Just Keep Writing and Other Thoughts...

When Judy Astley Ran Away

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:05:00 +0000

Here's Judy's story...

I ran away the day the headmistress laughed and told me I was “Flying a bit high” when I asked if it would be OK to apply to Oxford university. Humiliated, I stormed out of school at midday, raced home to change out and went up to the corner where the road heads for the M4 to start hitching a lift to visit my friend David at Magdalen college, Oxford for tea and sympathy.

We all hitch-hiked in the days before central locking meant no escape from the axe murderer. Drivers were kind to a girl alone and I had a rule about lorries – not to get in. Today though, cars stopped but none were going more than a couple of miles. So when the truck pulled up I thought, oh just this once - it’ll be fine.

The driver was cheerful and friendly. He gave me a telling off and said that he wouldn’t want a daughter of his risking her life by hitching so he’d take me all the way to Magdalen bridge, just to be sure I was safe.

Except – suddenly he was turning off the M4 at Slough This was NOT the way to Oxford.

He drove into a bleak industrial estate, parked outside the massive Mars confectionary warehouse and climbed out. I considered making a run for it but I found he’d locked the doors. I was going to be found naked and strangled in a ditch. My poor mum.

Then he was back telling me to hop out and get in the car parked alongside. He’d finished his shift, was heading for home and he handed me a big box, saying, ‘Here, a souvenir.’ It was full of Mars bars, Milky Ways and Galaxy bars. I thanked him and the journey continued but I’d be lying if I said I relaxed.

David and I munched our way through the box’s contents and he offered me his bed for the night. I thought about it but… back then he risked being sent down for having a girl in his room. And it was freezing and the loo was down two flights of stairs and across a dark, wind-blown quadrangle. I started thinking a more modern university would have comfort-advantages… So I said thanks but no. And for once, I went home by train.

My 18^th novel,‘In The Summertime’ will to be published in hardback by Bantam in early July. The paperback will follow in June 2014. It’s a return to the characters from my first book, Just For the Summer and has Miranda, twenty years on from when she was a teenager at her family’s holiday home in Chapel Creek in Cornwall, revisiting the village with her mother Clare and children Silva and Bo, to scatter the ashes of her step-father Jack on the estuary he’d loved. She doesn’t expect to find there are still so many connections from the past in the place and is particularly surprised to find one in particular – someone she’s thought about many times over the years.

Coming July 4th Judy's nest book....and it's set in Cornwall!

It's twenty years since Miranda, then sixteen, holidayed in Cornwall and her life changed forever. Now she's back again - with her mother Clare and the ashes of her stepfather Jack, whose wish was to be scattered on the sea overlooked by their one-time holiday home.

The picturesque cove seems just the same as ever, but the people are different - more smart incomers,fewer locals, more luxury yachts in the harbour. But Miranda and Clare both find some strangely familiar faces, and revisit the emotions they both thought had disappeared.

You can find more about Judy and her books here.

When Lesley Lokko Ran Away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:38:00 +0000

Here's Lesley's story...

Running away, when you live in West Africa, is a tricky business. If, like me, you read a lot of Enid Blyton as a child, it was made even trickier. The Famous Five only had to pack a sandwich or two and hop in a boat and they were invariably back by teatime, anyway. For us, it was an awful lot harder. To begin with, the heat made it impossible to run, so you had to walk away. Not very dramatic or effective. ‘I’ve had enough! I’m walking away!’ Then there were the snakes. Back in the day, when Accra was a lot less crowded than it is now, there were huge swathes of ‘bush’ everywhere. Our house backed onto one such swathe and it was crawling with snakes. Dangerous ones, too. There are no grass snakes in West Africa, only mambas. Fifteen minutes is all you’ve got between bite and death which makes it pretty much instant. And if that weren’t enough, there were the grown-ups. In West Africa, all adults are in loco parentis – even complete strangers – and as such, are fully authorised to step in at any point and deliver a slap or a sermon if they feel you’re up to no good. The sight of three children determinedly marching away from the house with sticks (with which to beat a snake) and a bottle of water (to pour over your head in case of sunstroke) is a clear indication of ‘no good’. And so it came to pass . . .

At the age of nine, after an argument with my father (not that you could actually argue with him. Ghanaian children do not, I repeat, do not talk back. You just listen.), I stomped (slunk) off to my room, determined to run away. I had no idea where I’d run to, just that I’d run away. George was always running away: why not me? I packed a bag: pair of knickers, a clean T-shirt, a book (Enid’s, of course) and, incongruously, a box of aspirin – I’ve no idea why. I begged the cook for a fried egg sandwich (at 5pm? Why?) and I left. But before I reached the gate, my two younger sisters begged to be allowed to come along too. I had to wait for half an hour for them to pack the same: three pairs of knickers, three T-shirts, three books and three boxes of aspirin. We’d run out of eggs so they had jam sarnies instead.

However, the sun sets in the tropics at 6pm on the dot and by 5:45pm it was already getting dark. Suddenly running (or even walking) away didn’t seem like such a good idea. We made it as far as the first corner. A rustle in the undergrowth sent us shrieking back to the gate. We decided to eat our sandwiches in the garage (don’t ask me why). It was usually cool and dark in there and quite Famous Five-ish, in a petrol-smelling, secretive kind of way. We dragged open the doors, determined to make the most of our adventure and Make A Point . . . and then we froze. Curled up in the middle of the floor, seeking a warm spot of concrete where the heat of the tires had seeped, was a snake. I don’t actually remember what sort of snake – green, black, blue, orange? – we fled, screaming, dropping the aspirins, knickers, T-shirts and sandwiches en route (but not the books). Jabbering like idiots, we burst into the living room where my father was having a nap.

‘What’s the matter?’ he roared, annoyed at having been woken from his precious pre-dinner snooze.

‘A snake! A snake!’ My two sisters shouted, pointing to the garage.

‘What were you doing in the garage?’

‘Running away!’ they shouted in chorus.

‘Hmph.’ My father looked at me, frowning exasperatedly. ‘Is this another one of your silly ideas?’

‘No. Yes. Sort of.’

He sucked his teeth in that way that only Jamaican mothers and African fathers can do. A sort of ‘tshchew’ sound that combines exasperation, irritation, disappointment and forbearance in equal measure. It’s the ultimate, gentle-but-effective put down. ‘Next time, tell the driver to drop you.’

I never ran away again.

Here's Lesley's latest book...

In a gorgeous beachfront mansion in Martha’s Vineyard, Annick and Rebecca have left their young children in the care of their life-long friend Tash. Tash has made millions from her fashion business and treating her friends to a luxury holiday makes all the hard work worthwhile. But by the end of the afternoon, one of the children will have vanished . . .

As the daughter of an iconic actress and an assassinated president, Annick has spent a lifetime running from the truth of her family’s wealth. For her, Rebecca and Tash have always felt more like family than friends. But can she truly trust them with the secret of her past?

You can find out more about Lesley and her books here.

