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Today I’m delighted to welcome one of my favourite authors to One More Page to celebrate the release of her lovely new Christmas novel, The Nightingale Christmas Show. Donna Douglas is the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Nightingale novels, set in an East End hospital in 1930s and 1940s. She has recently published the second in the Steeple Street series, about a district nurse in 1920s Yorkshire. A born Londoner, Donna now lives in York with her husband and family. In her spare time she enjoys reading, going out for coffee and cocktails, and binge-watching TV box sets. Welcome Donna!

The Nightingale Christmas Show is my fourth festive Nightingale novel, so this time I thought it might be fun to put together a collection of interlinked short stories all set around a central theme.

It’s Christmas 1945, and the staff of the Nightingale Hospital are putting on a festive show to cheer up the patients. But rehearsals have barely started before the sparks start to fly and old rivalries resurface. Can the nurses overcome the shadows of the past and pull together in time to save the show?

Each story looks at the same event from a different nurse’s viewpoint.  There are some new characters, such as chilly Assistant Matron Charlotte Davis and soft-hearted children’s nurse Peggy Atkins. But there are some old favourites too, like ward sister Miriam Trott.

Nightingale fans might know Miriam best as Sister Wren, the lazy, shrewish ward sister who is the scourge of all student nurses. Now she’s taken charge of the Maternity ward, but the prospect of all those festive babies have done nothing to soften her heart. She’s just as mean-spirited as ever, to the patients and nurses alike.

But Miriam is actually a deeply unhappy woman. All she wants is someone to love. So when Frank Tillery comes into her life, it transforms her.  Frank is handsome, charming and rich, just like a hero from one of Miriam’s favourite romance novels. But is he too good to be true..?

You’ll have to read The Nightingale Christmas Show to find out. But it’s fair to say the course of true love doesn’t run too smoothly!  

I’ve put it together so that each short story can be enjoyed on its own, but they all link together at the end for a dramatic finale that hopefully will make you laugh – and cry.

I had so much fun writing The Nightingale Christmas Show and I hope you enjoy reading it. Happy Christmas!

Thank you Donna. I loved this installment of the Nightingale series and especially the different format. The Nightingale Christmas Show is a perfect Christmas read for fans of the series or those new to Donna’s books and has all the elements that I look for in a fab historical saga novel; great characters, drama, romance and a gripping storyline!

The Nightingale Christmas Show is out now in paperback and ebook formats.

Find out more about Donna and her writing at: http://donnadouglas.co.uk/

Please do check out the other stops on Donna’s blog tour:

I’m delighted to welcome author Carla Caruso back to One More Page today. Carla was born in Adelaide, Australia, and only ‘escaped’ for three years to work as a magazine journalist and stylist in Sydney. Previously, she was a gossip columnist and fashion editor at Adelaide’s daily newspaper, The Advertiser. She has since freelanced for titles including Woman’s Day and Shop Til You Drop. These days, she plays mum to twin lads Alessio and Sebastian with hubby James.Visit www.carlacaruso.com.au. to find out more about Carla and her writing.

Hi. My name’s Carla Caruso and I’m an Aussie author of several romance and rom-com novels. My latest one is Run for the Hills, out today in ebook with Harlequin Escape, yay!

The story revolves around a runaway bride who escapes to a small town and winds up working for triplet wedding photographers. Yup, triplets. Naturally, one in particular catches her eye…

Ever since I’ve had twin boys (now three years old!), I’ve had a penchant for including ‘multiple birth’ characters in my tales. Which got me pondering multiple-birth characters in pop culture. And while I can think of plenty famous twins (fictional or otherwise)—hello Bros, Sweet Valley’s Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, and The Simpsons’ Patty and Selma—I was scratching my head to think up many such triplets.

So I thought I’d do some digging and see what I could come up with. Here’s a bit of list, as below. While it may not be as exhaustive as it would be for well-known twins, it shows that sometimes three can be even better than two…!

• In the Disney flick, Parent Trap 3, tricky teen triplets (played by Leanna, Monica and Joy Creel) try to match their father with an interior decorator (Hayley Mills) who has a twin. When I watched this movie in the eighties, I wanted to BE one of the gorgeous, curly-haired Creel triplets! Each of the characters has a distinct identity: ‘Lisa’ is the wild and fun one, ‘Jessie’ the quiet but sweet one, and ‘Megan’ the nice and truthful one.
• Heard of Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck? Well, who really realised that the trio of animated ducks are identical triplets? The threesome reside with their famed uncle, Donald Duck, in the fictional city of Duckburg and can be a little wild and unruly. Rather than each being very different like the aforementioned Creel triplets, a running joke sees the ducklings finishing each other’s sentences as they’re so identical in appearance and personality. However, you can tell them apart by the colour of their outfits—Huey is known for dressing in red, Dewey in blue, and Louie in green.
• In TV sitcom Friends, Phoebe agrees to be a surrogate for her bro and his wife who can’t conceive – and ends up carrying fraternal triplets. There are some funny lines when the trio arrive on the scene, such as, “I like the middle one best!” and “Don’t worry I won’t let the other two know.” After the labour, Phoebe has a heart-to-heart solo with her new nieces and nephew and says she wishes she could take them all home, but will settle for being their fave aunt. Then the four of them cry together. Pass the tissues!
• Recall the 1988 movie, Twins, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as a mismatched duo? Well, the pair are working on a sequel called—you guessed it—Triplets, and it’ll reportedly star Eddie Murphy as a third brother!

