‘The Marlows and the Traitor’, Part Seven
Saturday Morning: Peter Makes a Plan Peter’s plan is that he will hide in the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse and Ginty and Nicola will pretend he’s drowned during an escape attempt. Then...
View Article‘The Marlows and the Traitor’, Part Eight
Saturday Night: Foley’s Folly Light Now we’re back to Peter, in the lighthouse’s lantern room, watching the girls carry out the first phase of their plan. A few days ago he’d been questioning his...
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‘Aunts Up The Cross’ by Robin Dalton
“My great-aunt Juliet was knocked over and killed by a bus when she was eighty-five. The bus was travelling very slowly in the right direction and could hardly have been missed by anyone except Aunt...
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‘Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life’ by Peter...
Other Minds is an engrossing account of how intelligence and ‘consciousness’ might have evolved in animals, specifically in cephalopods – that is, octopuses, cuttlefish and squid, those fascinating sea...
View ArticleMiscellaneous Memoranda
– From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler turns fifty this year and The Smithsonian Magazine has a great article about the true story behind the book. Really, that book is the only reason...
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In a War-Torn World …
… let good books help you. WWII poster, U.S. Office of War Information
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‘The Furthest Station’ by Ben Aaronovitch
There’s a new Rivers of London book out! Except it’s not a novel but a 140-page novella, and I’d thought it wasn’t being released until September. It turns out that an American publisher, Subterranean...
View ArticleAdventures in Self-Publishing: Why Self-Publish?
It’s been five years since my last book, The FitzOsbornes at War, came out and occasionally readers contact me to ask whether I’ve written another book and if so, why it isn’t available for them to...
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Adventures in Self-Publishing: What’s This Book About, Anyway?
Way back in 2012, I wrote this on Memoranda, in response to a reader’s question: “Shannon asked me about the new book I’m working on, so I composed a long blog post on the subject, complete with jokes...
View ArticleAdventures in Self-Publishing: Editing
There is a stigma attached to self-published books. Book buyers are often wary of these books. Self-published books are rarely found in libraries and bookstores, and they’re explicitly banned from...
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‘Falconer’s Lure’ by Antonia Forest
I have been working very hard on my new book and felt I deserved a reward, so you know what that means – Antonia Forest read-along time! And really, with the world in its current state of chaos and...
View Article‘Falconer’s Lure’, Part Two
Chapter Three: “No One Ever Tells Us Anything” The Marlows stay on at Trennels in a kind of unhappy extended holiday, with Nicola feeling they are “almost like trespassers” in Cousin Jon’s house. It...
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Chapter Four: Colebridge Market This is my favourite sort of chapter, in which nothing very exciting happens (people do the weekly shopping and have haircuts) but we discover lots of interesting things...
View Article‘Falconer’s Lure’, Part Four
Chapter Five: Jael is Entered and Peter Gate-crashes Nicola continues to learn about hawking and Patrick continues to be obnoxious. Nicola is unhappy about watching Jael’s training, which involves...
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Chapter VII: Jael in the Evening Honestly, Peter is the absolute limit! First, he agrees to go cliff-climbing with Patrick and Nicola, even though he’s terrified of heights and knows he has panic...
View Article‘Falconer’s Lure’, Part Six
I wasn’t familiar with the song Nicola performed in the previous chapter, so I looked it up and found this beautiful version by mezzo-soprano Sophie Macrae: It’s so sad. No wonder people kept bursting...
View Article‘Falconer’s Lure’, Part Seven
I’m sorry for the lengthy delay in blog posting, but I’ve been caught up in a flurry of self-publishing tasks (SO MUCH TO DO). Anyway, on with the reading. Chapter X: High Diving The Sprog is not doing...
View Article‘Falconer’s Lure’, Part Eight
Summer holidays are nearly over, but first there’s the gymkhana. (I have never had to write that word before and I’m struck by how weird it is. What have horses got to do with gyms? According to my...
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‘You Can Draw in 30 Days’ by Mark Kistler
I did the illustrations for my new book myself, mostly because I was on a limited budget and couldn’t afford to pay illustrator fees. These illustrations definitely don’t look like the work of a...
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My Favourite Books of 2017
It’s not actually the end of the year, but if I don’t post this now, it may not get done at all. I only read 37 new books this year (new to me, that is) – even fewer than last year. I did immerse...
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