When Carole Matthews Ran Away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Mon, 20 May 2013 05:55:00 +0000

Here's Carole's story...

This is a story of achieving a dream and decorating aversion. Next week Lovely Kev is painting our hall and, at Matthews’ Towers, our hall takes in three floors. It’s a job not to be undertaken lightly. I’m not a big decorating fan, or any kind of DIY, come to that matter. I can wield a paintbrush well enough, but tend to leave mayhem and chaos in my wake. I have been known to drop, from the top of a ladder, the occasional five-litre tin of emulsion onto the dining room floor. I also have a weird reaction to fresh paint in that it gives me the most vivid nightmares. Really bad, being chased by an axe man nightmares. And gloss nightmares are much worse than emulsion ones.

So, in lieu of all this impending terror in my home, I’m running away. I’m leaving Lovely Kev with a list of instructions and several large cans of Dulux Almond White and am hightailing it out of the Costa del Keynes as fast as I can. As my decorating avoidance technique, I’ve booked on a canal boat for a week and that’s where the dream part comes in. For many more years than I care to recall, I’ve commuted up and down the line from the Keynes to London Euston. In fact, I went so far as to set a book on the line - Let’s Meet on Platform 8. As you travel into London, the Grand Union canal meanders gently from one side of the railway track to the other, offering tantalising glimpses of its many delights. I always wondered what it would be like to travel the entire stretch from London back to my home. And now I’m about to find out.

I’ve taken the precaution of going on a hotel boat where I’ll have two gentlemen to cook, drive and do complicated things with locks. On my part, I’m armed with lots of books, my walking boots, some knitting and a bottle of gin. That sounds like my kind of running away.

Here's Carole's latest book...

Grace has been best friends with Ella and Flick forever. The late-night chats, shared heartaches and good times have created a bond that has stood the test of time.

When Ella invites them to stay for a week in her cottage in South Wales, Grace jumps at the chance to see her old friends. She also hopes that the change of scenery will help her reconnect with her distant husband.

Then Flick arrives; loveable, bubbly, incorrigible Flick, accompanied by the handsome and charming Noah.

This is going to be one week which will change all their lives forever...

You can find out more about Carole and her books here.

When CL Taylor Ran Away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's CL's story...

CL Taylor, slightly scared, at the top of the Eiffel Tower (aged 25)

I was twenty-five when I ran away to Paris. I was living in Brighton and going out with a colleague - an alcoholic with a mean side. By dating him I’d ostracised myself not only from my other work colleagues who didn’t trust him but also from the friends who knew he was bad for me but couldn’t convince me to leave him (I foolishly believed that, if I spent enough time with him, I could help him overcome his demons).

Confused and desperate to get away to clear my head I scraped together what little money I had and booked myself a cheap flight to Paris and a room in a flea pit of a hotel. The plan was to spend a couple of days there alone but when a friend (who was also an ex-boyfriend) said he’d fly from Holland (where he lived) to Paris so we could hang out together I thought, ‘why not?’ I hadn’t seen him for several years, our relationship had ended amicably and he was good fun to be around.

The trip got off to an exciting start. I wanted to visit the graves of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Oscar Wilde so we went to Père Lachaise cemetery in the afternoon of our first day. It’s an astonishing cemetery and I found myself utterly mesmerised. We found the first two graves relatively easily but, as the sky grew dark and night approached, we slowly realised we’d been walking round and round in circles trying to find Wilde’s.

published under Creative Commons Licensing, Oliver Regelmann Flickr

Finally we found it. I took a photograph and laid a flower on the tomb and then said to my friend that we should probably leave as we hadn’t seen anyone else wandering about for some time.

We headed for the exit.

It was locked shut.

We headed for the other exit, a good twenty minute walk around the circumference of the cemetery.

Shut.

We tried more exits.

Shut. Shut. Shut.

It was now so dark we could barely see three feet in front of us.

We were locked in Père Lachaise for the night.

Panic rose in my chest. It was February and bitterly cold. Even if we could find somewhere to curl up and go to asleep we’d be frozen by the morning. There was nothing for it but to go back to the main entrance and knock on the door of one of the houses we’d seen there.

We knocked. And knocked. And knocked.

No answer.

With no mobile phone to call for help (they didn’t work abroad back then) we had no choice but to sit on the pavement, light cigarettes and stare desperately at the closed gates in front of us as we tried to decide what to do next. The perimeter fence was high and, even if my friend gave me a foot up, I knew I didn’t have enough upper body strength to make it over the top. I was just about to go back to the house to knock some more when the enormous double gates in front of us swung open and a car, headlights on full, drove towards. One of us might have said “Run!” or maybe we didn’t need words. Either way, thirty seconds later we were on the other side of the cemetery, grabbing each other and laughing with relief.

Later that evening my friend told me he was still in love with me.

But that’s another story.

THE ACCIDENT

By CL Taylor

“Keeping this secret is killing me”

To the outside world Susan Jackson has it all – a loving family, a successful politician husband and a beautiful home – but when Charlotte, her fifteen year old daughter, deliberately steps in front of a bus and ends up in a coma Sue questions whether any of it was real.

Desperate to find out what caused Charlotte’s suicide attempt, she is horrified by an entry in her diary – ‘Keeping this secret is killing me’. As Sue spins in desperate circles, she risks everything to discover the truth and finds herself immersed in a shady world she didn’t know existed. The deeper she delves the darker the world becomes and the more danger she puts herself in.

Can Sue wake up from the nightmares that haunt her and save her daughter, or will ‘the secret’ destroy them both?

(to be published in the UK by HarperCollins/Avon, June 2014 and in the USA by Sourcebooks, June 2014)

Http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com

www.twitter.com/callytaylor

www.facebook.com/callytaylorauthor

When Holly Hepburn ran Away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Thu, 16 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Holly's story....

The first time I ran away, I was seven years old. The exact reason for packing my bags and leaving home forever is lost in the mists of time but I expect it involved my parents being grossly unfair over something that completely was not my fault. I mean, it always does when you're seven, right?

Anyway, I gathered the essentials - a saucepan, some matches, the only tin opener, some Heinz cream of tomato soup, a bowl, a spoon and my bendy legged Sindy doll - and packed them into my Strawberry Shortcake tote bag. Then, having scrawled a suitably dramatic note, I left home.

We lived at the time in a small village on the Scottish border, the kind of place where everyone knew everything you did, and the village policeman was called Andy Apple, which these days sounds like a character from a Fruit Shoot advert. The bus out of the village ran once an hour so I made my getaway on foot and holed up among some trees by the banks of the River Tweed. Then, having been living in the wild for a good thirty minutes, I got peckish and lit a fire (I blame a kids' TV show called Captain Caveman for the knowledge of how to do this, or possibly Why Don't You?), opened up my tin of soup and started to heat it. So far, so good - I was like Robinson Crusoe, at one with nature and convinced I could live on my own indefinitely. Then it all went a bit wrong; I heard someone coming and, in a panic, tried to douse the flames with some sand. Only in the rush, I doused the soup as well. Then I peered out to see who had come to hunt me down. It was a sheep.

