Eight in January

I read eight books in January – well, seven books and one long short story.

‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy’ On Where Eagles Dare by Geoff Dyer

I’ve had a soft spot for the film Where Eagles Dare (based on the novel by Alastair Maclean) since I first saw it, something that for some reason my husband likes to tease me about. So what should I find in my Christmas stocking but this book, ‘Geoff Dyer’s tribute to the film he has loved since childhood.’ I thought I would put off reading it until I had the chance to see the film again – and lo, in early January there it was on one of the Freeview channels.

It was fun to see it again after a long gap and to realise the many ways in which it is preposterous (that seemingly bottomless haversack of explosives and useful things that Clint Eastwood lugs up and down snowy precipices for example) – and that is the tone of Geoff Dyer’s terrific little book: he still loves the film despite/because of its many preposterousnesses.

The Corrections by Jonathon Franzen

My son left this behind after a holiday. I’d never read JF before and I don’t think I will again but I was compelled to finish this once I’d embarked. The premise – an elderly mother wants to gather her three children and her grandsons around her in the family home for one last Christmas – could be the cue for a soft-focus, sentimental story, but soft-focus this most certainly ain’t. Father Alfred has always been a bullying type and, as a mother myself, my sympathies should have been with Enid but I’d avoid spending Christmas with her too given the choice.

Intellectual (too intellectual sometimes; I skipped pages of technical details concerning Alfred’s potentially millions-making invention which he’s sold to a large company for peanuts) but always with an edge of black humour to leaven the mix.

Song of the Skylark by Erica James

A dual timeline story. Lizzie in the present day, at a crossroads in her life, meets elderly American Mrs Dallimore when she volunteers in a care home. ‘As Lizzie listens to Mrs Dallimore's story, she begins to realize that she's not the only person to attract bad luck, or make mistakes, and maybe things aren't so bad for her after all . . . ’ Didn’t grab me.

A Country Christmas by Louisa May Alcott

This is a long short story and was a giveaway at Christmas time by a writer friend Helena Fairfax. Recipients could download the file; I then sent it to my Kindle. What a treat to read something previously unknown to me by the author of Little Women. I've just had a google and see that you can read it online here (along with Christmassy American recipes and other delights).

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

Read on Kindle. Set in Northern Territory, Australia in the 1970s. The members of the ‘book club’ live miles apart with often hostile terrain/weather between them so they can’t meet very often but their friendship and support for each other sees them all through difficult times. Loved it. And it led me to download, free from Project Gutenberg, an autobiographical novel set in the same region at the beginning of the last century: We of the Never Never.

The Woman in the Dark by Vanessa Savage

Read on Kindle – more or less in one go, on a cold wet Sunday. This is ‘A chilling psychological thriller about dark family dysfunction and the secrets that haunt us’ and had me gripped to the last twist. My only gripe is the title – rather fed up of seeing books called The Woman/The Girl ...

The Hard Way by Lee Child

Paperback from charity shop to whence it returned when I’d finished it. My favourite Jack Reacher (of about four) to date, unusual because it is part of it is set in England. A rich man’s wife has disappeared and Reacher has been hired to find her. He certainly knows how to make you turn the pages. If you want to read what other people think of the book it will take you a while – the last time I looked there were 11,657 reviews on Amazon with an average of four and a half stars.

The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker by Jenni Keer

Read on Kindle. Tagged as ‘the most heart-warming book you’ll read all year’ and although the year has just begun this could well be true. The friendship between twenty-five-old Lucy and her neighbour Brenda who’s seventy-nine is touching and funny, a perfect combination.

Interview with Helena Fairfax

Helena Fairfax has written: Palace of Deception, The Scottish Diamond (standalone romantic mysteries featuring the same characters with a bonus story A Question by at Hogmanay if you buy the anthology); A Way from Heart to Heart; The Antique Love (voted Most Romantic Love Scene Ever by readers of Love, Romances and More); The Silk Romance and a short story with recipes Come Date Me in Paris.

Her latest novel Felicity at the Cross Hotel is published today, 7 July, as an e-book and in paperback. Isn't the cover gorgeous?

A quaint hotel in the Lake District. The Cross Hotel is the perfect getaway. Or is it?

