Thanks to Sarah Mallery for featuring me on her blog. A great writer and an extraordinary supporter of other authors. And if you love history, you must follow her and her blog!
Yet another ASMSG member, when I first came across this fine author/reviewer/blogger, what immediately struck me about her was her kindheartedness, evident from the various gracious and caring comm…
Source: Olga Nuñez Miret – A Gentle Altruism | S.R. Mallery’s AND HISTORY FOR ALL
Great news! Sally Cronin has a new book out. If you follow her blog you’ll have read some of her short stories, and she’s publishing the first volume of a new collection. Thanks to Tina Frisco for her interview and for bringing us the good news.
Sally Cronin is a prolific author and blogger, a nutritional therapist, an ardent supporter of indie authors, and has worked on radio and Internet television as producer and presenter. She is origi…
Thanks so much to Christoph Fischer, a great writer and blogger, and a book reviewer extraordinaire, for reviewing my latest book on his blog. Please, visit his post and leave a comment if you like!
“Escaping Psychiatry 2. The Case of the Swapped Bodies” by Olga Núñez Miret was a real treat and almost a surprise. I like Olga’s sharp and psychologically charged writing the bes…
Hi all:
As you know, on Friday’s I bring you guest authors. Recently I’ve also been trying to bring to my blog authors and bloggers I know and exchange comments with often, but I’ve come to realise they’ve never made it as guests to my blog yet. Today it’s Judith Barrow’s turn. She’s a fellow author who is very generous in discovering interesting content and promoting it, she is a sharp reviewer with a very keen eye on Rosie’s Book Review Team (hey!), and she writes about subjects that will be close to many people’s hearts. And her latest book was just published on the 17th of July, so, what better reason!
First, before I forget, here is her blog:
And what her Amazon author page says about her:
Judith Barrow,originally from Saddleworth, near Oldham,has lived in Pembrokeshire, Wales, for thirty four years.
She has BA (Hons) in Literature with the Open University, a Diploma in Drama from Swansea University and a MA in Creative Writing with Trinity College, Carmarthen. She has had short stories, plays, reviews and articles, published throughout the British Isles and has won several poetry competitions. She has completed three children’s books.
She is also a Creative Writing tutor.
And now, the books:
Pattern of Shadows
Mary is a nursing sister at Lancashire prison camp for the housing and treatment of German POWs. Life at work is difficult but fulfilling, life at home a constant round of arguments, until Frank Shuttleworth, a guard at the camp turns up. Frank is difficult to love but persistent and won’t leave until Mary agrees to walk out with him.
Here is what Judith tells us about the book:
Pattern of Shadows was inspired by my research into Glen Mill, a disused cotton mill in Oldham, Lancashire, and its history of being the first German POW camp in the country.
I was researching for an earlier book in the Local Studies and Archives in Oldham, while staying in the area, but reading about the mill brought back a personal memory of my childhood and I was sidetracked.
My mother was a winder in a cotton mill and, well before the days of Health and Safety, I would go to wait for her to finish work on my way home from school.
I remember the muffled boom and then the sudden clatter of so many different machines as I stepped through the small door, the sound of women singing and shouting above the noise, the colours of the cotton and cloth – so bright and intricate.
Above all I remember the smell: of oil, grease – and in the storage area. the lovely smell of the new material stored in bales.
When I thought about Glen Mill I wondered what life would have been like for all those men imprisoned there. I realised how different their days must have been from my memories of a mill and I knew I wanted to write about that.
So started 18 months of research
http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Shadows-Judith-Barrow-ebook/dp/B00940YWKQ/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pattern-Shadows-Judith-Barrow-ebook/dp/B00940YWKQ/
There are some great review too, but I’ll let you discover them, because we have a few more books. And if you want to see pictures and read Judith post about it, check here:
http://judithbarrowblog.com/2014/11/23/the-inspiration-behind-pattern-of-shadows/
Changing Patterns
In May 1950, Britain is struggling with the hardships of rationing and the aftermath of the Second World War. Peter Schormann, a German ex-prisoner of war, has left his home country to be with Mary Howarth, matron of a small hospital in Wales. The two met when Mary was a nurse at the POW camp hospital. They intend to marry, but the memory of Frank Shuttleworth, an ex-boyfriend of Mary’s, continues to haunt them and there are many obstacles in the way of their happiness, not the least of which is Mary’s troubled family. When tragedy strikes, Mary hopes it will unite her siblings, but it is only when a child disappears that the whole family pulls together to save one of their own from a common enemy.
http://www.amazon.com/Changing-Patterns-Judith-Barrow-ebook/dp/B00B0STM2I/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Changing-Patterns-Judith-Barrow-ebook/dp/B00B0STM2I/
Living in the Shadows (Just published on the 17th of July)
It’s 1969 and Mary Schormann is living quietly in Wales with her ex-POW husband, Peter, and her teenage twins, Richard and Victoria.
