Monthly Archives: October 2012

Jessica Blair / Piatkus

It was a day Kathleen Swan would never forget: 12 August 1832, the day that changed her life.

From the window-seat in her room, she looked up from her copy of  The Last of the Mohicans and swept her gaze across the River Esk and Whitby’s red roofs climbing the East Cliff, to the ancient church and ruined abbey at the top. From its position high on the West Cliff, her room gave her a panoramic view from the sea and all along the river to the busy quays beyond the drawbridge. She sighed, not because of any real discontent but because, at nineteen, she felt that maybe life was passing her by.

[from The Road Beneath Me by Jessica Blair. (Published by Piatkus)]

 

The familiar sight of Yorkshire’s cliffs and strands of sand never failed to thrill John whenever he brought his ship close to home. They were stirring sights indeed, heralding safety from the icy wastes and cold seas where danger was ever present. The ruined abbey high on the cliff above Whitby welcomed him with its promise of peace, but today  his heart was troubled; he had become aware during the last six months in the lonely Arctic that Harriet had stolen a place in his mind. She had bloomed there like an enticing flower, contesting his feelings towards her sister. Anxious to get home, where he hoped he would find a way to curb his turbulent mind, John had pressed hard in his hunt for whales and had filled his ship with blubber and whalebone.

[from Secrets of a Whitby Girl by Jessica Blair. (Published by Piatkus)]

Crime Writers

I have just returned from a Sunday with the Northern branch of the Crime Writers’ Association, held at The White Swan Inn, Pickering, North Yorkshire. We had morning coffee. a very interesting talk by a high ranking police officer, lunch and a general chat among ourselves. It was all very enjoyable.   I am not a crime writer (I write historical sagas under the name of Jessica Blair)  but I am taken along as a guest by my good friends Rhoda and Peter Walker (Peter is a crime writer). It is good to share time with other writers which I always find stimulates me to get on with my writing ———— So, bye for now.

 

Art Exhibition

I recently went to Beverley in Yorkshire to the Art Gallery to see an exhibition of work by past students who attended the Royal Academy Schools between the 1950s and 1990s. It was an interesting exhibition and, as it included work from 12 artists with work from those dates to the present time, it showed progression in their work and the influence of the Royal Academy Schools of their time. There was a wide range of exhibits not only of subject matter but also in the use of different materials. Whilst it exhibited past and present tendencies it also made a statement that Art covers

Beverley Minster

 

Innocence 2

all mediums and should not be confined to one particular medium as some Art Critics and some figures in the Art World would have us believe in relation to modern tendencies.

 

 

 

painting by Geraldine Jones