Enough triplet trivia for you? Well, I did mention my new ebook features triplet brothers, and you can read more about it here: www.escapepublishing.com.au/product/74  

Thanks kindly for reading!

Thanks Carla!

Run for the Hills by Carla Caruso is released today in ebook formats from Escape Publishing.

The Belshaw brothers are back in Balkissoch…

Bridie Porter is wearing her Vera Wang gown and veil in the back of her wedding limo when she receives a compromising text about her hotelier groom. Panicked, she tells the driver to keep going and she flees from Melbourne to the small town of Balkissoch in the Adelaide Hills.

It’s the perfect pit-stop to hide from her ex and the press and to earn enough cash to stay out of sight. Unfortunately, the admin job she gets is for a wedding photography business and she’s had her fill of weddings lately. But it’s slim pickings on the work front in a town so teeny. And her new boss is strangely compelling…

After the rush and adrenaline of his job as an LA paparazzo, the last place Cody Belshaw wants to be is back in the small town where he grew up. But thanks to a clause in his father’s will that amounts to blackmail, Cody and his two brothers are stuck running a wedding business for at least a month. If there’s one thing that he’s learned in LA, however, it’s to keep business and pleasure very, very separate. Which makes his new admin employee the definition of temptation.

Bridie is desperate to stay anonymous. Cody seeks out secrets for a living. As they delve into the world of brides, boutonnières and dogs-as-best-men, both Cody and Bridie will have to decide if this is a fling…or forever

I’m delighted to welcome Brian Staveley to One More Page today to celebrate the release of his new fantasy novel, Skullsworn; a standalone novel, set in the world of Staveley’s critically acclaimed Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne trilogy.

Brian  has taught literature, philosophy, history, and religion before writing epic fantasy. He lives on a steep dirt road in the mountains of southern Vermont, where he divides his time between fathering, writing, husbanding, splitting wood, skiing, and adventuring, not necessarily in that order. Welcome Brian!

I try, as a general rule, not to catalogue those aspects of my personality that embarrass me, but if I were to attempt such a catalogue, one item that would definitely make the list is this: I’m a movie crier.

Fine, you say. Everyone cries during movies. Obviously, I haven’t made clear the extent of the issue. I’m not talking about movies like Million Dollar Baby or Saving Private Ryan (though I cry during those, too). I will cry during X-Men. I will cry during a trailer for X-Men. If a television commercial is sufficiently moving—like something for life insurance or Subaru—I might cry during that, too.

Now, fortunately, we’re not talking about gasping, bawling, unable-to-breathe sobbing. Most people don’t even know I’m crying because I can be quite sneaky about it. I get a little choked up. There might be a silent tear or two. In a darkened movie theater it almost always goes unnoticed, though one needs to be discreet at Super Bowl parties.

Interestingly, the crying doesn’t always correspond to the sad moments. In fact, the crying often corresponds to the goosebumps I get during training montages, or when some character does something cool, egged on by an excellent sound track. Think: Han Solo’s surprise return at the end of A New Hope. This, for me, is an even more effective tear-jerker than the sad moments, like when Wicket the ewok is burned alive on a pyre. Wait, what? That didn’t happen? Well, good. I like Wicket.

Anyway, as it turns out, this crying tendency of mine has actually come to serve a vital role in my writing life. I cry when reading just as much as I do when watching movies. The book doesn’t necessarily have to be good, but it needs to create a certain mood. When I started writing fantasy, I spent a fair amount of time analyzing my own reactions to books. Whenever I put a book down for the night, I’d take a few minutes and try to understand why I chose to stop reading at that point, rather than earlier or later. When I decided to forge on into another chapter, I’d ask myself what, specifically, was making me want to keep reading. And when a book made me tear up, I’d dig into that, too. I wanted to understand the technical underpinnings to my emotional reactions.

My own books don’t make me cry—I’m too close to them, too mired in all the various drafts and unexplored possibilities. There are, however, two possibilities when I reread a scene that I’ve written: either I feel not all that much, or I feel a cold skin-prickle that I recognize as the precursor to what, if I were reading someone else’s book, might end up as tears. When I’m editing, I know the scenes that should elicit the skin-prickle. If they fail to do that, I rewrite them from the ground up. It’s not that I expect my readers to share all of my emotional reactions. Nor do I think every scene needs to be a tear-jerker. And yet it’s useful, in a job that can get so intellectual, to have a visceral barometer of a scene’s success, even if it’s just a personal one. And if I can get someone else to sob all over the book during their lunch hour, so much the better. I won’t need to feel quite so strange about my own silent weeping.

Skullsworn is published by Tor UK in hardback, ebook and audio formats on 20 April.

Find out more about Brian and his writing at: http://brianstaveley.com/index/

You can follow Brian on Twitter .

Stop by again later today for a chance to win a copy of Skullsworn.

