The 20 Books of Summer Challenge...

Well, as promised, I am making a start with the first two books in my 20 Summer Reads Challenge.

The reviews won't be as detailed as some but I will link all of my twenty reads onto my blog via Goodreads.

Anyone who want to follow my reviews on Goodreads can find me as Jaffareadstoo...

Or follow the hashtag #20BooksofSummer on Twitter

Origins of Love by Kishwar Desai
#20 Books of Summer

Against her better judgement, Simran Singh is a social worker who is involved in a clinic in Delhi which specialises in surrogacy and the risky business of providing babies for those who have enough money to rent-a-womb. There is no doubt that for some unscrupulous providers this is a very lucrative trade,and for those who operate the clinic it would seem that money is the prime objective. However, for Simran, the very human cost of this enterprise is seen in the small baby who lies abandoned and alone after being born with IVF and in the pregnant women who are used, abused and used as commodities to be bought and sold.

This is an interesting story, the moral implications are there and are crafted very carefully and it’s good to see that Simran offers a still small voice of calm in an increasingly complicated situation. I enjoyed watching this story unfold, and thought that Ben and Kate, a young infertile couple from London, added an altogether different perspective to, what is a very complex and emotional subject.

Enjoyed it.

The Emperor of Paris by C.S. Richardson
#20 Books of Summer

It took me a while to get into this one, not because its poorly written, far from it, the prose is really well considered and beautifully expressed; it’s just that the quiet introspection of life in Paris during the early part of the twentieth century needed studied concentration.

It’s the story of Emile Notre-Dame, the thinnest baker in all of Paris, his wife Immacolata and their son Octavio; it’s also about Isabeau, a scarred beauty who works in the underground archives of the Louvre and who loves the escape that art and literature brings to her fractured world. And then there’s an artist with a fine eye for expressive detail and book seller called Henri who has a magical world stored away. All very different but whose lives are shaped and made more special because of their connection.

It’s a story about hopes and dreams, love and loss, and the tangible evidence that we all need something special in our lives. And it’s also about books and their ability to transform our world with written magic.

Henri said, “The old man claimed you could tell what a book looked like by closing your eyes and feeling it. I would run my fingers along the spines, as you are now, for hours on end guessing at the colours and leathers and lines and foils and embosses…”

Lovely.

More details about The 20 Books of Summer Challenge 

and also here at Cathy 746

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The Author in my Spotlight is ...Rhoda Baxter

Today I am delighted to feature the author 

Rhoda Baxter

on the Publication Day of her latest novel.

Choc Lit
7 June 2016

A bit of blurb...

What if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you?

Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up.

That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question.

In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate.

But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after

Rhoda, a warm welcome to Jaffareadstoo and thank you for spending time with us on the publication day of your latest novel, Please Release me...

The research behind Please Release Me – or the pain of losing a perfectly good crotch joke.....

Please Release Me was a difficult book to write, because of the subjects it touched on. The book is partly about a man who is waiting for his wife to wake up from a coma. His life is on hold. He has to be prepared for the best case scenario, where she wakes up and eventually recovers; the worst case scenario, where she dies … and every other scenario in between. It’s a weird place to be.

I do a lot of my research on the internet. I read carer testimonials, watched short documentaries, spent a lot of time imagining myself into Peter’s head. A lot of the time, the research made me cry. Peter had to grieve for the future he thought he had and at the same time, prepare for a future that he knew would be harder than he’d hoped. The poor man couldn’t help but be depressed. And then, being the evil writer that I am, I made things worse for him. He learns that the Sally he knew and loved wasn’t real, that he’d been misled about a lot of things. To Peter that felt like he was losing her all over again. Not only was his future uncertain, his past was now in doubt as well. And then I gave him feelings for someone else. Like any normal person, he feels guilty about that and, because he is who he is, he tries very hard to do the right thing.

I visited Martin House Children’s Hospice (they have an open day every year) and heard a father talk about the pain of losing a child … and having to live with the knowledge that their other child has the same condition. He was very open about it all. That made me cry too.

It wasn’t all about psychology though. One of the scenes in Please Release Me sees the heroine, Grace, doing an abseil. She does this partly because she’s been persuaded to try something out of her comfort zone, and partly because she wants to impress Peter (because when it comes to fancying someone we’re all still teenagers deep down). I’ve never done an abseil, or even been on a climbing wall and it’s something I’ve always wanted to try. I had intended to go to the climbing centre in Hull and do a taster session … but life got in the way and I never did.

