5 out of 5 quills
A REVIEW ~~ On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service
Delicious! House parties full of the aristocracy just as war rumblings begin again in Europe. Rhys Bowen’s series, A Royal Spyness Mystery delivers once again as Lady Georgiana is roped in by Her Majesty Queen Mary (Elizabeth’s mother) to spy on her son, the Prince of Wales and his oh-so-notorious lover, Wallis Simpson.
It seems that Darcy is always saying goodbye to our royal ‘Georgie’. Something always thwarts our lovers and separates them. Will they ever marry? In this very fine tale, Georgie is off to Italy and Darcy is called back to his mysterious job with the English government.
It’s a good story but if the writing falls short, it diminishes the storytelling. Rhys Bowen is a wonderful writer and one of my favorites. Her writing is crisp and her characters fully developed. The reader is fully engaged. While this is a series and I always tell my readers to begin at the beginning (for a fuller experience) all of Rhys’ stories stand on their own.
I give this book my highest rating and recommend it to you!
Did you miss my Interview with Rhys Bowen?
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
A real cliff hanger! To the last page (especially the last page) MacNeal’s new book keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. This series is a delight. Beginning when a ‘math-o-holic’ girl gets hired in Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s office as a typist. WWII is just gearing up. With an aptitude for numbers and codes Maggie Hope quickly rises, for a woman, in the war offices. In this latest offering, we catch up with her as she ‘wrangles’ her way into war-torn and occupied France. Searching for her sister, she is thrown into the deep end of espionage.
The Maggie Hope Mystery series offers intrigue, twists and turns and great characters. Woven expertly through world history the reader is treated to the workings and intrigues of 10 Downing Street and M16 (the CIA of England) . This reviewer strongly urges the reader to start at the beginning with Mr. Churchill’s Secretary and read the books in order. But, of course, The Paris Spy stands very well on its own. With each book Susan MacNeal gives the reader a complete story, albeit a dangler most likely leaving the reader in a most delicious sort of suspense.
Available at www.amazon.com or your favorite book store.
Did you miss my Interview with this Author??
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? Johan Thompson (South African author) joined us in April. June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
A REVIEW5 out of 5 quills The Tea Planter’s Daughter
As I said in the introduction of my Interview with this talented writer, it’s as if she hand picks each word as she writes. Elegantly written prose, she scrapes the words down to their most beautiful meaning. She knows her characters and locations and wears them like a second skin. Janet Macleod Trotter is a meticulous researcher so before she ever begins writing a story she researches…for months. The result is great story-telling.
This book takes us to India and submerges us in the sights, sounds, smells, and history of the country. Mysterious, passionate, and spiritual.
Two sisters live an idyllic life on their father’s tea plantation until tragedy strikes. They are unceremoniously ripped from their beloved land and end up in the streets of Tyneside, England. A rough, industrial town steeped in poverty. The reader, fascinated by their life in south Asia, has settled in their chair expecting more of this exotic place. But, like the sisters, are ripped away, landing in the stinking, rainy streets of a town in England that doesn’t care if they survive or not.
Yes, this is a good story; I loved every minute of it. But what makes a good story? Great writing! Janet has such a flare, has such great instincts and weaves love, tragedy, adventure, and passion into her stories. I highly recommended this author and this book!
Click here to read my interview with this author
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon. September: Dylan Callens
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JT. I think that’s very subjective –we don’t all like the same books. But I suppose the writers I admire most are the ones who create a world so vivid that you remember the characters and places long afterwards – they can change the way you see the world. Books that have done this for me that spring to mind are, The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald), Passage to India (E.M. Forster), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) and The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver).
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
JT. This can vary! I usually do about 6 months of research and gathering material before mapping out a storyline. Then I write a synopsis so I know where the story is going and how it will be resolved. This isn’t always strictly followed but it’s the blue-print for building the story, allowing for variations along the way. I write character profiles which are added to as I write the novel (these are really important when writing a series as I record their physical features, dates of significant events, relationships etc. that can be referred to when writing the follow-on books).
