Tag Archives: Sister Scribes

SISTER SCRIBES’ READING ROUND UP: AUGUST

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Kitty

The Shelf – Helly Acton

I loved this book, it was a whirlwind of a story picking the reader up and whizzing them through the chapters much as a reality show does with the viewer and it’s episodes. A fabulous debut, it was addictive, quick-witted and I genuinely couldn’t put it down. I loved how the sisterhood of these women shone through as they bonded over their shared experiences regardless of their very different personalities. The book challenged the sexist tropes frequently perpetuated on social media and reality tv and reflected in society today with a clear and necessary message to both our younger and our older selves.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and am really looking forward to this author’s next book.

A Bicycle Built for Sue – Daisy Tate

This book took me through the emotions like you would not believe. Skilfully written, it manages to genuinely combine laugh out loud moments with segments so raw and emotional I had to pause and look away from the book for a bit.

It tackles some serious issues, suicide and self-harm but does so in a way that is both respectful, sincere and empathetic. However, the over-arching nature of this book is feelgood joy. The very opening pages – set in a 111 call-centre – set the tone by being witty, insightful and real.

The story itself is that of three unlikely friends who come together in a moment of adversity and resolve to do something out of the ordinary. They are to do a charity bike ride along Hadrian’s Wall, there are highs and lows, moments of danger and excitement but more importantly our characters learn an awful lot about each other and even more about themselves. This story is about the power of friendship and the characters represent the different stages of life and thus problems and issues we can all relate to, regardless of our age or experience. This book touched my heart and I am more than happy to highly recommend it.

Summer Strawberries at Swallowtail Bay – Katie Ginger

This is a feelgood summer read, with sunshine, strawberries, and a crumbling Manor House. Add a handsome, honourable hero and a heroine who is not afraid to go for what she wants and you have the perfect recipe for a lovely, relaxing read chock full of community and romance. I really enjoyed it.

Jane

Having read all Kitty Wilson’s Cornish Village School books I approached the last one, Happy Ever After, with mixed feelings. While I was looking forward to it I knew it would be my final visit to Penmenna with all those wonderful characters, belly laughs and Cornish sunshine.

Happy Ever After is Marion’s story. Having been the scourge of the PTA – and indeed the village as a whole – for the entire series – finally she took centre stage with a love story quite unlike the ones which went before. I know Kitty is my friend, but her portrayal of a twenty year long relationship rather than a shiny brand new one was sensitive and real, funny and poignant. And for that, I loved this book.

 

 

SISTER SCRIBES: JANE CABLE ON TAKING THE SOFTWARE OPTION

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Plotter or notter? Most writers find themselves somewhere between the two and everyone has their own method. Some are wedded to post-its and pinboards; others long pages of notes. Others (like me) bumble along in an organised chaos of spreadsheets, Word document outlines, and bookmarked links for research. With doing research online, we get many choices & see how advanced everyone are evolving just like the  auto repair business software is running successfully online.

I always promised myself that one day, all that muddle would change. Next time I started a new project it would be different. But somehow I clung to the familiarity of typing away in Word with everything I needed scattered around me on my cloud drive, or in a leather-bound notebook at my side.

So – new book, new broom. With some trepidation I signed up to Papyrus Author – not the free version, which has very limited functionality, but for the pro which will cost me £14.99 a month. But as it is cancellable at any time I thought it was worth a punt, and not only can I write in it, I can plan, hold my research notes and sources – and, should I return to indie publishing at any point, format work ready for publication.

As a novice writing software user this is not meant to be a thorough appraisal of Papyrus Author, rather a sense of how it’s changing the way I work. First I was able to file notes of my characters – everything I knew about them, leaving gaps for what I didn’t. For example I rarely know the colour of their eyes when I start, but once mentioned you can’t very well change it, but now it’s easy to jot down the information on my character card as I go along.

It’s the same for places. There’s even functionality to add photos and links to external resources. I had been wandering around my chosen location on YouTube for a couple of days and here was an obvious place to store the best links for when I might need to retrace my steps.

