Category Archives: Culture

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: FIRST, LAST, EVERYTHING – HISTORICAL NOVELIST VICTORIA CORNWALL

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The first piece of writing advice you were ever given

The summer of 2014 was an exciting time. I had submitted my manuscript to a carefully selected list of agents and was waiting to hear back. An agent requested a full manuscript and I felt I was finally going to achieve my dream of becoming a published author. By the time Christmas arrived I had been rejected by all of them and had received my first professional writing advice. “You have a gift for writing, but you need to edit it on paper.” I put down the phone confused by the advice. What did she mean? Grumbling to myself, I printed my novel on A4 paper and began to read it. This was a pivotal moment in my writing career. Multiple small errors, which were mysteriously invisible before, began to jump out at me. It was a valuable lesson and now I always edit a paper version at some point during my self-editing phase.

 

The most recent piece of writing advice you gave or received

Strangely this is linked to editing again. Two author friends, at separate times, said they were listening to their manuscripts for errors and suggested it was a good way to edit. A Daughter’s Christmas Wish was the first time I added this method of editing to my writing process. Once again, I was amazed. It is easy to read what we expect to see rather than what is truly there. Our hearing is very sensitive. A misspelt word, repetition or a sentence that is far too long, is more obvious to our ears. It is another tool to use to improve the standard and flow of your writing. All software have the option to have a voice narrating your text and it is normally free and easy to use. If you are unsure how to find the speaker option, search “How to” on the internet and there will be a step by step guide on how to activate it.

 

The piece of advice you’d most like to pass on.

Don’t let agents’ rejections stop you pursuing your dream. The reasons they reject you are varied. It might be related to your writing, but it may also be not what they are looking for at that time. Many successful writers have been rejected by agents and/or publishers at some point in their career. I was. Their rejection initially crushed me, but they also made me more determined to prove them wrong.

Four years after that summer of rejections, which I mentioned earlier, I have four traditionally published books out in the big wide world. All my books are released as ebooks and audiobooks, two have been released as paperbacks. I have been shortlisted for the New Talent Award at the Festival of Romantic Fiction, a finalist at the Joan Hessayon Award and reached number 21 in the paid kindle rank for Victorian romance. I was tempted to give up writing after I was rejected and I’m so glad I didn’t. Don’t let the rejections crush your joy for writing, just see them as part of the journey to get to where you want to be.

 

Victoria Cornwall is the author of the Cornish Tales series published by Choc Lit. Her novels are historical, Cornwall based fiction, with romance and drama at their core. She is married, with two children and is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

 

The Blessed Child by Rosie Goodwin

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Wednesday’s child is full of woe…

Nuneaton, 1864

When Nessie Carson’s mother is killed and her father abandons them sixteen year old Nessie is determined to keep her family together. Coping with her flighty  sister Marcie and fragile baby brother Joseph is not easy, and with lecherous landlord Seth Grimshaw waiting for Nessie to default on the rent things are looking bleak. But Nessie is determined to keep the promise she made to her mother.

Along with her older brother, Reuben she finds a live-in position with the local undertaker, Andre Chevalier and things are finally looking up for the family. Joseph’s health deteriorates and Nessie meets newly qualified doctor, Oliver Dorsey. Although she is attracted to him she knows they can never be together.

But even in the darkest of times and saddest of places Nessie finds love, light and hope.

Nessie is a feisty, resourceful heroine in the best traditions of saga telling, filled with plot twists and turns, and larger than life characters.

This will delight fans of Rosie Goodwin. Another heartwarming and uplifting read and one for the Christmas stocking – if you can wait that long.

The Blessed Child is the fourth book in the Days of the Week series inspired by the Victorian Rhyme.

 

Rosie Goodwin is the million copy best selling author of more than thirty novels. She is one of the top 50 most borrowed authors from UK libraries.

www.rosiegoodwin.co.uk

www.MemoryLane.club

The Blessed Child is published by Bonnier Zaffre

Hardback RRP £12.99

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: TAKE FOUR WRITERS – DIVIDING, EDITING, DREAMING AND TOURING

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CLAIRE DYER: DIVIDING

This month I’d like to talk about my ‘other’ life. I see myself as both a poet and a novelist and people often ask which I prefer being. My answer is always that I like them both the same. However, there are big differences in the way poetry and fiction are published and so this does inevitably alter things.

