Thobe? Or not to Thobe? by Trisha Ashley

We asked Trisha Ashley to tell us about the inspiration behind her latest book, A Leap of Faith.

I’m delighted that The Urge to Jump is being republished and ebooked under the fresh new title A Leap of Faith – and with a lovely, sparkly new cover. It was the second of my romantic comedies and very hard to get hold of, so at last I have an answer to those endless requests to know where readers can get a copy!

My heroine, Sappho Jones, is tall, bossy and opinionated – so very different to me (though friends might beg to differ on at least two counts…). Luckily, Sappho has a big heart to match and when she moves to an old cottage on the Gower, in South Wales, she sets out to help her two best friends achieve their dreams…even if they don’t realise exactly what it is they want, before she takes a hand!

There are a couple of points of similarity between myself and Sappho that I don’t mind admitting to: I love to walk about barefoot, too, connected to the earth - and also, we both own a strange, kaftan-like robe called a Thobe. (And no, I have no idea how you pronounce that. Toe-bee, or not Thow-be, that is the question…)

I had no idea of my robe’s origins when I bought it in a charity shop well over thirty years ago, I just knew that it was beautiful and I wanted it. And I wore it: to parties, when I had people over for dinner, when I just wanted to feel mysterious. I have a photograph of me somewhere wearing it, sitting in front of one of my larger paintings and holding my son, who is a few months old. It was a very forgiving garment.

This was all in the dark ages before computer research made finding information literally child’s play, so I put in some time at the library and finally discovered similar robes (which the author called Thobs) in a book on Palestinian costume. Mine seemed to be Bedouin, made by women for women - and the original owner must have been very tall, because it’s a little long on me. Back when I bought it, I used to wear it with shiny black and gold Indian leather mules with small wedge heels. And my method of hairdressing then, and for a couple of decades, was to brush my hair back, give my head a good shake so that it fell from a central parting, then let it hang loose and long. I have fine hair, though, while Sappho has thick, glorious hair with a Rapunzel complex. 

Anyway, back to the Thob or Thobe: going by the book, mine was most similar to robes made in the 1920’s, but I expect the designs were handed down and repeated. The material is a thick, heavy black satin fabric, with most of the embroidery sewn before the sections were put together. It is entirely handmade and the embroidery sewn in minute cross-stitch in shaded silks, with flowers, birds and baskets of fruit. The neckline is hemstitched. It’s a work of art, and I love it. And it must love me, because – see! - in the picture I can still get into it, despite all the years and the extra pounds.

Now I’m folding it up into its acid-free tissue paper, along with the memories it invoked, and placing it back in the big, camphorwood-lined carved chest on the landing. My Pandora’s box, though not of troubles, but delights.

A Leap of Faith

by Trisha Ashley

Sappho Jones stopped counting birthdays when she reached thirty but, even with her hazy grip on mathematics, she realises that she's on the slippery slope to the big four-oh! With the thought suddenly lodged in her mind that she's a mere cat's whisker away from becoming a single eccentric female living in a country cottage in Wales, she has the urge to do something dramatic before it's too late.

The trouble is, as an adventurous woman of a certain age, Sappho's pretty much been there, done that, got the T-shirt. In fact, the only thing she hasn't tried is motherhood. And with sexy potter Nye on hand as a potential daddy - or at least donor - is it time for her to consider the biggest leap of all? It's either that or buy a cat . . .

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A Mother's Duty by June Francis



Looking for Inspiration:
June Francis (left)
at a writers' party in London

I don’t often get inspired when it comes to writing the next novel. An idea doesn’t hit me like a bolt from the blue. I was really searching around for ideas for my novel, renamed A Mother's Duty, when it actually occurred to me to do what published writers are forever telling wannabes, and that is write about what you know. So this book is one close to my heart because it is about Kitty, a mother of three sons. I know what that is like. What it feels like to have someone poke their heads under the hood of a pram and say, “What is it?” And, when I answered the second and third time, “A boy,” a look would come over some faces and I would hear the words, “Another boy! Wouldn’t you have liked a little girl?”

