lia vows to win back Jake and the perfect life they shared.

Because it was perfect, wasn’t it?

But as Lia searches for the truth behind Jake’s departure, cracks in the shiny varnish begin to show. And once she uncovers his secret, all that she once knew and believed in crumbles.

Lia’s eccentric mother, her best friend, and two vastly different men each pull her in new directions, and Lia attempts to push past the pain and start anew.

But Jake isn’t gone for good. When an accident rocks the lives of their best friends, Lia and Jake are thrown together. Will Lia choose to salvage her old life with the man who broke her heart – or was everything they shared an illusion?

Published by Velvet Morning Press, today 8th October 2018, Forgetting Ophelia is available for purchase here.

About Julie C. Gardiner

Julie Gardiner is a lapsed marathon runner and former high school English teacher who traded in her classroom for a writing nook. The author of Lily by Any Other Name, Letters for Scarlet, and its prequel Guest List, Julie lives in Southern California with her husband, two children, and three dogs. When she’s away from my computer, Julie can be found with a good book, a glass of wine, or a pair of running shoes. Her best days feature all of the above.

You  can find out more by visiting Julie’s website, or following her on Twitter @juliecgardner, Facebook, and Instagram.

My very great thanks to Rox at The Book Publicist for sending me a copy of The Modern Shepherd by AlBaraa H. Taibah in return for an honest review.

The Modern Shepherd is available for purchase here.

The Modern Shepherd

“There is no prophet who has not tended sheep.” So goes a famous phrase in Islamic scripture, words that had long intrigued young MBA student AlBaraa Taibah. How does shepherding awaken one’s wisdom? Empower one’s leadership skills? Build one’s character? Why was shepherding the starting point for great leaders like Mohammed, Moses and Abraham? There must be a reason and lessons in shepherding to take away, he reasoned.

So AlBaraa made the decision to become a modern-day shepherd, to spend ten days alone with a herd of sheep in the Sahara Desert, attempting to learn what the scripture was talking about. Confronting the dangers of desert snakes, getting hopelessly lost in the dunes and nearly dying from dehydration, on the first day he asks himself, “Why didn’t I just take that leadership course back in Boston?”

What transpires is an adventure and a journey into consciousness that is as poetic and funny as it is profound. The Modern Shepherd is a journal of discovery and a leadership textbook unlike any other. Learn and laugh with AlBaraa as he acquires the secrets of being an effective leader from a stubborn flock of sheep.

My Review of The Modern Shepherd

Ten days tending sheep in the Nufuth Desert might be a life changing experience for AlBaraa H. Taibah.

A confession. I only agreed to review The Modern Shepherd because it’s quite a short book. A second confession. I thought The Modern Shepherd would be a sickly spiritual journey and my own lack of any religious belief would mean I didn’t enjoy it. I was foolish on both counts because this book is a highly engaging and entertaining account of one man’s experiences. I sat down intending to read a couple of pages to get a feel for the style and found myself drawn in and devouring the whole book in one sitting.

There were so many elements that I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved AlBaraa H. Taibah’s self-deprecating style. There’s a diffidence and humility balanced with confidence and vitality that very much appealed to me. At one point when he was about to hurl a rock at a sheep I felt he represented the petty frustrations of all humanity in a simple act. I found the authorial voice vibrant and eloquent and the present tense account added to the immediacy of the events so that I could easily picture myself in the setting and actions. I thought the passages relating to AlBaraa H. Taibah’s leadership in school contrasted and complemented those parts set in the desert perfectly.

I really appreciated the lifestyle of a modern shepherd that AlBaraa H. Taibah presents. It made me grateful for my home comforts and taught me that possessions do not make me who I am. The need for patience (sheep can be recalcitrant and disdainful creatures!) and effort to achieve a sense of purpose is wonderfully conveyed without heavy handed preachiness. There’s real humour between the pages of The Modern Shepherd as well as some beautifully poetic language that I loved too. The quoted sayings at the start of each chapter were frequently very inspiring.

I was also extremely touched by the fact that part of the proceeds from the Modern Shepherd will go towards third world school development and felt that in The Modern Shepherd I had seen a true leader in AlBaraa H. Taibah as he is a man who walks the talk.

The Modern Shepherd was not what I expected. Part travelogue, part spiritual journey, part leadership manual, part biography it is a book that can be read and enjoyed on many levels. It enlightened and entertained me and I really recommend it.