It takes about another 6 months to write the novel. My technique is to edit as I go along. Each day I begin by going over what I have written the day before and re-write it, before moving on to the next scene. When it’s all written, I’ll put it aside for a week or so and then go back to it and re-edit the whole manuscript. After this it will go to an editor and be given further edits as well as being copy edited and proofread. I make sure this happens for my independently published novels too – everything must be professionally done.
In search of family home in India
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
JT. I hope it has enriched my writing. As a writer you may not use actual incidents from your own life but you certainly use your own emotional response to make a novel realistic. How else can you feel your way into the inner life of your characters? More directly, I have used the experience of my younger self going on the overland trail to India. I used the diary I kept as an 18-year-old for the background to my mystery novel, THE VANISHING OF RUTH. I was writing it 30 years after the event so wanted the setting to be authentic – I certainly wouldn’t have remembered half of it without the prompt of my diary!
The one big traumatic event that I did use in an early novel was my experience of a stillborn baby. I did so partly as therapy for me and partly to make others aware of how deeply it can affect people. At the time, 30 years ago, society tended not to acknowledge such losses or encourage bereft parents to talk about it. Now, things are handled much more sensitively. THE HUNGRY HILLS is dedicated to our firstborn son.
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
I have written a couple of mysteries which I greatly enjoyed, and I’ve also written a childhood memoirs. But my default setting is historical novels!
Q. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
Writing is a very solitary way of life and to produce anything a writer must put in hours and hours of work. So I just want readers to know that if you’ve ever taken the time and trouble to contact an author and let them know you’ve enjoyed their book, you have done a wonderful thing! I get giddy with gratitude if a complete stranger gets in touch and thanks me for giving them a good read. You have no idea how much pleasure that gives in return – and the inspiration to carry on!
Did you miss Part I and Part II of this wonderful Interview with Janet?
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? Johan Thompson (South African author) joined us in April. June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon. September: Dylan Callens
One of my favorite authors, Ace Atkins, takes us once again to the backwaters of ole’ Miss. Village names like Sugar Ditch, Jericho and Choctaw intrigue the reader and you want to turn to the next page. The series is replete with characters like the ex-Army Ranger, Quinn Colson, his sister Caddy, Boom, Lillie Virgil, Fannie Hatchcock, the villainess, and her sidekick, Mungo. All wrap the reader in the swampy hand of the deep south.
I could write another review praising this writer to the heavens: ‘Adkins delivers another scintillating mystery’, ‘Quinn Colson takes us on another riveting search for the murdering bank robbers’, ‘you won’t be able to put it down’, blah, blah, blah. And I refuse to write a spoiler, like some reviewers do, just to fill the page.
That’s why I mentioned the underpinnings: Ace’s stories are neck deep in the flavor of small town life in the old south. His fans already know they’re in for another great read. So I’m going a little off the oyster-shell road of a typical review by quoting Ace here in the Oxford Magazine:
Atkins. ‘The inspiration came together quick. I won’t tell you how quick, but something so personal comes from a long gestation and a brief pen to paper with a little whiskey. I scribbled out my families. The Colsons, with Quinn and sister Caddy as a nod to the master. But these two were solely my own, with Quinn taking shape from my love of 1970s drive-in heroes like Billy Jack and Buford Pusser from Walking Tall. Quinn is an Army vet, a seasoned Ranger who soon becomes sheriff. Caddy wasn’t altogether different from Faulkner’s, only walking straight out of gritty strip clubs in South Memphis to discover a serious and real faith. The other families—the Varners, the Bundrens—would be new and unique folks, descended from people in nearby Yoknapatawpha.’ More
I am a die-hard fan of John MacDonald and Robert B. Parker and mourn their passing; no more Travis McGee and Meyer, no more Spenser and Hawk. I looked, literally, for years to find a writer of their caliber. Finally!! Ace Adkins. Serendipitously for me, I found him writing for the Robert B. Parker series and wanted to read some of his own work. The Fallen (Release date July 19th) is highly recommended and while it stands on its own, I suggest that my readers start with book #1 of the Quinn Colson series. To order click here.