Today I’m welcoming Inge Saunders to One More Page to talk about the challenges that she faced when writing her latest novella, The Wolf’s Choice. Inge lives in the biggest small town in South Africa‒ Worcester. She fell in love with books when she started reading romance novels with her grandmother. Intrigued by the worlds books unlocked, it was inevitable she would take pen to paper. She holds an Honors degree in Community Development and Learning Support and loves to sink her teeth into the research part of a story.

When she’s not writing about that ‘inexplicable attraction’ she’s reading almost every sub-genre in romance out there, spending time with friends and family and taking hikes in her hometown’s National Karoo Park.

As with all things in life, trying something new does bring its own set of challenges. And going from writing sweet contemporary romance to more spicy paranormal romance wasn’t the exception.

I remember at one point I did a post on my Facebook Author Page on the research I’d done on ‘how to approach writing a love scene’. Don’t worry I won’t do a recount here *smile*

But what is the challenge of writing sizzling instead of sweet? Romance is romance after all. There can’t be much difference between the two. And right there, I would lose my reader. Because a sweet romance reader is looking for something different than a reader who prefers a more sizzling read. As an author with a deep respect for readers (because I’m a reader myself) I sat back and dug deep to understand the complexity of the challenges I’m going to face as I tell the story.

The Wolf’s Choice is my first foray into romance that sizzles. It also forms part of a bigger world, The Black Hills Wolves, created by Heather Long and Rebecca Royce for Decadent Publishing. So I had to keep the requirements of the series in mind and stay true to what the creators had in mind of for it. And since the inspiration for the novella started off in my imagination with these two innocent teens meeting at the local Swimming Hole, I knew that I’m going to have a problem if I kept to my ‘old’ style of sweet romance writing (even though the scene when read on its own is sweet).

I think it’s good to note at this point that I don’t just read sweet romance. The romance books I buy range in heat levels, but I usually gravitate towards the stories that contain a happy medium. And that’s the crux for an author who’s going from a ‘clean’ read to a much hotter one. The first challenge you’ll face is to ask yourself, where’s my comfort level with the hotness-factor? Once you’ve established this, you’ll know whether you’ll be able to write a romance that sizzles or have to completely abandon that writing path.

The second challenge, I found, has to do with language, what words to use? Do you want to be graphic? What do your favorite authors use when they tackle a love scene? And most importantly, what type of language is used by the authors contracted for the series/line you want to write for? If the language is an issue for you, then don’t. To force is a crime *smile* and no one likes to be forced to do anything. I’ve read authors who use the words dick, pussy, etc. in such a jarring way that I stopped reading the story. To me, they are out of sync with their characters. If your heroine has never throughout the book even thought of sex or referred to her body parts in her mind or in the dialogue in erotic terms, then goodness why are you now suddenly having her using those terms? The language becomes jarring.

That’s something I had to study in The Wolf’s Choice. A woman with sexual experience wouldn’t necessarily be coy about sex. Though we all know it’s not that cut and dried, characters, like people are complex. (And this you’ll find out about my heroine Rebecca, when you read the story). But there are certain universal things we all accept and don’t about characters in novels.

So language is a definite challenge when writing a sizzling romance.

Don’t lose the plot. No seriously, don’t. Essentially you’re telling the story of two people falling in love and the obstacles that keep them from doing that. As a romance writer that’s your first priority. Don’t get bogged down by how hot your book’s supposed to be. Or by what page number your characters should have, at least, kissed. Or made love.  And don’t write love scenes as fillers. Some publishers might compromise story because sex is the subject of that imprint. But you have to keep in mind that at the heart of every romance is the emotional bond between the hero and heroine. The emotional bond adds layers to the sizzle and the sizzle in your story should advance the plot.

The important thing to acknowledge is that you’ll face challenges as you go along, but to not allow them to keep you from telling your story.

Thank you Inge.

The Wolf’s Choice is out now in ebook formats.

Find out more about Inge and her writing at:

Blog: https://ingesaunders.wordpress.com/

Books by Inge Saunders: http://bit.ly/1defI54

Twitter:

“I’ll pledge my loyalty to you through a blood oath, if you’ll support my choice of mate.”
Drew sank into his chair. “What does Rebecca have to say? The last time I spoke to her, she didn’t mention you.”
Blaine smiled. He hadn’t earned himself any favors. “She doesn’t know yet.”

Thirteen years ago Rebecca Ferguson died, at least to everyone in the Black Hills territory. With a human mother and unable to shift into a wolf, Magnum Tao, the deranged alpha of the Tao Pack would’ve had both her and her father killed for deceiving him. Magnum didn’t allow humans to mate with members of his pack.
Now Magnum is the one who’s dead, and Rebecca can return.
But coming back from the dead, building a new life after her divorce, and opening a library in town aren’t the only obstacles Rebecca faces. Elijah, her father, doesn’t approve of her being in Los Lobos to the point where he forbids her to get involved with the pack, especially the males.
Their relationship has suffered because of her absence and she hopes to bridge the divide, confident that she doesn’t want a romantic entanglement with anyone human or wolf, anyway.