Her niece, Linda Booth, is a nurse – following in Mary’s footsteps – and works in the maternity ward of her local hospital in Lancashire.
At the end of a long night shift, a bullying new father visits the maternity ward and brings back Linda’s darkest nightmares, her terror of being locked in. Who is this man, and why does he scare her so?
There are secrets dating back to the war that still haunt the family, and finding out what lies at their root might be the only way Linda can escape their murderous consequences.
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Shadows-Judith-Barrow/dp/1909983292/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Shadows-Judith-Barrow/dp/1909983292/
And:
Silent Trauma:
When Meg Matthews gives an interview on the local radio station it leads to a friendship with three other women. They share a terrible secret. Together, can they find the strength to expose the silent trauma they have endured all their lives?
The story is fictional: the facts are real.
http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Trauma-Judith-Barrow-ebook/dp/B00AFZ8CLO/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Trauma-Judith-Barrow-ebook/dp/B00AFZ8CLO/
Here is what Judith says about this book:
Silent Trauma is the result of years of research, and the need to tell the story in a way that readers will engage with the truth behind the drug Stilboestrol. So I had the idea of intertwining this main theme around and through the lives of four fictional characters, four women, all affected throughout their lives by the damage the drug has done to them. Their stories underpin all the harm the drug has done to so many women all over the world. The story is fictional, the facts are real.
Judith Barrow’s books are also available in Honno (Welsh Women’s Press):
In Honnos you can find an anthology Judith has contributed to:
Coming Up Roses:
A fiction anthology from Welsh women writing about gardens: what they mean to them, what happens in them and where they take them…
In ‘Yellow Ribbons on a Pear Tree’ an Italian POW returns home to a mixed welcome from his wife and family; ‘Gift’ is a tale of loss and love and of misunderstandings set around a memorial oak sapling; ‘Rosemary and Rue’ concerns memory and what it means to lose it and ‘Seasons of Brews and Roses’ tells of the love between mother and daughter and its waxing and waning, in good times and bad.
There are sad stories and happy ones, tales from home and abroad – all of them share a love for plants and planting, flowers and seeds, a real sense of the power of growing things to change lives.
“Crime, romance, loss, haunted tales… this collection has it all. 20 great stories… an ideal prsent for the gardener in your life.”
Lynda’s Book Blog (http://lyndasbookblog.blogspot.com/)
“Sad, tense, funny, bizarre but best of all, original plots and a huge variety of themes show how creative writers can transform fruit and veg, flower borders and potting sheds to delve into our deepest fears and unrequited longings but also bring on the growth of new possibilities with each passing season.”
Western Mail
http://www.honno.co.uk/dangos.php?ISBN=9781870206938
Thanks so much to Judith for bringing us her books, thanks to you all for reading, and if you have enjoyed it, share, like, comment and CLICK!
As most Fridays, I bring you a guest author with a new book. I’ve met Sharon St Joan through social media (I know some of the artists in http://fineartamerica.com and can recommend you to go exploring) and I found her, her artwork, her blogs and her book fascinating, as it’s a not a topic I’ve brought often, and even less in the way Sharon does. Rather than tell you about it, here I bring you Sharon St Joan.
Sharon St Joan wears many hats — as writer, author, artist, painter, sculptor, retired wildlife rehabilitator – and a few others too, less easily defined.
During a childhood spent wandering among the woods, (along the east coast of the U.S.), she developed an intense love of nature – wild birds and animals, rocks and mountains, and even thunderstorms.
Her poems seek to touch a mystical chord within nature and the cosmos, and her watercolors evoke an ethereal dimension that is the essence of the earth and her creatures.