Did you miss my Interview with Ace Atkins??
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters? (continued) Did you miss Part I
JT. I once created a totally imaginary strong-willed heroine who was a suffragette called Maggie Beaton. Then speaking at a talk to a convention of Women’s Institutes, a woman told me that her great aunt had been called Maggie Beaton and she sounded just the same sort of person! I got a tingle down my spine at that!
Other characters have been inspired by people closer to home. My grandparents lived and worked in India for years, where my granddad was a forester. I have used their background and some of their experiences in my second India novel, THE TEA PLANTER’S BRIDE, to get a really authentic feel of 1920s Scotland and India. Three years ago, my husband and I did a trip back to India to trace where my grandparents had been, and also where my mother had been brought up for the first 8 years of her life. I had a thrilling moment in Shimla, in the foothills of the Himalayas, when I managed to track down the old guest house where my family had lodged after trekking in the mountains in 1928. It still existed! Standing inside, I could almost see my mother toddling across the hallway. Shimla features in my third tea novel, THE GIRL FROM THE TEA GARDEN.
Bedroom where family had slept/ India
Q. What first inspired you to write your stories?
JT. I’ve been writing stories since I was a wee girl. I lived in a boys’ boarding school where my father was a history teacher and house master. The kind matron used to type up my stories so that, in my eyes, they looked like proper printed pages! My father was a great story teller of clan and family history, and my mother always read fiction aloud to us when we were young, so I grew up with a thirst for stories. Added to that was a love of history, so that it was natural for me to want to set my stories in the past.
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
JT. I think actually it is the setting! I start with a historical incident or momentous event (First World War, the Suffragettes, Miners’ Strike etc) and then read around the subject. First, I must have a sense of place. Once I’ve visualized the setting – the home, village, tea plantation, city slum, Hebridean island – then ideas for the plot and characters come.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
JT. On a good day yes! It’s thrilling to check the time and realize that I can’t remember the last hour – I’ve been off in some other place at a deeper level of concentration.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
Janet & Friends dressed up as Suffragettes
JT. My mother! I’ve just begun writing another tea novel set at the end of WW2 and the time of Indian Independence with a heroine who returns to India after being ‘exiled’ in Britain during her schooling and the war years. She is the same age as my mother would have been, who was also in that situation – separated from her father in India because of the war. Though my mother never got back out to India, I am trying to imagine what she would have done if she had.
Q. Do you have a new book coming out soon? If so tell us about it.
JT. The next novel in the pipeline which has already been written is THE FAR PASHMINA MOUNTAINS and is set in Britain and India during the early 19th century. It has a spirited Northumbrian heroine and a Scottish hero who joins the East India Company Army to seek his fortune. (One of my own MacLeod ancestors also did this a generation earlier in the 18th century). India was an exciting and fascinating place for Europeans at this time, a place of exploration, romance and where fortunes could be made, but it was also fraught with dangers. In the novel this also includes the first ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
At university in Edinburgh I wrote articles for the student newspaper but it was a couple of years later that I decided to take a correspondence course in writing. I wanted to have the discipline of writing to deadlines and trying out different forms of writing.
Q. How long after that were you published?
JT. I finished the course of twenty assignments and then offered my money back because I hadn’t been published by the time it was completed! Instead, I elected to take a further course, concentrating on fiction writing. Before this was finished I began getting short stories published in teenage comics – providing the storylines and the words in the bubbles! So I suppose that was after about two years of learning the craft. I continued to get short stories published in women’s magazines but the first break-through into novels was after about five years. I had a teenage novel, LOVE GAMES, published in the same year as my first Scottish historical novel, THE BELTANE FIRES. Three years after that, I had the first of my historical family sagas set in North-East England, THE HUNGRY HILLS, published. That was in 1992. I’ve been writing for over 30 years and produced 21 books.
