Jessica Blair

Dress and Fashion

A writer must be sure of facts no matter what the genre, none more so than the novelist. Accurate descriptions of dress and fashion, help to set the scene, help to create the characters so that they a plausible and memorable in the reader’s mind. They help to bring life to the novel. So a good set of fashion books ready at hand on the author’s bookshelf  is helpful, I might say essential. Of course today,  in the technological age, it is easy to get information on the internet. I have done this but I am still glad that I built up a library and have books close at hand. Other writers might find some from my list useful:

R.Turner Wilcox: THE DICTIONARY OF COSTUME (Batsford)

John Styles: THE DRESS OF THE PEOPLE (Yale University Press)

Doreen Yarwood: ENGLISH COSTUME (Batsford)

Margot Lister: COSTUMES OF EVERYDAY LIFE (Barrie & Jenkins)

David Bond: THE GUINESS GUIDE TO 20th CENTURY FASHION

Regine & Peter W. Engelmeier:  FASHION IN FILM (Prestel)

Enjoy.  Happy writing.

Titanic

I have just finished reading THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER by Leah Fleming published by Simon & Schuster. Leah places fictitious characters into a true background. This is not the easiest thing to do but she handles it so well that you can believe that this really happened. First class passenger Celeste is heading home to an unstable marriage after visiting her family in England. May with her husband and baby are escaping a harsh life in Bolton for what they hope will be a better life in America. Disaster strikes. May loses her husband and baby, but when another is thrust into her arms by the Captain of the Titanic, before he gives himself up to the sea, she implies that it is her own, a secret she keeps for her life-time but secrets must out. May and Celeste become firm friends and we follow their lives and those of others who were on the ship or waiting in vain on the shore as Leah Fleming spins an intriguing story and skilfully brings all the threads together to tie a satisfactoty knot at the end. 

_{»crosslinked«}

Starting To Write Another Book.

My 21st novel by Jessica  Blair was published yesterday, the 2nd of February. They have all been published by Piatkus with whom I have always had a pleasant and cordial relationship. The next one is already in their hands and likely to be published early in 2013.  I took a few days off  after sending them the book by email. I relaxed and refreshed my mind, something I do a couple of times during writing a book. I find I come back to it with renewed vigour and new thoughts as to where I will go with the story, or rather with a new and interesting conversations with my characters in which they tell me the direction they think the story should go. That may not make sense to you but it does to me – it has worked through 21 books!  Now I am thinking of the one waiting to be written and today I started to bring together my thoughts on what that one might be and getting ready to listen to my characters.

Jessica Blair

Yesterday, 2nd February, was publishing day for two of my books by Jessica Blair both published by Piatkus, an imprint of the Little Brown Book Group

THE ROAD BENEATH ME  (hardback) is set in the nineteenth century with a background of Whitby, Shetland and Nova Scotia. In Whitby Kate Swan is cast out by her overbearing father. In Shetland Malcolm McFadden walks away from his inheritance after a dispute with his father over the expulsion of crofters. Leaving the girl he loves, he finds employment in Whitbyand there marries Kate. Fate steps in to take him back to Shetland and to an unsought life in Nova Scotia. But Kate has other ideas that takes her on a search for the truth.

SECRETS OF A WHITBY GIRL (paperback) was published in hardback last year. Eighty-five year old Miss Sarah Brook has kept a diary which holds family secrets.  At this time of her life should she destroy it or capitulate to her niece’s desire to know her family’s history? The story is set in Whitby, and the nineteenth century whaling trade that takes its sailors into the terrible hazards of the Arctic.

Trent’s Last Case

I have just finished  this book for the second time.  The first time was in September/October 1944 !!!  I know this because I wrote on the flyleaf Lincoln 28/9/44.  That is where and when I bought it. So I must have come into Lincoln that day from nearby Dunholme where I was stationed with the RAF as a Bomb Aimer flying in Lancasters of 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron. No doubt I was delighted to find it as there was a scarcity of books at that time. Now, here I was reading it again after all those years. Why? Had I enjoyed it so much? Curiosity because I couldn’t remember a great deal about it?  Maybe neither of those; maybe it happened to be the book I plucked from one of my bookshelves when looking for something to read. Well, whatever. Did I enjoy it again? Yes I did. I suppose we regard it as a detective novel but Trent is not a detective; he is a journalist adept at sussing out crime stories and seemingly solving them  He leads us along that path in this story and maybe it is because his conclusions are wrong that the story is titled Trent’s Last Case. E.C. Bentley, the author, chooses an unusual way to tell his story. Trent’s deductions appear perfectly reasonable but there is always a little trigger of doubt in your mind. Then the author reveals the truth, by the unexpected route of the criminal in a conversation with Trent revealing how he commited the crime. Intriguing even after all these years – how many? 67!!  Oh, my goodness. Iwonder how many books I have read in that time?

New Novel

The cover for my new novel published by Piatkus in hardback on 2nd February. The story is set in 19th century Whitby, Shetland and Nova Scotia.

BOOK NEWS

Today I finished polishing the final draft of my new novel, provisionaly titled IN THE SILENCE OF THE SNOW. My contract required it to be with my publishers by February 1st, so that will be met. It is a panoramic novel following the lives of two families from 1912 to 1945, a time of two world wars and social change. It will probably be published in 2013 This will be my 22nd book written under the name of Jessica Blair.                

In the meantime my next book to be published appears on 2nd February this year. THE ROAD BENEATH ME  is set in the nineteenth century in Whitby, Shetland, and Nova Scotia and shows how love can survive against a background of commercail ambitions and the upheavals of the Shetland Clearances

RAF Lancasters. 100 Sorties

I recently purchased and read TON-UP LANCS by Norman Franks. It is ‘A photographic history of the 35 RAF Lancsters that each completed 100 sorties.’

SECRETS OF A WHITBY GIRL

SECRETS OF A WHITBY GIRL

Unabridged download edition will be available from iTunes and Audible on 2  February 2012.     The paperback comes out at the same time.

Update

I’ve been absent from my blog for quite a while. I should remedy that. It isn’t that I have been idle but there has been so much going on, in particular my novel has gone on apace and today I hit 91,000 words.  9,000 to go to hit the target but the way the novel is developing I might need more than that. It might be a case of extending it or maybe cutting some out. I would much rather add than cut. Cutting can upset other parts of the story making it more difficult to bring everything together without spoiling the narrative. But everything will come out all right  in the wash.

I’ve also been doing a lot of cataloguing of my books. The software I purchased is brilliant. I received word today that the software is being up-dated. From the initial information and sample of the changes it looks good so I will have to look more closely at it before release date later in November.

My last Jessica Blair novel Secrets of a Whitby Girl has come out in Large Print, published by Magna Large Print. Set in the 19th century it takes the reader from Whitby to the icy wastes of the Arctic. When her mother dies, sixteen year old Sarah has to take on the role of mother to her siblings, destroying her relationship with John Sharp whom she hoped to marry. She keeps a diary of her life and those of her family. It can still have repercussions  over sixty years later if  she allows it to be read.