Friday

Free ebook - Romance

FREE ebook.
 
The Other Side of Silence by Sylvie Nickels
 
 
A 21st century romance and a little-known episode of European history

Pippa Eastman feels stifled by her autocratic father and eminent historian, Joseph Eastman. As soon as she can she goes to Australia where she meets Jude Jamieson. Years later her father develops Alzheimer's and she returns to the UK to look after him. Jude follows in search of his alcoholic father, a Ten Pound Pom who had left him and his mother in Australia.
The novel begins as Pippa receives an email from a stranger in northern Finland claiming to be a relative. Pippa knows that her father was the son of Josef, a Russian soldier, and a Finnish farmer's daughter, brought together by the Finnish-Russian Winter War of 1939/40. The book is the unfolding search for their roots by Pippa and Jude and thereby their finding of each other.
Pippa finds her grandfather’s diary, which her father had translated into English and which gives a vivid picture of the Winter War. She learns of evidence that her father had murdered a man, Kalle, who had been responsible for Josef's deportation to Germany, where he perished in a slave labour camp. Pippa is determined to disprove her father's guilt. In the meantime, Jude has traced his father, now sober and blind.
The book shows how Pippa and Jude, separately and together, conduct their searches and deal with their outcome, in the process finding a new depth in their own relationship.

Monday

Book Day in Arnold

At Gedling Civic Centre inside Arnot Hill Park

DEC 1st, 10am - 4pm

Free Admission.

Talks, Stalls, Buffet etc

Sunday

What is Artikle?

What is Artikle?

Artikle is set up primarily as a space for writers to display their work. However, perhaps more importantly, it provides strong, intelligent opinions regarding current affairs.
Articles can be sent in at any time and may be submitted by anyone. Every month the best article in the submissions pile is selected as the winner and placed on the Artikle homepage as well as sent out to members via their newsletter and social media links.
Alongside this, winners are given 200 words to use to talk about themselves and their profession, which is placed beside their winning article.
For more info visit www.artikle.org

Thursday

Kimberley Book-Worm Day, in print

Kimberley Book-Worm Day
A R Dance receives his award (top right) from Anna Soubry MP and Gloria Morgan 
Local children parade as literary characters.
 

Wednesday

The Next Big Thing!

Blog Hopping Event

Dave McCall: ‘I've been tagged in The Next Big Thing by fellow writer Helen Hollick (Helen reached the USA Today Bestseller list with her novel The Forever Queen in 2011).

I'm instructed to tell you all about my next book by answering the following questions and then I tag five other authors about their Next Big Thing. So here I go!

What is the working title of your next book?
My second novel is called The Assassin’s Mark and I’m working towards a publication date of March-April 2013.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was researching a novel about the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and came across a paper on the Battlefield Tours that Franco launched – mainly for British tourists – before the war was even finished. It was too good a story to ignore.

What genre does your book fall under?
Historical thriller with a generous amount Agatha Christie and a splash of Rick Stein, seasoned with a pinch of mild erotica.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I always picture actors in my main character roles anyway so, in this case, Christopher Eccleston as Jack Telford and Rachel Weisz as Valerie Carter-Holt.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A Christie-esque thriller set on a battlefield tour bus towards the end of the Spanish Civil War.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m planning to self-publish with the help of SilverWood Books but if somebody wants to make me an offer I can’t refuse...

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I started to write in February 2011 and finished the first draft (180,000 words) in October that year – then travelled with it through all its locations in Northern Spain to check the “feel” and complete the first re-write (168,000 words). The final version is 152,000 words.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
C J Sansom’s Winter in Madrid; Dave Boling’s Guernica; Rebecca Pawel’s Death of a Nationalist; Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?
Long list, I’m afraid. Old comrades like Jack Jones and Frank Deagan from whom I first learned about the “real” experience of the Spanish Civil War. Spanish family friends who lived through the war and Franco’s repression that followed it. Wonderful historians like Antony Beevor and Paul Preston who’ve never lost sight of the Spanish Civil War’s significance for all of us. Sandie Holguin who introduced me to the bus tours that feature centrally in the story.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
The Spanish Civil War is badly neglected by English-language fiction writers so, at one level, I wanted the novel to be informative as well as entertaining. I’d like it to be a “must” for all those who already have an affection for Spain and maybe want to learn a bit more about the country’s history and culture – while still being able to sit on a beach with a good pot-boiler and need to keep “turning the pages.”