Join us for the conclusion of this wonderful Interview July 21st
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
I published these volumes beginning in 2009 and they are very popular with teachers, directors, and drama departments. It was time now to add new plays to this volume. Retaining the tried and true, popular short plays, I have added many that I have written since 2009.
Fifteen 10 minutes plays in one volume. A variety of real life issues that teens face today with a couple of fun, silly ones just because. Teachers tell me that often doing the play, the students open up about their challenges each day.
Contents:
The Bullies…………………………………………..9 Boys at school bully a kid different from them-
selves. 4m Pan of Potatoes………………………………………………21 A sassy little tale about greed and a pan of
potatoes. 5f The Run-Away…………………………….…….31
Running away is not the solution to a teen’s problems
and can be very dangerous. 3f 1m The ‘D’ Word……………………………………………….45
Two teens face the fact that their parents
are divorcing. 2f, 2m
The Postcard…………………………………………………57 The mother of the bride receives a postcard from
the daughter that she gave up for adoption
twenty years ago. How does a devoted
mother tell her child, about a sister she never
knew about. 2f, 1m Cyber-Hate…………………………………..…..65
Bullying has reached sophisticated levels, sometimes
ending in tragic situations. 4f 1m The Art of Murder………………………………81
A reclusive artist watches his neighbor and paints
her over and over until she ends up dead. 2m 1f Song of the Yukon …………….………………….95 A teenager is inspired by the poetry of Robert
Service and strikes out for Alaska. 3f, 1m
You’re Not the Boss of Me…………………….105 The journey of decision making as a
teenager grows up. 3f Love Doesn’t Leave Bruises…………………………115 Violence among teens dating is nationally on the
rise and is becoming a genuine concern among
parents and educators. How one family deals with
it. 2f, 1m The Waltz……………………………………………………127
Falling in love during their first waltz until her
underpants fall down around her ankles. 1f, 1m Trans-G Kid…………………………………….133
Trapped in the wrong body a teen tries to find a
way out. 3f 1m
Trans-G Parents……………………………………147
A support group for parents trying to understand
and support their transgender child. 6f 5m The Perfume Bottle……………………………………………157 Two youngsters leave a perfume bottle for
the mean old lady next door. Is it perfume or a
far more lethal smell? 3f Ivah the Terrible……………………………………………….163 A rich client visits the house at dinner time while
the wife hides in the kitchen; but does she stay
there? 1f, 3m
I hope you enjoy these plays. More importantly I hope that your student/actors are inspired to navigate the troubled waters in their lives with good sense and wisdom.
Remember, when the plays are used in a classroom environment they are royalty-free!!
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
TS. This is an author whom it seems picks each individual word as she writes. Elegantly written prose, she scrapes the words down to their most beautiful meaning. She knows her characters and locations and wears them like a second skin.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
JT. My writing ‘dens’ have changed over the years! I have a small area in the house that I call my study (seen here) and I’m writing this in there now. The desk is usually untidy with research notes, spiral note books, scraps of paper and of course my laptop. Around me are shelves of non-fiction books, dictionaries and loads of files full of research for the various novels I’ve written.
But I often get more writing done if I go ‘out to work’ and away from the house and its domestic distractions! So I do a lot of my writing in libraries or places of retreat. My favourite one is the Lit & Phil in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Northeast England)– a wonderful old 19th century building with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and wee cubby-hole spaces in between where I can sit and work, drink coffee and try not to get distracted by the fascinating history books around me!
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
JT. I quite often go for a 50 minute walk first thing in the morning, partly for exercise and partly because doing something physical often kick-starts ideas. I think about my characters as I walk and this helps me know them better and decide what to do with them next! As I’ve indicated, my desk at home is not a tidy space but all I need is the laptop and the current file of notes beside me for reference. Sitting down at the desk and getting started is the hardest moment, as I’m a great procrastinator! And I have to have ‘rewards’ along the way such as a huge cup of proper coffee in the late morning and lots of tea in the afternoon (especially since I started writing my INDIA TEA SERIES!)