Big sense of failure! Especially as my mother-in-law was one of those who longed for a granddaughter, having given birth to just twin boys, herself.

So Kitty, who just like me loves the bones of her lads, has a secret longing for a daughter. It’s not that she has a sense of failure, though, because she had given birth to a girl. Sadly it had been stillborn. Happily I never had to harbour such a grief.

We writers have to spend a lot of time thinking up obstacles to put in the way of our main characters achieving their aim. So Kitty is a widow who has passed thirty-five. I also wanted her situation to be a bit out of the norm so decided she would be the proprietor of a hotel. There were lots of hotels in Liverpool city centre during the period I had settled on ‒ the Thirties ‒ with plenty going on, ending with WW2 and the famous May blitz in 1941. I knew next to nothing about running a hotel, so I rang the doorbell of one on Mount Pleasant and hoped for the best. I was blessed because I was welcomed in by the proprietor’s son, which led to an interesting conversation with his mother. There is nothing like research for giving a writer ideas.

Hotels on Mount Pleasant, Liverpool

What about my hero? I didn’t want to write the obvious, such as him being a guest in the hotel. No, he’s an ex-medical orderly who had seen action in the Great War. Half-English, half-Scots, with a secret, he’s a bit of a wanderer and entertains cinema queues playing the fiddle.

How much were Kitty’s sons inspired by my own three? I never put real people in my books but I use the odd trait. So the eldest son has a sense of responsibility and is a bit of a worrier. The middle one has a touch of the rebel and the adventurer which gets him into trouble. As for the youngest, he has a real curiosity about people which can lead him astray.

Does Kitty get what she longs for? You’ll have to read the book to find out!

  

A Mother's Duty
Out now!

Creature Comforts

Trisha Ashley’s new novel, CREATURE COMFORTS, is out this week and we thought we would take the opportunity to ask her about any creatures she has owned over the years – and if any of them ever made it into her novels!

In Creature Comforts the heroine, Izzy, has broken off her engagement to her feckless fiancée Kieran and returned to her childhood home – the sleepy village of Halfhidden. She soon realises that life in the village is anything but peaceful – for one thing she’s living with her mad aunt Debo, who runs Debo’s Desperate Dog Rescue.

One of Debo’s rescue dogs is a black Newfoundland called Babybelle, who is supposed to live outside with the other dogs, but slowly insinuates her way into the house and the affections of Izzy, who until then hadn’t even realised she wanted a dog.

Trisha says: I have always loved dogs. When I was first married we got a dog from a rescue home in Liverpool. Sasha looked like a little fox and wasn’t housetrained or used to people, so she was a challenge, but she lived for thirteen years. After that we had a King Charles spaniel called Steffi, after the tennis player, Steffi Graff. She inspired Flossie in Every Woman for Herself and was very loveable, but had the intelligence of a cushion. If I called her, she would look around to see who I was speaking to and then gaze blankly at me as if to say “Me?” When I went out I would leave her spread-eagled in her bed, all four paws in the air, and when I came back several hours later she would be in exactly the same position, looking at me as if to say, “Oh, hello. Have you been anywhere?” She was the perfect pet for a writer!

For many years I had an Amazon Blue Fronted Parrot, too, who featured in Good Husband Material (only I changed him to a grey parrot). He would swear in Spanish and liked to bite men (a perfect character trait; you couldn’t fault that!) although he would always laugh afterwards! When I was a student I looked after him for a week and then somehow he stayed on. He was elderly, half-blind and he couldn’t fly, but he used to spend most of his time sitting on the outside of his cage where he could get a good grip and lean out to bite people. Sadly, after over thirty years together, he died just before I moved to Wales.

My current dog, like Babybelle in Creature Comforts, is a rescue dog, who was originally adopted by my son, Robin. When Robin went away to university, I said I would look after Dog (as I call him online: he is a very private dog and insists I refer to him by his title alone) and now he lives with me. He was the inspiration for Flash in Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues. Dog is completely mad and drives me totally crackers, but I love him dearly and wouldn’t be without him!