Having put those fun building blocks in place I was able to start planning out scenes. Yes, planning. One scene at a time, not just a vague roadmap. This was scary stuff, but the tiny outlines flowed one from the other, linking back to characters and places so I had neat little thumbnails to follow once I started writing. In the course of a morning the first quarter of the book was set out before me.

So – to write. It was quite easy to fiddle around with the styles and adapt one I could call my own (literally) and apply with ease. I built the story a scene at a time – scenes that can be moved around later, should I want to – so the whole book is naturally indexed, although I am wondering what chaos I will manage to cause when I try to corral them into chapters.

But best of all for me is the is a distraction free mode to write in. Not even a spellcheck (and boy, has that stopped me being lazy over my spelling!). Words tumble onto the page. Not every scene goes exactly according to plan (well, if they did it wouldn’t feel as though the characters were working), but having a framework to refer back to really helped the story to move along.

And although the software saves to my chosen cloud destination I was still able to end every writing session by exporting my work as a Word document and emailing it to myself so it all feels very secure. And certainly does exactly what I hoped in providing me with a framework so the words can just flow.

SISTER SCRIBES: CASS GRAFTON ON JANE CABLE’S ANOTHER YOU

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Today, I’m delighted to be talking to author, Jane Cable, about one of her novels, Another You, a moving saga of modern-day family life. Despite touching on the horrors of combat, past and present, it’s a heart-warming tale of one woman’s fight to reclaim her identity and discover what really matters to her.

Marie is the well-respected chef of The Smugglers pub, near Studland Bay, but despite her success in the kitchen, she feels less confident in her handling of relationships, both with her (almost) ex-husband, Stephen, and her much-loved son, Jude.

A chance meeting with an American soldier, just as the Bay is preparing to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, seems the perfect escape from worrying about everything—if only she could get rid of her debilitating migraines and the sense of the past coalescing with the present.

Another You was a brilliant read, and Jane is a proficient storyteller. Her characters are entirely relatable, their faults as much at play as their strengths. Although touching upon the lingering effects of PTSD and the invisible scars left by all wars, Jane manages to blend in romance, mystery, family relationships and an unforeseen twist towards the end.
The book stayed with me long after I’d finished, and I was keen to ask Jane some questions about it.

I was swept away by your beautiful descriptions of the Studland Bay area of Dorset. Was it the setting that inspired you initially or had you come across the tragic story that took place there during the war first?

Studland was the initial inspiration for Another You. I first visited with a friend in 2009 and fell in love with the enclosed bay with its calm blue waters and high white cliffs. It has a magic all of its own for me – arriving on the chain ferry from Sandbanks (Dorset’s millionaire’s row) you feel as though you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and landed in another world. The Second World War story only came in at the second major redraft of the book, but when I read about it during my research into the area it spoke to me too loudly to ignore.

The connection between the past and the present is something you do so skilfully in your novels. What is it as a writer that attracts you to blending time periods?

I have always had an interest in consciousness beyond matter and the ways present and past could intermingle; either through the spirit world, inside people’s heads, or by any other mechanism it’s currently beyond us to understand. If that sounds seriously strange it springs from my firm belief that because we can’t possibly know everything we shouldn’t rule anything out. Just think how science continues to advance. As I writer I love the ambiguity of it all and try to let my readers make up their own minds about how it could happen.

On a lighter note, how are your cheffing skills? Are you as good a cook as Marie, because if so, please can I come to dinner?

I’m sorry, but I am no more than an adequate cook – not even the best chef in my own household, to be honest. But I loved researching Marie’s recipes for Another You. And you are more than welcome to risk dinner with me at any time. I’ll get the rosé in…

 

I’ll bring the glasses! Thank you, Jane, both for answering my questions and writing such an absorbing, well researched and beautifully told story about self-discovery, emerging from darkness into light and finding love where you least expect it.

 

 

 

SISTER SCRIBES: KITTY WILSON ON LETTING BOOKS BE BOOKS

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My latest articles for Frost (with the exception of my last) have all been based around why I write and read romance. I’ve written about the universality of romance and about how I see the genre as one that gives hope. Today I’m going to talk about something a little more controversial, about why I think the romance genre can have a bad name.