Instead, I spent hours watching YouTube clips of people abseiling or preparing for abseils or talking about abseils they'd just done until I felt I had a decent handle on it. I wrote the scene and got on with the rest of the book. When it came to sending the book off to my beta readers, I had a moment of doubt. Had I missed something vital? Was there anything in my description that would jump out as wrong or out of date to someone who knew about climbing?

I got in touch with the manager of Rock City Climbing Centre in Hull and asked if he would mind proof reading a scene for me to check for accuracy. He agreed. Lucky he did, because it turned out that the names of the equipment is different in the US compared to the UK and 90% of the YouTube clips I’d watched had been American. He sent me a short list of corrections, which I made (thank you @rockcityuk). The downside to that is that I had to get rid of a perfectly good crotch joke, but I’ll save that for another book.

Being in Peter’s head was tiring and, sometimes I’d have trouble shaking off the weight of his feelings for hours after I’d finished. Thank goodness I had totally bonkers Sally and lovely, kind Grace to write as well! When I’d finished Please Release Me, I felt I couldn’t put myself through quite such an emotional roller coaster again for a while, so I wrote a lighter book next. That one’s called Girl in Trouble and should be coming out in the next year or so. I didn’t get to use the crotch joke in that one either, so I’m still saving it. Keep an eye out, you never know where it’ll pop up.

Please Release Me is out in paperback today and can be ordered from all good book stockists. Click HERE for more information.

About the Author

Visit her Website

Find on Facebook

Follow on Twitter @RhodaBaxter

Visit Choc Lit

Huge thanks to Rhoda and to Lusana at Choc lit for inviting me to be part of the publication day celebrations for Please Release Me..

And remember it's out now !!

Amazon UK

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Review ~ Love's Long Road by G D Harper

Matador
April 2016

Bobbie Sinclair’s feeling of responsibility for her boyfriend's suicide is something she struggles to cope with, and her only way of dealing with it is to fight against everything she knows. She innocently assumes that her life can be blocked out by an unending progression of one night stands, but leading a promiscuous life, in her home town of Glasgow, brings her into contact with Michael Mitchell, an unscrupulous manipulator, who takes Bobbie by the hand and leads her, imperceptibly, into the dark and shady world of Glasgow’s criminal underclass.

The dark and gritty world which Bobbie finds herself part of, both in Glasgow and later in London, evokes a realistic edge to a story which moves along at a rollicking good pace. The late 1970s, a time I know very well, comes alive, and the author's descriptions of time and place are excellent, from the wearing of bright yellow jumpsuits, mine was blue, to drinking abundant amounts of Blue Nun and cruising around the edge of a Tiffany's nightclub dance floor, the detail was absolutely perfect.

Bobbie is a feisty protagonist, the sheer strength of her personality carries the story very well, but she also has a uniquely vulnerable edge which even though there are times when she is exasperating, you can’t help but form a deep emotional attachment to her. The other characters who flit into and out, add real depth to this dark and gritty story. Michael is such a dangerous charmer, and yet he exudes a sensuous attraction which hides just how dangerous a manipulator he is, and then there’s, Duncan, Bobbie’s friend who sticks with her throughout the whole sorry story.

The drama throughout Love's Long Road is utterly believable, the attention to detail is excellent and the ending, when it comes, is entirely appropriate. I really enjoyed it - it would make a great TV drama!!

Best Read with….chicken in a basket and of course, copious glasses of luke warm, Blue Nun…

My thanks to the author for sharing this book with me

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Blog Tour ~ Redemption Song by Laura Wilkinson

Jaffareadstoo is thrilled to host today's stop on the

Redemption Song Blog Tour

Please welcome  Laura Wilkinson

Author of Redemption Song

Hi Laura, I'm delighted to welcome you to Jaffareadstoo and thank you so much for sharing your love of red heads with us !!

For the Love of Ginger...

Other than a common thread of love, my three novels are diverse; touching on themes as broad as identity, parenthood, self-discovery, forgiveness and hope. Along with love, there is another factor which links all three: red-headed leads. There’s strawberry blond Jack (think young Robert Redford) in Bloodmining, ginger Yorkshire lass Mandy in Public Battles, Private Wars, and now there’s Saffron in Redemption Song, though at the story’s outset she has dyed her hair a dark brown. Why the proliferation of gingers? And what do readers expect from a hero or heroine with red tresses?