In walks sexy private detective Blaine Walker.
Thirteen years ago Blaine stumbled on his mate at the local swimming hole. The next day, she was dead. Once he learns Rebecca is alive and living in Los Lobos, he decides it’s time to give up his career in Brooklyn and return to the Black Hills. But he knows it won’t be easy to claim her since Elijah’s unnaturally overprotective. The only way Elijah will back off is to challenge him.

A challenge that will end in one of their deaths.
The Tao Pack’s rebuilding itself and needs to guard against any threats outside or in. For Blaine to have any chance to claim Rebecca, Elijah needs to be dealt with and to deal with Elijah, Drew, the alpha of the Tao Pack, has to sanction the challenge according to pack law.

Rebecca can’t deny the old attraction she felt for Blaine is still there and even stronger now that they are grown up. She’s caught between the man fate has brought back to her and her father, whose affection she’s craved her whole life.
But there’s a secret governing Elijah’s erratic behavior that can cost Rebecca everything she’s worked hard to build and everything she thought she could never have with a man or wolf.
Will Rebecca and Blaine beat the odds stacked against them?
Or will the choices they make ultimately lead them down a path both of them don’t want?

I’m very excited to welcome Helen Peters to One More Page today to talk about her love of historic houses and how it inspired her beautiful new children’s novel, Evie’s Ghost. Helen grew up on an old-fashioned farm in Sussex, surrounded by family, animals and mud. She spent most of her childhood reading stories and putting on plays in a tumbledown shed that she and her friends turned into a theatre. After university, she became an English and Drama teacher. Helen lives with her husband and children in London, and she can hardly believe that she now gets to call herself a writer. Welcome Helen!

I have always loved visiting historic houses and imagining myself back to the days when they were properly lived in. And I’ve always envied the present-day staff who get to live in staff apartments in these beautiful places. The idea for Evie’s Ghost came to me when I visited Osterley Park, an incredibly grand eighteenth century palace now owned by the National Trust. I was fascinated to discover that the family who built it had only one child, a daughter, who had eloped, aged seventeen, with a man her parents considered unsuitable. I imagined a twenty-first century girl coming to live in this house because her mother had taken a job there. What if this girl somehow travelled back in time to meet the girl who lived there two hundred years earlier, and became caught up in her elopement plans?

I set the early drafts of Evie’s Ghost at Osterley Park, but Osterley Park is a sparkling, gilded, light-filled Georgian mansion, and I realised that I wanted the house in my book to have an older, ghostlier feel. So I based my fictional Charlbury House on another National Trust property: Chastleton, in Oxfordshire, an extraordinary house that has barely changed in four hundred years. I stayed with my family in the holiday apartment at this spooky Jacobean mansion one misty October half term, when the gardens, with their thick holly hedges and misshapen yew topiary, seemed particularly mysterious and ghost-laden.

Evie finds herself working as a housemaid at Charlbury, and visiting the servants’ quarters of historic houses helped me to imagine the lives of servants in the days before running water and central heating. Petworth and Uppark in Sussex have really well preserved servants’ quarters, with evocative artefacts and archive material that give the visitor a glimpse of servants’ working conditions and duties.

I find handwriting from the past particularly powerful, being so personal and specific. At my very favourite National Trust house, Ightham Mote in Kent, scratched into the glass of an upstairs window are the words, ‘Ann East, April 24 1791’. I’ve visited the house several times, and always wondered who Ann East was and why she scratched her name into that window. And then I read about Hellens Manor, an ancient house in Herefordshire, which has a particularly haunting message scratched into a bedroom windowpane. The message reads: ‘It is a part of virtue to abstain from what we love if it should prove our bane.’ The story goes that a young woman called Hetty Walwyn, who grew up at Hellens Manor in the seventeenth century, eloped with a stable boy. When she was widowed a few years later and returned to Hellens Manor, her family, furious at the disgrace she had brought upon them, imprisoned her for the rest of her life in the room where she scratched this message into the window glass with her diamond ring. According to legend, her ghost still haunts the chamber.

When I read this tragic tale, all the elements of my story finally came together. On her first night in her godmother’s house, Evie finds a message scratched into the glass of her bedroom window. It reads, ‘Sophia Fane, imprisoned here, 27th April 1814’. Evie’s discovery of this message is the beginning of her journey into the past and the story of the girl who scratched those words on her window two hundred years earlier.

Thank you Helen – I love visiting historic houses too – such fab inspiration!

Evie’s Ghost is released today (6th April) by Nosy Crow.

Find out more about Helen and her books at: http://nosycrow.com/contributors/helen-peters/

Evie couldn’t be angrier with her mother. She’s only gone and got married again and has flown off on honeymoon, sending Evie to stay with a godmother she’s never even met in an old, creaky house in the middle of nowhere. It is all monumentally unfair.

But on the first night, Evie sees a strange, ghostly figure at the window. Spooked, she flees from the room, feeling oddly disembodied as she does so.