I stuck it out for another twenty minutes before hunger (and a complete disillusionment with the nomadic lifestyle) drove me home with my tail between my legs. And the worst of it was, no one had even noticed I'd gone. They noticed the missing tin opener all right, though; I'd buried all the evidence in my hiding place before I slunk home. It's probably still there, actually...

You can but Holly's latest book here....

Cupidity

What if Cupid fell out of love with love?

Cupid is exhausted. Modern day matchmaking is tough – people are busy, their hearts are harder to hit and he’s had enough of wall-to-wall romance. And St Valentine has noticed…

Annelise is a Lost Cause. She runs a dating agency but her heart is colder than a penguin’s feet. She thinks love is about compatibility and has no time for passion.

Can Cupid prove to St Valentine that he hasn’t lost his touch by melting Annelise’s heart? Or is it curtains for Cupid?

You and find out more about Holly here.

When Emma Lee-Potter Ran Away

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Emma's story....

My daughter was a year old when I became obsessed with the idea of running away to the country.

We were living in south London at the time and although I loved our house, with its pocket-handkerchief garden and scruffy Georgian façade, I loathed the traffic and the noise and the scary crime levels. In the space of a few weeks a friend was mugged in the alleyway a few doors down and another had her bag snatched while her two young children looked on. One night I glanced out of the back window to see flames soaring 20 feet into the night sky. Joyriders had stolen a car and set it on fire behind our garden fence.

This definitely wasn’t the life I’d dreamed of for my daughter. But how could we possibly escape? As a writer I could work anywhere but my husband couldn’t uproot at the drop of a hat. Then out of the blue he was asked to take over a company 250 miles from London. So that was it. We threw caution to the wind, let our house and ran away to the country.

We rented an old stone farmhouse just outside the idyllic village of Downham, in the wilds of rural Lancashire. The next house was half a mile away, we had no heating and getting to the nearest road involved driving through two fields of sheep, opening and closing three gates along the way.

Our friends thought we’d gone bonkers but it was one of the happiest times of my life. Downham looks like something out of a picture book – complete with a pub, church, village shop, stream with ducks and even a nursery school – and the whole village welcomed us with open arms. Every evening I gazed across the fields to majestic Pendle Hill soaring high above, and thanked my lucky stars that we ran away.

PS. A few years later the experience inspired my novel, Taking Sides. It’s the story of a mother who uproots her family to a cottage in the country only to find that her DJ husband has landed a new radio job and refuses to come with her.

Here's Emma's Novel Taking Sides and you can get it here.

Juliette Ward is tired of trying to be superwoman. Her job's driving her crazy, her house has been burgled three times and she's scared to let her six-year-old son out to play. But just as she persuades her family to move to the country, her DJ husband Jon promptly lands the breakfast show on a new London radio station.

Juliette knows he'd be mad to turn down his big break. But she hates the thought of swapping her stable marriage for a long-distance relationship. Big city versus country idyll? If only things were that simple...

And the novella Lessons in Love is here. To find out more about Emma visit here.

When Nicola Doherty ran away....

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Tue, 14 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Nicola's story...

When I was twenty – a very immature twenty – I went to Paris for a year to work as a jeune fille au pair. After meeting a few different families, it seemed I could pick and choose: shallowly, I chose, not necessarily the nicest family but the one with the glitziest apartment and nicest accommodation for me. They lived on the third floor of a hotel particulière on the Rue de Sèvres in the heart of Paris’s 7^th arrondissement. The furniture was Louis Quinze; Yves Saint Laurent apparently lived in the building. Madame was a former model whose social life now seemed a full-time activity, and les petits were a boy of seven and a girl of nine.

The kids were sweet, but overscheduled. The working day started at 7 am with breakfast, searches for hairbrushes and stickers and a hair-raising walk to school during which the little boy gave me frequent heart attacks by running off around corners, hiding behind cars or leaping into the road. Then I had the day free until 3pm, when it was time to pick the kids up from school and ferry them to their next activity. Judo, swimming, ballet, football, art: there was at least one extracurricular event every evening, plus making dinner and supervising an hour’s homework each when we got home. The little girl was sometimes so exhausted I had to help her with her homework while she lay in bed. Weekends were family time, during which I hovered on the sidelines, listening to praise of the previous au pair, who was apparently much more organised than me – ‘impeccable’ in fact, was the word used. Though I did get the inkling that turnover was high. ‘Ici, les jeune filles au pair, ça défile,’ I overheard my employer say with pride to a friend. Luckily my French was good enough to know she meant they had a ‘parade’ of au pair girls, in other words that they came and went, not that we defiled the place, though to be honest both seemed possible.

A holiday in their chateau was looming; I couldn't face it. I made up some feeble excuse and left in the dawn light, shutting the massive door behind me with a feeling of euphoria. I hopped on a train to Strasbourg, to stay with some friends who were doing an Erasmus year abroad. The free evenings and weekends were a revelation: I decided that from now on I would only work during daytime hours. I went back to Paris and got a job with an art museum, which paid me enough to rent my very own little fire-trap on the sixth floor in the 6^th arrondissement (sans ascenseur).

Looking back, I still feel guilty for running away. The family was perfectly nice, they paid rather generously (by au pair standards) and the duties really weren’t that onerous. I just wasn’t cut out to be an au pair girl. It’s a weird position: living with a family, yet not a part of it, and looking after children when you’re barely more than a child yourself. I hope the next girl who paraded through their door was a little more impeccable than me.

Here's Nicola's latest book... and you can get it here.

From London to Italy with love...

Alice Roberts is having a rubbish summer.

She's terrified of her boss, her career is stalling, and she's just been dumped - by text message. But things are about to change...

When her boss Olivia is taken ill, Alice is sent on the work trip of a lifetime: to a villa in Sicily, to edit the autobiography of Hollywood bad boy Luther Carson. But it's not all yachts, nightclubs and Camparis. Luther's arrogant agent Sam wants him to ditch the book. Luther himself is gorgeous, charming and impossible to read. There only seems to be one way to get his attention, and it definitely involves mixing business with pleasure. Alice is out of the office, and into deep trouble...

Nicola grew up in Dublin and now lives in London with her husband. Her first book The Out of Office Girl was shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Awards in the Romantic Comedy category. Her second book, If I Could Turn Back Time, is due out this autumn. You find out more about Nicola here or on Twitter @nicoladoherty_

When Bernardine Kennedy aka Marie Maxwell ran away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Bernardine's story...

Ah, that old favourite, RUNNING AWAY.

How many times have I fantasised about running away over the years? Quite often during certain times in my life.

I’d raid my ‘running away fund’ (not that I had one), I’d fly to New York with a backpack of essentials then criss-cross America on a Greyhound bus. I’d go to Los Angeles and Hollywood, to Las Vegas, to Chicago, in fact to all the names I’d heard of in films and books. I’d stay in romantic motels, eat in desert burger joints and drink root beer with cowboys. Oh yes, I’d done my research!

