An interesting novel, which concerns Newman’s discovery of his sister Abbie’s  unpublished manuscript following her suicide. Considering publication he decides to write an introduction to the novel, whose main character is Vee, a teacher. Vee was previously in love with Max, a psychiatrist, but the relationship was short-lived.

Childhood nightmares about her long-dead Aunt Mary’s mental illness lead Vee to create a “door” in her mind to shut her out. But Aunt Mary’s door is not enough to withstand a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which ends Vee’s teaching career. Some time later Vee gets a job at Squaremile, a centre for disabled people, but she soon realises that stigma is not just confined to job applications.

Once, when she was a teacher, she was believed and trusted. Now, suffering from bipolar disorder, she is doubted and bullied. Vee meets Max again, but this time as his patient. Max is unable to prevent Vee’s suicide, and feels intolerable guilt, in part because of his earlier relationship with her. Max hopes to find answers in Vee’s novel, a copy of which she gave him at their last appointment before her suicide.

Max, and his wife Helen, who works at Squaremile, are shocked to read of how Vee and some of the residents there have been treated. They investigate the allegations of bullying and neglect and prepare a report, presenting it at a meeting in the boardroom at Squaremile, attended by the chief executive officer of the centre. The atmosphere is tense, particularly as both Max and Helen have health problems, and because of attempts by Sandra, the chief bully at Squaremile, to sabotage their efforts to unmask her.

However, as the story reaches its climax, it is Abbie who will have the last word.

So, my  thoughts on From a Safe Distance? I found this novel an intelligent and sensitive story giving insight into the life of one living with bipolar disorder and the trials that have to be endured as a result of prejudice and stereotypical assumptions.

Do not be put off by grim references on the front cover or the apparent complexity of the synopsis. This novel tells a story within a story where the central message is one of love and hope in the search for better understanding of people who bear the burden of living with bipolar disorder.

The outer shell, that of Abbie’s suicide, encloses her writings where under the pseudonym of Vee she records the progress of her life and how it might more ideally have turned out.

This powerful story gives insight to all of us who have been fortunate enough not to have experienced this cruel, mysterious condition. It is also engaging as a gentle love story and makes compelling reading. In addition, the novel is essential reading for employers, interviewers and all who work in caring professions.

From a Safe Distance is available from Amazon as paperback or eBook. 

She Hot Pepper Bundles

Exciting news – do you remember the Frost feature on She Hot Pepper Sauces – those delicious home-made, authentic Trinidadian sauces – Trini Pepper, Lime Pepper and Tamarind? You know, the ones made with only real ingredients?

Well The Doubles Kitchen now have a full menu to get you through lockdown, and wow, it looks good.

The menu showcases traditional Trinidadian cuisine. Taking you on a trip to the Caribbean with every bite, touch and smell of their delicious food. Every dish is hand-made just like one would have in Trinidad. For some, it’s a memory of childhood, whereas for others it’s an exciting journey for their tastebuds.

So if you live in Enfield Borough, Southgate, Leyton, Leytonstone, Walthamstow or Chingford, take a look at the home delivery menu, otherwise curbside-collection is available from Sittingbourne Avenue, EN1. Just check out Double Kitchen on Facebook or Instagram or this link for current menu.

                                                                              She Hot Pepper Bundles

By Dr K Thompson, award-winning author of From Both Ends of the Stethoscope: Getting through breast cancer – by a doctor who knows

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A7DM42Q http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A7DM42Q

http://faitobooks.co.uk

Note: These articles express personal views. No warranty is made as to the accuracy or completeness of information given and you should always consult a doctor if you need medical advice.

Frost Magazine is invested in promoting every possible way to help everyone through lockdown, but not just lockdown, for we encourage ways and means to good health on all its levels – all the time.

So, Alex, let us know about yourself and the help you can provide to our readers:

I am a yoga teacher & a mindfulness coach & I have been sharing my passion for both of these practices for several years & been blessed to be able to do so all over the world, which is why I am so happy to be writing this for Frost Magazine, and  even happier to be writing  a mindfulness series for Frost readers in the near future.

So why are you so committed to yoga and mindfulness, Alex?

I believe whole-heartedly in the physical, mental, emotional & spiritual benefits these practices create because, well they have changed my life. Catch me on a melodramatic day & I’ll happily announce ‘They saved my life!’ always one to relish  theatrics.

I have used both practices to help me navigate the choppy waters of: mental illness (breakdowns, hospitalization, more breakdowns & eventually utter rock-bottom to precipitate the spiritual awakening that was the breakthrough – hurrah at last!); divorce (toxic nasty business, is there any other kind?); menopause (ghastly business, horribly similar to mental illness or such was my experience with the added extra of a hefty dose of anxiety & panic attacks…all very ‘normal’ apparently, who knew?); and then  lockdown & global pandemics. But combined with daily practices of gratitude & nature, I have found mindfulness & yoga are the cornerstones of my wellness & wellbeing.