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
JT. When I was eighteen years-old I caught a bus in London and three months later arrived in Kathmandu! It was the heyday of the hippy trail across Asia in the 1970s and I got to see some amazing places that are now too dangerous to visit. I saw the ancient Buddhas of Bamian in Afghanistan before they were destroyed. The trip was the inspiration for my mystery novel, THE VANISHING OF RUTH.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
JT. I try and get started by mid-morning and write for a couple of hours. Then I’ll start again after lunch and write till late afternoon/early evening. I don’t write any later than that. The evening is relaxation time or catching up with other jobs, social media, emails etc. But in some ways a writer is never off-duty, as I’m often mulling over ideas or doing background reading. It’s not just about the physical writing.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
JT. Oh dear, you are asking a hardened procrastinator! Routines are good. Make sure that sometime during the day you sit down at your computer/desk/kitchen table and put some words on paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect, just write something. Then you have material to go back over later and build on. I find that re-reading what I’ve written the day before and editing it, helps me get back into the story. And while you’re there, put your phone and computer on silent so that you aren’t tempted to check messages or answer them!
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
JT. I always begin with the historical period and the social scene, so I do a lot of reading around the subject and then my characters begin to be conjure……
Join us on July 14th for Part Two of this fascinating Interview
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
Hey Everyone!! 🙂 Trisha Sugarek is joining us here today to talk about her new book. Trisha, can you tell us about yourself and how many books you have written?
Trisha: I have enjoyed a twenty year career writing stage plays, fiction, children’s books and poetry. In addition to a half a dozen full length plays, I expanded my body of work to include four children’s books, ten novels, of which seven are a series of true crime mysteries. I has written a collection of ten minute plays for the classroom. Most recently I created four journal/handbooks (instructional) for writers. My active blog encourages and helps other writers. I live in Savannah, Georgia with a ridge-back hound, Miss Molly and her little sister, Gracie, and their two cats, Fiona and Barcode. All were rescued and adopted.
Me: Sounds like you’ve been busy! 😉 What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Trisha: Video of Murder. Inspired by the other six books in the series of mine; World of Murder.
Me: Cool! What are you working on now?
Trisha: As I just published Video of Murder, I am taking a small break until the next idea comes…………and in the meantime the idea came to me. I am 19,000 words into my latest book, Sisters, based on the true story of my mother and her five sisters growing up in the 1900’s in the backwoods of Washington state………>>More
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
Robyn Carr has continued the story at ‘Sullivan’s Crossing’ with a sequel and we fans can only hope that she is planning a trilogy.
In ‘What We Find‘ we fall in love with Cal and Maggie and their story. Set in the mountains at a campground and off the Colorado and Continental Divide Trails (that start at the Mexican border and end in Canada), Cal and Maggie serendipitous meet and try NOT to fall in love. They both have emotional baggage and are determined not visit it on anyone else. But Cupid has other ideas.
In ‘Any Day Now‘ (the sequel) Cal’s sister, Sierra, comes to visit her brother, seeking a fresh start of her own. Maybe Sullivan’s Crossing is only going to be a brief stopover, but it’s a good place to find some peace and get her head on straight. She’s put her troubled past behind her but the path forward isn’t easy or clear to her. A visit with her big brother, who she hasn’t seen in years, seems to be a good option.
Not wanting to burden or depend on anyone, Sierra is surprised to find the Crossing offers so much more than a place to hide in. Cal and Maggie welcome her into their busy lives and she quickly finds herself bonding with Sully, the funny and quirky campground owner. But then her past catches up to her.
The bonus with the second book is we get to see how Cal and Maggie are faring. It’s Sierra’s story but the other characters from book #1 are a strong presence which is a delight. Robyn’s writing never disappoints. She has a strong voice and writes beautiful stories.
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? Johan Thompson (South African author) joined us in April. June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
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Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