My other fantasy was pure Mills and Boon, it was fabulous. Because I didn’t have a ‘running away fund’ I’d get a job as nanny to a rock-star in Hollywood and live the life in Bel-Air with beach parties in Santa Monica and holidays in Hawaii.

It was a nice thought in the middle of the night but of course I never did it. The fantasy was always great but I wasn’t a runner.

Except for once.

I was brought up in Singapore and went to school at the convent there. (the convent that is now CHIJMES for anyone who knows Singapore). It was a multi-nationality school, I was the only European girl in my class, and a very competitive environment, very ‘Tiger-Mother’. Slowly but surely my mother had become equally Tiger competitive, but I hadn’t. Not at all. I was a dreamer and not in the least academically motivated. I wanted to read Enid Blyton and daydream about adventures, I wanted to swim and dance and collect stray kittens; I didn’t want to study.

It was when I was about ten that I got a really rubbish school report. I wasn’t meant to open it but I did and when I saw that I was fourth from bottom of the class, with a selection of E marks, I just knew I was going to be in Really Big Trouble. So I changed the E- marks to B+ marks and gave it to my mother to sign for me to take back the next day. Sadly the apprentice Tiger Mother decided that B grades weren’t good enough, only A’s would suffice and she was going to see Mother Superior about it the Very Next Day. How dare they?

I was awake all night envisioning the moment when my mother berated Mother Superior for only awarding me B grades and the nun then produced the Real Grades and they both realised I had cheated quite spectacularly.

I was scared witless and the only way out I could see was to Run Away.

We lived in an area of houses with large gardens which were surrounded by long grass (Lalang) and trees and I had this idea in my head that if I could find somewhere to lay low for a few days it would all blow over and I’d be okay to go back. Just a few days.

The house Bernardine was living in at the time

To say I wasn’t streetwise was an understatement, I had never been anywhere or done anything on my own, I hadn’t even been on public transport, but it didn’t stop me; I was so scared about the outcome of the meeting. The shame of it.

So I took my nightie, (first clue to daftness), a book on ballet, a sandwich and a glass bottle of water that was in the fridge, put them in my schoolbag and ran for it first thing the next morning. Off I went across the lawn and out through the lalang to a hidden copse-like area. I ate the sandwich, drank the water and tried to read the book. (I can picture the cover but can’t remember the name)

I lasted until the afternoon ignoring the calling until I heard my father’s voice….. ‘Bernardine, I know you’re out there. If you don’t come back we’ll have to call the police.. You’re not in any trouble and there are snakes……’

Ah! I hadn’t thought of snakes, suddenly I could feel them everywhere so I jumped up and ran straight back. The bit about the snakes may have been true but the ‘not in trouble’ bit wasn’t, not when my mother got me and dragged me off to school. She went crackers and Mother Superior was ‘disappointed’; I was given two weeks after-school detentions to pick up my grades and banned from the Swimming Club and dancing school indefinitely. But even that didn’t seem as bad as the thought of snakes creeping up on me in the lalang.

Why had I not even thought of that before I took off? Why didn’t I think of it when I was racing through the lalang? J An innocent in the long grass!

Luckily my father, as always, fought my corner and eventually everything went back to normal although I don’t think my mother ever really got over it. She lived to the age of 95 still mentioning my ‘cheating’ and the ‘shame’ every so often!

Safe to say I never actually ran away again and nowadays I don’t even want to, however I do still take a book everywhere!

Here's Bernardine/Marie's latest book Gracie and you can get it here.

'She made the ultimate sacrifice... but can she now move on with her life?

Can she ever escape her past?

Gracie McCabe is building a new life for herself in the Essex seaside town of Southend working alongside best friend Ruby; she’s put her past to rest and is planning her future.

All that is missing is a family of her own, Gracie desperately wants a baby so when boyfriend Sean proposes she accepts without hesitation.

But a chance meeting before the wedding gives her doubts and when old secrets come back to haunt her, it seems that Sean is not the rock of strength she expected him to be.

Will Gracie find her happy ever after or will she be betrayed and abandoned once again?

A Cornish Affair Arrives...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Sat, 11 May 2013 07:24:00 +0000

My author copies of A Cornish Affair

Producing A Cornish Affair has been one long labour of love...and sometimes downright painful. In fact if I go down the whole giving birth comparison at the end I was swearing, grumpy and totally hated the the little bastard that I was pushing out into the world.

A Cornish Affair was conceived in 2005 as August Rock. I won't go into all the gory details but by the time two years ago when I began to rewrite the book in first person I had rewritten the book 27 times. Yes, you read that correctly. But not consecutively...I wrote and rewrote other books in-between. After each new book or new rewrite of another, I had learned something new as a writer and I applied that to August Rock that was....

So come to rewrite 27, I realised I had written my voice totally out of it and it had no soul left but my goodness what I had learned in the process. So for that 27th rewrite I went back to version two (helpful hint - always keep copies of the early versions) and I took everything I had learnt and began again. I also pulled out the male point of view (POV) so I had only my heroine's POV and that of the ghost, Toby. It was a stronger book by the end of that rewrite.

Sitting in our boat looking up at the setting of the story, I had a blinding moment of inspiration or madness...you decide which. I knew that the story had to be told in first person. Maybe it was the setting of the book - a bit like Rebecca (note: I have never read more than three chapters of Rebecca. It just wasn't 'my book' unlike Frenchman's Creek or Jamaica Inn...). But I just knew. However this posed a problem. I had never written much of anything in first person. To resolve that I used NaNoWriMo that year to try it and I wrote The Summer of the Black Hare and had a ball. (I heartily recommend NaNo for experimentation).

I then rewrote the first three chapters of August Rock in first person and sent them to my editor, but I had left Toby's (my 13 year old Victorian ghost) in third. She liked Jude, my heroine's voice, but told me Toby had to be in first. This was the beginning of a very long labour and I won't bore you with the details.

A Cornish Affair is a very different story to August Rock although the setting, the heroine and the hero are the same. I was working on it down to the very wire. In fact at one point it wasn't going to be delivered, so to speak, until next year...

Two days ago I held the finished book in my hands and fell in love with it (and believe me after the total 30+ rewrites cutting 70,000 words I didn't think that was possible). It does help that the cover is soooo stunning, really. The colour is amazing. But it was with huge trepidation that I opened the book and read (I had to because of this talk on Sunday at the Fowey Festival - formerly the du Maurier Festival). And to my surprise I kept reading....

A Cornish Affair is a very different book to it's origins and also to The Cornish House (in a way a bit like my own children). It tells a story of how sometimes you have to go away to find yourself and it's a lesson that I learnt myself. It's a story I've dedicated to my beautiful daughter because there will come a time when she needs to make her own way in the world but please dear God not yet!

A Cornish Affair is dedicated to my daughter

Now the one question I have been asked many times...is it a sequel? No. Nor is it a prequel. It takes place just a few months before The Cornish House. However both books are set in the same location and have many of the same characters.

