I have put a short extract from Dangerous Shores in Category: Book Preview. The novel will be published in paperback on 6th November. Try it. I hope you like it and it makes you want to read more to find out what happens to Eliza, John and Abigail.

The present novel continues to go well. This morning I decided that most of what I had written two days ago had to come out because I realised some of it did not fit the pattern and direction the female character was telling me to go. It is always somewhat distressing to strike out something that had been a joy to write, but an author must see what is good for the progress of the story and the novel as a whole. Chapter 14 finished. On to Chapter 15 now.

Happy reading

Here is an extract from Chapter One of Dangerous Shores which will be published in paperback on November 6th 2008. Hope you like it and want to read the book.     Another extract will appear shortly           

 ‘What’s the problem, love?’ Eliza asked, when John reached the window. ‘I suppose it has to do with the papers in your hand?’ she added as she rose from her chair and came to join him.

            ‘It’s a wonderful view, isn’t it?’ was all he said in answer to her questions.

            ‘Wonderful,’ she replied, and waited patiently for him to explain what troubled him.

 How often had they had stood here gazing across the terrace and over the lawn to the cliff edge beyond overhanging a tiny bay where at this moment the sea lapped lazily. No matter what the season, no matter what the weather or the tumult of the sea, this view always entranced them and inevitably their fingers entwined as they enjoyed it together..

‘Well, what is it?’ she prompted quietly. ‘What as that piece of paper to do with the view?’

John turned to her. As ever she saw love and adoration on his handsome face, but she also saw from the shadows in his deep blue eyes that he was troubled.

‘Maybe we’ll leave it,’ he said quietly, letting go of her hand and running his hand through his thick dark hair; a worried gesture.

‘What?’ His statement evoked disbelief in her. She stared at him, her eyes wide with shock and curiosity. ‘Leave Bloomfield Manor, Why?’

He hesitated as if he was searching for the right words. ‘This,’ he said holding up the papers.

She took them. The top one was a letter written in immaculate copperplate handwriting; obviously executed by someone used to producing clearly legible documents. Her eyes skipped over the words quickly. The shock she received caused her to sink on to the window seat to read the letter more carefully, making sure she had truly understood the contents at first glance. When she knew that she had she looked up slowly to meet John’s anxious gaze.

‘Well?’ she said.

He tightened his lips and shrugged his shoulders. She noticed his quick glance out of the window but could not interpret whether he was deliberately redirecting her attention to the view they both loved and silently saying: ‘This is what I want.’ She stood up and placed a comforting hand on his arm. Her blue eyes met his, asking him to say something, for whatever he wanted she would agree to.

‘I wish Uncle Gerard hadn’t done this then we wouldn’t have been faced with a decision that could affect our lives and even Abigail’s.

‘Well, he has. We cannot get away from that. I don’t think we can walk away from his immense generosity without considering it carefully.’

‘I suppose not. But I hardly remember him. He left Whitby when I was a small child. Under a bit of a cloud, I believe. He was twelve years older than my father. Never set foot here again. Sailed the seven seas and, it was rumoured, made a fortune. He finally settled in Cornwall.’

‘And now he’s died,’ added Eliza when her husband hesitated, ‘and left everything to, as it says here, “John Mitchell, my nephew and only male relation.” According to these figures it’s a considerable fortune in money and land.’

‘Yes, but note the proviso, I will have to take up residence in his property, and he stipulates that I must reside there for twelve years otherwise everything I inherit will be forfeit. If I were to leave within that time then I would have to make good the estate’s worth to its present value.’

‘Or you could refuse the bequest,’ Eliza pointed out.

‘Are you saying that’s what I should do?’

‘No. I am just pointing out that there is an alternative.’

‘And if I do the whole of my uncle’s estate will pass to the government.’

‘Do I detect from your tone of voice that you would not like that to happen?’

‘It would seem as if we were throwing his kindness back in Uncle Gerard’s face. After all, though I have barely met him since childhood, it seems he did not forget me.’

‘True. It looks as though he forgot Martha, which is strange considering your sister is four years older than you.’

‘What would he know of her, not having been in touch with the family? He probably assumed she’d be married with a husband to provide for her now.’

‘He could have bothered to find out. If he had he’d have known she lost the love of her life when he was drowned on a whaling voyage in the Arctic,’ Eliza pointed out.

‘Maybe he was planning to. That letter says he died suddenly.’

‘It also states he had drawn up his will two years ago; if he had planned to consider Martha he would have had time.’

‘Well, we will never know his reasons for leaving everything to me, but we have a decision to make.’

Today I visited Magna Large Print Books who are publishing some of my Westerns in large print – you will have seen two of the covers on earlier Posts. I think they are very attractive and eye-catching. I hope you do. Back to today. Magna are in Long Preston near Settle in the Yorkshire Dales, 65 miles from where I live so I had a round trip of 130 miles through beautiful country. Thankfully it was a glorious day with lots of sunshine. So that made the trip much more pleasant in spite of heavy traffic on one section of the road.  At Magna I was looked after by two most pleasant people – Diane and Helen. They bubble with enthusiasm about their work so the conversation was interesting and sitmulating.  That started in their office, continued over an excellent lunch and then resumed again in the office. All in all it was a very satisfying and profitable day.  Thank you for your hospitality Diane and Helen; it was good to meet you again. 

