The Art of Taking Over…

... I have the great pleasure of a visit from fellow PYA writer and friend, Carmen Radtke today.  Hi Carmen, thanks for making time to be here and tell me all about your books...

It’s all about character.  They determine the setting, the plot, their voice, and they can be hard work.

When I read an article about the Great Depression in Australia, including food dole or “susso”, soaring unemployment rates and an alcohol ban that started at six pm unless you were a bona fide traveller (don’t ask why it’s okay to drink when you’re on the road but not if it’s your home town!), I was hooked.  Because I love traditional or cosy mysteries, where a lot is left to the reader’s imagination, I had my new project.  The heroine was easy, a telephone exchange operator who’d become the only breadwinner and therefore could not ever do anything to jeopardise her job.  Whatever Frances Palmer overheard, mum would be the word.  Her future partner-in-crime, Jack Sullivan, had to be the opposite.  The rest would be secondary characters, colourful but not as important.  At least that’s what I thought.

I hadn’t reckoned with Uncle Sal, who sprang to life fully formed, as if he’d been lying in wait for this story to come along and step right in.

I didn’t know about his existence until I typed his name for the first time in A Matter of Love and Death, but there he was.  Already larger than life, winking at me with a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes.  He took off his hat with an elegance and flourish I’d last seen executed like this in an old Fred Astaire film, made a bow and beckoned me to follow him into his world.  Impossible to resist for someone like me, who adores the Roaring Twenties and the Thirties, Hollywood’s golden years, and the stage in equal parts.

Salvatore the Magnificent.  He must have won the Palmer’s hearts in a similar fashion, because a close friendship with a Vaudeville artist was definitely not the norm in a traditional Adelaide household, even if they had met as young immigrants.

But he slotted in so easily, so beguilingly, and with him I had another link to the Top Note, a place where Champagne flowed, police and small-time crooks danced, and Dolores Bardon dazzled customers with her voice and her beauty. It’s a world far removed from Frances’s penny-pinching world of working at the switchboard and then coming home to stew, apple pie and evenings spent listening to the radio.  Except – it’s Uncle Sal’s natural habitat, and as his god-daughter she knows more about it and is attracted more deeply to it than her mother would appreciate.

But Uncle Sal is much more than a guide into his other world.  He’s world-savvy, and aware of the sort of dangers and temptations that most people would strenuously deny.  Most of all he knows about honour and decency, even if they don’t always fit in with the current law.  He’s Frances’ rock, fiercely protective of her and yet encouraging her to fall in with the Top Note crowd.

Uncle Sal’s made it a lot easier to write A Matter of Love and Death and Murder at the Races, where he plays an even bigger part.  He’s made himself so much at home in my writing that he is unwilling to take a last bow.  There he is again, winking at me with a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes, taking off his hat, ready to take his rightful place on the stage of the next Jack and Frances mystery which is currently in the works.

about the book... 1931. Frances Palmer is overjoyed when her brother Rob returns to Adelaide as a racecourse veterinarian.  But all is not well on the turf, and when a man is murdered, there is only one suspect – Rob.

Frances and her boyfriend, charming night club owner Jack Sullivan, along with ex-vaudevillian Uncle Sal and their friends have only one chance to unmask the real murderer, by infiltrating the racecourse.  The odds are against them, but luckily putting on a dazzling show where everything depends on sleight of hand is what they do best.  But nothing is a dead-cert against a cold blooded killer.  And with time running out for Rob, the race is on.

You can get the books on Amazon

You can follow Carmen on Facebook  Twitter  Goodreads 

Look out for more Yorkshire authors in the coming weeks...

And if you are an author, with a connection to Yorkshire and wish to know more about us or to join us then check out our Website

Come stroll with me...

… around Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure and Angoulême...

The old heart of Angoulême

Chasseneuil is a small town (population around 3,000) in Charente which is now part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France.  I was first here about ten years ago.  I'd come to watch the Circuit des Remparts, one of the few remaining road events for classic cars.