So self-care, Alex? Tell us more.

I am a huge believer in the many benefits of self-care because I was so bad at practicing it myself, and consequently  my mental health took a battering. Self-care is the care we take of ourselves to nurture & nourish our physical, mental & emotional wellbeing, our mind, body & spirit. I believe that it is not a luxury but a necessity. I also believe that it’s not all chocolates in the bath & massages. Or self-indulgent, time consuming or expensive. But more of that later.

Self-care has a number of benefits. It builds resilience, our ability to bounce back from adversity because when we have taken time to look after our self. we are less likely to be floored by normal daily setbacks. It improves our sleep & our relationships because  our energy isn’t always going out, some of it is coming back inwards. It becomes clear that attending to our own needs  gives us more energy & time for others. Think of it like this: you can’t pour from an empty jug.

Self-care is an act of self-love, it reaffirms our sense of self, building our self-esteem, a sense of ‘I deserve’ this simply because we have taken the time to invest in ourselves. Our self-awareness improves as we become better at identifying stressors & what we can do to limit or offset them. Of course this all has a knock on effect making for a happier & healthier outlook.

But establishing a daily practice of self-care is not as common as you would belief with almost three quarters of adults not practicing any self-care rituals. The common excuses include lack of time & energy, guilt & finances.

Time & energy I get but what I have found by slowing down & investing in myself for a few short minutes every day, is that I am more productive & efficient,  & fulfilled. Self-care doesn’t have to be time consuming…surely we are all worth ½ hour of each day just for us, to nurture, nourish, rest & replenish ourselves?

Guilt – why would we feel guilty for taking care of ourselves? Surely we care enough about our self, not in a narcissistic, self-absorbed fashion, to spend a few minutes on our self everyday? I also believe that when we model self-care to our family, not only do they learn to respect those few moments we devote to our own wellbeing but they start to practice it themselves…what a gift to give to our nearest & dearest.

Finances – well yes, but as I’ve said before it doesn’t have to be expensive. And the longer term cost of not practicing self-care financially, emotionally, mentally…well I have experienced them first hand. My mental illness was the direct result of not making myself a priority in my own life. If you’re not a priority in your own life, how can you be a priority in anyone else’s?

So, from working with yourself, how did you move on to helping us?

It was with this idea of how can I help my tribe establish their own self-care practices & because I know how much I (& my family indirectly) have benefited from my own self-care practices that I set up my ‘couch to …’ programmes. So, think of  a more nourishing & nurturing version of my ‘couch to 5k’ and you come up with ‘couch to yoga mat or meditation cushion’.   These programmes are aimed at anyone who has heard about all the wonderful benefits of yoga & meditation: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual but just don’t  know where to start. These programs guide you from the basics, establishing a good solid foundation in your practice so that you have the skills & confidence to go to any class online (or in person) & to cultivate your own regular, daily even, practice in yoga or meditation in the comfort of your own home, which is ideal in lockdown.

You can also join this programme if you have done some yoga or meditated a bit, this programme will help you fine-tune, finesse your practice & guide you towards establishing a a regular meditation or yoga ritual of self-care.

Alex, that’s all we have time for but next week, tell us more about these courses, and we look forward to your mindfulness series starting in  Frost Magazine  in February.

Alex is based on the edge of the stunning Cotswolds & has been sharing her love for all things yoga & mindfulness for the last 8 years, not just in the UK but also in Thailand & Germany. Her mission is to help everyone discover their bliss within & to encourage them to embrace self-care.

Alex tells us that if you would like more information message her at alex@myananda.co.uk.

For free resources check out her Facebook group: Mindfulness & Yoga for Self-Care, here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MindfulnessYoga4Relationships

Alternatively check out the website: www.myananda.co.uk

Alex will return on Monday 1st February.

“In the end, everything comes down to great books by great authors. We just make sure the amazing readers discover them.”  JASPER JOFFE, ceo

Joffe Books pride themselves on  innovative publishing, an approach that has built a reputation for crafting great books for readers, long-term relationships with authors, and fleet-footed marketing of the books they love. How refreshing, and how well deserved that Joffe Books was  shortlisted for Independent Publisher of the Year 2020 at the British Book Awards.

Joffe Books are renowned for discovering new talent, and – hooray – bringing overlooked books springing back to life, and to the audience they deserve.  In 2019, Joffe acquired the Robert Hale backlist from Crowood Press and extended their core list of crime and mystery to include sagas, historical and romance. In 2020, they  acquired the rights to the ever popular Nicholas Rhea’s Constable Nick series.