About AlBaraa H. Taibah

AlBaraa H. Taibah has a degree in Architecture Engineering from King Kahad University in Saudi Arabia, and later gained a Masters in Education Leadership at Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. An in­fluential communicator and innovative entrepreneur, AlBaraa is a TEDx speaker and author who believes in the importance of education for national growth. He is a successful education leader with 9+ years of experience in multi-national societies, educational institutions, non-profit organisations and entrepreneurial start-ups.

You can follow him on Twitter @albara2.

I’m delighted to welcome Tamara Agha-Jaffar to Linda’s Book Bag today to tell me about one of her books as I happen to know it’s Tamara’s birthday. So, happy birthday Tamara!

Staying in with Tamara Agha-Jaffar

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Tamara. Thank you for agreeing to stay with me.

I’m delighted to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I love to talk about my passion for mythology and for women’s role in myth.

It sounds like I’m in for an entertaining evening. Which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you brought it?

I have brought along my first novel, A Pomegranate and the Maiden, based on the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone because this is the myth that launched me on my writing career.

(That sounds like a good choice to me!)

I was a professor of English for a number of years, and among the courses I taught was a course on Women Literature in which I included selections from Homer’s Hymn to Demeter. I love the poem because it focuses primarily on women, specifically a mother and her daughter. I encouraged my students to interpret the myth as metaphor and to recognize how its themes have an enduring relevance. The myth of the abduction of Kore/Persephone and its aftermath speaks to us on many levels: how to cope with trauma; the nature of the mother/daughter relationship; the stages of grieving; the impact of gender on our perspectives; the differences between male and female socialization; communication styles; etc. etc.

My students became so enamored with the myth that they encouraged me to write a book deconstructing it so others can benefit from its insights. I took their advice. My first book was born: Demeter and Persephone: Lessons from a Myth (McFarland 2002). This non-fiction book is an analysis of the myth from a feminist perspective.

(It sounds incredibly interesting. I love the way in which your students prompted your writing. It seems fitting somehow!)

The whole time I was writing the book, I kept thinking I would love to write a work of fiction based on this myth in which each of the characters speaks in the first-person point of view and describes the events from his/her gendered perspective. So as soon as I retired from academia in 2013, I plunged right into writing my first novel, A Pomegranate and the Maiden.

What can we expect from an evening in with A Pomegranate and the Maiden?

A Pomegranate and the Maiden retells the story of Demeter (the goddess of the grain) and her daughter Kore/Persephone (the goddess of Spring) from multiple first-person points of view. It begins with Kore/Persephone as a young girl on the cusp of womanhood. She attracts the attention of the god of the Underworld, Hades. He colludes with her father, Zeus, to trick her into opening a chasm to the underworld from which he emerges, kidnaps her to his deathly realm, and makes her his bride.

Learning of her daughter’s whereabouts, Demeter experiences the stages of mourning. She even engages in displacement by trying to appropriate another woman’s infant to fill the void she feels at the loss of her daughter. When that attempt is foiled, Demeter goes on strike and denies the earth its fertility. The ensuing famine forces Zeus to submit to her demands by releasing Persephone from the underworld.

Although Persephone is eager to emerge from the underworld, she intentionally swallows the pomegranate seeds Hades pops into her mouth. Eating food from the underworld commits her to return. So Persephone returns to the underworld for four months of every year. Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter during those four months and refuses to let anything grow. Winter ensues. Persephone’s emergence from the underworld is the catalyst for her mother’s joy. Spring ensues.

That is the outline of the myth in a nutshell. A Pomegranate and the Maiden explores each character’s psychology and gendered thoughts as they come to terms with the events. For example, Demeter is portrayed as the possessive mother who doesn’t want her daughter to grow up. Kore/Persephone wants to break away from mother’s binding constraints and find her own way. Zeus is the patriarch who tramples over a mother’s rights. And Hades is the lover who catapults Persephone into gaining independence from mother.

I first released the novel in paperback (2015) and then on Kindle. I recently released an audiobook version with me doing the reading (2018). I had a lot of fun doing it.

(It sounds to me, Tamara, that you have been able to explore the myth through so many different perspectives. Fascinating.)

What else have you brought along and why?

I have brought along my other books.

The first one is the non-fiction book that set me on my writing career: Demeter and Persephone: Lessons from a Myth.