Yesterday on Twitter I gave away a few copies. Over on my Facebook Page there's an opportunity to win signed copies if you are willing to share your run away stories. Of course there is also a Goodreads Giveaway.

A pair - The Cornish House and A Cornish Affair

But of course I can't leave my blog readers out. In fact I'll give a copy of both The Cornish House and A Cornish Affair together. Just leave a comment by the 18th of May 2013 to be in the running....

A Cornish Affair is over on Jera's Jamboree and I talk about my love of Cornwall over on London Perfect. And finally I'm over on the Rightmove Blog talking about my research for The Cornish House.

And finally if you happen to be in London on the 23rd of May please come and join me for a Cornish Cream tea to celebrate the launch of A Cornish Affair at 18:30 at Waterstones Kensington High Street.

When Julie Cohen ran away....

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Julie's story...

'I'm running away,' I announced to my mother, who was washing something in the kitchen. 'Can I have a stick?'

'What kind of stick?' my mother asked. She seemed unconcerned at my announcement.

'You know. A sort of long one to go over my shoulder.'

My mother examined me. I was holding a tea towel full of peanut butter crackers. I mimed tying it to a stick and slinging it over my shoulder, like they did in the cartoons when they were running away.

She dried off her hands and fetched a broom handle from the basement.

I loved running away. All of the characters in my favourite children's books ran away, or else they stumbled upon a magical world by accident: Wonderland, Neverland, Narnia. Or they found the North Pole on an Expotition. I wasn't certain, but I suspected, that if I ran away far enough so that I couldn't see my house—just far enough for me to be a little scared—I would find a magical world too.

'Be back for supper,' my mother said. I nodded; I couldn't conceive of a magical world that would separate me permanently from my mother's cooking.

I tied the towel to the stick, slung it over my shoulder, and left the house. In the back yard there were two boulders. They were remnants from the glacier that once covered all of Maine, but I didn't know that then; to me, they looked as if they'd been put in our back yard by giants. My brother had tried to find dinosaur bones in one of them. I slipped between them on the path, and then crept through the prickly bushes and through the gap in the fence into the woods. Woods of big pine trees, not far from the street, surrounded by houses, but silent, muffled, fragrant. After two minutes I couldn't see my house, but I could see the steeple of the Methodist church next door, so I went deeper.

I would know, later, that if you kept walking in these mysterious woods you would eventually come to Route 2 with its thundering logging trucks, and Food Trend, about a block from my house. I didn't know that then. The woods seemed big and infinite. I knew that when I found another giant-dropped boulder and curled up behind it on the pine needles, opened my towel and ate my peanut butter crackers, that I was in a magical world.

I still go back there sometimes.

Julie's latest book is Dear Thing and you can find it here.

Claire and Ben are the perfect couple. But behind the glossy façade, they've been desperately trying - and failing - to have a baby for years. Now, the stress and feelings of loss are taking their toll on their marriage. Claire's ready to give up hope and get on with her life, but Ben is not. And then Ben's best friend, Romily, offers to conceive via artificial insemination and carry the baby for them.

Romily acts in good faith, believing it will be easy to be a surrogate. She's already a single mother, and has no desire for any more children. Except that being pregnant with Ben's child stirs up all sorts of emotions in her, including one she's kept hidden for a very long time: Ben's the only man she's ever loved.

Two mothers-and one baby who belongs to both of them, and which only one of them can keep.

To find out more about Julie and her books go here.

When Kate Harrison Ran Away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Thu, 09 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Kate's story...

Four years ago, we ran away to the beach.

London had nothing left to offer. The banks were all going bust and no one was building anything anymore, which was a problem for my boyfriend, a construction surveyor.

We packed the laptop, the cat and the cat’s new pet passport, and flew to Barcelona. We narrowly avoided being arrested when we objected to putting the cat’s basket through the X-ray machine at security, and the look on her face during take-off made me glad there’s no Childline for pets. But after a bumpy few hours, we’d arrived. Run away from chilly England, from council tax bills and depressing headlines (or at least, headlines in a language we could understand). Ahead lay the sunshine and siestas of Spain – though we learned pretty soon that calling Catalunya part of Spain was not a good idea in one of the Med’s most passionately separatist states.

Barcelona was brilliant, bracing and bonkers. We struggled with Spanish red tape, but not with the fantastic lifestyle. We made great friends, started running on the beach, took to tapas in a big way, tried mushroom hunting and cava tasting, and went back to the classroom to learn the language of our new home.

Running on the beach one morning, I also had a weird but exciting new idea for a strange teenage trilogy set on a glamorous beach… a writer is never truly off-duty.

We loved being runaways. But it couldn’t last forever. I missed family, friends, English cheese and – surprisingly – Boots and British supermarkets. I chased burglars out of our flat one hot summer’s night: petty crime is the downside to Europe’s sexiest city. Plus, once I understood the headlines, I could see that ‘la crisis’ was even worse in Spain.

So we ran back again, carrying our poorly cat via a sleeper train to Paris and then Eurotunnel. But we weren’t running to London this time. If we couldn’t have the southern sun, at least we could have a (pebbly) shore. We’ve moved to Brighton. And with Gatwick half an hour away on the train, it couldn’t be easier to get back to Barca when we need a reminder of our Great Escape…

Kate’s latest novel is The Boot Camp

Five women with one goal: to feel like a million dollars for the first time in their lives. They have nothing to lose but their muffin tops!

SIX...days of dawn runs, blistered feet and non-stop sit-ups...

FIVE...meals a day - if half an apple or an oatcake counts as a meal...

FOUR... poster beds not included - but sleep won't be a problem after a ten hour workout...

THREE... women with a battalion's worth of baggage between them...

TWO... hardcore ex-forces trainers with testosterone to spare...

ONE GOAL: To feel like a million dollars, for the first time in your life...

Leave your Mars Bars and Marlboros at the door... this is Boot Camp!

– and the final part of her Soul Beach trilogy – set on a beach people are dying to get to – will be out later this summer.

To find out more about Kate and her book go here or find her on Twitter @katewritesbooks...

When Julia Gregson Runs Away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Wed, 08 May 2013 06:40:00 +0000

Here's Julia's Story...

I’ve always been fascinated by bolters- Nancy Mitford’s perfect description of women who make a dash for freedom.

But it occurred to me, only recently, that all my heroines in East of the Sun, The Water Horse and Jasmine Nights are runaways- towards new jobs, new countries, new lives, or unsuitable adventures in a stranger’s arms- and that maybe, they are to compensate for my own failures as a runaway .

I was five years old myself when I decided I could no longer tolerate the cruelties of parents who instead of allowing me to ride a friend’s pony up a dark hill after dark, wanted me to stay in the house and tidy my room.

When I announced my intention to leave my mother ruined my big moment by saying softly :

‘Darling, let me help you.’ She went upstairs. She packed for me- chocolate, clean hanky, torch etc. She put my suitcase by the door.