You can find many of the poems on her blog, Voices and Visions, interspersed with a few insights into far-ranging topics like the meaning of megalithic ruins, or visits to the temples of Tamil Nadu at http://voices-and-visions.com/
You can find some of her watercolors at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/sharon-stjoan.html
Another blog, Art, Animals and the Earth, focuses on the heroic efforts of people throughout the world to improve the lot of animals, both wild and domestic, and to protect the planet itself from the war being waged against it. And also, occasionally, the work of artists who portray the beauty of nature — http://artandtheearth.wordpress.com
Having spent six years living in France (many years ago) and, more recently, having visited some very fascinating places in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, particularly to help advance the cause of animal welfare, Sharon is captivated especially by India — whose endlessly fascinating culture and traditions go back into the mists of time.
Several visits to India have resulted in the ebook, on Amazon, Glimpses of Kanchi,(more about it later on) which traces the magical history of India in among the threads of an ancient Indian town, Kanchipuram.
You many also find Sharon on Twitter, https://twitter.com/sharonstjoan
And on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/sharonstjoan
And her page in Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Sharon-St-Joan/e/B00G1T1VSE/
As promised, here is her book:
Glimpses of Kanchi by Sharon St Joan
The ancient city Kanchipuram (Kanchi) is one of the sacred cities of India, existing for well over two thousand years. Here are glimpses, interwoven in a tapestry across the centuries of people, their lives, their homes and their history, temples and holy sites of a city touched by the hand of the Gods. These are a few snapshots of some of the spiritual history of southern India, of the currents which came and went of Buddhism and Jainism, of the return to Hinduism, of great figures who played a pivotal role. Though just one of so many thousands of Indian cities, Kanchi, catches and reflects, in a unique way, the radiance of Indian life and history.
This is a small book, written both as a reminder for Indian people of their amazing land and for those, wherever they may be from, who find India spellbinding and captivating—who, once they have crossed the threshold of the world that is India, can never quite go back completely to the world they left behind. They and their world have been forever changed.
They find that the universe is broader and deeper than it used to be. There are divine beings and magical presences, the mundane and the miraculous, lights, shadows, and other worlds, which cannot be expressed in linear thoughts – only in fleeting glimpses.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F240OK0/
Thanks so much to Sharon St. Joan for her visit, thanks to all of you for reading it, and if you’ve found it interesting, like, share, comment and of course CLICK!
Hi all:
It’s Friday and it’s time for a new book or a guest author. Today I bring you the new book by Billy Ray Chitwood. I’ve come across Billy Ray in a variety of platforms (blogs, Twitter) and saw that he had published a new book in his series. Billy Ray has been writing and publishing books for a while, and I intend to bring you more of his books soon, but I was sure his new book would grab your attention and make you look for more…especially as it is the last book in the series!
A Common Evil
Former sleuth Bailey Crane and lovely wife Wendy are enjoying their penthouse pleasures until a cartel sting operation at their Mexican resort brings chaos and emotional uncertainty into a blurry reality. Wendy is kidnapped, and Bailey faces the demons running loose in his mind as he struggles with his choices. Also President of the resort’s HOA, Bailey has not only kidnapping and murders with which to contend, but other problems which add to this suspenseful chapter in his life. The surprising end point brings back to Bailey and Wendy those memories better left in the memory vault. An exciting, intense thriller in the sand and cacti of Mexico’s Sonoran desert by the beautiful Sea of Cortez. This is the final Book 6 of ‘The Bailey Crane Mystery Series’.
http://www.amazon.com/Common-Evil-Bailey-Crane-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00LMHJUIS/
Here a bit about the author:
From East Tennessee. My family roots go back to tenth century England and a hamlet just north of London called Chetwode.
Never knew what it was in life that I really wanted to do…guess that had something to do with those roots in East Tennessee, a broken family, and so much mobility. Saw a lot of cowboy movies as a kid and thought about acting for awhile. Loved to sing and thought about being a singer. Being an actor or a singer meant there would be audiences, and I was a bashful boy who wasn’t too comfortable in crowds. Wanted to be a fireman. Wanted to be a cop. A professional golfer. A tennis pro. The ‘want list’ just kept changing.