I was still a Professor of English when this book came out. I became very interested in the depiction of women in mythology and religion and wanted to develop a new course focusing on women’s roles in myth and religion. I searched for a multicultural text that would work. But when I couldn’t find exactly what I needed, I wrote my own text book. Women and Goddesses in Myth and Sacred Text: An Anthology (Pearson 2005) was born. It is a multicultural text with excerpts from The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Hell, the Enuma Elish, and many other selections including those from Western, Asian, Islamic, Christian, African, and Native American traditions.

When an author conveys their absolute passion for a subject it really inspires me to read their work. You’ve certainly piqued my interest Tamara.

I have also brought along my second novel, Unsung Odysseys (Kindle 2016) I love anything Homer and have read The Odyssey many times. I thought it was about time we heard the voices of women who interacted with Odysseus as he made his trek home to Ithaca. Among the voices we hear in my novel is the voice of his wife, his mother, his nurse, the goddess Circe, and the nymph Calypso. Their collective voices provide an alternative perspective on Odysseus and his exploits.

Finally, I have brought a photograph of one of my favorite statues. It is Bernini’s statue of the abduction of Persephone. My husband and I were on vacation in Italy a few years ago. We went to the Borghese Palace in Rome because it houses paintings by Carvaggio, one of my favorite artists.

I was on the lookout for Carvaggio’s paintings when we entered one of the beautifully ornate rooms at the Borghese in which were displayed Bernini’s incredible statues. They were astonishing—all the more so because I wasn’t expecting anything quite so spectacular. There was his statue of Aeneas with his father and son as they escape from the burning walls of Troy, Daphne escaping from Apollo, and an amazing statue of Hades kidnapping Persephone.

The statue is over 8 ft tall and absolutely breathtaking. I love how Bernini captures movement as Persephone struggles to get away and Hades digs his hand into her flesh to prevent her escape. The detail, the size, the whole composition blew me away. I love anything Demeter/Persephone, so this statue was the icing on the cake for me on what was a wonderful vacation.

It sounds like the perfect trip for you! Thanks so much for a really interesting evening Tamara. I’ve so enjoyed staying in with you and Happy Birthday! 

Thank you Linda.

A Pomegranate and the Maiden

A Pomegranate and the Maiden is a multi-faceted re-telling of the story of Demeter and Persephone as told in Homer’s Hymn to Demeter. The many characters speak directly to the reader, presenting multiple perspectives of the same event. Among the voices we hear is that of the mother grieving for her lost child, the daughter struggling for independence, the father who tramples on a mother’s rights, and the lover who resorts to nefarious means to win his beloved. Each perspective is deeply rooted in the character’s psychology and gender. Woven within their narratives are stories familiar to readers of Greek mythology.

Against the backdrop of our own culture, which still diminishes the value of motherhood and marginalizes women of all ages, these voices speak to us through the centuries and offer new ways of seeing the world we inhabit.

A Pomegranate and the Maiden is available for purchase here.

About Tamara Agha-Jaffar

Tamara Agha-Jaffar has a Ph.D. in English Literature. She has been in academia all her professional life, serving as professor of English, dean, and Vice President for Academic Affairs. She retired in July 2013. In 2004 she was named Kansas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and received its CASE Award for the Advancement of Teaching. In 2010 she received The President’s Call to Service Award for her volunteer work in the community.

Tamara and her husband are empty nesters living in Kansas. She enjoys retirement and spends her time doing the things she loves best: reading and writing.

You can find out more about Tamara on her website, her Amazon Author Page and on Goodreads.

About 18 months ago I went to a fabulous event, Oceans of Words, at which Tracey Scott-Townsend was speaking and you can see my write up here. Since then I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Tracey properly and she’s so lovely that I had to invite her onto Linda’s Book Bag to tell me about one of her books. I have also had the pleasure of reviewing some of Tracey’s poetry in So Fast and you can read that review here.

Staying in with Tracey Scott-Townsend

I absolutely loved reading So Fast, Tracey so it gives me very great pleasure to welcome you to Linda’s Book Bag today. Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it? 

I’ve brought Another Rebecca along today since this is my most recently published work. Actually it’s a second edition: it was originally published by Inspired Quill in 2015 but Wild Pressed Books, of which I’m co-director, managed to acquire the rights earlier this year. We’ve made some improvements to the text, engaged a fantastic cover designer (Jane Dixon-Smith) and added a beautiful, new cover with a horse that appears to be composed of a flock of starlings, galloping across a pale blue and lilac sky above silhouetted treetops.