Why wasn’t she sobbing brokenly, clinging to me by the ankles?

Something had gone badly wrong.

I’ve got better at runaways over time, and highly recommend a what-the -hell day to any woman suddenly sick of being disciplined, of juggling, cooking ,spinning plates, entertaining relatives. The rules are that , for one day, you drop the whole bundle and do exactly what you want .

My planned W.T.H days year will include, a long lunch with a friend in which you don’t dash off to do something worthy. A visit to Gifford’s Circus. It’s fabulous and silly and makes you feel about five again. Eat lots of ice cream and popcorn there.

A ride on a pony somewhere wild and free, maybe the Brecon Beacons, partly because it’s a heavenly thing to do , also to say ya boo sucks to my mother for ruining my dramatic moment all those years ago.

Julia's latest book...

1942 and the world is at war. It is a war that has already shattered families and devastated countries. But for some, it will also mean the greatest of adventures.

In a burns hospital in Sussex, a beautiful young singer performs to a ward full of injured soldiers. Saba is captivating and one pilot, Dom, shudders as her gaze turns his way. He can't bear her to see his scars but resolves to write to her once they have healed.

The world is on the brink of enormous change. Saba's journey as a singer with ENSA takes her to the fading glamour of Alexandria and the heat and decadence of Turkey. On the glamorous Middle Eastern social circuit, Saba rubs shoulders with double agents and diplomats, movie stars and smugglers. Some want her voice, some her friendship, and some the secrets she is perfectly placed to discover...

To learn more about Julia and her books visit here.

When Kate Lord Brown Ran Away

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Tue, 07 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Kate story....

I'd always dreamt of travelling around the world, but university, and work had always come first. By my late twenties, I had a career I loved, curating art collections in Europe and the Middle East, a new husband, and a first home in Fulham that we had bought and renovated ourselves. Only occasionally among the whirl of projects, and life in London, (and learning to plaster walls, lay floorboards and tile bathrooms!), did that hunger for travel, for adventure, rise up. I remember walking home along the Thames at 4am from a friend's Millennium Eve party, talking about all that we hoped for in that New Year. I had no idea what was ahead.

That summer, my husband announced he was leaving his job. He wanted to follow his dream and learn to fly. It was one of those bombshells that blindside you, a clear crossroads where you can insist on travelling along the road you've carved out, or take a wild step out into the unknown. I chose that step - we ran away, from mortgages and the 9-5, from the life we had worked so hard to build. We took - literally - the road less travelled, and set out as rather old 'gap year' adventurers, travelling around the world with hand luggage.

After travelling for several months, exploring all the places we'd longed to see, through Asia, Mexico, across America, we settled in the orange groves of Valencia in Spain. My husband learnt to fly, and I learnt to write. It was there that the seeds for 'The Perfume Garden' were sown. It is, at a distance now of several years, amazingly easy to dismantle a life - and a hard road to rebuild it, but if there's one thing I've learnt you must always follow your gut instinct and life is too short to regret, occasionally, running away.

Kate latest book is The Perfume Garden...available here.

The Perfume Garden combines the gripping storytelling of Kate Morton with the evocative settings of Victoria Hislop to tell this sumptuous story of lost love and family secrets set between modern day Valencia and the Spanish Civil War. High in the hills of Valencia, a forgotten house guards its secrets. Untouched since Franco's forces tore through Spain in 1936, the whitewashed walls have crumbled, the garden, laden with orange blossom, grown wild. Emma Temple is the first to unlock its doors in seventy years. Guided by a series of letters and a key bequeathed in her mother's will, she has left her job as London's leading perfumier to restore this dilapidated villa to its former glory. It is the perfect retreat: a wilderness redolent with strange and exotic scents, heavy with the colours and sounds of a foreign time. But for her grandmother, Freya, a British nurse who stayed here during Spain's devastating civil war, Emma's new home evokes terrible memories. As the house begins to give up its secrets, Emma is drawn deeper into Freya's story: one of crushed idealism, lost love, and families ripped apart by war. She soon realises it is one thing letting go of the past, but another when it won't let go of you.

Here's a bit about Kate...

Kate grew up in a wild and beautiful part of Devon, and was first published while at school. After reading Philosophy at Durham and Art History at the Courtauld Institute, she worked as an art consultant, curating collections for palaces and embassies in Europe and the Middle East. Kate was a finalist in the ITV's The People's Author competition 2009. She lives in the Middle East with her family, and is working on her next novel.

For more information visit Kate's website www.katelordbrown.com

When Sue Moorcroft Ran Away

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Mon, 06 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Sue's story....

I was five and deeply fed up with my mother's rules, so threatened to run away. She took me upstairs, helped me pack, saw me across the road and waved me goodbye. I burst into tears and ran back into her arms! Not the most successful running away venture in history ...

Sue's latest book is Dream A Little Dream and you can find it here.

Liza Reece has a dream. Working as a reflexologist for a troubled holistic centre isn’t enough. When the opportunity arises to take over the Centre she jumps at it. Problem is, she needs funds, and fast, as she’s not the only one interested.

Dominic Christy has dreams of his own. Diagnosed as suffering from a rare sleep disorder, disillusioned with his live-in girlfriend and discharged from the job he adored as an Air Traffic Controller, he’s single-minded in his aims. He has money, and plans for the Centre that don’t include Liza and her team.

But dreams have a way of shifting and changing and Dominic’s growing fascination with Liza threatens to reshape his. And then it’s time to wake up to the truth ...

You can find out more about Sue on suemoorcroft.wordpress.com.

When Lucy Dillon Ran Away....

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Here's Lucy's story....

In October last year, I needed to get away. I was completely stuck, writing the worst part of a complicated book that just wouldn't come out of my head, thanks to the constant disruption of builders, other deadlines, my dogs, and my own seemingly limitless ability to distract myself on the internet. I couldn't concentrate. I hated what I'd written so far. So I ran away. I ran away so far that I ended up back in 1992.

By 1992, I of course mean, 'my parents' house' on the west coast of Cumbria, where time moves on in some respects (there is now Sky, and my mother is 'online') and yet stands still in others (the kitchen light switches still don't work, and that Sky dish is used to watch editions of 321 and Bullseye from the early 90s). My parents were both there to meet me at the station and within seconds, Mum accused me of not eating properly, and demanded to know if I'd lost a lot of weight. I hadn't. I'm endlessly haunted by how fat I am in their imaginations. My dad insisted on carrying my laptop and book bags, and pretended to stagger under the weight of them as he used to with my school bags. As I loaded my stuff into the car, the sea breeze blew ozone into my face and I had the sudden rush of relief that I might just get this book finished.