The circuit takes place in September, across a whole weekend, within the old heart of the city of Angoulême.  When I was last here, I was captivated by the whole thing - the fabulous old cars, the squares filled with displays of vehicles from Bugatti and Delahaye right up to Renault Alpine and MGs or Minis!  It was a truly amazing weekend that inspired a short story which you can read Here

And, Chasseneuil is ideally placed to stay if you want to take in the event for yourself.  I camped, as always, and the site (Les Charmilles) is on the outskirts of town with easy access to the D941.  The D941 leads to the D11 and D12 which will take you along quiet backroads into the city centre and close to the station, where you can park.  From there it's a short uphill walk into the old heart of the town which is wholly given over to the cars. Enjoy!

The circuit isn't the reason for my visit this time, though.  I've come because there's a piece of history I want to investigate.  The campsite sits just off the D27 which links with the RN141 on the south side of town.  If you leave the site on rue des Écoles and turn right where it meets the D27, you will see a large monument up ahead.  The Mémorial de la Résistance was completed in 1951.  The grounds and the attendant necropolis are the resting place for more than 2000 combatants who gave their lives, including Claude Bonnier.

Born in 1897 in Paris he became an engineer.  Mobilised in 1939 he was assigned to a unit in Chartres.  After France was invaded, he quickly joined the resistance, working first in Algeria and then in region B of the occupied zone - the western seaboard of Charente-Maritime, Charente, Gironde and the area down to the Pyrénées.  At that time, here in Chasseneuil, there was an existing active and robust group of fighters.  It was Bonnier who re-organised the maquis of Charente (including the original group in Chasseneuil set up by André Chabanne, Guy Pascaud and Hélène Nebout) and who christened them the Bir Hacheim.

In 1944, betrayed by an informer, Bonnier was lured to Bordeaux where he was arrested and imprisoned on February 9th.  Realising that the information he held was of great value and would cost many lives if he were to be persuaded to reveal it, he took his own life by means of a suicide pill and died the following day.

His remains, and those of his wife who died in 1991, now lie in the crypt here in Chasseneuil along with the remains of many others.
If you take a few moments to study the board on the road by the monument you will discover that, between Angeac and Chasseneuil, there are bollards at regular intervals beside the route. This is the route Claude Bonnier, Chemin de la Liberté in remembrance of Monsieur Bonnier and his resistance fighters.

Introducing Liz Martinson...

... I'm very pleased to say that author and friend, Liz Martinson is here to help me launch a new series of posts.  Like me, Liz is a member of Promoting Yorkshire Authors - an organisation dedicated to promtoing and popularising the work of Yorkshire authors. Liz, thanks for being here...

Liz Martinson has a Master’s Degree, and has gained a distinction from the University of Lancaster after completing a one-year Creative Writing course. She has a background in teaching and Special Needs Education, specialising in Literacy Support.  Her twin sons having left home, Liz lives in the beautiful North Yorkshire Dales with her husband, and enjoys a variety of interests, such as walking, cycling, kayaking and landscape photography.  She loves to describe the beautiful countryside of Great Britain, which she knows well, and has received specific praise about her descriptions of this countryside in her books, with people saying “they could see it”, “they felt they were actually there” or simply that “they loved it”.  Her knowledge of outdoor activities has led to praise for some of the scenes in Ullandale, specifically the mountain rescue, and has also fuelled other scenes in both Counterpoint and Takeover.

An avid reader, Liz has written several novels and short stories.  Of the short stories, one was a runner-up in the Good Housekeeping Short Story Competition, one was published in a charity anthology (Heart’s Desires) in aid of Breast Cancer, and the third, together with some of her poems, is due out in an anthology called Rising Stars later this year.

She has three novels, Ullandale, Counterpoint and Takeover, available on Amazon as both e-books and paperbacks, and all are available in KU.  These are contemporary romance with life events being very much a part of the stories.  Liz has completed two more novellas and is considering her own anthology, which would be a mix of novellas and short stories.

Her latest book, Takeover, is a story of hatred turning to love, of a man overcoming the ghosts of his past, and of a strong woman.

about the book… Richard, returning from America to take control of Aurora Technology, has sacked Jude, the acting chief executive officer, by email.  He struggles constantly with his memories, both of his childhood, and when he worked at Aurora for his uncaring and cruel father.  This is despite having achieved a resounding success in America with his firm Blake Laptops.  He knows it is his past which causes him to constantly flare-up against Jude and he tries to continually fight his weakness.