(It’s certainly a stunning cover. You must be so pleased with it.)

What can we expect from an evening in with Another Rebecca?

We’ll have to expect unpredictability if Rebecca is accompanied by her mother, Bex. It’s unlikely you, me or Rebecca will get a word in edgeways if Bex has been on the drink. She becomes bellicose and insulting if you look at her the wrong way. She usually manages to secrete a bottle about her person somewhere and before you know it she’ll have shoved one down the side of your sofa so she can have a sneaky snifter when you’re not looking.

Rebecca will be on edge, watching her mother’s every move, fearing her own embarrassment and worrying about how she’s going to get her mother home and into bed without having to deal with vomit or pee. Sorry to spoil the evening, but that’s Rebecca’s life for you. The stress and exhaustion landed her in hospital where she had a convulsion, alone in the bathroom. Since then she’s been even more ‘away with the fairies’ than ever and since she returned to art college, she can’t stop painting variations on the theme of a blue-and-violet landscape with a white horse galloping through it and a boy, leaning on his elbow in the foreground. She’s obsessed. And the painting upset Bex terribly when she saw it – she said it reminded her of something from her past.

(Crumbs. It sounds as if I’m in for an ‘interesting’ evening then!)

There’s something odd about that mother and daughter – as if neither of them is certain where one of them ends and the other begins. I’ve seen photos of Bex when she was Rebecca’s age. The two of them are almost identical.

Anyway, perhaps we can make it a pleasant evening if one of us can distract Bex while the other snatches that bottle of gin from down the side of the sofa. Maybe we can even get Bex to give us a song, she’s got a beautiful voice, you know. Rebecca’s inherited it. We could have a grand old sing-song between us. Do you play any musical instruments?

(Sadly not. I’m tone deaf. The triangle is about as much as I can manage. But I think I’ll be watching Bex too closely anyway!)

What else have you brought along and why?

I’ve brought along a copy of a painting called There is No Night by Jack B. Yeats (brother of the poet, William). The painting is uncannily similar to the ones Rebecca keeps painting, although she swore she’d never heard of Jack B. Yeats before I showed her the original image. But perhaps we could get to the bottom of her obsession with the boy and the horse and with Bex’s aversion to it. I did hear that Bex had a horse of her own when she was younger – she wasn’t always an incoherent drinker who decided to ‘stop living although her body would carry on’. Rumour has it that she had a fiancé and was all set to live in a big house in the village of Newtown Linford, in Leicestershire. If we could get that photo album that she guards so secretly off her we might be able to help Rebecca by solving a few mysteries about her past…

(Let’s do our best. I’d love to have a sneaky look inside it!)

Thanks so much for staying in with me this evening Tracey. Bex and Rebecca have certainly livened up proceedings! I’ve really enjoyed meeting them and hearing about Another Rebecca.

Thanks for inviting me (and my friends) for an evening in with you, Linda. I hope Bex hasn’t been too badly behaved and that you enjoyed her singing, and I do think Rebecca’s had a lovely evening after all, don’t you? She’s such a shy young woman, it was nice to bring her out of herself.

(I hope she enjoyed it too!)

Another Rebecca

Rebecca Grey and her alcoholic mother, Bex, live in insecurity and poverty. Following a tragedy in Bex’s past she made a decision which nobody must ever find out about. Will Rebecca escape from her mother’s lies and make a life of her own?

A gripping psychological family drama about Rebecca Grey, a sensitive girl who’s spent her childhood caring for her alcoholic mother, Bex. They lurch from one poverty-stricken situation to another until Rebecca is hospitalised with exhaustion. While there, she has an illness-triggered hallucination which entangles her deeper than ever into her mother’s psyche. As an art student, Rebecca can’t understand why she is repeatedly impelled to paint a white horse in a blue landscape. And then there is the boy with yellow hair who she glimpses from the corner of her eye.

Bex’s life was frozen by a shocking tragedy when she was nineteen. Her ‘great grief’ caused her to make a decision which nobody must ever find out about. Rebecca has been implicated in her mother’s lies since the moment of her birth, a fact that her father, Jack, has no inkling of.

As Rebecca gets to know her father’s new family, the gap between her and her mother widens. The mystery of Bex’s dark past comes into focus when an old woman she has never met contacts Rebecca, claiming to be her grandmother.