And I did, more or less. It was partly down to the cups of coffee my dad brought me on the hour, as he did during my A-level revision. Partly down to the warm-blanket feeling I got from watching repeats of The Crystal Maze I must have watched in exactly the same place, with exactly the same observations about the useless contestant, twenty years ago. Partly from a daily walk along a deserted beach that looked different every single afternoon, the skies changing from flawless blue to cloud-speckled slate in minutes, with sunsets streaking the Irish Sea with colours almost too pink and violet and gold to be real. Living in the middle of sleepy Midlands countryside, surrounded by apple orchards, I'd forgotten how much I missed the sea, with its constant shifting and sighing in the background, a reminder that ideas come and go, that there's always something interesting at your feet, or on the horizon.

But a lot of my new energy, I think, came from leaving behind all the petty niggles of my day-to-day routine, the minor concerns that chip away at your confidence and attention span, and going back to a place where I'd once sat as a moody teenager, wondering where my life was going to go. When I settled down to work at the desk where I'd revised Chaucer, and opened my own notebook, ready to start a chapter of my own book, it struck me properly for the first time in years: I was a writer. This was my job! My actual job! If I'd done a Marty McFly and met the 1992 Lucy, she would have flat out refused to believe me/her. My dream job wasn't even something I'd dared to hope for then, and yet - amazingly - it was where I'd ended up. That, and the coffee, was the swift kick I needed to get on with things. I handed in the first draft at the end of that month, and came back to 2012, rather sadly, but with a priceless stack of vintage Smash Hits in my bag.

©lucydillon

When story-lover Anna takes over Longhampton's bookshop, it's her dream come true. And not just because it gets her away from her three rowdy stepchildren and their hyperactive Dalmatian.

Unpacking boxes filled with childhood classics, Anna can't shake the feeling that maybe her own fairytale ending isn't all that she'd hoped for. But, as the stories of love, adventure, secret gardens, lost dogs, wicked witches and giant peaches breathe new life into the neglected shop, Anna and her customers get swept up in the magic too.

Even Anna's best friend Michelle - who categorically doesn't believe in true love and handsome princes - isn't immune.

But when secrets from Michelle's own childhood come back to haunt her, and disaster threatens Anna's home, will the wisdom and charm of the stories in the bookshop help the two friends - and those they love - find their own happy ever afters?

You can find out more about Lucy here.

When Paige Toon Ran Away...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Thu, 02 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

The first in the series of runaway stories...Paige Toon shares hers .....

When I was about six years old, my parents took my brother and I to Mexico for a holiday. I don’t remember much about the country, but I do remember the brightly coloured straw sombrero they bought me at a market, along with a little yellow guitar. One evening, we were all in our hotel room and, I can’t recall the reason why, but I was very put-out about something. My mum, dad and brother didn’t take me seriously at all. They laughed at me, which made me even more cross, so I decided to teach them all a lesson and run away. I knew I wouldn’t go far – I was thinking just out into the corridor and behind the Coke machine would do. I’d pop out again when I knew they were truly sorry for cruelly mocking me. So I told them I was off, and, not forgetting to pick up my little yellow guitar and don my sombrero, I stormed to the door and pushed down the handle. But the door was locked – I pulled and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge – and this made my family completely fall about with hilarity at the situation. The truth was, I was a bit scared about running away, so it didn’t take me more than a few moments to see the funny side. I’ve never thought about running away again since.

Paige, her guitar and her brother!

Paige's latest book The Longest Holiday is available here.

'Don't wait for the storm to pass; learn to dance in the rain…'
Laura has been married to the man of her dreams for seven months. But a week before the wedding, Matthew made a terrible mistake. Escaping the humiliation that is now her marriage, Laura is whisked off to Florida's Key West by her best friend Marty. A carefree holiday full of cocktails and fun, surrounded by gorgeous, tanned men, is exactly what the doctor ordered. Distraction comes in the form of sexy Cuban scuba diver Leo. Laura's instant attraction to him knocks her flying, and she falls hard. As the end of the holiday approaches, Laura doesn't want to go home. Is it time to face the music? Or is there more to Key West than a holiday romance?

To find out more about Paige and her books, visit her website www.paigetoon.com

It's May - Launch Month For A Cornish Affair

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:13:00 +0000

I can't believe how quickly this has come around but A CORNISH AFFAIR is out on the 23rd of May. The book is close to my heart for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that it's about running away...in fact the tag line is 'Sometimes running away is the answer...'

Running out on your wedding day never goes down well. When the pressure of her forthcoming marriage becomes too much, Jude bolts from the church, leaving a good man at the altar, her mother in a fury, and the guests with enough gossip to last a year.

Guilty and ashamed, Jude flees to Pengarrock, a crumbling cliff-top mansion in Cornwall, where she takes a job cataloguing the Trevillion family's extensive library. The house is a welcome escape for Jude, full of history and secrets, but when its new owner arrives, it's clear that Pengarrock is not beloved by everyone.

As Jude falls under the spell of the house, she learns of a family riddle stemming from a terrible tragedy centuries before, hinting at a lost treasure. And when Pengarrock is put up for sale, it seems that time is running out for the house and for Jude.

I have run away three times in my life and I'll tell you more about that later in the month but beginning tomorrow some fabulous novelists will be sharing their stories of running away... whether it was with a teddy and two sandwiches or some more recent...

So tomorrow the wonderful Paige Toon talks about the time she ran away.

Snowy's Writing Day...

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:07:00 +0000

Yesterday I had a writing companion...Snowy. Here's his writing day

I think I'd like to be a cat...

PS...there are still a few days left to leave a comment here to win a BOOKS ARE MY BAG bag and inside there will be a copy of The Cornish House, Sue Guinney's A CLASH OF INNOCENTS and Cally Taylor's HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (and any other authors who'd like to add their book are most welcome!)

London Book Fair 2013...an author's point of view

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 06:36:00 +0000

The Emirates Airline Literary Festival Team

This morning I am relaxing, just a little. The past two days I have been enjoying the madness that is London Book Fair. On Monday I was there just to soak up the atmosphere...but of course I immediately bumped into friends.

Immogen Howsen and Lynne Connolly at the Samhain stand

I wandered around bumping into friends and I was lucky enough to catch Patrick Brown of Goodreads talking in the AuthorLounge his presentation is here. There is so much to learn. While in the author lounge I bumped into Sue Fortin and Linn B Halton.

Carole Blake ready for the second day of London Book Fair to begin

Day two had a plan. I was meeting spending the morning meeting my editors from Germany, Holland, Portugal and Norway. I was given a table just behind my agent Carole Blake to share with Peter James (yes, esteemed company except that Pater ending up holding his meeting in the The Ivy Club!)

Pater James and Carole Blake

It was fabulous to met my editors and find out how the sales are going and if there was anything I could do to help sales. It's very frustrating to not be able to help...However the good news was that The Cornish House aka Sterne Uber Cornwall, A Casa Dos Sonhos, Sterren Boven Cornwall and Stjerner over Cornwall is doing very well!

Meetings over I set out into the fair and bumped into two agents...Jane Judd and Broo Doherty then caught up with Julia Williams and her twin sister Virginia and a relaxed lunch before braving the fair again.