Dog in the bluebells

My Sunlounger Experience by Valerie-Anne Baglietto

Kindle Summer Sale ONLY 99p - See SUNLOUNGER 2 on Amazon UK
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It started with a handbag. Well, OK, no. It didn't. But a handbag does feature in this blog post. 

It actually started with an email from the lovely, industrious Belinda Jones early in 2013. Fellow Novelista Trisha Ashley had recommended me (and Louise Marley and Margaret James) for an anthology Belinda was planning called SUNLOUNGER. The criteria was, it had to be set somewhere foreign and preferably sunny, transporting the reader to exotic shores, cities, temples, mountains... anywhere but here. Pure escapism, in effect.

And so I took up the challenge, selected Gibraltar as my setting, as I was born there and still have a lot of family on the Rock, and decided there ought to be an unconventional genie in the tale. Of course. Why not? A brass lamp and a fit genie and a young woman desperately in need of a miracle.

Now I hadn't really written a short story in years. I always scribble on until it turns into a novel. But I took up the challenge (yes, I know I've said that already, but it really WAS a challenge for me) and penned a story under five-thousand words. And something wonderful and unexpected happened - I loved the experience! I loved learning to be brief and to spin a plot that would span a single day rather than months or a year. I relished keeping characterisation spare and painting a picture of the heroine's back-story that would leave the reader with a sense of heartbreak and hope. And from reviews I received afterwards, it worked.

Then, guess what? I was asked if I was interested in doing it all over again for SUNLOUNGER 2. So I bit Belinda's arm off and plucked Gran Canaria from a list of potential sun-soaked destinations. Again, it was a pleasure to write *coughs* - when it was going well - and I ended up with an eight-thousand word story this time. But I allowed my narrator to tell the tale, and that was the length she wanted. As it fitted with Belinda's new maximum word count, I gave my narrator a break. She deserved it; she'd pulled the story straight out of her soul and I think it was painful for her. Sometimes I feel as if I am a medium, and some spirit is telling me their story, murmuring their heartbreak and dreams in my head, especially when I'm working in the first person POV. Anyway, it got written, and now it's there in black and white, or sepia, or whatever colour you prefer for your eBook reading, for the world to hopefully enjoy.

And so now we come to the handbag. Seriously, I'm a bag-aholic (it's in my surname, after all) so there had to be a handbag coming into it somewhere. Directly below, in fact. 

I treated myself to it with birthday dosh, and took it proudly down to London when I attended the Sunlounger Party at Trader Vic's at the end of May. As bags go, I felt it perfectly encapsulated the whole Sunlounger ethos, and I got a few comments about it. I also took a man with an Hawaiian shirt to the party, but it turns out he felt surplus to requirements and went for a wander along Park Lane instead, where he promptly managed to get himself lost for an hour. I know, don't ask.

Made by the lovely Tracy of Tracy's T-cakes

With debut author Stephanie Wahlstrom (left)

So here are a few photos from the party, mainly involving cocktails and cakes. Unfortunately fellow Novelista Louise Marley couldn't come along to London with me, so I had to enjoy the Mai Tais and the gorgeous cupcakes on her behalf as well as indulging for my own sake. It was a hardship, which you can probably tell from my face. No? Oh. Well, hopefully, if it's repeated in 2015, I'll be able to drag her along.

Belinda Jones (left) and a few of the SUNLOUNGER authors at Trader Vic's

To make up for it this year, though, Louise and I are throwing a mini SUNLOUNGER 2 launch with our Novelista friends early in July. I hope the sun shines, and even though there won't be cocktails, as anyone familiar with the Novelistas can testify, there will definitely, categorically be cake!

www.valerie-annebaglietto.com
Twitter: @VABaglietto
Facebook: Valerie-Anne Baglietto Author

The Story Behind Safe Harbour by Beth Francis

Safe Harbour has just been published as a pocket novel by People's Friend. Author Beth Francis tells us how she was inspired to write the story.

