Competition success!

 I am delighted to say that I have won the Barbara Pym Short Story Award for 2025 run by the Barbara Pym Society.

The stories had to have some reference to Barbara or her characters and I chose to imagine another life for someone from Crampton Hodnet, one of my favourite of her books. For those of you who read her, you will guess which character when I tell you that the title of the story is 'All Change at Leamington Lodge'.

It's such fun taking an existing character and changing her life! The story will be published in a forthcoming issue of Green Leaves, the newsletter of the Barbara Pym Society, and thereafter on their website.

Last year, I had a story in an anthology of stories previously placed the the BP Society competition. You can buy it here.

Seven in September

I read seven books in September.

 

Always Gardenia by Betsy Hanson

In July I reported that I had a story in an anthology called All this Richness by Barbara Pym and her readers; all the stories were taken from entries to the short story competitions run by the Barbara Pym Society. Betsy Hanson also has a story in it – she has been shortlisted twice and won in 2023. We connected on social media and she kindly sent me a copy of her lovely novel.

Gardenia, from Seattle, is fifty-six and mourning the premature loss of her husband. But she is making a new life for herself – she has started a job as an administrative assistant in a university and is getting to know her colleagues (academia is such fertile ground for a novelist); she babysits her grandson (and worries about her daughter-in-law’s erratic behaviour) and she has her best friend Sylvie, and her beloved dachshund.

Wise and witty and Pymish – I loved it.

 

Murder in Bloom by Liz Fielding

More flowers … but this is the third in a great cosy crime series featuring garden designer, Abby Finch. In this one, Abby is invited onto a gardening TV programme and ends up investigating the murder of the presenter.

 

A Pen Dipped in Poison by J. M. Hall

Another cosy crime, this time with three ex-teacher sleuths Thelma, Liz and Pat. Careers and marriages are destroyed before the three discover the sender of the letters revealing the recipients’ secrets.

 

Broken Bayou by Jennifer Moorhead

Not a book I would have come across if it hadn’t been an Amazon Prime free pick.

Child psychologist Willa Watters has come back to the small town in Louisiana where she, her feckless mother and her damaged little sister, spent childhood summers with her two great aunts. The aunts’ house has been left to the town but there are some boxes Willa must go through. A dry summer lowers the water in the bayou, bringing to light a serial killer’s work – and a shock for Willa.

 

Amusing Miss Austen by Angela Pearse

Sisters who must get married to avoid poverty, a dull clergyman cousin who will inherit their home – sounds a familiar story? Well, indeed – this, after all, is the situation that inspired Felicity's friend Jane Austen to write her best-loved novel ... I look forward to meeting these characters again. Felicity is a delightful heroine and Max is as dashing and (at first) as taciturn as one hopes for in a Regency hero, and of course one can never have too much of Miss Austen.

Great fun – and the sequel Visiting Miss Austen is now available to pre-order.

 

Highland Deceived by Jayne Castel

What a compelling hook – Connor, the new young chieftain of the Mackays of Farr has been betrothed for years but until now has never met his bride – and the woman he retrieves from the nunnery is not who he thinks. Keira – from the Gunn family, sworn enemies of the Mackays – falls hard for her husband but how can she keep her identity a secret? My heart was in my mouth when she got called out by someone who knew the girl she'd replaced. Set in the beautiful far north-west of Scotland, in Sutherland, this is a page-turning read and I look forward to revisiting the area and discovering what happens with Connor's siblings in the follow-up titles.

 

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Gondola of Doom by Olga Wojtas

The latest mission for time-travelling Morningside librarian Shona, as given to her by her fearsome old headmistress Marcia Blaine. This time Shona thinks she’s been asked to travel back to 17th-century Venice to prevent an outbreak of the plague but she may (as usual) have got the wrong end of the stick. Misunderstanding abound, as do the puns and witticisms and literary allusions. Eventually, Shona’s 21st- century knowledge helps to change Italian history, just not in the way she expected.

An absolute joy.

 

 

Six in July

I read six books in July.

 

All this Richness by Barbara Pym and her readers …

… and one of those readers I’m thrilled to say is me! This is an anthology of short stories, three of which are by Barbara P herself and the remaining 22 are by readers/writers who have submitted entries to the competition administered by the Barbara Pym society.

Entrants take a Pym character and run with them – take them abroad/forward in time/change their relationships or whatever. Great fun to do, and it was fabulous to read the other stories in this collection.

Not available online (yet; I believe this will be coming). In the meantime contact:

barbarapymsociety@gmail.com

 

Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes

Literally – a mix-up of shoe bags at a gym changes the lives of struggling wife and mum, Sam, and trophy wife Nisha. Many twists and turns ensue in this warm and satisfying read.

 

The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell

I was, and still am to some extent, a big fan of Ruth Rendell’s writing, her plots and her protagonists Inspector Wexford and his right-hand man Mike Burden. (I used to work for her publisher in London and was once introduced to her.)