The why is straightforward to answer. Though it is rare worldwide (under 2%) all my family have red hair, apart from me, and I have two ginger sons. We even had a ginger tom cat, Hudson, when I was young. Jaffa reminds me of him. Family members cover the spectrum from a rich, chocolatey auburn to an orangey strawberry blonde, and I love them all and their unusual locks. Their hair has been a source of pleasure but, I’m afraid to say, mostly pain, so I like to wave the ginger flag vicariously. It’s homage to people I love, though I’ll stress that hair colour is the only thing my characters have in common with my family.

Red-headed leads are more prolific in children’s fiction – Anne of Green Gables, Ron Weasley, Just William’s side-kick and Pippi Longstocking immediately spring to mind – but they are harder to find in adult literature. One of my favourites is the eponymous heroine in Susan Fletcher’s brilliant debut Eve Green. So what do readers expect from red-headed characters? Fiery, feisty, passionate, hot-headed and quirky? Possibly, though I believe the modern reader is more discerning. Smarter. Not all flame-haired people have a quick temper – Homeland’s Brody strikes me as remarkably level-headed – and they are as easily temptresses (Rita Hayworth, anyone?) as quirky mavericks. It is a mistake to assume stereotypical behaviours on the basis of hair colour, and although appearance can define us, it need not. Myriad influences mould character.

So miner’s wife Mandy and doctor-in-training Saffron are female, young, and ginger, but they have little else in common. At 23 Mandy is married with four children; Saffron is footloose, if not fancy free – she’s anything but fancy free, weighed down as she is by tragedy and a dark secret, though she’s a fighter and regains a sense of hope through love. But because red hair makes such a statement, their attitudes towards their hair is significant. Mandy underestimates herself as much as she does the beauty of her hair and until she begins to value herself, she hates it. Saffron’s dyed hair reflects the darkness she feels inside herself. It is a character’s attitude to life, love, and their appearance, which shows us their mettle, not their actual appearance. And both Mandy and Saffron’s attitude towards their hair speaks volumes – at least, I hope so!

My next novel – Skin Deep – set for release in early 2017 doesn’t have a red-headed hero or heroine so marks a departure for me. In the meantime, I’m shouting ‘Up the Gingers!’ metaphorically via the lovely, fragile Saffron.

Thanks so much for having me over at your wonderful blog, Jo and Jaffa.

You're so welcome Laura - it's been a real pleasure to be part of your blog tour.

About The Author

Laura has written three novels. Her third, Redemption Song, is published on 28^th January 2016 by Accent Press. A fourth is due in early 2017.

If you lost everything in one night, what would you do?

Saffron is studying for a promising career in medicine until a horrific accident changes her life for ever. Needing to escape London, she moves to the Welsh coast to live with her mother. Saffron hates the small town existence and feels trapped until she meets Joe, another outsider. Despite initial misgivings, they grow closer to each other as they realise they have a lot in common. Like Saffron, Joe has a complicated past…one that’s creeping up on his present. Can Joe escape his demons for long enough to live a normal life – and can Saffron reveal the truth about what really happened on that fateful night? Love is the one thing they need most, but will they – can they – risk it?

Redemption Song is a captivating, insightful look at what happens when everything goes wrong – and the process of putting the pieces back together again.

To buy the e-book: https://Mybook.to/RedemptionSong

To buy the paperback: http://mybook.to/RedemptionWilkinson

If you’d like more information about Laura and her work visit:

laura-wilkinson.co.uk

Twitter @ScorpioScribble

Facebook: Laura Wilkinson Author

Pinterest

Goodreads

Instagram

Huge thanks to Laura for her lovely guest post - Jaffa is delighted with the shout out to gingers!!

Do visit the other stops on this exciting blog tour.

28th January - 11th February

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Review ~ The Missing Husband by Amanda Brooke

Harper
July 2015

Jo Taylor, and her husband David, appear, on the surface, to have a good marriage. Like all couples they squabble and bicker, but their latest silly argument about giving David a lift to the train station was particularly uncomfortable. When David leaves the house early the next morning, Jo pretends to be asleep. Later that same evening when David fails to return home, Jo, and the rest of the family, including the police,  feel that David has abandoned her. Pregnant and alone, Jo has some tough decisions to make and a difficult journey to travel before the truth about David's sudden disappearance is revealed.