Felicity Everdene needs a break from the family business. Driving through the Lake District to the Cross Hotel, past the shining lake and the mountains, everything seems perfect. But Felicity soon discovers all is not well at the Cross Hotel …

Patrick Cross left the village of Emmside years ago never intending to return, but his father has left him the family’s hotel in his will, and now he's forced to come back. With a missing barmaid, a grumpy chef, and the hotel losing money, the arrival of Felicity Everdene from the notorious Everdene family only adds to Patrick’s troubles.

With so much to overcome, can Felicity and Patrick bring happiness to the Cross Hotel … and find happiness for themselves?

I was delighted to receive an advance copy and after I read it I had some questions for Helena:

Helena, welcome to Kate Writes and Reads. I really enjoyed Felicity at the Cross Hotel and one reason is that I think a hotel is such a brilliant setting for a novel because it’s a natural way for all sorts of people to come together. I wondered if you’d ever worked in a hotel yourself?

Thanks so much for having me, Kate! I'd been keen on the idea of the hotel setting for a while before I got down to writing Felicity at the Cross Hotel, and for exactly the reason you say. It's the perfect setting for people of all backgrounds to come together, and they could be at the hotel for all sorts of interesting reasons.

And yes, I have worked in a hotel myself. Just like my heroine, Felicity, I worked behind the bar one summer. The hotel I worked in was a family-run hotel in the Bavarian Alps. With my own hotel – halfway up the side of a mountain in a remote location – there were lots of similarities with my fictional Cross Hotel in the Lake District. There was the same sense of a family community, a mix of lots of different people, including a grumpy chef (I wonder if all chefs are grumpy!), and the same way that gossip spread like wildfire round the village.

You cleverly manage to get two sorts of hotels into the story. The Cross Hotel is a one-off family-run hotel while Felicity’s family is in the chain hotel business. Which would be your preference for a holiday?

When I go on holiday I really don't mind what the hotel is like, as I usually like to be out for most of the day sight-seeing. The Cross Hotel would be perfect for a relaxing break, though. I could imagine relaxing with my book on the terrace every day, with its gorgeous views to the lake, drinking tea and eating the chef's delicious cheesecake. (And it would be nice to get to know Patrick Cross, too!)

I see from your website that you live in an old Victorian mill town ‘right next door to the windswept Yorkshire moors’. The book is set in the Lake District so not too far away from your home – is it an area you know well?

The Lakes aren't far at all from me and I used to visit often, especially the area round Ambleside and Coniston Water. The landscape in the Lakes is completely different from the rolling moors and hills round where I live in Yorkshire, and I love the drama and romance of the mountains. Even the sky appears different at times – more steely and dramatic. It's no wonder Wordsworth called his home ‘The loveliest spot that man hath ever found’.

Apart from the hotel, and the relationship between Felicity and Patrick, there are other strands to the story. One of them is Patrick’s love of diving. I don’t want to give any spoilers but we do read about Patrick recalling something that happened while he was diving years earlier. I really felt I was there with him in cold murky Lake Emmswater. What research did you do to evoke this so well?

I have been diving myself, but that was in the sea around Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean. It was an amazing experience, and the waters I dived were the favourite spot of Jacques Cousteau. I can understand why! The Caribbean Sea is crystal clear, and the fish darting past are every shade of jewel-like colours. It was also warm – unlike the water in the Lake District! Freshwater diving in a cold lake is very different from diving in warm seas, and I knew I would have to get some help with the research, to make sure I had every detail correct. In the end I got in touch with the divers of Penrith Divers' Club and asked if I could watch them kit up and enter the water – just to see how putting on a dry-suit for cold water diving was different from wearing the wet-suit suitable in the Caribbean. The divers were really interested in my story and incredibly helpful. They gave me a CD they'd recorded underwater and explained all the manoeuvres they'd undergo to deal with a situation such as the one that Patrick Cross faces in my book. They had some fascinating stories to tell, and having gone to meet them I made friends for life. Felicity at the Cross Hotel is dedicated to them.

Another strand is Felicity’s relationship with her parents and her younger sister. Her father is an unpleasant and ruthless businessman but also a loving family man. Have you ever met anyone like that in real life?