For a start a poem is a constantly changing thing. Even when it’s been in print, a poet can change elements of his/her poem when it’s republished or collated in a collection. Secondly, putting together a collection takes YEARS! Novelists think it takes an age to get a book published, but collections of poetry can take mini-lifetimes. My last one, ‘Interference Effects’ kindly published by the very wonderful Two Rivers Press took five years from being a spark in my eye to a book in my hand.

The collection I’m working on at the moment contains poems first written in 2014, the manuscript is due to be delivered to the very wonderful Two Rivers Press in June 2020 and it will be a further year or so before possible publication. And this is fine because it takes patience, love and a whole heap of courage to be a poet. However, all this fades to nothing when a line comes that sets your hairline fizzing or you stand in front of an audience and read something that makes them laugh, gasp or (even better) weep.

Poetry books may be slim, time-consuming, delicate and easily lost in the noise of mass paperback sales, but they are things of beauty nonetheless.

 

LUCY COLEMAN: COUNTING

Finally welcoming in the good news this month, as a loved one is out of intensive care. It feels like a dark shadow has been lifted and the sun can shine again. Miracles can happen!

I’ve hardly moved from my desk with line edits and a cover reveal for A Greek Affair, in preparation for its release on the 28 December 2018 by Harper Impulse. And copy edits for The Writing Retreat on the Italian Lake, due for release on 5 February 2018 by Aria Fiction.

And my first audio book, for The French Adventure, is due out on 29 November 2018.

The good news keeps on coming and there’s even more, but authors get used to sitting on things for a while. So, my lips are sealed. But after the darkest of Octobers, I feel that Christmas has come early and I’m truly counting my blessings!

 

ANGELA PETCH: DREAMING

What about a monthly report starting with:  I’ve been dozing in my hammock on the island of Zanzibar, wondering what to do next. Ha ha! More like – I’ve been wondering how on earth to tackle my to-do list.

“Mavis and Dot” are on a blog tour and I’m relieved my two ladies/babies are appealing to readers. When you read comments from complete strangers like: “I could really see this gem of a book as a fantastic movie…”; “A must read…”; “This book was a total joy from beginning to end…” your heart has to sing. It justifies hours of sitting hunched over a pc. This month has been a mine-field of formatting issues but lovely authors have helped.

But I’m a hybrid and have just come off the phone from a chat with my editor at Bookouture. No peace for the wicked: I have major edits to carry out on my re-write of “Tuscan Roots”.

Where’s that hammock?

 

JACKIE BALDWIN: TOURING

November has been fairly busy as I have been on a Deadly Intent tour around some of the many libraries in Dumfries and Galloway with my partner in crime, Lucy Cameron. It’s been a lot of fun getting out and about to meet readers and some of the libraries have totally spoiled us. In Wigtown, for example, we were all treated to freshly baked scones with jam and cream!

As part of Book Week Scotland, we’re reading along with some other authors at a gin/rum night at The Selkirk Arms in Kirkcudbright, which, coincidentally, is where my second novel, Perfect Dead, is set.

On 29th November, I’ll be on a wee jaunt to Edinburgh for Noir at the Bar which is always a fun night and a chance to discover some great new crime authors.

Finally, I’m pleased to report that my third novel is firmly back on track after all the thrashing about with it last month. I’ve now nailed down the plot which nearly got the better of me and I’m pushing on through the first draft.

See you next month!

 

 

 

The Mother’s Manual Book Review

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the mother's manual , parenting tools

The Mother’s Manual is a comprehensive book on parenting. It is very thorough and covers everything you could possibly think of. It is full of great advice and is written in a manner which is very easy to read. I found the bits on sleeping and potty training particularly useful. Liu Yang says that not all of the advice will be relevant for everyone, and people might not agree with it all, I agree that not all of this was for me, but any new parent that is bought this book will find it very helpful indeed. A good book with great advice. 

It’s something that confuses most soon-to-be parents – how on earth are they going to be able to bring up their new bundle of joy without some kind of manual? Well, worry no more, because one UK healthcare practitioner, parent coach has written a guide that answers every question and challenge parents could possibly face.