Murder Squad founder Margaret Murphy’s critically acclaimed backlist of gripping thrillers joined Joffe Books, and the whole of Faith Martin’s romance list, written under the pseudonym Maxine Barry are on board too.  Excitingly, Joffe Books also began a partnership with Severn House to bring the likes of New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Stella Cameron and Judith Cutler to a whole new audience.

Behind the scenes Joffe Books are  invested in creating and maintaining their existing and new authors’ careers as writers,  ‘Each new title is edited with passion and each new cover is designed with a keen eye on how the book will reach its readers.’ And as writers ourselves, the Frost Magazine team feel that Marketing is crucial – after all, it is the cover that makes a reader reach out for a particular book,  Apart from needing to be attractive, it must identify the genre but not slavishly follow what has worked with one, and therefore, so the tired strategy goes, it will work for them all. But where’s the individuality? A book cover should say, Read me. I am what you’re looking for. 

As a result of reaching for excellence in all spheres, say Joffe, they are proud that their authors have become some of the most read in the UK, consistently topping the Amazon Kindle and Audible charts for weeks at a time.

It does seem a partnership set to endure, as authors love to work closely with committed editors, love to have a marketing programme, a good cover, social media promotion on top of their own efforts, and on, and on. They love … well, for their babies to reach their readers, and new readers too, and then to build a following.

So …  for authors with that manuscript or out of print novel  head to Joffe Books Submissions page. For readers, head for Joffe Books to receive their regular news letters, and while you’re there, have a look at the books on offer.

Remember: “In the end, everything comes down to great books by great authors. We just make sure the amazing readers discover them.”

But for now let’s look at a few books out within the last few weeks.

Winter sunrise over stream on the Lincolnshire Wolds

CHAIN REACTION BY Bill Kitson Out now. 99p/99c Two severed fingers have been discovered. Detective Mike Nash is back to uncover the grisly goings – on at the Harland Estate.

‘An author who has expertly carved himself a niche in the crime thriller marketplace… ‘ he knows how to twist the corkscrew.’  Scarborough Evening News. 

THE CHORISTER AT THE ABBEY  by Lis Howell  – 99p / 99cA cozy winter murder mystery set in a picturesque Cumbrian Village.  A victim has been found dead in the music department at the local collage. He was a grumpy old sod but surely that’s not enough to get you killed?Once again, Suzy partners up with Robert Clark as they find themselves drawn further and further into this mystery.

I love cosy crime. Sound great.

DARK COUNTRY by T.J. Brearton  – 99p / 99c

5 page turning crime thrillers on one bargain box set. A good idea for lockdown?

‘So good, I couldn’t just read a chapter at night!’ Amanda

‘Fantastic read with brilliant characters’  Sue Wallace

Next week we will be featuring  EMMA GRUNDY HAIGH   COMMISSIONING AND MANAGING EDITOR of Joffe Books

And catching up on crime and other genres.

Until then, from the Frost Magazine team, keep safe, keep well.

Annie Clarke is the author of the Home Front series

How do you remember someone who has left no trace?

Esther Safran Foer grew up in a family where the past was too terrible to speak of. Her parents, the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust, never shared the horrors they had suffered.

There was silence where the past should have been.

So when Esther’s mother makes an astonishing revelation about her father, Esther resolves to follow the trail, wherever it may lead.

This is a powerful memoir of one woman’s extraordinary journey to find answers to the burning question about her past, her ancestors, what they endured and how they survived – that could never be asked until now…

So, let me gather my thoughts, for this is Esther’s story that she has shared with us, revealing her determination to remember those she’s lost, and find kinship after tragedy.   This is a memoir that draws a distinction between memory and history, and then attempts to make a cohesive whole of the two.

Like all of us, Esther’s mother remembers in fragments. As we revisit and revisit the fragments more details might emerge, are they imagined, or factual? Where does it leave the search for a personal history, perhaps though, more than personal, but the history of a region, a town, a tribe. It entails paperwork, travel, searching, always searching, matching memory to history.

And how well this is conveyed in this memoir. The search – was memory true, was it factual?

I have experienced this to some extent. My maternal grandma died when mum was two. There are no photos. Mum remembered her in fragments, but spoke of it only when asked, and that as we were adult. Was it because it hurt, made the loss, the aching vacuum,  real?  But those fragments she began reveal were the memories of others.. Were they accurately remembered by the teller? Had mum remembered accurately  what she had been told? Who knows, after much investigation we were none the wiser. So we are left with fragments, and these have begun to fade.

In this zigzag of a book, with memories, and history intermingling, double backing, rushing forward, we learn about life in Kolki, Ukraine, home to Esther’s family, a shtetl, where so close are the kinship bonds that your best school friend, is likely to be the child of your second cousin, for this is where  your tribe has lived for generation, after generation. It is more than a town, it is your world, your friends, your family.