Saying farewell to them I found the Choc Lit stand and shared a chocolate with Sue Moorcroft and Pia Christina Courtenay. Then the amazing Victoria Lamb appeared...she had left her coat in The Ivy Club so while collecting it with her we had a glass of champagne...

While exploring the Orion stand I bumped into Kate Mosse and the Emirates Airlines Literary Festival Team plus Rose Prince...just love name dropping...then fortunately I saw Annabel Kantaria from Dubai who won the Montegrappa First Fiction competition at the Emirates Airlines Literary Festival. I tagged along and found myself in The Ivy Club again...

Isobel Abulhoul, Luigi Bonomi, Annabel Kantaria and Yvette Judge

And who did we find in The Ivy Club...

Luigi Bonomi, Peter James, Isobel Abulhoul and Liz Fenwick

After catching up it was a mad dash to attend the launch of the campaign to save bookstores BOOKS ARE MY BAG. Lord Saatchi opened the launch...

Lord Saatchi

The simplicity of the campaign was explained...Everyone can carry the poster BOOKS ARE MY BAG...the campaign officially begins on September 14th but the bags were the most coveted item of the London Book Fair...

I have mine but I also have a spare...so leave a comment here by May 2nd and I'll send you the BOOKS ARE MY BAG bag and a signed copy of The Cornish House to go into it.... Do any of my writer friends want to add there book to the bag for the winner?

NOTE: The bag now contains more books... A Clash of Innocents by Sue Guinney and Home for Christmas by Cally Taylor

Finally here's the link to my radio chat about books on Sunday the 15th of April with Geordie Bird on Dubai 92 here. The book discussion begins about four minutes in...I discuss the charts and what in my to be read pile...

A Big Week...I Reach a Certain Age and The Cornish House Comes Out In Paperback

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:57:00 +0000

This is a big week for me...I turn fifty and on Thursday The Cornish House comes out in paperback. In many ways I feel they are connected...Two years ago today marks the two book deal with Orion and that was a major event. It was the realisation of dream.

The paperback of The Cornish House available here

Now with The Cornish House coming out in paperback I hope to spy copies in more shops and maybe even see someone other than friends and family reading it...although I had a big thrill this weekend when my eldest spent the weekend with his nose stuck into it. I was delighted to see his expression change as a grin would appear or a frown. I knew The Cornish House wouldn't normally his choice of book but he said he loved it and I know he meant it because he's a terrible liar! Of course DD read it and loved it before him...

The other lovely thing about the paperback is what included...so many readers told me they had fallen in love with the house, Trevenen. So for the extra material at the back of the paperback there is the history of Trevenen including floor plans.

In honour of this major milestone week I'm giving away three signed copies of the paperback of The Cornish House. Just leave a comment...

In The Mind's Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 06:41:00 +0000

Sorry for the absence....I've been traveling and now have the kids here for Easter holidays...

But this morning while I was working on book three I was aware of what people frequently ask me about...how do I write about Cornwall when I'm not there...

This morning I was writing looking out at this view... (we are away in the desert on a special long weekend)

But I was writing about Frenchman's Creek...

Both stunning but so different...

I see a scene like a movie in front me no mater how beautiful and distracting the actual view...maybe someday when i don't live in the desert i will write about its beauty...

Wow What A Festival...but it's over

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:51:00 +0000

I am suffering from withdrawal symptoms from the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and facing the overflowing inbox and piles of laundry....

But I will hold onto the magic of the festival for a long time or at least until next next year...and I made the front page of the Gulf News...well I'm pictured there with HH Sheikh Mohammed. The evening of poetry under the stars was magic enough, but then to have HH arrive well, that made it sparkle a bit more. I have been close royalty before. I have tread in divots at Smith's Lawn with HH Queen Elizabeth II but somehow listening to poetry in the desert with a sheikh is far more interesting...here's the link to the picture here.

So of course the best thing to help with my withdrawal symptoms is...another festival...Chipping Norton Festival Literary Festival is in April. I'll be able to listen to many great author tell their stories and share their skills and I'll be able to share what I've learned this week.

Throughout the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, I chatted to so many authors and one thing became clear...many are either scared of or don't see the point in Social Media....My session with Dubai Abulhoul on Thursday evening was about how Social Media is vital in today's book publishing world.

Liz Fenwick and Dubai Abulhoul at the book signing at Emirates Festival of Literature

So many interesting things came out of that session...one of the most important was how different regions use Social Media. I'll be sharing these insights and plenty more that I have learned on my journey from unpublished writer to published one at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival on Saturday the 20th of April 2013....for more details go here.

So I need to bide my time, begin another book and plan my workshop until I can live in a literary world again...

Day Three at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:34:00 +0000

Yesterday was amazing and because today is so full on I don't have time to say much but I'll post a few pictures....

Liz Fenwick and Dubai Abulhoul

My session with the most amazing sixteen year old I have ever met, Dubai Abulhoul was fabulous...and not because of me...it was the electric atmosphere in the room filled with Dubai's friends. The room was packed and our moderator Hisham Wyne was superb as always. I can't recall ever having quite so much fun while being in the spot light. A huge thank you to all who bought The Cornish House and came for a chat after the session!

Sitting next to me at the signing table was the delicious (for there is no other word except maybe wonderful) for Antonio Carluccio...and we chatted about how glorious Cornwall is...the picture below is me with him in a total fan girl moment!

Antonio Carluccio and Liz Fenwick

There are more pictures on Facebook here

A Desert Evening Filled with Poetry and camels...Emirates Airline Festival of Literature Day Two

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 03:52:00 +0000

Last night was simply amazing...listening to poetry from around the world under the stars in the desert....and a bit of camel riding before hand while we watched the sun set. We also hand a royal visitor too...

Sharing a camel with Philip Ardagh is something I'll never forget!

Luigi Bonomi and me

Mark Billingham, Philip Ardagh, John Connolly and Ian Rankin

Philip Ardagh with the welcome committee

Giles Andreae, Anthony Horowitz, Philip Ardagh and mark Billingham

Wasn't sure with the height difference that Philip and I would appear in the photo!

Poets before they left for the desert- Richard Armitage, Jeet Thayil, me, Roger McGough and Sjon

leading camel has Clare and Mark Billingham, the next hold Kate Mosse, and final Anthony Beevor and Atemis Cooper

Gregg Mosse, Anthony Horowitz and Ian Rankin

There are more pictures up on my Facebook page here

Some Photos from Last Night at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature

noreply@blogger.com (Liz Fenwick) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:27:00 +0000

Just before the opening ceremony of the festival we have the pleasure and privilege to watch these beautiful girl dance for us...my photos don't do them justice.

And now for something completely different...this morning I spoke at the Old Library. They were a wonderful group of women with brilliant questions....

Then I raced back to the Intercontinental Hotel for the author photos...

Rosie Goldsmith chatting with Ian Rankin

Tonight we are off to the desert to hear poetry under the stars...but before that I'll be spending the afternoon driving through the dunes and might meet a camel or two....