I think what comes across so strongly in the story is of  the unpredictability of life, and that however well we think we know someone, there is always a little part of ourselves that remains entirely secret. Jo experiences all sorts of feelings, understandable anger at her husband's callous treatment, sadness that she has been left alone to cope with pregnancy and impending motherhood, and huge financial worries as she struggles to cope alone. All combine to make a really interesting story, and one that for me, became a real page turner. I wanted to see how the story developed, speculated about what had happened to David and empathised with Jo as she struggled to make sense of everything. 

This is now the second story by Amanda Brooke that I have read and as with her previous book, Where I Found You, I was struck by her easy style of writing, and the effortless way she draws the reader into the story. There is a realism to her characters which resonates, and in this story, Jo's constant battle against anxiety and panic is done in such a realistic way that you can't help but become emotionally involved in her desperate search for the truth. I read the book easily over a couple of sittings, it's one of those stories that tugs away at you so that you don't want to stop reading until the story is complete. The ending is cleverly achieved and took me by surprise, as I had anticipated a very different outcome.


Amanda's debut novel Yesterday's Sun was chosen as a Richard & Judy Book in 2012. And I am pleased to learn that the author has a new novel, expected in 2016.




About the Author



Follow on her website
On Twitter @AmandaBrookeAB

My thanks to Jaime at Harper for my copy of this book.

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Today my Guest Author is ...Alison May

I am delighted to introduce Alison to the blog.....

Hi. I’m Alison and I’m a History graduate. I’m not going to lie. It’s not a qualification that’s been of huge use in my adult life. The situations in which it’s genuinely handy to be able to talk, at some length, about the relationship between the abolitionist movement and British national identity in the early 1800s, are surprisingly limited. The old joke about history graduates spending most of their working lives asking people if they want fries with that isn’t particularly accurate, but generally it’s a good route to either teaching history or doing something completely random that doesn’t relate to your university life at all.

However, you can’t let one not particularly bankable degree deter you in life, so I decided, some years later, that the best thing to do would be to go back to university. This time however, I would make a wiser choice, so I did a second degree in creative writing, because, as everyone know, that’s a skill set that you can just take to the bank. (You can’t. Well, you can but the bank people will laugh at you and tell you you’re not qualified to work there.) There are huge hangars filled with creative writing graduates all sitting in rows and old-fashioned typewriters banging out their scripts and novels which will inevitably be published making the writers rich beyond their wildest dreams. (There aren’t. Sorry creative writing students of the world. There really really aren’t.)

So there I was qualified up to the eyeballs with absolutely no marketable skills. Whatever is a girl to do? Well the first thing to do is to write a novel, which I did. And it was terrible. So I joined the RNA New Writer’s Scheme and got some feedback on the novel and rewrote the whole thing from scratch. And then I rewrote it again. And then at least once more to end up with something that didn’t entirely suck. That book became Sweet Nothing which was published by lovely Choc Lit at the end of 2013.

But the problem then is you’re expected to write another novel, and as you’ve done it once, people are way less tolerant of you writing a sucky one. And that’s where that degree in history and all those years at university finally came into their own. Not because I wrote a historical novel – I’ve talked to historical novelists and they have to do actual research; it sounds like terribly hard work. So the history element was out of the window, but the university thing was interesting. Why not set a romantic comedy in a university? I’ve been a fan of David Lodge’s university novels for a long time. The politics of academic life is fascinating, and if I was setting a novel in a university, why not a history department? And so that’s where the main character in Midsummer Dreams all work, and within that history department we meet Helen, who is a lovelorn historian and expert on the relationship between the abolitionist movement in the early 1800s, which is funny because it I’ve studied that. I always knew it would come in handy one day.

Here's the blurb for Midsummer Dreams.

Four people. Four messy lives. One night that changes everything … 

Emily is obsessed with ending her father’s new relationship – but is blind to the fact that her own is far from perfect.

Dominic has spent so long making other people happy that he’s hardly noticed he’s not happy himself.

Helen has loved the same man, unrequitedly, for ten years. Now she may have to face up to the fact that he will never be hers.

Alex has always played the field. But when he finally meets a girl he wants to commit to, she is just out of his reach.

At a midsummer wedding party, the bonds that tie the four friends together begin to unravel and show them that, sometimes, the sensible choice is not always the right one. 

Buying Links:

Amazon UK: http://goo.gl/MEFw88

Amazon US: http://goo.gl/3rHnig

Author Bio

Alison May was born and raised in North Yorkshire, but now lives in Worcester with one husband, no kids and no pets. There were goldfish once. That ended badly.

