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 !
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?
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.
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.
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
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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 !!!!!’