Out in the corridor, it’s 1814 and Evie finds herself dressed as a housemaid. She’s certain she’s gone back in time for a reason. A terrible injustice needs to be fixed. But there’s a housekeeper barking orders, a bad-tempered master to avoid, and the chamber pots won’t empty themselves. It’s going to take all Evie’s cunning to fix things in the past so that nothing will break apart in the future…

Please welcome Annie Lyons to One More Page today on the latest stop of her blog tour for The Choir on Hope Street. Annie worked as a book seller and in publishing  before taking the jump to author. Her debut, Not Quite Perfect, went on to become a number one bestseller. Her second book The Secrets Between Sisters was nominated in the best eBook category at the 2014 Festival of Romance and Life or Something Like It was a top ten bestseller.

Annie enjoys channeling her inner Adele as part of her own beloved community choir and joins me today to tell us why she loves her choir so much. Welcome Annie!

Nearly two years ago my sister-in-law came to me with a proposal, which she said would be ‘fun’. Alarm bells began to ring at this point. During our child-free years our definitions of ‘fun’ led to some pretty evil hangovers and one particularly lengthy wait in A&E.

Still, we are older and wiser now or maybe just perpetually tired, so these days the proposals tend to be a bit more low-key.

‘My friend’s starting a community choir. She’s lovely. It will be fun. Do you fancy it?’

And actually I realised that I did. I’m not sure if it’s my age or possibly the age of my children, but I was suddenly aware that I no longer had any hobbies aside from ‘reading whilst my eyes slowly close at bedtime’ and ‘going to the cinema to see films provided they are rated 12A or below’.

I had officially become middle-aged and boring. It was time to get a hobby and have another go at this thing called fun.

So off to choir I went. From the first second I stepped into the room and we belted out ‘California Dreamin’’ I have loved it.

Here are the reasons why.

1. Singing is good for you

Due a combination of a wonky spine, two children and writing, I have a bad back but I never notice it while I’m singing. After a session of belting out everything from Stevie Wonder to Snow Patrol, my back often feels less tense too. It might be the posture, the breathing or my pretty awesome moves but there’s something about it that is positively healing.

2. Life has a soundtrack

In the film of my life, I make an entrance every morning to ‘Feeling Good’ by Nina Simone. Sadly, a combination of factors including my inability to make coherent conversation before the first coffee of the day and the withering response I would receive from my children, makes this impractical. However, I always have a song buzzing in my head. Sometimes it’s an ear-worm, often it’s something fantastic. Being part of a choir means I can now belt these out in the car, shower and supermarket with the legitimate excuse that I’m rehearsing. It’s brilliant.

3. You are never alone in a choir

I can carry a tune and I learn a harmony but I am not a soloist. Despite my best efforts in front of the mirror giving a heartfelt rendition of ‘Someone Like You’, I am not Adele. I’m not even Adele’s backing singer but I would give it a go if the call came. I can sing fine on my own but I sing better with my choir buddies. There’s something about catching someone’s eye mid-song and sharing a smile because you’ve got this. You are nailing ‘Uptown Girl’. Billy Joel would be proud.

4. You are learning new stuff and it’s challenging

In week three we started to learn ‘Africa’ by Toto. If you don’t know this song, add it to your playlist immediately. There’s a reason why NME ranked it 32 on a list of 50 ‘most explosive choruses’ – it’s choral catnip. It also has a three-part harmony (four if you’re ambitious). I was in group three. We ran through each part and then tried them all together. It didn’t go well for me. I kept getting distracted by the tune, groups one and two and Jeff Porcaro’s impeccable drumming. It was frustrating and difficult.  Our MD directed us to an enthusiastic and charming Italian musician’s You Tube channel. He had helpfully recorded each harmony part. I pored over this video and decided that I loved this man. I made my husband (a talented musician himself) practice with me. I played it over and over in the car. And then it went in. Just like that. Like all those lyrics to 80s pop songs that are actually turning out to be quite handy now, the ‘Africa’ chorus harmony, part 3 is indelibly printed on my brain. And it feels good (cue Nina Simone moment).

5. Performing in public is a blast

When I was a kid, I used to get nervous to the point of nausea about doing anything in public. Now, I get excited. Again, it wouldn’t be great for anyone if it was me singing on my own but in the spirit of ‘we’re all in this together’, it’s pure fun. Even when it goes wrong. And of course, when it goes right and people clap (an unexpected and welcome pleasure) or indeed cheer, it’s nothing short of intoxicating.

6. We get to do some amazing stuff

Last year, we took part in an event to mark the opening of the new Tate Modern building in London. Our choir formed part of a 500-voice London community choir performing a specially composed piece called ‘The Bridge’ by installation artist Peter Liversidge. We rehearsed and performed in the Tate’s awe-inspiring turbine hall with the brilliant conductor, Esmeralda Conde-Ruiz. The piece was weird, wonderful and completely original. It felt incredible to be part of this and even my nine-year-old son (habitually underwhelmed by anything that isn’t linked to football or wrestling) declared it to be, ‘really cool, Mum.’ And it was.

7. There’s always cake

As everyone knows (ask Gareth Malone if you don’t believe me), the secret to a really good choir is excellent cake. We have a brilliant resident baker called Lucy (you can check out her rather super cake, book and film blog here – https://keeps-me-busy.com/ ). If Lucy ever left the choir, I think we would be in trouble. It’s simply not possible to channel your inner Dolly or indeed Kenny during ‘Islands in the Stream’ unless you have either eaten or are about to eat cake. The raspberry and Prosecco cupcakes were a particular high-point.