When I was first published I had so much support but I also encountered a lot of bias from friends who were unable to understand why I chose to write romance, dismissive of the genre as pure trash (their words). It is not an uncommon view, even people who love the genre often refer to it as such with a self-deprecating laugh.

But why? I can’t help but think this bias harks back to the birth of the popular romance novel specifically written for women a couple of hundred years ago because delicate female minds couldn’t possibly expect to understand the intricacies of politics, economics, science. The world has moved on from such misogyny, yet despite us recognising today that skill in all sorts of arenas is not gender based, society is still struggling to shift the notion that romance books are somehow lesser, that their readers, and writers, lack erudition. We accept in life that you have to be remarkably skilled to make things look easy and somehow we still don’t apply this to books considered easy reads. I know so many people, women and men, who love to escape with a romance novel precisely because it’s an escape. If a book is effectively providing a haven, you are losing yourself in its world, then it is well-written.

When we look at the romance genre and remove this bias and examine what romance and its broad range of sub-genres really are, we see that it tends to be fiction that centres around friendship and family life with the thrill of romance and often a dash of good sex thrown in as well. They are books that usually put women at the fore (an exception being MM romances). We also know from what is (or certainly was) on the curriculum in schools that it’s largely male-centric books that society deems worthy of reading. If you examine the syllabi when I was growing up, you will see that predominantly books written by men for men about men were considered literature. This contributes to shaping society’s attitudes about what constitutes a good book. Whilst I genuinely believe this is changing now (hurrah!) and particularly within the last decade – women-centric books are now universally accepted as literature – it seems that easy-to-read books about women having fun or getting caught up in romance are still deemed less worthy.

Romance books frequently examine love and affection, how it’s human to crave it; they open up discussions about love, loneliness, sexuality and so forth which allows for conversations about these things to become normalised. They have done this for centuries, from women gossiping about the latest romance in Regency coffee houses to chatter over the water cooler about Christian Grey. And where there is discussion there is education, an increased awareness of others’ (and self) needs and preferences can only be a good thing. There are always lessons to be learned in life about understanding ourselves and others, improving communication and strengthening the relationships we have with people. If romance helps this and the bias against it harks back to attitudes we know are outdated then surely, regardless of personal taste, it’s time for romance novels to be accorded the respect they deserve.

 

 

SISTER SCRIBES: KIRSTEN HESKETH ON REALISING YOU’RE A REAL WRITER

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Much is written about imposter syndrome. When someone asks me what I do, I sometimes stumble over the word ‘writer’ and often followed it with a little self-deprecating giggle or downplay it by saying ‘I’ve only had one book published though.’ And I know I’m not alone.  Most writers I know seem to suffer from it – there are countless Facebook and twitter threads devoted not feeling like a ‘proper writer’ and many times I’ve been at lunch or away with lovely writer friends realise we are all self-deprecating for Britain.

Well, this week something happened which made me realise that nowadays I am very much a ‘proper writer’.

The first blog post I ever wrote was for my lovely friend and fellow Sister Scribe Susanna Bavin’s wonderful blog. This was when I was very much in the querying trenches and getting an agent, let alone a publishing deal, was just a twinkle in my eye and Susanna was kind enough host me for a series of musings on my embryonic writing life. I can remember the gist – if not the words – of the first post I wrote as if it was yesterday. My then-teenage son was having some problems and I explained how difficult, how wrong, how self-indulgent it felt to be ploughing on with polishing my turd of a draft when he was struggling. And, even if I did decide to press on, my creative juices and my writing mojo had totally deserted me, so there was little point in showing up the keyboard anyway.

I didn’t write anything for week. Maybe even months. And it was only when my son was back on an even keel that I could finish editing Another Us and start submitting it to agents.

Fast forward four years and everything is different.

I have an agent. I have two publishing deals. Another Us was published in ebook in May and the paperback is out on 20th August (do all rush!!) Reader, my writing dreams came true!

And, this week, the Hesketh household is once again in turmoil. My daughter needs an operation in the middle of the global pandemic and the whole family needs to shield beforehand. (Sad that we need to shield during my son’s 21st and miss our first break away in months, but needs must.) At the moment, it’s all hands on deck sorting out food deliveries and prescription pick-ups and everything else that needs to be done before we hunker down.