I have met someone like that in a place I once worked – a man who was quite cold and hard, and a bit of a bully in business, and yet with his own family he was always kind and generous. His children were open and friendly, and completely different to him. I thought it would be interesting to explore that father/child relationship between Felicity and her dad, because it must be very difficult for the children of such a father. Patrick Cross's father, too, ‘wasn't a very nice guy’, and yet Patrick has grown up to be unselfish, caring and thoughtful.

I was once part of a discussion in which several women including myself ‘admitted’ that they give their cars (and other inanimate objects) names. The men in the room were baffled by such behaviour … In the book, Felicity’s ancient car, Agnetha, is almost as much a character as the people. Does your car have a name?

It doesn't have a name – but I'm very attached to it! My car is also an old banger, but I feel it's like a trusty old horse. I know it sounds ridiculous, but getting rid of it would be like putting it out to pasture. I'd be really sad! On the other hand, I have had cars I couldn't get on with at all. Cars that were cumbersome and awkward to drive, and one that was a total drama queen and would break down if asked to drive over a puddle. I swear all cars have a personality!

What was the inspiration for the book? Having coming up with the hotel in its lovely setting do you think you’ll set other stories there?

This might sound crazy – and very far from my Lake District setting – but my heroine was actually inspired by the heroine of a Bollywood film called Jab We Met – a girl with a cheerful, lively personality who transforms everyone around her. I'm also a big fan of the TV series The Hotel Inspector, and I liked the idea of Felicity thinking up ways to rejuvenate the Cross Hotel. I have ideas for more stories in the same setting. At the moment, they are just ideas scribbled in my notebook, but one day I hope to see them fully fledged!

Thank you for answering my questions, Helena. All the best with the book and your writing.

Thanks so much for having me here, Kate, and for your thoughtful questions!

Felicity at the Cross Hotel is available now.

Find out more about/contact Helena:

https://helenafairfax.com/

@HelenaFairfax

Lake pictures by Pixaby

Running an imaginary hotel

I wrote my first People’s Friend serial after winning the First Instalment of a Serial competition at the Scottish Association of Writers conference (see here). Called The Family at Farrshore it’s now available as an e-book and as a large-print edition in libraries.  

When PF Fiction Editor Shirley Blair asked me to think about a second serial I thought a family-run hotel would be a good setting. It’s a natural place for all sorts of people to come together.

My grandparents ran a hotel in Inverness shire in the 30s and my mother told me some stories about that.

During two summer holidays when I was a student I worked in family-run hotels – one on an island, and one by a loch where a bridge would shortly be replacing the ferryboat.

And of course I have also stayed in hotels so I could use those as research too.

I brainstormed lists of everything that came to mind from these three resources and came up with lots of material, some of which I used and some I didn’t (yet). As a background to the story, I went with the building of a bridge that can be seen from the hotel window and will put the ferryman out of work and impact in other ways on the community. That scenario was real, as I’ve said, but I had fun making up people to populate it and fictional situations to put them in.

Once I’d got my characters, I watched TV programmes on hotels, and googled restaurant menus and various aspects of running a small hotel – in fact I got so carried away with that last one I had to remind myself I was writing a story not planning to become a landlady …

I did incorporate one of the stories my mum told me about her family’s inn – a smugglers’ tale from a couple of hundred years ago.

I liked how The People’s Friend illustrated the first instalment of The Ferryboat.

When Judy and Tom Jeffreys are asked by their daughter Holly and her Scottish chef husband Corin if they will join them in buying The Ferryboat hotel in the West Highlands, they take the plunge and move north.

The rundown hotel needs much expensive upgrading – and what with local opposition to some of their plans, and worrying about their younger daughter, left down south with her flighty grandma, Judy begins to wonder if they’ve made a terrible mistake.

Other characters include Corin's rather intimidating parents Philip and Verity; Iris, a young widow with a small child, who loses her job at the hotel when the Jeffreys take over; Sandy, Iris' childhood sweetheart; Donny the ferryboat man; and forthright Roberta who refuses to name the day but has been engaged to Donny for eleven years. And of course there are hotel guests, both pleasant and otherwise.
 
Ulverscroft bought the large-print rights and produced a cover that got lots of nice comments when I posted it on social media.

So much so in fact that I asked if I could buy it and my graphic-designer husband altered it to make a terrific cover to go with the Kindle edition.

For my third serial I chose to write about a Highland farming community in the 1960s (A Time to Reap, coming soon on Kindle) but a hotel is a setting I hope to return to.