8. Every community needs a choir

Yes, we kick up our heels at the Tate Modern and of course, when Kirstie Allsop invited us to her Handmade Fair, we said ‘will there be cake?’ and then agreed when we found out there would. But actually, our wonderful MD, Kari set up the choir for our local community. So we sing in our pub, at fundraising events, local fairs and basically anywhere we can if we’re asked. And when something awful happens as it did last year when a local boy and his aunt were killed when a car came off the road during a police pursuit, we come together to try to offer support by singing to raise money for the people who need it. It won’t take away the sadness but music has a way of offering comfort when you need it most.

9. Every choir needs a brilliant Musical Director

Our MD, Kari is a passionate, enthusiastic fizzing ball of energy. She inspires, cheers and boots us up the backside when we’re off key. She’s a great dancer and does her best to stop the mum-dancing and get us grooving. She teaches us new stuff, she encourages others to lead songs and she challenges us. Most of all, she makes it fun.

10. Choir people are good people

I have met some lovely people since joining the choir. We sing, we chat, we sing some more, we eat cake, chat some more, possibly have another slice of cake and do a bit more singing. It’s the perfect evening really. Add in the occasional Prosecco-fuelled gig and I’m a happy camper. I have found my people and singing with them is the best.

Thank you Annie – you’ve made me wish I could sing! Your choir sounds wonderful!

The Choir on Hope Street is released in paperback and ebook formats on 6th April from HarperCollins.

Today I’m delighted to welcome Eve Seymour to One More Page to talk to us about the location inspiration for her latest novel, Vixenhead. Eve is the author of nine novels and has had a number of short stories broadcast on BBC Radio Devon.

After a short and successful career in PR in London and Birmingham, she married and disappeared to Devon. Five children later, she returned and began to write seriously.

In a bid to make her work as authentic as possible, she has bent the ears of numerous police officers, firearms officers, scenes of crime, the odd lawyer and United Nations personnel. She also works by day as a freelance editorial consultant, specialising in crime fiction. Welcome Eve!

When I write I tend to draw heavily on places with which I’m familiar.  If I don’t know them already, I take pains to do the legwork.  Once, memorably, for a spy novel, I flew to Berlin for four days.  Clearly, some places lend themselves more obviously for certain stories than others.  

I’m a huge fan of Cheltenham.  My last three novels are set there and ‘Vixenhead’ is no exception.  It’s where my main character, Roz Outlaw, lives and works.  I know the place intimately, including the address where she rents and the workplace from where she is made redundant.  I’ve walked down her streets, strolled through her park and driven out of town on the exact same route she takes.  Having said this, Cheltenham does not receive star billing in the way it does in previous novels and for a very good reason:  I needed a creepy and dark environment for the story.  Cheltenham, with its glossy streets and Regency architecture, doesn’t quite fit the bill.     

There is more than a passing reference to Ludlow, not somewhere with which Roz is familiar, unlike myself.  I found it fun to view the centre of the Welsh Marches through a stranger’s eyes.  The main action, however, takes place in North Wales and the choice of location sparked from a short leisure break at Deganwy Quay with my husband.  It was March.  The weather was typically blustery and a little wet – exactly the same as in ‘Vixenhead’.  Having never visited before, I found myself captivated by nearby Conwy Castle, a spectacular backdrop to what is essentially a small walled market town.  From our hotel balcony, we had a perfect view of the castle illuminated at night.  Spooky and beautiful, it got me thinking.  

The hotel in Conwy, in which Roz stays for a short time, was somewhere we went for dinner.  I also ate the same meal as Roz, although I enjoyed mine a lot more! ‘Vixenhead,’ the house where all hell breaks loose, emanates from a drive down a narrow lane.   On our travels, I spotted a sign to ‘Wolf House’ and simply ran with the idea, although ‘Vixenhead’ itself, and the place where it is set, is purely fictional.  Not quite so the grounds.  

I’m not much of a gardener.  In fact, a single glance at a plant from me usually ensures its swift demise.  In other words I struggled slightly with ‘Vixenhead’s immediate surroundings.  If you read the novel, you’ll appreciate their importance.  Happily, around the time I was worrying about my total absence of horticultural skills, we went for a walk near Cowley Manor, a fabulous hotel, with a quirky interior, in the Cotswolds.  It also happens to have 55 acres of land.   Having heard a lot about Cowley’s collection of art and sculpture, we ventured inside for a peek.  We received a warm, friendly greeting from a member of staff who invited us to explore the hotel and grounds.  To find our way around the gardens, we were given a handy map.  This, and our tour outside, provided the basis for the acres of land surrounding ‘Vixenhead’ – gargoyles and all.  

Vixenhead is out now in ebook formats from HarperImpulse.

Somewhere in Vixenhead, I’m certain the truth lies…

A sudden disappearance…

When Roz Outlaw’s partner Tom mysteriously vanishes, she knows his life is in danger. Tom has been distracted lately, afraid, as though he is being hunted…

A desperate search…

With the police showing little interest Roz knows it falls to her to find Tom. But as Tom’s secrets are uncovered nothing can prepare Roz for the dark lies and twisted truths she finds. She thought she loved Tom, but quickly realises she has been living with a stranger – a man with murder in his past.