The thunder of hooves is getting closer for both Rebecca and Bex and the blond-haired boy is more and more often in Rebecca’s dreams. Can Bex continue to keep Rebecca in the dark about the circumstances of her birth, or will the final twist in her tail set Rebecca free to make a new life of her own?

Adapted from a short story written by the author when she was an art student, Another Rebecca was inspired by the painting There is no Night by Jack B. Yeats.

Another Rebecca is available for purchase here.

About Tracey Scott-Townsend

Tracey Scott-Townsend is a novelist, poet and artist living in the East Riding of Yorkshire. She has exhibited widely across Britain and her previous books are published by Inspired Quill and Wild Pressed Books.

You can find out more about Tracey by visiting her website, finding her on Facebook and following her on Twitter @authortrace.

As someone who loves fiction with historical elements and which explores identity it gives me very great pleasure to have the opportunity to interview Jan Fortune all about A Remedy For All Things today.

Published today, 5th October 2018, A Remedy For All Things is available for purchase here or directly from the publisher.

A Remedy For All Things

In the dream she is not herself.

Belief is Catherine’s gift, or it was once, growing up in the shadow of an extraordinary friendship amongst a cacophony of voices trying to tell her who to be.

Now, in her thirties, Catherine knows what she has lost and what she has survived. Her professional life is on course and she has a new relationship with Simon, a writer who shares her imaginative and creative worlds. But when Catherine arrives in Budapest in winter 1993 to begin researching a novel based on the poet, Attila József, she starts dreaming the life of a young woman imprisoned after the 1956 Uprising. More disconcertingly, by day this woman, Selene Virág, is with her, dreaming Catherine’s life just as she dreams Selene’s.

Obsessed with uncovering the facts, Catherine discovers that Selene was a real person who lived through the persecution of Jews in Hungary during WW2, but what is most disorienting is that Selene believed Attila József to be the father of her daughter, Miriam, despite the fact that József committed suicide in December 1937, eighteen years before Miriam was born.

How do the three lives of Catherine, Selene and Attila fit together?

Densely layered, constantly challenging the boundaries between fact and fiction, A Remedy for All Things is a disquieting and compelling exploration of what we mean by identity and of how the personal and the political collide. Spare, subtle prose and an innovative, original narrative combine with an accessible, moving story; an extraordinary follow-up to This is the End of the Story that will lead to the final book in the trilogy, For Hope is Always Born.

An Interview with Jan Fortune

Thanks so much for agreeing to answer my questions and welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Jan.

A Remedy For All Things has a complex premise Jan. How did the concept for the book arise?

The premise is that Catherine, a writer is in Hungary in 1993 researching a book on Attila József, an extraordinary Hungarian poet who committed suicide in his early 30s in 1937. She is someone coping with losses of various sorts from the previous novel, This is the End of the Story, but her life seems to be on course until she arrives in Budapest and begins dreaming the life of another woman from a different time period. The idea was partly suggested by the fact that a lot of my material for writing comes to me in dreams. In this case it was the new character, Selene Virág, who I dreamt.

Up to that point I hadn’t realised that I would write a sequel to This is the End of the Story, let alone a trilogy, but once I’d dreamt this young woman, she wouldn’t let me go. In the dream she was imprisoned after the Hungarian Uprising at the end of 1950s and I knew she had a strong connection to Catherine.

How extraordinary! I love hearing how authors get their inspiration and this is so interesting.

At the same time, I was reading the poetry of Attila József, so that might have fed into the dream, and I had a strong sense that Selene was connected with Attila as well as with Catherine, even though she would have been a very young child when Attila died.

The book is an exploration of the connections between these three people over these three time periods and also beyond the book, but although the premise is complex the narrative is structured so that we see the lives of the two women in alternate chapters, as they dream each others’ lives and work out their own issues of identity, conflicts and loves.

That’s fascinating. As A Remedy For All Things is the second book in your trilogy, how do you manage the plotting of a story over three books?

I write drafts on computer but I keep endless hand written notes and timelines to keep everything consistent. The timelines in the trilogy are fairly intricate as the action of A Remedy for All Things actually fits into a month that isn’t filled in during the first book, but is chronologically before the last chapter of This is the End of the Story. So the first book ends in June 1994 and the second takes place in the thirty days from November 6 1993 to December 3 1993 (and the same dates in 1959 and 1937 for Selene and Attila).