 

With the rain lashing the windows, gale force winds and dire warnings of tide surges it’s hard to imagine the hot summer’s day when I sat on the sea wall watching a yacht edge towards her mooring. An idyllic picture. I imagined a woman at the helm and wrote the first page of a novel, before turning back to my current writing project.

 

A year or so later, slipping and sliding along the muddy paths of the forest at Pentraeth I pitched the idea to Erika, another of the Novelistas, who was demanding to know what I was writing next.

 

“What’s her name. Why is she unhappy? Why did she leave if she loved him? Why did she come back? Is she a wimp?”

 

The questions came thick and fast and I became defensive about Jess, who until that moment had simply been a cardboard cut-out on a boat. By the end of the walk I was eager to get back to my computer and tell her story.

 

We used to own a small boat but I was a cautious and slightly nervous sailor, never comfortable out of sight of land, always happiest recollecting the day’s sail once we had safely moored. I was also always slightly anxious that my sailing skills would not be good enough to bring the boat to land if my husband was suddenly taken ill. I had no idea, when starting to write, that Jess would face just that problem, but hope I would have managed as well as she did.

 

It was the setting that first inspired me, and as I wrote, I walked the coastal paths around Amlwch with my husband trying to see the familiar scenery through Jess’s eyes. With the story almost finished, I sent the first few chapters off to People’s Friend, intending to take a picnic to Llandwen Island on the next sunny day to make notes for the final chapter.

 

Life intervened and before the sun came my husband collapsed. He was recovering in hospital in Liverpool when an e-mail arrived from People’s Friend asking to see the rest of the story. It was impossible. My life was taken up with trains, hospital visits and confusion. But Erika had other ideas. A few days later we were walking on Llandwen Island, where I found the perfect spot for the end of the novel.

 

I wrote the last chapter on the Liverpool Metro and was on the last paragraph when a Canadian tourist asked me if I was a professor. When I said I was writing fiction she told me how her boyfriend had just proposed. It was so romantic! But that’s another story …

 

 

 

When Jess Tyler's brother, Oliver, phones from Johannesburg ...and persuades her to go sailing with him, he doesn't tell her he's trying to avoid certain individuals, nor that the yacht he has conveniently been loaned is moored off Anglesey. Having spent the intervening years trying to forget an idyllic summer there with local boy Matt Pritchard, Jess finds herself once more sailing along the coastline that she and Matt explored together.

 

Available now, at supermarkets and newsagents, price £2.99

The Story Behind the Book: 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love' by Louise Marley

I was originally given two days to come up with the idea for Why Do Fools Fall in Love. My agent wanted to sell it as part of a two-book deal with Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. In the end, the deal with the proposed publisher fell through and I signed with someone else. But this is how I came up with the story.
 

Whenever I write a book I always start with a subject that interests me. In this case it was the film industry. I knew I didn’t want to write about Hollywood, because I didn’t want the story to be too glitzy, so it had to be the British film industry.

 

I liked the idea of two attractive men, who were complete opposites in personality, competing for the same woman. But who was this woman?

I remembered that old movie, the Bodyguard, and briefly thought about having a female actress and a hunky male bodyguard. I dismissed that idea for being too obvious, but then had the idea to switch the sexes. What if I had a too-handsome-for-his-own-good actor being forced to put up with a minder, because wherever he goes he inadvertently gets into trouble? What if the female bodyguard was equally reluctant to take on the job, feeling she’s being forced to ‘babysit’ an actor who’s too stupid to duck when women throw themselves at him?

Researching the book was remarkably easy. At the time I was living in a tiny village just outside Bath (a magnet for any production company wanting to make a costume drama), and I spent a day watching the BBC film A Respectable Trade.

Although I came up with the synopsis over a couple of days, the book itself took a year to write and was eventually sold to Poolbeg Press. When the rights reverted back to me, I republished it as an ebook with Amazon KDP. It has now sold over 40,000 copies.