You likely know where I’m going with this opening bio brevity. My dreams were fleeting because I was a fickle fellow whose roots never got too deep anywhere, any time. So. when those Tennessee hills were behind me and that big adult world opened up to me, well, it kind of overwhelmed me. There were so many Appalachian and bible belt emotions conflicting inside my heart and mind that made it easy to make a lot of mistakes. Make them, surely did, too many to enumerate, and my guess is I’ve been blaming old Appalachia, the hills of Tennessee, the broken family, the mobility, all the emotions laid upon me, for this rather wanderlust life I’ve been living. Guess I’ve always been chasing that something that was missing in those long ago days.
Now, don’t get me wrong. With the mistakes, which you can read about later, there were successes and honorable service to my country in the US Navy. The successes, in my way of thinking, were: my good wife and wonderful children; a college BA degree from Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA with a major in English; high school teaching; sales and marketing management positions with some of our top educational publishers; acting in film, stage, and television; my own business.
The most exhilarating success has been my writing eleven books. The writing has allowed me to purposefully wander through some simple plot lines and characters’ lives to explore my own dimensions, to discover some things about myself I never really considered. Up front, I’ll state too brashly for some, my books are good, well written, and easy to read. Sure, the critics, even I, will still find the occasional errata that most writers disdain. There is nothing, however, that has given me more pleasure than turning a phrase that says everything I want it to say, to re-read a passage that brings back some emotional echoes.
So, you have a short bio glimpse of Billy Ray Chitwood, an Appalachian kid who ate some emotional soup and spent a lifetime trying to digest it. Are Billy Ray’s books worthy of a read? My vote doesn’t count. Only you can tell me with any certainty…
Eleven books and a lifetime later, reading, writing, and family are the biggest parts of my life. Many of my works of fiction were inspired from actual crimes. My first book, “The Cracked Mirror – Reflections Of An Appalachian Son,” is a fictional memoir which has 90% factual accuracy about my own life. Later, I wrote a rather shameful non-fiction 100% accurate portrait of myself, “What Happens Next? A Life’s True Tale.”
Currently, my time is spent on the Cumberland Plateau in Middle Tennessee with my lovely wife, Julie Anne, and our feisty but lovable Bengal cat named George.
Writing is therapy for the soul and allows me to explore dimensions of myself otherwise neglected or never known. It would not surprise me to know that writers find pieces of themselves heretofore never considered in the words they pen. Within my plot lines and my characters I can fuse and muse the most difficult and simple elements of living. My characters can embolden me with youthful heroism or with the skeptical observations of an aging man. Through my pages of people I can be a buffoon, clown, hero, villain, and/or a super solver of the world’s problems…Writing then must be another life for me to live.
It would greatly please me to have you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Google, linkedin. For more information and previews of my books and posts, please go to these websites and blogs:
http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com
http://www.thefinalcurtain1.wordpress.com (My blogs are also on Goodreads.)
http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA
http://www.about.me/brchitwood
And a link to his page in Amazon so you can check all the rest of his books:
http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Ray-Chitwood/e/B00502520Q/
Thanks to Billy Ray for bringing us his latest book, thanks to you all for reading, and you know the score, like, share, comment, and please, CLICK!
Hi all:
Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from Mary Meddlemore and read her post 50 and realised I had been nominated for the VERY INSPIRING BLOG AWARD.
The rules for The Very Inspiring Blog Award
The rules are to thank and link back to the blogger that has nominated you, then post the award logo to your blog, write a post on the nomination and nominate 15 other very inspiring bloggers, notify them and then tell them 7 things about yourself.
Mary is fascinating and her posts show clearly that the borders between fact and fiction are at best tenuous and at worst a hindrance.
With regards to my blog being very inspiring…It’s nice of her to think so…I hope it is…even a little bit inspiring would do.
My nominees to the very inspiring blog award are:
vanessawesterwriter.blogspot.co.uk
http://www.jodiepierceauthor.blogspot.com
deborahpalumbotheundeparted.blogspot.com
thejournalfiles.wordpress.com
kaylastonor.wordpress.com
adrianavent.wordpress.com
mysecretloveforyou.wordpress.com
And now 7 things about me:
1. I love owls. I also collect them (not real, live owls, but nearly every other type).
2. I like pumpkin seeds and will search high and low for them (with their shells on).
3. When I was a child I wanted to be, first a secretary, then a teacher and eventually (when I was 12 or so) a doctor that is what I became.
4. I don’t like tea or coffee. Or milk.
5. I don’t drink alcohol.
6. I don’t smoke.
7. I’m still unconvinced that I can call myself an author.
Now, up to you all!
Just Olga 