
The Blank Pages of 2020
A little message for the New Year ahead …. Happy New Year! Make every day count xxx Continue reading The Blank Pages of 2020
A little message for the New Year ahead …. Happy New Year! Make every day count xxx Continue reading The Blank Pages of 2020
Standing in the corner of my grandma’s hallway in my disgrace, the stolen shortbread still melting on my tongue, I placed my hands on the walls, closed my eyes and saw Grandad. Continue reading INSPIRATION: The Walls Have Ears (and Eyes)
So, I’ve been experimenting because there was an expanse of shiny whiteness on my office wall with scribbles on it like ‘Get milk’, ‘Weed the garden (again)’ and ‘***Don’t rescue another cat; you have enough now***’.
But it would be so much better if it said things like:
Chapter 5 – Whenever he smells apples, he is overcome with a murderous rage.
OR, Chapter 12 – Astonishing mid-plot twist: The monkey was never meant to be there, but only the nun knew.
Continue reading “A Failed Experiment and (Almost) Another Cat”Everyone has that book, or series of books, that defines their childhood and influences their future lives in some way. This is mine. What’s yours, and why?
When I first discovered ‘Flambards’ by K.M Peyton, I devoured the whole series, and returned to them again and again. They had everything; a strong heroine who was so real to me she was like a best friend, a hero who had his weaknesses but it still gives me pangs when I think of his sad fate, and a First World War setting – not on the front line, but on the home front – which pits the rise of automobiles and airplanes against the decline of horses and cavalry, and delves into women’s rights and the crumbling of social divisions. Cleverly, the house – ‘Flambards’ – is a mirror that reflects this era of change in Britain. Its fate is directly affected by all that is going on around it, and yet it is also a symbol for everything the heroine is experiencing. She is tied to it. It becomes her heart.
Flambards taught me, like no other books I read in my childhood, that Continue reading “Flambards by K.M Peyton”
Writers crave good reviews even more than they crave chocolate cake or a really fantastic pen. This is the first one I got, dug up from the archives… Continue reading Those Precious Good Reviews
I’m currently working on a top secret, wonderful project and was deep into some research when something quite odd happened… I stumbled upon an obscure article referencing New Zealand’s first Gothic Novel ‘The Ice Station’, written in 1912 by Violet D’Ath.
The storyline sounded so good I immediately decided to find a copy and read it. But it wasn’t that easy, as you can probably tell by my title.
Continue reading “The Odd Disappearance of Violet D’Ath and New Zealand’s First Gothic Novel”In which Jo is feeling distinctly unloved after a snub from her favourite machine. Continue reading Unknown