I was almost finished the first book when I realised it would be a trilogy so right at the end I spent an intense period going over This is the End of the Story to make sure the continuity would work with the next two novels. I had endless charts of dates and colour-coded pages of notebooks. A key element was also planting particular objects that appear across the books, the third of which ends in June 2020, which is when the third will be published.

It sounds complex to keep abreast of it all.

So there’s a sketchbook given to Catherine in Paris that once belonged to Selene’s father. It becomes not only a symbol of a life that Selene has lost, but also a motif for the future and will re-appear in For Hope is Always Born. Another object that assumes even greater importance in communicating themes through the three novels is a small silver hand of Miriam pendant. It comes to Catherine when she is in Toledo searching for traces of the 11th century Muslim princess-cum-saint, Casilda, whose story is entwined in the plots of the first and third novels and it’s a tiny pendant on which a great deal hangs.

There’s also a book shown to Catherine by my fictionalised version of Szuzsanna Makai, Attila József’s niece. On this object the plot might turn, but you’d have to read the book to learn more about that object and how it is used to manage the plotting …

I will indeed. I love the sound of all three!

Hungary features strongly. How did you research the geographical elements of the book?

I read everything I could find – online and in books. I read books about the uprising and about the history and politics of Hungary and the background years before the 1956 Uprising. I read Hungarian novels and poetry to get the texture of the place and books about Attila József.

The reading was vital. Unlike 1970s Teesside where I grew up and where much of the first novel is set, Budapest was completely new to me. But I was also incredibly privileged to get an arts council grant to travel to Budapest to research and write there. This made a huge difference and it was made even more effective through key conversations with people there.

How brilliant. I love Budapest.

The staffs of the Hungarian House of Photography and at the Attila József Museum were incredibly helpful. I was lucky to be put in touch with Lászlo Kunos, Director of Corvina Press, who gave me a much more nuanced perspective on life in both 1950s and 1990s Budapest and also helped me make key decisions about how my character, Catherine, thinks about Attila József’s final days.

Similarly, a meeting with the Hungarian novelist and poet, Gábor Schein, gave me much more insight into the remarkable city of Budapest. It’s place that has been through so much, and yet it’s a young city, with Pest in particular becoming populace only at the end of the nineteenth century.

There are many books set in the recent past and WW2. What sets A Remedy For All Things apart from the others do you think?

The book has three time periods that intersect in an unusual way through the lives of the characters – the 30s, the 50s and the 90s. At its core the book, and the whole trilogy, are asking questions about identity and the human issues of how individuals survive in tumultuous times so whilst each character is very much of his or her time and the particular events of those times matter, there are also wider questions at stake.

The first book is set in the 70s, with some forward passages in the 80s and 90s and the last is contemporary so this also emphasises that it is what unites the characters across time and place that is vital. And underpinning all three novels is the story of Casilda, who was a real Moorish princess in 11^th century Spain who became a saint. Her extraordinary story is weaves through the three novels.

So while in some senses the book is ‘historical’ fiction and I take the historical research very seriously, they are also books about relationships and identity and there’s an element that is on the edge of magic realism.

The more you tell me Jan, the more I want to get your books to the top of my TBR.

To what extent do you feel we are all political creatures as this seems to be a theme you explore?

I think the personal and the political are inseparable. Across 3 novels that span almost a millennium every character is both an individual trying to work out life, love and identity but always within a particular context. Casilda lives at a time when the intersection of cultures in Moorish Spain enables her to make a huge change in her life that is as political as it is spiritual. Selene survives the Jewish ghetto in Budapest in WW2 only to be caught up in the political events of young Hungarians trying to overthrow the constraints of oppressive Soviet rule in the 50s. Catherine is formed by the politics of industrial decline in late 70s Teesside.

Yet all of them are also individuals who react and respond to these contexts with imagination. Running through the novel are various quotes from Don Quixote and most importantly:

When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. … — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be.

So there is a constant idea that political events might trample our daily lives, and that the ‘unreason of the world is more insane than any fiction’ and yet so often, even in the most dire circumstances, the human spirit persists.

I love that optimism of the human spirit.

All of your writing seems to have a keen interest in identity. What would you say to that assessment?