‘The Mother’s Manual: Your Kids Won’t Be Delivered With A Manual, Here is Your Copy’ is the new Bible for parents of children up to five years old. In short, parenting no longer has to be a puzzle!

Synopsis:

The Mother’s Manual is a practical handbook on parenting children from birth to five years old. It provides easy-to-apply tips and practical tools and strategies that parents can adapt in their daily life to deal with some of the most common issues that crop up in those early critical years. The author draws on her 20 years’ experience as a healthcare practitioner, as well as on the latest research in child psychology and neuroscience on the understanding of children’s brainwave patterns and how this affects their behaviour. She explains in an easy to understand way children’s development at each stage to help parents better communicate with their children. After reading The Mother’s Manual, parents will be able to understand and experiment with more effective alternatives to time-outs on the naughty step and feel less frustrated themselves by instead using simple and direct suggestions that create miraculous changes in their children’s behaviour. Raising happy and confident children should be an enjoyable part of the parenting process, but sometimes being a parent can be stressful and bring up all sorts of emotions, especially for parents who didn’t have the upbringing they would have liked. The book talks parents through these difficult emotions and provides strategies for dealing with them, so that they can create the happy, relaxed family life.  Everyone knows that a job is easy to do once you have discovered thesecrets to how. The Mother’s Manual serves as a go-to reference book with quickly learn and apply simple strategies and easy-to-follow explanations of children’s developmental stages to guide parents through the daily challenges effectively to create the family life they desire.

“We’re of course pre-programmed with many of the skills and pieces of knowledge we need to be a parent, but my book gives them to you right now, without any trial and error,” explains the author. “Through proper bonding and communication in the early years, any parent can create theoutcome they want, to offer their children the best start in life that they deserve.”

Continuing, “We’re now selling books around the world and receiving hugely positive feedback, averaging five stars on Amazon. I’m so thrilled that my 20+ years of professional experience can now change the lives of people I haven’t even met!”

Indeed, reviews have been glowing. One Amazon customer comments, “This book was fantastic. I read it myself for helpful tips when babysitting regularly for my grandchildren then passed it on their mum to keep. It was full of suggestions with regards to weaning, etc. I’d highly recommend it.”

Another reader adds, “I work with mothers all the time and, not being a mother myself, I needed help to relate. This book helped me better understand the challenges of motherhood and the answers to problems, and now I can relate much better to my clients when I talk to them. It’s a very easy and fluid read as well, highly recommend!”

‘The Mother’s Manual: Your Kids Won’t Be Delivered With A Manual, Here is Your Copy’ is available now. 

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: FIRST, LAST, EVERYTHING – LIBRARIAN AND BOOK BLOGGER LARA MARSHALL

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What was the first piece of book business related advice you were given?

When I first started in libraries I was told to “shout about what I was passionate about” (maybe not literally, but close enough!). I took this advice to heart and made sure that I told anyone who would listen about books that I enjoyed, books that connected with me and books that changed my view of the world. Whether this was through displays, reviews, blogs, or good old word of mouth.

Book blogging has become a natural extension of that, as I try to reach people from all over the world, to talk to them about the books that meant a lot to me. I feel strongly about talking about what resonates with you, and if something doesn’t that’s fine.

What was the most recent piece of bookish advice you gave or received?

Be careful what you say on Twitter! The book industry is a very, very small world, including publishing, libraries, authors and bloggers, and everyone is on Twitter. News has a terrifying way of travelling fast! Of course, if this is positive all the better, but if you are difficult or accidentally slight one person be prepared for everyone to know about it!

What piece of advice would you most like to pass on?

If you’re not enjoying a book, don’t struggle through it and make the whole process horrible. There are so many amazing books out their for a variety of tastes, passions and interests – find something that sparks a light in you and devour it! There will be a book out there for you, I can guarantee it!

Then once you’re on a roll, no one will be able to stop you.

 

Lara is a library manager and book blogger from North-West London. She has worked in libraries for twelve years and blogging for 2. She began to suspect she was slightly different to other children when, at seven years old, her most prized possession was the ‘A’ volume of the children’s Encyclopaedia Britannica (her family couldn’t afford the rest).