Alison has studied History and Creative Writing, and has worked as a waitress, a shop assistant, a learning adviser, an advice centre manager, and a freelance trainer, before settling on 'making up stories' as an entirely acceptable grown-up career plan.
Alison is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association, and won the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy in 2012. She writes contemporary romantic comedies, and short stories.

www.alison-may.co.uk

www.twitter.com/MsAlisonMay

www.facebook.com/pages/Alison-May/

 My thanks to Alison for this lovely blog post and also to Lu at Choc Lit for organising everything.

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The author in my spotlight is .... Lorna Gray

Author 

of

Harper Impulse
21 May 2015

Lorna - I'm so pleased to welcome you to Jaffareadstoo....

Can you tell us a little about yourself. How long have you been writing and what got you started?

To answer the last part first, like many authors, I wrote stories as a child. Of course I'd cringe if anyone got their hands on them now! But the love of writing has been a part of my life for a very long time. History has always been a big source of inspiration and latterly this has focused on the post-war period. It all finally came to the fore about six years ago when the first seeds of inspiration were sewn that became 1947 adventure In the Shadow of Winter.

And just to give you the full picture of Lorna Gray, I am also a book illustrator and archaeological illustrator. So creativity and reconstructing the past appear to have worked themselves into every aspect of my life! I live in the Cotswolds in a tiny house with my partner, our chickens (who are not allowed in the house though, no matter how that reads), a dog and a cat who are inseparable, and also a field full of ponies and goats.

 Where did you get the first flash of inspiration for your novel, In the Shadow of Winter?

I can still remember that first moment of inspiration vividly. I was out in the field with the animals late one wintery night when I first discovered a sense of the isolation and danger experienced by lead character Eleanor. I'd just been talking to an octogenarian neighbour about his experiences (he was fourteen at the end of WWII) so my mind was full of the hardships witnessed by these fields over sixty years before. It was very lonely in the valley and absolutely freezing, and in my imagination I saw her stumbling through the storms of 1947 to discover former love Matthew Croft and helping him, and subsequently finding that a police manhunt is set to follow him right to her door.

 Tell us three interesting things about your novel which will pique the reader’s interest?

Point number one: The History. In the Shadow of Winter is set in a real timeframe, immediately after the Second World War when Britain was in a very tight spot. It's the most fantastic period in which to set an adventure. Food shortages were worse than ever before and then the weather decided to hit the whole country with extraordinarily low temperatures, deep snows and incredible danger. Cities and urban areas were hit by power cuts (rural areas were exempt because they didn't have mains electricity anyway!) and one town ended up getting its electricity from a kindly submarine that moored up nearby and acted as generator. It would sound like fiction, only it isn't!

Point number two: The mystery. I can't tell you what happens because then it wouldn't be much of a mystery but I can say that suspicion, the police and the panicked flight of a desperate man beat a path to Eleanor's door … The adventure has been described as 'unputdownable', 'chilling', 'gripping' and variations to that effect.  Hopefully you'll agree.

Point number three: the romance. You know how these things usually go, where the main character and her hero meet in a chance encounter? The sparks fly and they just start to get along swimmingly and then something happens to cause a bust-up before, at long last, they finally work it all out? Well, in this book, we meet Eleanor after the bust up. The romance in her life is the acceptance of the past and coming to terms with it, and learning how to put her heart, and her feelings for the very enigmatic Matthew, back together again. I didn't set out to write it this way, but I really loved discovering how her sense of the past influenced her reactions now - now that she has the chance to begin again, if only she can weather the storm.

 What was the best experience you had while writing In the Shadow of Winter?

I'm not entirely sure this can count as the best experience, but it was certainly the funniest. I noticed that when I got to a stage where I was writing a conflict or argument between the hero and Eleanor, I start to have silly little arguments with my real world partner. I kept getting angry with him and I couldn't quite tell him why, until I realised that somehow I was blaming him for the things fictional hero Matthew had done. Which is daft given that I was the author of Matthew's actions in the first place! Sometimes it is possible, I've realised, to empathise a little too much with one's characters ...

In your research for the novel, did you discover anything which surprised you?

Very simply, the thing that surprised me the most was how willing people were to share their memories, and how different each person's perspective was of a major historical event such as that terrible winter.

When do you find the time to write, and do you have a favourite place to do your writing?

