Jessica Blair

Lincolnshire

What glorious weather we have been having, clear skies, plenty of sunshine, a frosty nip in the air early morning. It was so great to get outside after so much staying indoors because of the winter weather. So Friday last week I went to my eldest daughter in North Lincolnshire. On the Saturday I met a friend in South Lincolnshire for lunch. Sunday morning a walk on the front at Cleethorpes before returning home to Yorkshire. A very nice break, refreshing me for starting on my newly commissioned novel. I have a soft spot for Lincolnshire – After returning from aircrew training in Canada in 1943 I did all my operational flying from bases in Lincolnshire so it became a second home to me especially after two of my daughters settled  in the county and through them I made friends there. Lincolnshire has much to commend it. No doubt those who know it will agree.

Sealed Secrets – Publishing Day

Today, 10th March, great day!  Sealed Secrets, my 19th book under the name of Jessica Blair is published today in hardback.

It is set in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast, Rosedale in the North York Moors and in Newcastle in the mid nineteenth century.  Should secrets that could destroy lives be kept buried?

Another novel is in the pipeline at my publisher, Piatkus, part of the Little Brown Book Group.

And I have just signed a contract for another – now I have 100,000 words tp write!

Looking Back and Looking Forward

A glorious day here.  It is even making me think of lighter summer menus. Throughout the winter I’ve been making lots of soup – tomato in various ways, minted pea, onion,  smooth vegetable, leek and potato, and vegetable broth. I don’t like vegetables – I’ll tolerate small portions – but I do like them in soup, so I make lots of soup towards my five-a-day.  They’ll still be on my Summer menus. I love all fruits so they make up the rest of my five-a-day.

This change in the weather has also enabled me to start my morning walks again.  Sun, no wind, peaceful in the valley, what more could I want? And it gave me the opportunity to think about my new novel – I told you I had just signed a contract for it. So now it’s time to make the comupter keys work over-time. 

Romantic Novelists’ Association

Looking forward to Thursday -  the first of our new session of RNA (Romantic Novelists’ Association) Northern Chapter meetings held at the Smiiths Arms, Beckwithshaw near Harrogate. There’ll be plenty of chat over lunch. I’ll certainly come away enthused to get on with my new novel, THE ROAD BELOW ME.  The contract for that has now been signed. That in itself enthuses me to get on with it but over all my years of writing I have found meeting other writers always adds to the urge to get on with the job I love — writing. Our members cover a wide range of writing  – sub-genres of the overall category of  Romantic Fiction. Romance can appear in most fiction, so we have crime writers, historical novelists, chic-lit writers,  exponents of thrillers, fantasy writers etc. There’s always much to talk about over lunch and afterwards.  

But the words won’t flow until after the weekend as I’m going to visit one of my daughters for a couple of nights. But that isn’t to say the novel is abandoned — it will be developing in the back of  my mind; all part of the writer’s working methods.

New Novel

On 22nd I mention a new novel. I said I would let you have a title when I knew it.  Well, the working title is THE ROAD BELOW ME.  A contract is on its way.  The story will be set in the early 1800s in Whitby on the Yorkshire coat, Shetland and take in the Clearances and forced emigration to America. Now all I have to do is write approximately 100,000 words ! 

Start of a new novel

The germs of the new idea I mentioned on 19th January after I had finished I WEPT FOR THE MORNING SUN have been developing in my mind. After discussing the broad outline with my editor at my publisher, Piatkus, I have started on the writing. I have completed the first two chapters – need to look through them again before I’m satisfied. Title? You might ask. I have one in mind. Will let you have it when it is finally decided. There are many blank pages to fill before the end is reached; I find it exciting to start sharing lives with my characters. Any other writers out there feel the same?

WESTERN

BLACK WATERN CANYON:- My latest Western to be published in Dales Large Print, an imprint of Library  Magna Books. It was originally published by Robert Hale in 1963. It is one of 36 Westerns along with several other books published before I became Jessica Blair.

It tells the story of Eugene MacCarthy’s attempt to take over territory in New Mexico. Arson, rustling, double-cross and the discovery of gold in Black Water Canyon are all here.

The cover illustration is by Gordon Crabb who has done all my recent Westerns published by Dales Large Print.

Shetland

A Shetland coastal scene, that would be seen by

the whalers who figure in some of Jessica Blair’s

novels set in the eighteenth and nineteen

centuries –  The Red Shawl,  A Distant Harbour,

The Restless Heart, Secrets of the Sea, etc.

Jessica Blair’s New Book.

Here is the cover of my new book due out on March 10, published by Piatkus 

Lives become entwined when Betsy Palmer, feeling betrayed by Jim Fenwick, falls in love with Robert Addison whose friendship with Adele Jordan is blossoming into something deeper. The Rosedale ironstone mines of the North York Moors, and the mercantile worlds of Newcastle and Hull, in 1858, form the background of my 19th Jessica Blair novel.

Accolade For a Writer

A friend said to her little girl, ‘You know, Bill is a writer?’

Little girl looked doubtful .

‘He writes books,’ explained Mum.

Still puzzled, little girl said, ‘Books that sell in bookshops?’

‘Yes,’ said Mum.

A moment to digest this information then – ‘WOW !!!!!’