A house of evil.

The key to unlocking Tom’s past lies in his childhood home – Vixenhead. A house of wickedness that keeps its secrets well hidden. Can Roz find Tom before it’s too late or will the evil within Vixenhead claim her too…

Find out more about Eve and her writing at: http://www.evseymour.co.uk/

 

 

Today I’m very excited to be the first host of Elsa Winckler’s blog tour for her new novel, The Whisperer. Elsa has been reading love stories for as long as she can remember and when she ‘met’ the classic authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James and The Brontë sisters during her Honours studies, she was hooked for life.

Elsa married her college boyfriend and soul mate and after forty-one years, three interesting and wonderful children and three beautiful grandchildren, he still makes her weak in the knees. They are fortunate to live in the picturesque little seaside village of Betty’s Bay, South Africa, with the ocean a block away and a beautiful mountain right behind them. The Whisperer is Elsa’s debut novel for HarperImpulse – welcome Elsa!

I have dedicated this story to our second son, Giliam Johan. He was the one who taught me to think outside the box.

Our oldest son was a text book baby. At the time I had a baby book I consulted whenever I had a problem with him and whatever advice I got, worked. So I thought, hey, I can do this again, let’s have another baby. So two years later, Johan arrived. And nothing in any of the many, many baby books that I read, helped. What worked for number one, simply didn’t work for him.

Johan was a curious, busy, creative little boy. In grade one he was chosen to play Spick, a naughty kid who lives on the moon. And when he walked on to that primary school stage, something magical happened. That was what he was suppose to do for the rest of his life, I knew.

As a teenager, he caused me many a sleepless night. And that curiosity I mentioned? Well, he was curious about just about everything. He challenged our ideas of how things were supposed to be and we had many, many stand-up fights.

He has a heart for the marginalized, for anyone who differs from the rest. He doesn’t see colour, size or position, he treats everyone the same. We finally came to accept he does things differently, because in Thoreau’s words, he hears a different drummer. And it took me a long while ‘to let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.’

And when I finally stopped trying to get him to fit into a box, I was able to learn from him. And one of the things knowing him taught me was that we cannot explain everything, some things just are. And talking about doing things differently, at the moment he teaches English in China. I would have liked for him to be closer, to get that big role he dreamt about when he was little, but he’s doing his own thing in his own way. Outside the box.

Not everyone will believe in Cilla’s intuition, in her ability to communicate with animals. Cameron struggled with it but when he opened himself up, when he finally listened to his instinct, he was able to let go of his fears.

So I hope you can let go of your ideas of how things are supposed to work, and enjoy Cilla and Camerons’ story!

The Whisperer is out now in ebook formats from HarperImpulse

Please extend a very warm welcome to Bella Osborne today as she joins me to celebrate the release of Willow Cottage: A Spring Affair,  part three of her lovely Willow Cottage series.

Bella has been jotting down stories as far back as she can remember.  In 2016, her debut novel, It Started At Sunset Cottage, was shortlisted for the Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year and RNA Joan Hessayon New Writers Award.

Bella’s stories are about friendship, love and coping with what life throws at you. Bella believes that writing your own story really is the best fun ever, closely followed by talking, eating chocolate, drinking fizz and planning holidays. She joins us today to tell us all about her dream writing space. Welcome Bella!

Hi One More Page,

Thank you for being the next stop on the blog tour, it’s great to be on your blog today.

Part 3 of Willow Cottage is set in springtime and this got me thinking about the outdoors (bear with me) which led to me to imaging my dream writing space – a shepherd’s hut.

Sadly my garden isn’t big enough to accommodate one but if I had a spare field I would definitely save up my pennies and buy one of these beauties (I may even give up custard creams to achieve this*).

So what is a shepherd’s hut? Originally it was exactly what it says on the tin – a simple hut that a shepherd took shelter in during the lambing season. The original huts contained the essentials to survive for a few hours like a stove for heat and to cook on as well as water and a bed. Made from wood with a curved corrugated iron roof and mounted on wheels so they could be easily moved from field to field, they were functional rather than pretty.

However, thanks to modern farming methods you are now more likely to see one converted into something akin to a summerhouse and many are built from scratch with modern materials but mimicking the classic design. I love to while away time looking at some of the creations on the Internet when I’m meant to be writing (I think it’s one up from watching videos of kittens). This converted hut, that belongs to watercolour artist Jean Batterbee, is the sort of thing I would love to have…

I could imagine myself sat there writing away although the reality would more likely be that I would be wasting time on the internet looking at something else I can’t afford!

What would be your dream space?

*No, not really! I’d like one but not that much!

Thanks Bella – I think a Shepherd’s Hut would make an ideal reading nook too!

Willow Cottage: part three – A Spring Affair is out now in ebook formats.

Beth is running away. With her young son Leo to protect, Willow Cottage is the lifeline she so desperately needs. Overlooking the village green in a beautiful Cotswolds idyll, Beth sees a warm, caring and safe place for little Leo.