This time it is different though. My edits for Book Two are due back with the publisher at the beginning of August which, as I write, is – gulp! – three days away. But this time there is no deciding my writing mojo has deserted me or that my creative juices have decided to go on holiday instead of me. There’s no deciding to do nothing for a couple of months. The edits have to be done. I can – I have to – work fast and efficiently so that I can get them done to the best of my ability – and still be there for my family.

It all feels totally different.

To be fair, I’m sure my lovely editor would be absolutely fine if I was to ask for another week or two to finish the edits. A lot of the pressure to meet the deadline is coming from myself.

But the different to four years ago is stark.

And, in some ways, it reminds me how far I’ve come.

I’m a writer.

 

SISTER SCRIBES’ READING ROUND UP: JULY

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Jane

Rosanna Ley is one of my favourite novelists, which is the main reason I signed up for one of her writing retreats. That, of course, transported me to Spain, but her novels have taken me all over the world. From Venice with Love is no exception, as I followed Joanna not only to Venice, but to Lisbon and Prague, each city so beautifully described I felt I was really there. But it was Joanna’s sister Harriet’s story that held me, and she doesn’t even leave the Dorset village where they both grew up. She is an exquisitely drawn character, warts and all, and I felt as I was at her shoulder as she made a very different type of journey to her sister. Highly recommended.

 

Kitty

I listened to Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie as an audiobook and it had me hooting with laughter whilst frantically winding the windows up in the car as some of her more detailed sexual exploits were narrated. The premise initially appears to be typical romcom with Queenie coming to terms with her break-up and with potential suitors popping up all over the place. However, as the book progresses we realise it encompasses far more and that Queenie is in no need of a hero. It takes a real deep dive into mental health and societal pressure and does so in a way that never loses humour or the readers attention. The family relationships had me squeaking with joy. The writing is hilarious, poignant and searingly insightful. Fabulous.

Lindsey Kelk really does deliver on all those descriptions applied to romantic comedy. Hilarious, laugh out loud, devastatingly witty – she hits them all. I have not yet read a book of hers I haven’t loved and In Case You Missed It is another example of her delivering the perfect romcom. It has a truly relatable heroine in Ros, a hero you quite want to bring home yourself, the coterie of well-defined and always amusing friends, the hideous boyfriend from her past, and beautifully described well-meaning but slightly cringy parents.

There is not a page that does not make me giggle and she manages to write comic scene after comic scene whilst developing a fabulous plot and proper romance along the way. Absolutely faultless.

I really enjoyed Clare Marchant’s dual timeline novel, Secrets of Saffron Hall. The book interweaves the story of a grieving mother in the modern day and a young wife in the time of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine Howard. Both were written sympathetically and I thoroughly rooted for both characters. However, it was the historical timeline I found absolutely captivating. I loved being immersed in Eleanor’s story – the fear and uncertainty of living under a capricious king in times of religious upheaval, and the sense of doom contributed to by the reader knowing what will befall the queen, although unsure of how that will impact this particular family. The farming of the saffron itself was also of great interest and whilst aware of the value of saffron, I felt like I was learning something as I read. The authors historical research was clearly well done and she held my attention throughout. I am looking forward to reading more of her books.

 

SISTER SCRIBES: SUSANNA BAVIN ON A WORD WRITERS SHOULD USE FREELY

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I say, I say, I say…

When you were at school, were you taught to avoid using ‘said’ in your writing? Were you told it was dull? Were you instructed to use other, better words? Let me explain why teachers try to get you to do that. It isn’t because there’s anything wrong with ‘said’. It’s because teachers have to teach children from a young age (a) to use a variety of vocabulary and (b) to find words that convey precise meaning. ‘Strolled’, ‘wandered’, ‘hurried’ or ‘marched’, as opposed to ‘walked’ – that kind of thing. If you think about it, that’s quite a tall order, especially with infant school children.