Jude is horrified that Richard seems convinced she was his father’s mistress, information which has come, it seems, from quarterly reports he’s received ever since his father’s death.  In addition, she’s suffered at the hands of an ambitious man in the past, and is reluctant to combine love and work as she feels this will only lead to unhappiness.

Richard and Jude, despite all obstacles, do fall in love, but there is a final, and what seems to be an insurmountable, barrier to overcome.  It is Jude’s determined calm, and objective attitude which prevents the destruction of their love, and at the same time, finally destroys the enemy she has within the firm.

You can get all of Liz's books on Amazon

You can follow Liz on her Website  on Twitter and you can contact Liz by Email on lizmartinson3@gmail.com   



There will be other colleagues from Promoting Yorkshire Authors on the blog in the coming months - watch this space.

And if you are an author, with a connection to Yorkshire and wish to know more about us or to join us then check out our Website

A Sense of Place...

... friend and author, Helen Pollard joins me today to talk about the setting for her latest novel.  Hi, Helen, and thanks very much for being here...

I believe that a setting can make or break a work of fiction.  A reader needs to feel fully immersed in a place to believe in the story.  For the genre I write – contemporary romance - readers want an escape from their everyday lives; a virtual trip from their armchair to somewhere fabulous.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing about a place I hadn’t visited, no matter how much I could research on the internet!  But even though I pick an area I know, I always seem to end up creating a fictional town or village there.  The surrounding countryside, the nearby towns and other attractions may all be real, and the atmosphere and general sense of the place may be similar to somewhere I’ve visited, but for my book’s main setting there is nothing like the freedom of starting from scratch.  I can decide on the size, the businesses, the cafes, the geography, the views… without having to answer to any facts!

When I decided to set my latest book on the south coast of Cornwall, I was spoiled for choice!  There are so many picturesque coastal villages there – Portscatho, Polperro and Mousehole are just a few examples – but even after “revisiting” such places by looking at our old holiday photos and doing research on the internet, I decided that no one place quite did the trick... and so I invented Porthsteren.  Location-wise, if you know Cornwall, you could perhaps imagine it somewhere around where Mousehole lies.  Indeed, my fictional village does have some of Mousehole’s features, but Porthsteren is very much its own place.  I wanted it to be just right, to fit my story and the characters perfectly, with my main character Claudia’s shop at one end of the village, a beach stretching along to the harbour at the other; small shops and cafés; a wooded hill as a backdrop; and a coastal path leading away from the cliff road at the top where my other main character Jason lives.

But how to invent a name for my village – a name that sounded genuinely Cornish?  Handily, one of my brothers now lives in Cornwall (lucky bloke!) and is learning Cornish, so I asked him to come up with something.  “Porth” is a common beginning to many Cornish place names, meaning port or harbour, so that was an obvious start.  And the book involves the legend of an old seventeenth-century witch called Hester Moon.  Hester can mean star, and the Cornish for star is “steren”… and so the village of Porthsteren was born.  Perfect! (Thank you, bro!)

The only problem with inventing fictional settings is reminding myself that they don’t actually exist – and leaving them behind when a book is finished.  It’s so gratifying when readers tell me they wish my settings were real so they could actually visit them.  I sympathise because I feel the same way!

about the book... Claudia thought she knew how this summer was going to go. Turns out, she didn’t have a clue… 

But as circumstances throw Claudia into Jason’s path in increasingly unexpected ways, she begins to glimpse what lies beneath his fiery temper and sharp tongue. Claudia was sure her new life was perfect in every way. But was there something missing after all?

It’s been two years since Claudia arrived on the beautifully rugged Cornish coast with nothing but a suitcase to her name. She’d walked out on the husband who had never loved her, ditched the corporate job she’d never wanted and vowed that no gym membership card would come within ten feet of her ever again.

Swapping boardrooms and cocktails for a little shop right at the end of the beach road should have been a bit of a shock. But from the moment she first laid eyes on the empty, run-down store, Claudia knew this was where she was meant to be all along. 

After all that upheaval, Claudia was looking forward to a quiet summer, full of the usual holiday makers and long walks along the clifftops. But life in her patch of paradise is about to change in more ways than one.