When she isn’t working, blogging or reading, chances are she’s doing something “vaguely bookish”.

You can find Lara’s blog here: https://bookishlara.com/

 

Christmas Ideas For Book Lovers

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Perfect Books For Christmas. 

A brilliant book of poetry from the end of a relationship, all the way to the start. Like reading an open wound, but fun. 

Running Upon The Wires is Kate Tempest’s first book of free-standing poetry since the acclaimed Hold Your Own. In a beautifully varied series of formal poems, spoken songs, fragments, vignettes and ballads, Tempest charts the heartbreak at the end of one relationship and the joy at the beginning of a new love; but also tells us what happens in between, when the heart is pulled both ways at once.

Running Upon The Wires is, in a sense, a departure from her previous work, and unashamedly personal and intimate in its address – but will also confirm Tempest’s role as one of our most important poetic truth–tellers: it will be no surprise to readers to discover that she’s no less a direct and unflinching observer of matters of the heart than she is of social and political change. Running Upon The Wires is a heartbreaking, moving and joyous book about love, in its endings and in its beginnings.

Available here.

A fast-paced thriller that never lets you go.

Give me Your hand By Megan Abbott.

You told each other everything. Then she told you too much.

Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn’t let anything stop her.

But now someone else is standing in her way – Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret – the worst thing she’d ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine – and it blew their friendship apart.

Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she’s worked so hard for.

How far would Kit go, to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn’t she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she’s right. Ambition: it’s in the blood . . .

Available here.

I really loved this book. Sarah Manguso has a way of articulating life’s great truths. I particularly loved the bits on motherhood. 

Sarah Manguso kept a meticulous diary for twenty-five years. ‘I wanted to end each day with a record of everything that had ever happened,’ she explains. But this simple statement conceals a terror that she might miss out something important. Maintaining that diary became a daily attempt to remember every detail, to stop the passage of time.

Then Manguso became pregnant and had a child, and these two events slowly and irrevocably changed her relationship to her life and also to her diary.

In this moving memoir Sarah Manguso confesses her life long struggle to let go. Ongoingness is a beautiful, daring and honest and shifting work that grapples with writing and motherhood.

Available here.

A fascinating and well-written book on the law. Impossible to put down. 

“I’m a barrister, a job which requires the skills of a social worker, relationship counsellor, arm-twister, hostage negotiator, named driver, bus fare-provider, accountant, suicide watchman, coffee-supplier, surrogate parent and, on one memorable occasion, whatever the official term is for someone tasked with breaking the news to a prisoner that his girlfriend has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea.”

Welcome to the world of the Secret Barrister. These are the stories of life inside the courtroom. They are sometimes funny, often moving and ultimately life-changing.

How can you defend a child-abuser you suspect to be guilty? What do you say to someone sentenced to ten years who you believe to be innocent? What is the law and why do we need it?

And why do they wear those stupid wigs?

From the criminals to the lawyers, the victims, witnesses and officers of the law, here is the best and worst of humanity, all struggling within a broken system which would never be off the front pages if the public knew what it was really like.

Both a searing first-hand account of the human cost of the criminal justice system, and a guide to how we got into this mess, The Secret Barrister wants to show you what it’s really like and why it really matters.

Available here.

Searingly honest. This book is certainly one of the bravest and most personal ever written. Adam Kay has a huge talent for writing and comedy. It is not for the faint hearted, nor for anyone pregnant or thinking of having children! I almost threw up or fainted a few times reading it. Mostly as it reminded me of my C section. This book is a best seller and it is easy to see why.

Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.

Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn’t – about life on and off the hospital ward.

As seen on ITV’s Zoe Ball Book Club.

This edition includes extra diary entries and a new afterword by the author.

Available here.

Timely, well-written and full of great lines. I recommend sitting down and reading in one sitting as I did. Endlessly engaging and very witty. 

Kathy is a writer. Kathy is getting married. It’s the summer of 2017 and the whole world is falling apart.

From a Tuscan hotel for the super-rich to a Brexit-paralysed UK, Kathy spends the first summer of her 40s trying to adjust to making a lifelong commitment just as Trump is tweeting the world into nuclear war. But it’s not only Kathy who’s changing. Political, social and natural landscapes are all in peril. Fascism is on the rise, truth is dead, the planet is hotting up. Is it really worth learning to love when the end of the world is nigh? And how do you make art, let alone a life, when one rogue tweet could end it all.