I was delighted to hear of a forthcoming book set in a hotel in the Lake District, Felicity at the Cross Hotel, and asked the author Helena Fairfax to tell me more about it. You can read her answers in a blog post here on publication day 8 July 2017 but to whet your appetite this is the really gorgeous cover:

Eight in May

I read eight books in May.

A Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell

I read this before I went to Scandinavia for the first time – a visit to Copenhagen at the end of May. Helen Russell, a journalist on a glossy, London-based mag, gave up her job and moved to Denmark for a year when her husband got a job in ‘Lego-land’, a small town in rural Jutland, around thirty miles from the Danish capital. She decided to try and find out if Danes are as happy as they are reputed to be. And they are: she asked people she met from all walks of life to rate their happiness on a scale of one to ten and no one fell below eight despite – or maybe because of – those long dark winters. 

Living there as a non-native wasn’t all hygge but there were compensations not least pastry sampling (in the name of research of course). I decided to follow her example ...

 Then I read:

The Runaway Bridesmaid by Daisy James

After finding her own boyfriend and her sister in a compromising position just before the latter’s wedding ceremony Rosie swaps her Louboutins for Wellingtons and flies from bustling New York to sleepy Devon to the house she’s been left by her aunt. Great fun – and see Daisy James’ latest title Sunshine after the Rain whose cover I previewed here.

The Coffee Shop Book Club – various authors including Jojo Moyes, Ian Rankin, Tracy Chevalier, Jenny Colgan, Tessa Hadley and Val McDermid.

Christian Aid book sale. Short stories. I knew I hadn’t read the book before so couldn’t understand why the stories seemed familiar until I twigged – duh, the clue is on the cover – that they were first published in Woman & Home to which I had a subscription for a while.

I particularly liked As The Time Draws Near by Eowyn Ivey. Piper returns to Alaska to scatter the ashes of her daredevil father ‘Red’ Robertson. I really loved Ivey’s writing and look forward to reading her novel The Snow Child which has been on my Kindle for ages.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Read for book group. Becoming a vegetarian is apparently a very subversive act in South Korea and the fallout from one young woman making this decision is told here from three viewpoints (none of them hers). Several of the group admired some aspects of the writing but only one was very enthusiastic about the book … which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.

I is for Innocent and O is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton

Yes, another Kinsey Milhone gumshoe blitz.

There was an interesting To the Reader note in O is for Outlaw which clarified the timeline of the books – or rather lack of timeline. The books: are sequential but Miss Milhone is caught up in a time warp and is currently living and working in the year 1986, without access to cell phones, the Internet, or other high-tech equipment … You’ll find few, if any references to current movies, fads, fashions or politics.

Famously, Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series is written in ‘real time’. The plus side of this meant that Rankin could set books around topical subjects such as the G8 summit in Edinburgh; the downside of course was that Rebus got older and so eventually had to retire.

As Sue Grafton planned from the outset in the mid 80s to write twenty-six Kinsey Milhone books I guess she had to make an early decision about how she was going to handle time and thought she wouldn’t have wanted Kinsey to age too much (plus her lovely landlord Henry who’s in his 90s clearly would not survive a further twenty-six years however good his gene pool). Hats doffed to her for pulling this off so successfully.

Since I’ve read so many Kinseys on the trot I notice (from a writerly perspective) that when a character is mentioned for the first time, however minor they are, we are always told what they are wearing in some detail, maybe not a technique that would work for everybody but effective here. Observing clothes would be part of Kinsey’s quick summing up of a person perhaps because she is supremely uninterested in what she herself wears – jeans and a black turtleneck being her uniform.

A quick Google tells me that in the US a ‘sport coat’ is what we in the UK call a sports jacket – but it sounds much more dashing.

And courtesy of a rescheduled flight and an unexpected four-hour train journey I was able to – yes, let’s hear it for the Kindle – bring my monthly total to eight with these two corking books:

The Daughters of Red Hill Hall by Kath McGurl

A dual time-line novel (a device this author has made her own I think). Each story had a connection with Red Hill Hall –in earlier times a family’s stately home and now a hotel. The parallels were cleverly done and I enjoyed both the historical and the contemporary strands.

Felicity at the Cross Hotel by Helena Fairfax

Of which I shall say nothing for the moment, except do go and buy it and look out for an interview with Helena Fairfax here in early July.