Enter recently widowed Jason, dragging his sullen teenage daughter Millie in tow. Millie and Claudia immediately hit it off. And while Millie loves everything about Claudia’s free-spirited way of life, practical architect Jason is less than thrilled about his daughter’s new interests. He doesn’t shy away from telling Claudia exactly what he thinks and sparks fly every time they meet.

about the author... As a child, Helen had a vivid imagination fuelled by her love of reading (long past her bedtime!) so she started to create her own stories in a notebook.

Now a bestselling author of contemporary romance, she believes that good characterisation is the key to a successful book and loves infusing her writing with humour and heart.

Helen is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and The Society of Authors.

She lives in Yorkshire with her husband, two grown-up (in theory) kids and a Jekyll and Hyde cat.

You can get the book from Amazon and you can follow Helen on Facebook and on Twitter 

Jottings from the Journals…

…and I've been reading about a visit to a car museum in Mulhouse…

Friday, 21^st

 

...I'm visiting the Schlumpf museum today.  A friend has told me that I will be mesmerised… hmm, we'll see.  As it is a museum dedicated to cars, I'm kind of finding it hard to believe that I will be 'mesmerised'.  So I'm going to take my book with me and if I get bored I will find somewhere along one of the quais beside the river and sit and read and have my lunch…

The Schlumpf museum was the brainchild of two brothers, Hans and Fritz Schlumpf.  The brothers, a banker and a salesman respectively, were the sons of a Swiss industrialist.  Born in Italy, the family settled in Mulhouse in 1908 when the boys were still small children.  The brothers grew up on the family estate - Malmerspach - and as adults they amassed their personal fortunes by making smart investments in the woollen industry.

What began as an enthusiastic interest in cars for Fritz became an obsession for the pair of them.  Fritz was also a keen racing driver and one of his earliest acquisitions was a Bugatti racing car which he had in his possession before the 39/45 war.  With the war at an end, Fritz began to purchase other vehicles, which he kept, purely for his own amusement, in a shed on the estate.  In the decades following the war, Fritz and his brother Hans began buying up any classic cars that they could find.  They made offers of vast sums of money for whole collections that had already been established by others privately.  Their obsession became so ingrained that they let their business interests slide.  In the wake of industrial problems with their workers and an extensive strike in 1977, the brothers found their business interests in dire straits.  It was at this point that the world first became aware of the extent of their joint and secretive obsession with cars.

What you can see today, in a beautifully designed and purpose-built space is a history of the development of the motorcar.  There are also some of the most expensive and exclusive cars ever built.  The collection came under the direct control of a consortium in 1981 and it is that financial collective that ensures that this incredible homage to motor vehicles is now available for everyone to see.

… So, that didn't quite go as I expected.  Despite having carried my book around a vast museum all day, I haven't read a single page of it.  There are cars there that are the stuff of dreams.  Something that was quite disturbing was in the Grand Prix room.  As I sauntered along the rows of cars, checking out the photos of the drivers, I had the shocking realisation that I could recognise just about every one of them.  From Fangio right up to Ayrton Senna and his racing rivals.  I'm not supposed to know any of this, I thought.  But then, I am member of a motor club, so I guess all that knowledge has been acquired by osmosis…  Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

The museum, Cité de l'Automobile, often referred to as the Bugatti Museum because of the number of Bugatti's held there, can be found at 17, rue de la Mertzau, 68100 Mulhouse

On being different and French cooking...

...hmm, French cooking!  I'm looking forward to this, Sophie, and thanks very much for making time in your busy schedule to be here today...

Every child desperately wants to blend in, but growing up in the UK with a French mother I always felt different from other kids my age.  We spoke a different language at home and the food we ate was different too.  When I left home at eighteen I’d never tasted Toad in the Hole, Yorkshire Pudding, or Bread and Butter Pudding.  (And I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to eat baked beans or tinned tomato soup!)  We ate Mediterranean food: meat, fish and lots of vegetables considered exotic back then such as aubergine, courgettes, artichokes and garlic.  And all cooked with lots of olive oil which, when Mum came to England in the 70s, she could only buy from the chemist.