I write at any time of day I can - it squeezes itself in with sheer determination around many other things. I have a fantastic desk upstairs with a window looking out over the very countryside that is my inspiration. If I ever lose my way, I just look out and there it all is, ready to remind me.

Can you tell us if you have another novel planned?

Absolutely I can. I'm working on one at the moment. The latest work is set in a similar period, but warm. Definitely warm. I can't face any more blizzards for now, even imaginary ones!

More about Lorna on her website 

Follow Lorna on Twitter @MsLornaGray
Folow Harper Impulse on Twitter @HarperImpulse

Sharing my thoughts on In the Shadow of Winter

There's a real sense of danger in this suspenseful novel which focuses on the events which happen in a small Cotswold village over a short period of time in the winter of 1947.  

The end of the war has not brought prosperity for Eleanor Phillips, and as she ekes out a meagre living on her farm, she struggles to keep body and soul together. During a violent snowstorm Eleanor rescues a man who is clearly in need of shelter, but this man has secrets which will put Eleanor, her beloved farm and those closest to her in real danger.

What then follows is a beautifully written suspenseful story which reads comfortably, almost like Eleanor's memoir. You feel she is speaking just for you and in a few short words conjures a real sense of  the freezing cold, the secluded isolation and the inherent danger. The mystery at the heart of the novel is well thought out and had me on the edge of my seat from the beginning. I really wanted everything to work out well for Eleanor and felt that she deserved some happiness.

I won't spoil any of the story by relating more of the plot as you really should read this for yourself to find out what happened. It's a perfect book to curl up, preferably with a huge pot of tea and some comforting homemade biscuits.

My thanks to Hayley Camis at Harper Impulse for my copy of this book.

And  also to Lorna Gray for her insightful answers to my questions and for sharing her book with Jaffareadstoo.

~***~

Review ~ Remarkable Things by Deirdre Palmer

Crooked Cat Publishing
5 May 2015

When Gus Albourne inherits a pretty village property from his Aunt Augusta, he interested to know why he is the sole beneficiary and as he searches for answers, he finds that unspoken secrets about his own life start to emerge.

Millie Hope is desperate to find her missing daughter, Karen, and when a family tragedy disturbs the equilibrium; her search for Karen becomes even more urgent. In a roundabout sort of way, Gus and Millie’s lives start to come together and even though they share confidences, their growing attraction is hampered by the secrets they are both adept at keeping rather too well hidden.

What then follows is an interesting and well written look at the vagaries of modern life and of all too often we become hampered by the secrets of the past. The story drew me in from the beginning and I found that I had immense sympathy for both Gus and Millie. They are both likeable protagonists and as their stories starts to unravel, you can’t help but become emotionally attached to both of them, and hope that things work out for them.

There is no doubt that the author has a keen eye for detail. Her writing is confident and assured and will I am sure, appeal to those who enjoy well written contemporary fiction. It’s a perfect book to curl up with, preferably on a sunny afternoon in the garden, but equally as enthralling on cosy evening by the fire.

I really enjoyed Remarkable Things and look forward to more books by this talented author.

Available now for pre-order on Amazon and to be published on the 5 May 2015

 by 

Crooked Cat Publishing.

Follow the author of twitter DLPalmer_Writer

About the Author

My thanks to to Deirdre for sharing her book with Jaffareadstoo in advance of its publication

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Baggy Pants and Bootees by Marilyn Chapman

Publisher: Safkhet Soul (13 Feb 2014)

Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.

Language: English

ASIN: B00IG90U1Q

 Book Blurb

Sophie's finally landed the job of her dreams, but her mother has suddenly fallen ill. While going through her mother's things to put some order in her life, Sophie discovers a baby bootee and the sordid past of her father, a dishonoured military man who allegedly raped a civilian.

Now Sophie wants to know the truth about her estranged father. Will she be able to discover the real story?

About the Author

Marilyn Chapman is an NCTJ accredited journalist who spent her early career on the Blackpool Evening Gazette and later freelanced for national newspapers and magazines, including the Daily Mail and Woman. She began writing for a football magazine at the age of fifteen and attributes her dry sense of humour to a very eventful life! She has worked in recruitment, training, estate agency and public relations.

Born in Guernsey, Marilyn now lives with her husband in Lancashire where she writes commercial women's fiction full time. She is a member of the Society of Authors.

Baggy Pants and Bootees is her first novel,

More about Marilyn here

Safkhet Publishing

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