When she finally uncovers the cottage from underneath the boughs of a weeping willow tree, Beth realises this is far more of a project than she bargained for and the locals are more than a little eccentric! A chance encounter with gruff Jack, who appears to be the only male in the village under thirty, leaves the two of them at odds but it’s not long before Beth realises that Jack has hidden talents that could help her repair more than just Willow Cottage

Over the course of four seasons, Beth realises that broken hearts can be mended, and sometimes love can be right under your nose…

Willow Cottage is part of a serialized novel told in four parts, following the journey of Beth and her new life in the Cotswolds. The full book will be out next this August, but for now, enjoy Willow Cottage seasonally.

Find out more about Bella and her writing at: http://www.bellaosborne.com/

I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Rosanna Ley’s new novel, The Little Theatre By The Sea, today. Rosanna is the bestselling author of novels including Return to Mandalay and The Villa and Last Dance in Havana. I love Rosanna’s books and the wonderful places she takes me to in them. In this new release, we visit Sardinia and Rosanna joins me today to talk about her favourite things about Sardinia. Welcome Rosanna!

The Best Things I Discovered about Sardinia

• Top of the list has got to be the stunning beaches. Some of them are ‘secret’ beaches as in little rocky coves which can be pretty isolated or maybe only accessible by sea. The clarity of the water here is second to none. My favourite beach – destined to be secret no longer – was at Cala Domestica on the West coast accessed by driving through the mountains past now-deserted mining villages. Take a turning down to the sea, park on the grass, cross a boardwalk, pick your way along a rocky trail a bit like a goat track and go through a tunnelled archway – to discover a keyhole cove invisible from both land and sea. It’s amazing…
• Myrtle. Yes – I’m talking about the plant. In Sardinia, myrtle is part of the ‘maquis’ which cloaks the hills and valleys along with juniper and tamarisk. It has deep green leaves and fragrant white flowers and is sacred to Venus, goddess of love and so tends to make an appearance at Sardinian weddings. (Ideal for a writer of romantic fiction). Even more vital, it is used to make a delicious Sardinian liqueur known as mirto. (You can spot myrtle on the cover of Little Theatre by the Sea).
• Delicious Food. I love Italian food but Sardinia goes one step further – and it’s in the right direction. Some of my favourites were:  burrida (a spicy fish soup), spaghetti con bottarga (with mullet roe) and malloreddus (a gnocchi style pasta cooked with saffron in tomato sauce). I also loved fregola – an unusual pasta similar to cous-cous, often served with clams. And as for the lobster… Take me back there – now!
• Bosa. I’ve chosen Bosa as my favourite town in Sardinia because it’s historic and pretty and because I used it as the main inspiration for my fictional town of Deriu. The things I loved most about Bosa were the mediaeval cobbled streets, the gorgeous pastel-painted houses and the colourful markets. But there was so much more – the Castello dei Malaspino, the river Temo, the marina, the restaurants… Bosa was founded by the Phoenicians and its artisan traditions of gold-filigree jewellery and lace-making live on.
• The frescoes. Italian frescoes are often still so vibrant that it’s hard to believe how old they really are. My favourites were in the fourteenth century Nostra Signora di Regnos Altos chapel in the ruins of the castle at the top of the hill in Bosa. Restoration in the 1970s has brought to light these most stunning cycle of Catalan school frescoes – unexpected, vivid and truly beautiful to behold.
• The amphitheatre at Nora. Sardinia is one of the most ancient lands in Europe and for a flavour of its history, my favourite site would be the Roman city of Nora in the south west, built on a spit of land jutting out to sea. It’s the location which makes it magical, but you can still see the Roman baths decorated with white, black and ochre tesserae mosaics, a theatre dating from the second century AD, paved Roman roads and even the original sewage system. Guaranteed to take your breath away.
• Flamingos! Who would expect to see flamingos in Sardinia..? I love these elegant birds and fortunately, they have taken to nesting in the wild in the marshes of the Sinis peninsula near Oristano and down on the south coast near Cagliari. An unexpected and delightful treat.
• Costa del Sud. This 25 kilometre coastal drive from Chia to Teulada in Southern Sardinia is off the beaten track and a complete joy. What a road… It winds beside steep cliffs and snakes past hidden beaches and then the view opens out in glorious technicolour to display an entire stretch of the magnificent coastline. Which is what Sardinia is all about really…

Thank you Rosanna – I’m adding Sardinia to my list of ‘must visit’ places!

The Little Theatre by the Sea is out now in hardback, ebook and audio formats from Quercus.

Faye has just completed her degree in interior design when she finds herself jobless and boyfriend-less. While debating what to do next she receives a surprise phone call from her old college friend Charlotte who now lives in Sardinia and is married to Italian hotelier, Fabio.

When Charlotte suggests that Faye relocate for a month to house-sit, Faye wonders if a summer break in sunny Sardinia might be the perfect way to recharge her batteries and think about her future. But then Charlotte tells Faye that there’s something more behind the sudden invitation: her friends Marisa and Alessandro are looking for a designer to renovate a crumbling old theatre they own in the scenic village of Deriu. The idea certainly sounds appealing to Faye, but little does she know what she’s letting herself in for if she accepts this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity . . .

Find out more about Rosanna and her writing at: http://www.rosannaley.com