My friends thought I was strange because I had paté sandwiches in my lunchbox (not meat paste), and at night we sat down as a family for meals – no ‘teas on your knees’ at our house.  Little did they know that when we went to the south of France in summer, meals were even bigger – in every sense.  More courses, more people, and lasting longer, sometimes hours, with lots of chatter and laughter.

My Grandmère did all the cooking and although she was from Northeast France, she preferred the simple strong flavours of Provençal cooking to the rich, creamy dishes of the north.  Her food was a labour of love.  She used to get up early to cook before it was too hot.  My bedroom was next to the kitchen and I remember the comforting sound of her moving about opening the oven door, washing dishes in the sink.  By the time we got up much later there’d be quiches or tarts cooling on the side, a big pot of beef stew on the stove or ratatouille cooling (Grandmère said it always tasted better reheated).

Her food was also love on a plate.  If you didn’t have seconds she was insulted.  If you had thirds, you became the darling.  She used to prepare our favourite dishes for each of us: chocolate cake for my sister, apricot tart for my dad, and for me, steak and chips.

I’ve inherited Grandmère’s love of Provençal cooking.  I love its simplicity, its focus on seasonal local ingredients, its punchy flavours.  It is unpretentious, and its deliciousness relies on the ingredients which, grown in that fierce sunshine, are robust and intense.  The fruit I tasted in Provence were bigger and sweeter than anything you can find in the UK.  Peaches (bought by the roadside) with syrupy juice that dripped from your fingers, melons that filled the kitchen with their sweet perfume, tomatoes as sweet as fruit, and plump apricots and plums from the trees in the garden.

I’ve found it impossible to write about Provence without mentioning these delicious culinary details and food has crept into all my books.  In my latest release, A Forget-Me-Not Summer, I included recipes for all the dishes mentioned so that my readers can try them at home.

It’s ironic that as a child I yearned to blend in and didn’t like to feel different. However, now I know how lucky I am to have these precious memories and I hope I can spread a little sunshine by sharing the recipes from my kitchen.

about the book… It's taken years, but Natasha Brown's life is finally on track. Running a florists in the quaint village of Willowbrook, she's put her short-lived marriage to Luc Duval far behind her.  That is, until he unexpectedly walks through her shop door, three years after their divorce.

Luc reveals that he never told his family about their split, and now his father is desperately ill and demanding to meet Natasha.  Luc needs her to come to France and pretend they're still happily married.  Natasha is horrified, but when Luc makes her an offer she can't refuse, reluctantly packs her bags.

The deal is two weeks on a vineyard with his family, but will Luc and Natasha be able to play the perfect couple after years apart?  And in the glorious Provence sun, will the old spark between them be impossible to ignore?

You can get Sophie's book from Amazon

You can follow Sophie on her Website on Twitter  Facebook  and on Instagram

I'm reviewing The Volunteer...

... by Jack Fairweather...

It's been a while since I've had a book review on here, so today I'm putting that right with a book that was short-listed for the Costa Book Awards.  I don't normally set any store by awards and badges and it wasn't the decal on the cover that made me buy this book.  It was a recommendation from a friend that caused me to seek it out, and I am so glad that I did.

Jack Fairweather is a journalist and I have come across his articles in my daily paper from time to time.  It was good to know that the subject matter in this book was in very good hands.  Meticulously researched, this is the story of Witold Pilecki. 

Born on May 13^th, 1901, Witold became a cavalry officer in the Polish army.  He fought in the Polish-Soviet conflict and subsequently joined the reservists.  He was mobilised again in August 1939 and fought for his country.  In September 1939, The Soviet union invaded Poland and the city of Warsaw fell.  Pilecki went into hiding and began to work in the resistance.  Fairweather's book picks up the story from this point.

Using archive material, witness statements, interviews and some reports written by Pilecki himself, Fairweather has put together a detailed, almost day by day account of Pilecki's life during the 1939/45 war.  The book covers his time in Auschwitz, the privations suffered and at times, is difficult to read.  But the narrative style flows and although completely factual, it feels as though you are reading a novel.

A fascinating slice of history that had to be made known.  It is a story that becomes all the more poignant when you discover what happened to Pilecki once the 1939/45 conflict had ended and the Paris Peace Treaties were signed.

Since creating this post, the cover of the book has been refreshed.