Olivia Laing radically rewires the novel in a brilliant, funny and emphatically raw account of love in the apocalypse. A Goodbye to Berlin for the 21st century, Crudo charts in real time what it was like to live and love in the horrifying summer of 2017, from the perspective of a commitment-phobic peripatetic artist who may or may not be Kathy Acker . . .

Available here.

Another book from the brilliant Sarah Manguso. This one has been defaced by one of my children with crayon. Apologies for that. Manguso says “Think of this as a short book composed entirely of what I hoped would be a long book’s quotable passages.” It is precisely that. Smart and gorgeous. A must read. 
300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso is at first glance a group of unrelated aphorisms, but the pieces reveal themselves as a masterful arrangement that steadily gathers power. Manguso’s arguments about writing, desire, ambition, relationships, and failure are pithy, unsentimental, and defiant, and they add up to an unexpected and renegade wisdom literature. Lines you will underline, write in notebooks and read to the person sitting next to you, that will drift back into your mind as you try to get to sleep.

Available here.

This is an original and intelligent book. I found it hard to put down. Marianne Power really draws you in. Honest and brilliantly written. A great book even for those not interested in self help.

Marianne Power was stuck in a rut. Then one day she wondered: could self-help books help her find the elusive perfect life?

She decided to test one book a month for a year, following their advice to the letter. What would happen if she followed the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? Really felt The Power of Now? Could she unearth The Secret to making her dreams come true?

What begins as a clever experiment becomes an achingly poignant story. Because self-help can change your life – but not necessarily for the better . . .

Help Me! is an irresistibly funny and incredibly moving book about a wild and ultimately redemptive journey that will resonate with anyone who’s ever dreamed of finding happiness.

Perfect for readers who enjoyed Everything I know About Love by Dolly Alderton, Mad Girl by Bryony Gordon and Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig.

Available here.

I loved the sisters in this book. It would make the perfect Christmas movie. A wonderful and entertaining Christmas novel to get into the spirit. 

It’s not what’s under the Christmas tree, but who’s around it that matters most.

All Suzanne McBride wants for Christmas is her three daughters happy and at home. But when sisters Posy, Hannah and Beth return to their family home in the Scottish Highlands, old tensions and buried secrets start bubbling to the surface.

Suzanne is determined to create the perfect family Christmas, but the McBrides must all face the past and address some home truths before they can celebrate together . . .

This Christmas indulge in some me-time and enjoy this uplifting and heart-warming story from international bestseller Sarah Morgan. Full of romance, laughter and sisterly drama, The Christmas Sisters is the perfect book to curl up with this festive season.

Available here.

the crossway book, pilgrimage

The Crossway is a brave book with a great story. Guy Stagg was having mental health issues and decided to go on a pilgrimage. He walked more than 5,500 kilometres from Canterbury to Jerusalem. His journey is written brilliantly in these pages and is a riveting read. Perfect for Christmas. A great book.

In 2013 Guy Stagg made a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem. Though a non-believer, he began the journey after suffering several years of mental illness, hoping the ritual would heal him. For ten months he hiked alone on ancient paths, crossing ten countries and more than 5,500 kilometres. The Crossway is an account of this extraordinary adventure.

Having left home on New Year’s Day, Stagg climbed over the Alps in midwinter, spent Easter in Rome with a new pope, joined mass protests in Istanbul and survived a terrorist attack in Lebanon. Travelling without support, he had to rely each night on the generosity of strangers, staying with monks and nuns, priests and families. As a result, he gained a unique insight into the lives of contemporary believers and learnt the fascinating stories of the soldiers and saints, missionaries and martyrs who had followed these paths before him.

The Crossway is a book full of wonders, mixing travel and memoir, history and current affairs. At once intimate and epic, it charts the author’s struggle to walk towards recovery, and asks whether religion can still have meaning for those without faith.

Available here.

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: RETREAT OR TREAT?