Not bad for a book thought up over a weekend!

 

 

 

 

The Next Big Thing - Never Trust a Rake by Annie Burrows

I've been tagged by fellow writer Anne Bennett to participate in The Next Big Thing, where authors tell you all about their latest book. So here goes!

What is the working title of your new book?

Never Trust a Rake

You can buy it here: Never Trust a Rake

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I have no idea - I was probably doing something incredibly boring and drifted off into a daydream. Why my daydreams so often feature Regency Rakes pursuing innocent young misses is a question probably best answered by a psychiatrist.

What genre does your book fall under?

Regency romance.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

There are no actors sufficiently rakish to portray any of the heroes I dream up. That is why I have to dream them up for myself, rather than becoming a fan of someone real (and therefore flawed).

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Rake meets his match in an innocent country miss.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

An agency? Do you mean, do I have an agent? No, I don't. But the books I write are published by Harlequin in the US, and Mills & Boon in the UK and Australia.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It usually takes me about 6 - 7 weeks to do a first draft of a book, during which I just fling everything I can think of at the page. Then I print it out to see what I've got, groan in despair, and start frantically revising. This part often makes me feel as though I'm shut in a dungeon trying to spin gold out of straw. When I've gone through the entire story to my satisfaction, I print it out again, and usually by this stage it only needs a few more tweaks before I feel it is in good enough shape to send to my editor.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I can't compare my work to anyone else! I do the best I can, with ideas I think I've come up with all by myself - but who was it said that a writer's mind is a bit like a compost heap? I write the kind of story I enjoy reading, so I'm sure I've been greatly influenced by Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, and everyone else who's ever written a regency romance since I've been old enough to read them. But I wouldn't dare say my work is like anyone else's - it would either make me sound as though I was boasting I was as good as them, or as though I was writing pathetically slavish parodies.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Well, if you enjoy light-hearted regency romance, then you might enjoy reading about a man who doesn't trust women, but needs to marry to produce an heir, go about the business of finding a wife he can trust - and getting completely bowled over by the unsuspecting girl he targets.

The next author I’ve tagged to tell you about her new book is my fellow Novelista Trisha Ashley.

The Next Big Thing by Louise Marley

I've been tagged by fellow writer Juliet Greenwood to participate in The Next Big Thing, where authors tell you all about their next book. So here goes.

What is the title of your book?

My new book is called Breathless. The heroine is Lainey Jennings, a diving instructor who is obsessed with finding a long-lost wreck called the Mary Eliza.

You can find the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00A9GHS5A

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Lots of different ideas collided to inspire me to write this book. The history of the Mary Eliza was loosely based on a real life ship called the Swan, which sank off the Isle of Mull in 1653. The idea of a warship sinking with its looted cargo came from the true story of the siege of Dundee in 1651. Although I expect my interest in wrecks really began with the raising of the Mary Rose, a Tudor warship which sank in 1545. As a child I remember watching on TV as her hull was finally brought to the surface after 437 years on the seabed.

I’m also fascinated by family history, and the way stories can become garbled as they are passed down through the generations. My grandfather used to love telling me tales about our seafaring ancestors, who had lived in the same Hampshire village for more than four hundred years. This gave me the idea for the character of Joseph Halfpenny, who is convinced he is descended from a notorious smuggler - even though he can’t actually prove it! Running alongside Lainey’s story I have included extracts from a journal written in 1695, which tells the story of this smuggler.

What genre does your book fall under?

My story is a blend of murder mystery and romantic comedy.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Lainey is described as being small, athletic and with short black hair. If I were to choose an actress to play her, it would probably be Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays Snow White in Once Upon A Time.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I usually take a year to write a book.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Aren’t smugglers and shipwrecks enough? I’m also fascinated by celebrity culture and my books often have a character who is a celebrity. In this book it’s Zac Nelson, a marine archeologist and TV presenter, who is famous for his documentary series on shipwrecks.

The next author I’ve tagged to tell you about her new book is my fellow Novelista, Valerie-Anne Baglietto.