Guest post by Helena Fairfax

I’m delighted to have this guest post from Helena Fairfax (and not just because she loves Edinburgh!).

Scottish mystery in A Year of Light and Shadows, by Helena Fairfax

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Kate!

Your home city of Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities in the world. I love the mix of the old and the new, the dark buildings and alleyways, the views of the sea and the arches of the Forth Bridge stretching away. I don’t think there’s another city quite like it. I remember the first time I ever visited, stepping out of Waverley train station and onto bustling Princes Street. A man in a kilt was playing the bagpipes in front of one of the dark stone Victorian buildings, and at the top of the street, perched on a volcanic crag and dominating the skyline, was Edinburgh Castle. It was a magnificent and unforgettable sight.

One thing that struck me about Edinburgh (and still does whenever I visit) was its bloody and dramatic history. What sights the Castle must have seen!

In my novella The Scottish Diamond – the second book in my anthology A Year of Light and Shadows –my heroine describes visiting the Castle:

For hundreds of years its dark battlements have dominated the Edinburgh skyline, a symbol of royal power. This is no fairy tale castle, but one of military might. Whenever I pass through the imposing stonework of Portcullis Gate, I think of all the footsteps that have trodden this path before me down the ages – of the bloody battles, the royal ceremonies, of King James VI’s birth here, the deaths of queens, of Oliver Cromwell’s army, and of the doomed Jacobite uprising. The walls enclosing the castle bear witness to great turning-points in history. It’s a place to inspire awe.

Edinburgh is the perfect setting for a story of mystery, romance, and intrigue. 

Here is the blurb to the anthology:

A Year of Light and Shadows contains three romantic mysteries in one volume.

Palace of Deception

From the heat of the Mediterranean ...

When the Princess of Montverrier goes missing, Lizzie Smith takes on the acting job of her life. Alone and surrounded by intrigue in the Royal Palace, she relies on her quiet bodyguard, Léon. But who is he really protecting? Lizzie ... or the Princess?

The Scottish Diamond

To the heart of Scotland ...

Home in Scotland, Lizzie begins rehearsals for Macbeth, and finds danger stalking her through the streets of Edinburgh. She turns to her former bodyguard, Léon, for help – and discovers a secret he'd do anything not to reveal ...

A Question by Torchlight

A story of mystery and romance ...

The approach of Hogmanay in Edinburgh means a new year and new resolutions. Lizzie and Léon have put their year of danger behind them. But something is still troubling Léon, and Lizzie fears the worst ...

  

BUY LINKS: A Year of Light and Shadows is available on pre-order on Amazon: http://mybook.to/lightandshadows

and on Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/a-year-of-light-and-shadows

and other major e-tailers. The print version is coming soon!

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Social Links

If you’d like to get in touch, or find out more about my books, writing, and photos of my settings or the Yorkshire moors where I live, please follow my newsletter by subscribing here:

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Author Biography
Helena Fairfax writes engaging contemporary romances with sympathetic heroines and heroes she's secretly in love with. Her novels have been shortlisted for several awards, including the Exeter Novel Prize, the Global Ebook Awards, the I Heart Indie Awards, and the UK's Romantic Novelists' Association New Writers' Scheme Award.
Helena is a British author who was born in Uganda and came to England as a child. She's grown used to the cold now, and these days she lives in an old Victorian mill town in the north of England, right next door to the windswept Yorkshire moors. She walks this romantic landscape every day with her rescue dog, finding it the perfect place to dream up her heroes and her happy endings.

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Thanks very much for having me today, Kate. I always love to revisit Edinburgh!

My pleasure, Helena.

Calendar girl

My desk calendar at work for 2013 had a different motto for every day of the year; some, I thought, made good advice for writers:

Don’t wait for your ship to come in; swim out to it.

You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

(Image courtesy of Tim Seed / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Goals are dreams with deadlines.

Don’t think you are on the right road just because it’s a well-beaten path.

By the time a man finds greener pastures he can’t climb the fence.

Only Robinson Crusoe could get everything done by Friday.

(Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

 Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today

Do what you can with what you’ve got, wherever you are.

When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.

(Image courtesy of Oana Roxana Birtea / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Thanks to Helena Fairfax for alerting me to http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ from where these pictures came.

Do you have a favourite motto?