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Retreat or treat? When five writers arrived in Bath last month, we didn’t really know how it would pan out. We intended to work, but it was the first time we’d seen each other since meeting at the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference fifteen months earlier, so would there be too much gossiping going on? Or even a frosty silence as we realised we didn’t actually like each other that much after all.

We certainly started being very polite. Cassandra Grafton (no stranger to Bath with her Austen-esque novels) found an enormous Georgian house we could rent from Bath Boutique Stays and there was quite a bit of ‘after you – no, after you’ as we chose our bedrooms.

It soon became clear that our centre of operations would be the kitchen with its windows either end and huge table. We had no plans to cook, but Kitty Wilson and I had raided M&S on the way (she is one serious snack shopper) and what with our booty and all the wine, the fridge was filled to bursting point. But did we open a bottle straight away? No – we made a nice cup of tea.

So the first myth was busted open – we were not destined to spend our three nights drinking ourselves into a stupor. A drink with dinner (we tried a variety of local restaurants, culminating at the amazing Aqua) then another one or two afterwards was about our limit and while the vodka bottle was hit pretty hard (you know who you are, ladies), the gin went almost untouched and only two half bottles of Prosecco from our stash were consumed.

We did drink on the second morning though as we celebrated the launch of Kitty’s second book. Champagne and cake well before the sun was anywhere near the yard arm, flowers smuggled into the house and hidden the previous day, and a gift from us all. Of course, before we could touch any of it we had to stage a photo or two for social media. And then spend a great deal of time sharing them to all our followers.

Second myth – we had no real intention of doing any work. Wrong again. Susanna Bavin wrote more twenty pages in longhand towards the trilogy of sagas she’s working on. I completed the structural edit of the second book of my Sapere deal. Kirsten Hesketh was busy reworking the draft of her second novel while Kitty focussed on guest posts for her blog tour (not to mention keeping up her daily word count) and Cassandra worked her way through her ‘to do’ list following the announcement of her contract with Canelo.

But more than anything we supported each other in ways small and large. I helped Kitty with her guest blogs (I’ve done so many of them) and she and Susanna critiqued the outline I’d prepared for Sapere. Kirsten’s agent had started to send her manuscript to publishers and had received a few initial rejections – and there always are rejections – but that doesn’t mean they hurt any the less. I like to think we were all there for her.

The two days and three nights flew past, mainly because we were in the company of other writers. It’s a profession where you have no colleagues, no daily water cooler moments and just to be around each other and chat authorly things was utter bliss. Noone understands writers like other writers – the highs, and the lows, and the mundane bits in between.

We left Bath on the Friday morning with the firm resolve to do it again. But something else had happened along the way; bonds had been formed and friendships deepened. We’d become, as Kitty put it, sister scribes.

Q&A with Children’s Author, Natalie Savvides

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Natalie Savvides is a staunch anti-bullying campaigner whose series of Henrietta and Henry Heartbeat books focus on imparting positivity, good behaviour and kindness among young readers aged up to six years old. In this exclusive Q&A, Frost Magazine speaks to Natalie about her new Meet Henrietta Heartbeat books and about her plans to spark a “kindness revolution”

Frost Magazine (FM): You published your first Young Adult (YA) novel, Full Circle, in 2016. How did you find the transition from writing YA to young children?
Natalie Savvides (NS): To be honest, the transition came very naturally, I didn’t even think about it. I never thought I’d write children’s books but as soon as I felt something needed to be done to educate the youngest generation in kindness, the process was utterly spontaneous. The characters just came to me, as did the stories. I’ve always loved poetry, writing in rhyme and having been a teacher of English to foreign students for some years my mind is accustomed to getting messages across in the simplest most understandable way. I wrote about what I saw with my own children, so the topics were many and presented themselves.

FM: Tell us more about the Meet Henrietta Heartbeat series of novels and who they will most appeal to.
NS: Henry & Henrietta Heartbeat, It’s cool to be kind is the series, of which the first book currently on sale is “Meet Henrietta Heartbeat” and is an introduction to one of the main characters. Henry & Henrietta are brother and sister in the Heartbeat family and they go about their days showing people how to be kind, by demonstrating what to do, how to act in situations of conflict or confusion with other children. The series of books which are all very short stories, in rhyme and heavily illustrated are set to appeal to the critical formative years 0-6…. The idea is to make being kind a way of life and a natural, spontaneous behaviour by it being learnt, understood and most importantly enjoyed at the earliest stage of education. It is proven that early PSED (personal social emotional development) has a huge impact on well-being, achievement, and happiness later on.