You hear that the Nazis are coming. You believe the horror stories you have heard perhaps because you are a young adult. Others don’t leave. It’s nonsense, or, this will pass. You leave the safety of the shtetl , you leave your mother without saying a proper goodbye. Your sister gives you a spare pair of shoes. You drop one as you flee. These two incidents haunt on. You didn’t say goodbye, you dropped a shoe, a gift from a sister.

You are just  in time, because soon armed Nazis anti-semites enter your shtetl, your world.  Perhaps they pack  up inhabitants  take them to nearby fields, (march or lorry, babies being carried, children clutching skirts) where they must dig great ditches, into which they tumble when shot; men women children. All Jews. Or perhaps to a camp. Not just one shtetl, but all the shtelts.

There is no-one left to tell the history of your family’s shtetl, or the neighbouring shtetl’s history. Where is your mother who you did not bid farewell, the sister whose shoe you dropped?

What about other survivors. They can remember their own stories, in the turmoil, fear shock, perhaps,but can only surmise about the fate of families.

This book really, though about one family, is about all families.

I Want You To Know We’re Still Here is unique. It is a evocation of a lost world, of an unimaginable sin, of the annihilation of history from the perspective of the victims, so that it is the survivors who pursue the memory to reach the town, to locate the truth. to tell the truth, to show that ‘We’re Still Here.’

Esther Safran Foer goes on that journey.

Heartbreaking, perhaps best read in small doses,a journey into memory and the past in the search for truth.

I met a friend in London  a very few years ago, who had returned to the UK from her ‘now’ home abroad. She wore a necklace, a Star of David. I could see it over her clothing as she walked up the platform towards me, a broad smile on her face. She reached out to me.  ‘Wear it inside your clothes,’ I said. ‘Just to be safe.’

She said, sad despair in her voice, ‘You are the second who has warned me of this, a stranger on the train as we approached London, and you, my friend. My mother would have been packing our cases, leaving them in the hall, ready for flight, again.’

Read this, feel it, applaud the author. You will not forget it. Indeed it must be remembered.

Hardback and e-Book  available now.  Paperback 16th April.   Pub HQ.

Annie Clarke is the author of the Home Front series.

From the creator of the BBC One hit TV series, Death in Paradise

To solve an impossible murder, you need an impossible hero…

Judith Potts is seventy-seven years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper. 

One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself, and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local Vicar.

Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.

When another body turns up, they realise they have a real-life serial killer on their hands. And the puzzle they set out to solve has become a trap from which they might never escape…

I am a huge fan of the hit show Death in Paradise, so you can only imagine my excitement when I heard about The Marlow Murder Club.  I devoured the book in a couple of sittings. Not only is it mysterious and thrilling but  heartfelt and amusing. It truly is like nothing I have ever read before.

Similar to the TV show, nothing is as it seems and you are always guessing about who the killer is.

I adore the lead character, 77 year old Judith Potts who is a key witness. She is unflappable, spritely, amusing, confident, relentless and absolutely amazing, I would love to meet her.

The Marlow Murder Club is a delightful tonic and has brightened these dreary days and I am eager to read the next book in the series.

So if you’re a fan of Death in Paradise, Agatha Christie, especially the Miss Marple series, then I highly recommend you pick up a copy of The Marlow Murder Club.

Available in Hardback, Ebook and audio

Welcome to The Island.  Where your worst fears are about to come true…

It was supposed to be the perfect holiday: a week-long trip for six teenage friends on a remote tropical island.  But when their guide dies of a stroke leaving them stranded, the trip of a lifetime turns into a nightmare.

Because someone on the island knows each of the group’s worst fears. And one by one, they’re becoming a reality.

Seven days in paradise. A deadly secret.    Who will make it off the island alive?

I am 28, very soon to be 29 and thought that YA (Young adult) books wouldn’t appeal to me the same way anymore as I am no longer classed as a young adult. So when I was offered the opportunity to read and review The Island I very nearly gave it a pass. And boy, am I so glad that I didn’t.

Could I relate to the characters in the same way as the books intended audience?  Would find it predictable?

Not only could I relate to the group of teenagers, one a survivalist nut, one gloomy and shut off, two who are very much in love with each other and  twins. I was also completely hooked, I know I say this a lot but I genuinely was.

Up until the last moment I could not guess what was going on or why. I had my theories, of course. But…

So if you’re looking for a YA book that is suitable for all ages, that will keeping you guessing until the very end, a read that will make you gasp out loud then I urge you to pick up a copy of The Island.

If you enjoyed, Shutter Island, Lost or The Hunger Games then you will enjoy The Island as much as I did.

C L Taylor i applaud you and your genius, innovative writing

The Island by C.L. Taylor in pb, eBook and audio.