Her books are set in the 60s/70s/80s and reading them now at least forty years later these decades are another world and not just in terms of technology and attitudes. She’s so good on detail and giving a sense of place and so much has changed in how and where people live, for example areas once downtrodden now have properties worth millions, that her books seem somehow more dated than others written in the same era.

 

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

Read for book group. Set in the crumbling Paradise cinema (rumoured to be based on one in Edinburgh … ) this takes in the surreal, hallucinatory months that Holly works there, ushering, making popcorn, watching films, getting to know her colleagues, cleaning – I won’t give you a single example of what filmgoers leave behind on and under the seats but I can tell you it’s all revolting.

I admired the consistency of the world that Camilla Grudova created (and the book was long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction last year) but had to read some bits with my eyes shut …

 

Last month I read two books by Jacqueline Winspear and I read two this month, A Sunlit Weapon and The Comfort of Ghosts – the seventeenth and eighteenth in the now concluded Maisie Dobbs series. I discovered there were some rather large gaps in my knowledge of Maisie’s relationships so I shall have to go back to catch up. 

Twelve in May

I read twelve books in May.

Twelve.

Accomplishable partly because I was on holiday in London for a week, travelling there and back by four-and-a-half-hour train journeys; and partly because, ahem, I was not doing much writing. But I was having a long-overdue tidy-up of writing-related bumph, about ten years’ worth of notes from classes and workshops, scribbled bits of stories etc. Etc. Also had big reorganisation of bookshelves – nothing I like doing better, apart from reading what’s on them.

Between You and me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris

I wrote about the last chapter of this book in a previous post A Penchant for Pencils. Mary Norris has been a proof reader at the New Yorker since 1993. As the blurb says: ‘Now she brings her vast experience, good cheer and finely sharpened pencils [yay!] to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.’ See also:

http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/mary-norris

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

I finally got round to reading one of the highest selling and critically acclaimed books of recent years – and found it deserving of all the hype. Love the writing and the story, and the picture it paints of 17th-century Holland.

Rescue in Ravensdale by Esme Cartmell

This is a book I loved when I was about ten and I rediscovered it during the aforementioned bookshelves reorganisation.

I must have reread it several times because I found I could remember great chunks of it. It’s about a family – parents, four daughters and their eighteen-year-old male cousin (from whose point of view the story is told) – on holiday in Yorkshire in August 1939, who get involved with the search for an apparent German spy.

It stood the test of time for me, and I think this was why. It is unusual in a children’s book for the parents to be so much involved – generally they are got out of the way as quickly as possible. Here, with their writer/reviewer father and artist mother, the girls (I remember being intrigued by their names – Thelma, Kyra and twins Daphne and Dione) and their cousin have wonderfully wordy, punny, literary conversations that I enjoyed this time round too.

Neither the book jacket nor Google can tell me anything about Esme Cartmell and whether she/?he wrote anything else.

Hysteria 3 – read on Kindle. An anthology of winners from the Hysteria Writing Competition, which include my fellow Edinburgh Writers’ Club member Olga Wojtas, and her typically amusing, and wonderfully named, story Green Tea and Chocolate Fudge Cake.

The Highland Lass by Rosemary Gemmell

Read on Kindle. A dual narrative, cleverly interspersing contemporary Eilidh’s return to the Scottish town she left as a child, and the story of Robert Burns and his doomed romance with the lass known as Highland Mary. With its great sense of place, the book is also a love letter to Burns’ home county of Ayrshire.

Sunshine Through the Rain by Gilly Stewart

Read on Kindle. Ellen’s transition from no-baggage career girl to hands-on guardian to her sister’s children is very believable, as is her slow-burning romance with neighbour Kit. I loved the farming background too.

The Pearl Locket by Kath McGurl

Read on Kindle. Enjoyed this even more than The Emerald Comb. Again, it’s a dual narrative, this time contemporary and WW2.

Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

Read umpteen times before but never stales. Have just joined the Barbara Pym Facebook page and thought my favourite title of hers was due for a reread.

The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming

Love a good spy story. Was there a sixth man – along with Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Cairncross and Blunt?

Kissing Mr Wrong by Sarah Duncan

‘Lu Edwards may write and illustrate books for children, but she's certain she doesn't want children of her own. She believes in travelling light, with not even a goldfish to tie her down, until Nick – a WWI expert with more baggage than Heathrow, right down to the kids, ex-wife and hamster – blows into her life.’ A good read.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Christian Aid sale purchase. The second LM book I’ve read, following The Husband’s Secret. Much enjoyed this one too – her characters are really … real. Alice hits her head and when she comes too she thinks it’s ten years earlier, but her whole life has changed.

Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella

Christian Aid sale purchase. Enjoyably farcical situation. And a reminder, if it’s required, that trying to relive your youth with your first love is never a good plan.

Re-reading childhood books on the other hand is, mostly, a very good plan.