Another 1000 words of Chapter 14 done today so the novel is progressing nicely  with a new aspect in the life of the main male character developing and that will influence the outlook and feelings of one of the two leading female characters – exciting times ahead !   I have also reviewed two books for the column I have been running in the local weekly paper for nearly 40 years. These were two interesting books. THE EUROPE BOOK is published by Lonely Planet and is full of excellent colour photographs catching the various moods of each country and a succinct text. Did you know that in Europe there are 52 countries with an total area of 23.1 million sq km and a population of 817.2 million people speaking 40 official languages?  THE ART OF ROMANCE published by Prestel presents 250 colour pictures of the covers of books published by Mills and Boon since its founding 100 years ago. Interestingly they reflect the social changes throughout that time. Enjoy your reading.

  

Here is the cover of DOLLARS OF DEATH published by Dales Large Print this month. It was   originaly published in hardback in 1979 !!  Western fans – would love to hear from you.

Yesterday I went to  lunch in the Ambassador Hotel in Scarborough. It was celebrating 60 years since the Circle was founded. I live 40 miles from Scarborough. Thankfully it was a glorious day in the midst of this wet summer. I arrived early in Scarborough and after a walk I was able to sit on seat overlooking the South Bay with a wonderful view of the old town, ancient church, harbour and castle. What stories could come out of it! We had a very nice lunch which was followed by an interesting and lively talk by Steven Ayckbourn, son of Alan Ayckbourn. He told us about his early life and living in California where he searched for his self and how he came out of that stronger with a greater appreciation of many aspects of life. He went on to tell us about writing plays, emphasising the point that if you wanted to be a playwrite you had to watch plays, oberving the techniques employed,  and see how various aspects of playwriting worked. He described how he had applied these to his own writing. I have been a member of the Circle since the 1960s. I have not been to a meeting for some time so it was good to catch up with people. 

 

 

We seem to have developed a ‘List Culture’ We like lists. They go beyond the written word – now they appear on television. You know them – the best of this or that, the worst of…, the most attractive…, and so on. Well I’m going to join the fashion and give you ten books about Bomber Command and its role in the Second World War that I think you should read. Here goes:

Dresden by Frederick Taylor;   Inferno by Keith Lowe;   The Hardest Victory by Denis Richards;   The Six Year Offensive by Ken Delve and Peter Jacobs;   Bomber Boys by Patrick Bishop;   The Bomber War by Robin Neillands;   Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson;   The Augsburg Raid by Jack Currie;  Bomber Crew by John Sweetman; The Berlin Raids by Martin Middlebrook.

There are more but these will do to make you realise what these men (many of the still boys) contributed to the final victory. If their campaign had not been carried out successfully many more people would have died before final victory was achieved. Their losses were high but they never flinched from their duty. Read these books and you will wonder why they were never awarded a Campaign Medal and had their cause wrecked by politicians.

 

My good friend Mary Mackie, a successful writer, across a variety of fields, has informed me that she now has a website which she has designed herself. Have a look at it. It is interesting, will tell you a lot about Mary and her achievements in the writing world. I have known Mary since  when? 1970s? I met her and her husband, Chris, at a Society of Authors meeting in Leeds and the friendship has remained one that I value. Keep writing, Mary.

Today I attended a meeting of the Society of Authors in York. It was held in the Bar Convent.There were about fifty members there so there was plenty of chatter about writing matters. Writing is a solitary occupation so when writers get together there’s a lot of talking among themselves. One of the advantages of any meeting involving writers is the exchange of ideas and news. In this meeting there were other advantages too – we had news from a representative of the Society from the Headquarters in London. We were given a lot of news from about trends and changes in the publishing world. We were warned to look closely at our contracts with publishers and make sure the various advancements in the technalogical world involving the presentation of our writing are not overlooked. We had two main speakers, one in the morning, the second in the afternoon after a very good buffet lunch. The morning speaker was a writer, publisher and university lecturer. He covered many aspects of his publishing and university experience among them how publishing had changed over the last forty years and how technology has changed students research and their use of books. So many universities offer Creative Writing Courses that we are becoming a Writing Culture yet few of those students get published. The second speaker was from one of the big chains of booksellers. He gave many interesting insights into that side of the writing world – the link between the publisher and reader. All writers want more exposure for their books and he showed the problems that arise in this for the bookseller because they cannot possibly oblige everyone and there may be restrictions from head office on the campaigns the bookseller can run but he tries to have some connection with local area in which he is based. He demonstrated one of the new ebooks that are coming on the market. He saw a use for them but thought that the book would never disappear because people like to handle books whether it be in a shop, a library or at home. All of us there were pleased to hear that at present the book market was not suffering from the blip in the economy. Nor could he see a complete demise of the independent bookshop – there was a place for them. All in all it was a well spent and enjoyable day.

 

On Monday I read an obituary of Anita Page a star of silent films who made the transition to the talkies successfully and would have progressed much more than she did had she not got on the wrong side of some executives.Reading that obituary cast my mind back. I can just remember seeing a silent film or two probably during the overlap with talkies. I cannot remember what they were. The first film I can remember seeing was BEN-HUR released in 1925 starring Ramon Novarro. I cannot remember the cinema in Middlesbrough where I saw it. But I do remember seeing THE IRON MASK starring Douglas Fairbanks Snr (released 1929) at the Hippodrome and MR ROBINSON CRUSOE also starring Douglas Fairbanks Snr (released 1934) at the Scala. Mother and Father became cinemagoers and every Friday night we had seats booked at the Palladium (first three seats in Row P on the left hand side) It was there I remember seeing Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929) – the first British sound picture. That cinema had children’s cinema on Saturday mornings. (3pence, or 5pence if you went in the ‘posh’ seats. A serial before the main offerings – the one I remember The Indians Are Coming starring Tim McCoy.  I probably went to the cinema three or four times a week – there were plenty of cinemas to choose from then.  Happy days !

So was born my interest in films and the cinema which has gone on to this day.