FM: How did the series come into being?
NS: The stories came about when I realised that in order to protect my children’s life experience outside of the home and those of all children something had to be done about instilling kindness before unkind behaviour appears. The trigger was when my son told me that some of the boys that he liked at nursery didn’t want to play with him and he simply didn’t understand and was terribly upset by it. It broke my heart. There is no need for this type of behaviour and I wanted to try and show children that. I wanted to find a way to educate children in a fun way that it really is cool to be kind to everyone and that we all benefit when everyone is happy. I realised there was a need for something visual that children could relate to, refer to in order to bring the message to life and help it sink in. I felt cartoon characters would be the most obvious answer. I created Henry & Henrietta Heartbeat as big happy hearts with strong characters that appeal to young children as transporters of this increasingly important message of acting with kindness. Henry & Henrietta subtly but clearly educate children though simple rhyming stories showing how to always act with care, inclusion, acceptance, love and kindness and how everyone is happier when living this way.

FM: Some parents (and teachers) believe that dealing with unkindness (and to some extent with bullies) is a rite of passage and one that prepares them for the real world. What is your view on this?
NS: Whilst that may be true at the moment – that is exactly what I’m trying to change! It’s a little defeatist to say let’s get them prepared for what’s to come – because large parts of the ‘real world’ are relatively unkind – instead of accepting this and ‘preparing’ our children for it, why not try to change the future for the better. If we manage to educate the younger generation in kindness until it’s a spontaneous way of life the future would be brighter! We wouldn’t need to prepare them for unkindness as there would be less of it. L. R. Knost sums it up nicely here: “Its not out job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”

FM: You believe that society could benefit from a ‘kindness revolution’; what do you mean by that?
NS: Yes, I believe that society could benefit in many ways from a kindness revolution. Acting with kindness is scientifically proven to benefit our physical and mental health our wellbeing, achievements, success and happiness in general. What I mean by a kindness revolution is exactly that: to transform our society by beginning a change that will reshape our environment into a more caring and positive one. This is not something that could happen overnight, obviously, but eventually.

FM: Can bullying ever be eradicated in all of its various forms and, if so, over what period of time? Will we see it in our lifetime?
NS: I don’t know – I would seriously like to think so to some degree… I am sure there will always be some, but our aim is to minimise it… we need to start from the root to make a long-lasting change. We can but try… If everyone does what they can to educate kindness it can certainly only help.

FM: To what extent should schools generally, and teachers specifically, be held to account for the actions of bullies in their care?
NS: I am no expert on how to deal with bullies hence I am focusing on a theory of prevention rather than cure. However, I do believe that where a child has been identified as a bully if there is no change after three warnings, I believe that the child should be first suspended, thereafter upon return if there is no improvement the child should be expelled.

FM: In what practical ways can schools and teachers educate children about the importance of being kind, and should children be marked or assessed on their propensity towards it?
NS: They can hold kindness work shops where scenarios are set out and children participate in role play then do feedback sessions, try to step into the shoes of the bullies and victims to see how it feels, lessons learnt! Yes, children should be marked or assessed on their propensity towards it. Kindness is as important as any other behaviour or performance children are assessed on.

FM: Should ‘kindness lessons’ be adopted by and continued through high school?
NS: Yes absolutely – the content is endless.

FM: Finally, what one message would you share with readers whose own children are being bullied?
NS: Continue encouraging their children that things will get better. Focus on whatever positives there are at school. Always, always listen. Look out for changed behaviour and address it. Raise it with the school (if not done so already) as subtle things can be done to separate the children. Reassure them that it’s not their fault and encourage them to stay confident in who they are! There are also online support groups for victims of bullying

Meet Henrietta Heartbeat by Natalie Savvides (Austin Macauley Publishers) is available now on Amazon UK priced £9.99 in paperback. Meet Henry Heartbeat, the second in the series, will be published in the UK in January 2019. For further information about Natalie Savvides and her work, go to www.nataliesavvides.com