And so we come to the first reason why ‘said’ is a wonderful word. It has umpteen alternatives, all of which convey precise meaning. Children are already familiar with many of these words and find them easy to use, which means that when they write their stories, they have ample opportunity to use and develop their new skill and hence their stories are filled with characters asking, answering, replying, exclaiming, whispering, shouting and so on.

And that is why teachers tell you not to use ‘said’. Ta da!

In the world of adult writing, it’s different, because – and here we come to the second reason why I believe ‘said’ is a wonderful word – ‘said’ is invisible. You could read it or write it a dozen times on every single page without its ever jarring. Every time an alternative is used, it isn’t invisible. There’s nothing wrong with that – in moderation. But the more times alternatives are used, and the wider their variety, the more visible they become.

I’m thinking of a novel I read some years ago in which the author seemed determined to avoid ‘said’ at all costs. The characters did all the usual things – they asked, answered, replied and exclaimed. They also did more ‘visible’ things – they wondered, whispered, chuckled and muttered. They shouted, snorted, cajoled and observed. They mentioned, uttered, declared and ranted. And it was all highly visible. Every single one of those verbs (which would have thrilled any primary school teacher – I speak as a former infant school teacher) was visible and the more of them there were, the more visible they became. For ‘more visible,’ read ‘more annoying.’

Then, in the middle of an argument, the heroine riposted.

After 200 pages of confirming, suggesting, murmuring and giggling, it was the final, pretentious straw. I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or groan in anguish. I closed the book and never went back to it.

Sorry about my little rant, but I hope it’s helped to illustrate my point. Humble, under-rated ‘said’ is a dependable workhorse of a word. Use it freely and don’t let anybody put you off.

And unless you want me to come back and haunt you, please don’t ever let your characters do any riposting.

 

SISTER SCRIBES: JANE CABLE ON A VERY PERSONAL TRIBUTE

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The morning my mother died she asked me to tell her about the next book I would write. I said I had an idea about an archaeologist alone under Lincolnshire’s vast skies and she approved. True, the outline was a little different then, but Rachel and her story still caught her imagination.

It seemed only right, then, to include a character based on my mother in Endless Skies; an intelligent, perceptive octogenarian with a keen interest in people and a huge sense of fun. I called her Esther, the name on my grandmother’s birth certificate that she never used.

Even Esther’s physical attributes were the same as my mum’s. The platinum bob, the pearl handled walking stick and the desperately poor eyesight. But in the early drafts Esther had a very different life story, although I drew great comfort from Rachel’s growing friendship with her.

Without my mother’s faith and encouragement I can honestly say I would never have had a book published. She read my embryonic attempts at novel writing and gave constructive criticism – despite my father being the writer in the family – he never really understood romantic fiction and just seemed slightly puzzled by the whole thing. But Mum egged me on, and when she thought I had a strong enough book suggested I enter The Alan Titchmarsh Show’s People’s Novelist competition. I am absolutely sure it was one of her proudest moments when I reached the final and I just wish she could have travelled to London to see it with her own eyes.

She was also a huge influence on what I write. She devoured library books (large print in her latter years) and used to get very fed up with what she’d call ‘boy meets girl, they fall out three times then get married’ formulaic romances. As a reader she wanted so much more. What neither of us realised was that at the time it would have been far easier for me to find a publisher had I been closer to the mainstream in my chosen genre.

As a result she didn’t live long enough to see my first publishing deal, but I have a feeling she knows. I think she would have been really proud of Another You and would have enjoyed reading it. Endless Skies became a companion piece – my second book with Sapere – both contemporary romances looking back to World War Two.

It was when I made the decision to rewrite Endless Skies this way my mother’s wartime experience came into its own. Or rather one pivotal point she shares with Esther. Both were bright grammar schools girls living in rural communities who could no longer safely travel to school because of the bombing. My mother spent a terrifying air raid trapped on a train in a siding in the middle of Cardiff and her parents said ‘never again’.

While my mother went into the civil service at fourteen (not much older than she was in this picture), Esther’s only local option was a job in the laundry at the RAF base just outside her village. This was home to two squadrons of brave and often reckless Polish airmen, and Esther could only stand by and watch as the most tender and poignant love story unfolded in front of her eyes. A story which, seventy years later, had the power to change Rachel’s life.