That’s absolutely right. The question that began the trilogy for me was about how one person supports and even lives out the fantasy life of another. Sancho does this for Quixote and Catherine does it in the first novel for her friend Miriam. She is someone who for a long time lets others define her; they even change the form of her name so Miriam calls her Cassie and later she’s called Kitty. Reclaiming her name, Catherine, is an important step, but her sense of identity is challenged again when she begins dreaming Selene’s life and becomes obsessed with finding out more about her.

Identity is a wonderfully fluid concept and this fascinates me. Who each of us is, is much less monolithic than we often imagine, and a novel is a great way of exploring the human condition.

Is there anything you feel it is essential for a reader to know about A Remedy For All Things?

Only that if all this sounds complicated, the response I’ve had from readers is that all the plotting and research, all the timelines and thinking about politics and identity are very much secondary to the story. Essentially I wanted to end up with a story that begins with a coming of age and moves on to how people live in immensely challenging times with amazing dignity; how people grow and love whatever the conditions around them.

It sounds to me as if you have done so wonderfully, Jan. Congratulations.

About Jan Fortune

Poet and novelist Jan Fortune is the founder of Cinnamon Press. Following her poetry collections, Stale Bread and Miracles, Slate Voices: Cwmorthin and Turn/Return, her fifth novel This Is The End Of The Story was released in 2017.

A respected editor and passionate writing mentor, Jan lives in the wild wet foothills of the Moelwyns in North Wales, beneath the abandoned slate village of Cwmorthin.

You can find out more by visiting Jan’s website, or by following her on Twitter @JanFortuneWrite.

I can’t believe how many great new to me authors I have had the chance to ‘meet’ through this staying in with feature on Linda’s Book Bag and today I welcome another to spend an evening with me – this time it’s R.K. Wheeler.

Staying in with R.K. Wheeler

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Robert and thank you for agreeing to stay in with me. Tell, me, which of your books have you brought to tell us about this evening?

I have chosen The Witch of Endor as my first book with you Linda as I think that it would appeal to the most readers, being a YA/Midgrade, paranormal, romantic fantasy.

Sounds good. What can we expect from an evening in with The Witch of Endor?

Although devoid of swear words or sex, it is full of romance, action, suspense and plot twists.  The reviews thus far have been stellar and I have recently finished production to audiobook with my wonderful producer Jas Walker.  Although English born he currently resides in France.  This novel is available on audible.com and will be on iTunes in the next couple of weeks.

Each chapter in my story starts with a poem about the chapter.  I prefer to write in rhyme.

The blood’s the life the life’s the blood

Beware the night and vampire’s bite

A cross a stake be sure to make

Or pray the Lord your soul to take

(Now, this is why I avoid vampire stories usually – too scary!)

What else have you brought along and why have you brought it?

I would recommend some buttered popcorn for the suspenseful, scarier scenes, and a bit of chocolate for the more romantic tales.

Now that sounds like a plan to me!

Thanks so much for staying in with me to tell me all about The Witch of Endor Robert. I’ve really enjoyed it and you never know – I might one day be brave enough to read it!

The Witch of Endor

Lilith grew up seeing and speaking with the dead, although she did not realize they were dead until her parents asked her to whom she was speaking with. It was the magic that came later when she reached puberty. She could not control the magic in those early years so her parents had to move from Nazareth to Endor. The move was not far enough though, for it was not long before the rumors started. A man walked through the doors of Lilith’s magic shop one day. He was different. He was not afraid of the spirits and he had a rudimentary ability to use magic.

Their nightly meetings turned into more than palm readings and magic practice. She fell for Lamech and was in love in his arms. Still doubts nagged at the back of her mind. Why had she never seen him by day and why had she never seen him eat? He always had a good excuse.

Was it another woman? She had to find out so she followed him one night before dawn. He entered a cave and what she found there was not what she had ever imagined and it would change her life forever.

The Witch of Endor is available for purchase here.

About R. K. Wheeler

R.K Wheeler is a Florida native who shields himself at times from the sun’s rays behind a computer, writing books.  He dreams of traveling full time, gleaning inspiration from frosty peaks and fertile plains, thick forests and luminescent caverns.  However, until that day comes, Robert must keep his day job as a chiropractic physician. He enjoys beekeeping.

R. K. Wheeler has four beautiful children. His wife of 26 years stays lovingly by his side even on the days that she is a book widow.

You can find out more by visiting R.K. Wheeler’s website.