For more about my current novel, The Jacobites’ Apprentice, and other relevant information, please visit my main website... www.davidebsworth.com

Here are some great authors I've tagged to tell you about their own Next Big Thing!

Jean Dorricott
: www.jeandorricott.com Born in North Wales, Jean’s short stories and poems began to win awards and she was asked to write a non-fiction study guide to science and religion. She has recently published a futuristic thriller, Ruin of the Soul, and she currently lives in Norwich.

Nick Marsh: www.nick-marsh.co.uk Nick is a science fiction author, veterinary surgeon and, he says, a self-confessed geek. His books include Soul Purpose, Past Tense and, most recently, The Express Diaries. He is an active member of New Writers UK.

A R Dance: www.arundelbooks.co.uk Alan writes novels – Narrow Marsh and Leen Times - set in the world of nineteenth century Nottingham. He is also a local historian, author of The Chilwell Ghost: A New Investigation.

Sherry Jones: www.authorsherryjones.com American journalist and internationally best-selling author of the controversial The Jewel of Medina and other historical fiction novels about women's power.

Moira McPartlin: www.moiramcpartlin.com A writer from Stirlingshire, her first novel, The Incomers, is set in Fife during the 1960s. She is also a convenor for the Federation of Writers Scotland.

Annemarie Neary: www.annemarieneary.co.uk Annemarie's short fiction has appeared in anthologies, magazines and on numerous shortlists in the UK, Ireland and the US. Her first novel, A Parachute in the Lime Tree, was published by The History Press Ireland in 2012.



 

Monday

New Blog to try out

‘This Craft Called Writing’ is a new blog which features articles on writing and editing techniques and hosts guest posts by new and established authors. The blog can be found here: http://lorrieporter.wordpress.com/

Below are links to some typical content:

Giving Your Setting a Little Character
http://lorrieporter.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/giving-your-setting-a-little-character/

7 Steps to Improving Your Prose
http://lorrieporter.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/7-steps-to-improving-your-prose/

Show Not Tell - A How To Guide
http://lorrieporter.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/show-not-tell-a-how-to-guide/

Sunday

Tears For The Fallen

Mansfield poet Steven Leslie Hill’s second volume of poetry inspired by the First World War has been published this week, ahead of Armistice Day.
“It was the experiences of my grandfather, John Edward Pilmore in France and Belgium during the Great War that inspired me to write Tears for the Fallen 1914-1918, just like they did for my previous one,” explains Steven.
John Edward Pilmore served with the Yorkshire/Lancashire Regiment and survived to tell the harrowing tale, despite being gassed and suffering from shell shock. 
Steven’s great uncle, Ernest Pilmore, of the Black Watch Regiment, was killed in action in France.
“Tears for the Fallen 1914-1918 is a contemporary collection of poems covering all aspects of life and conditions of the men from all sides who fought in the Great War,” he adds.
“Those poems are a condemnation of the madness of World War One and indeed all subsequent wars that have followed and the suffering that they bring.
“They are also a tribute to the individuals of the Great War of 1914-1918, who fought with great courage, bravery and compassion for a peaceful, tolerant and free world.”
More than fifty poems deal with more than just the British suffering – there is the anguish of a young Australian soldier, dying alone and far from home, the haunting images of a man he killed in a French soldier’s mind and the heartbreak of a Belgian woman, widowed by war.
The war is viewed, too, from the German and Russian perspectives with every single poem soaked in emotion and guaranteed to bring a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye.
Lest we forget.

Steven Leslie Hill’s previous book was also a collection of poetry, called Poems of World War One 1914-1918.

Tears for the Fallen (paperback £7.99 ISBN 978-178035-471-2) is available to order from the publisher at http://www.fast-print.net/bookshop/1187/tears-for-the-fallen-1914-1918 or from any good bookshop or internet retailer.

For more information, pictures or interviews please contact Simon Potter at Fast-Print Publishing on 01733 404828 or simon@fast-print.net

Book Launch - The Monkey's Fart

The