Virginia Crow's Blog: Crowvus Book Blog, page 3

#MGMonday: Putting Magic into the Setting.

 Firstly, I apologise for not posting a Middle Grade Monday blog last week. It was quite a crazy time, with my exam on the Monday and the Music Festival all week. But I wanted to make sure I got this blog up on the right day!

Today, I'll be discussing how to put magic into a setting, particularly for middle grade books.

One of the key points to make is that magic is not unusual for children. It is quite normal for a class of children to believe that magic exists, and this has both benefits and dra...

#HistFicThursdays - Lady of the Quay by Amanda Roberts - Book Snippet

 

 This week for #HistFicThursdays, I'm delighted to once again be teaming up with The Coffee Pot Book Club for author Amanda Roberts' blog tour! Today, I'm sharing an excerpt from her fabulous new release, Lady of the Quay!

First of all, let's meet the book...

Knowing she is innocent is easy … proving it is hard

1560, Berwick-upon-Tweed, northern England

Following the unexpected death of her father, a series of startling discoveries about the business she inherits forces Isabella Gillhespy to re-eva...

#HistFicThursdays - Gothic Horror - The Curse of Heatherwell House

 The Curse of Heatherwell House (Working Title) came from a slightly different place than many of the other stories in this collection. When I decided that I was going to put together a collection of short stories with the theme of Gothic Horror, I quizzed Clemency on what would scare her. She said “zombies”. Not the easiest thing to work with for Gothic Horror – give me a ghost any day. Here are some thoughts about how I went about creating The Curse of Heatherwell House…

Once I had spoken to Cl...

#MGMonday Character: Writing Mythical Creatures

 Fantasy books certainly don't need any mythical creatures thrown into the mix, but doesn't it make it that bit more fun?

My first published book with mythical creatures was Unicorns Rule. And, you guessed it, was about unicorns! It followed characters that I had invented back when I was in primary school, but I changed the story since then to make it (what I considered) better.

When writing my unicorn character, I was carefully to keep to older myths and legends. None of that pooping rainbow rubb...

#HistFicThursdays - Death and The Poet by Fiona Forsyth - Guest Post

 

For today's #HistFicThursdays blog, I am so excited to be welcoming Fiona Forsyth to the blog with a guest post about her new book Death and The Poet, as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour. Her fabulous guest post discusses the book's setting, moving away from the perception of Ancient Rome to its reality with just enough artistic license to keep readers deeply engaged with the story.

But first, let's meet the book...

Blurb

14 AD.

When Dokimos the vegetable seller is found bludgeoned to death in...

#MGMonday Books Teachers Shouldn't be Without

 I've been clearing out my school cupboard over the last couple of weeks, and trying to clear some books. Most of them, I send my sister's way, and let her pick out which ones she wants for her classroom. The others go towards the Bring and Buy Sale one of my colleagues is organising. Some, a select few, I chose to keep. So here's a list of books that I wouldn't be without as a teacher:

First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts by Lari Don

It's one of my favourite class novels, and the kids lo...

#HistFicThursdays - Inspirational Series: Our Flag Means Death

I can’t quite remember what inspired me to watch Our Flag Means Death. I have a vague recollection of watching a trailer on Facebook and then, eventually, picking up my phone and flicking through various streaming platforms, finally settling on that as my pick.

What I was expecting was a farcical pirate romp. Maybe elements of The Muppets’ Treasure Island but with a little more adult content. Lots of hopeless pirates attempting swashbuckling tasks with comically poor results. Possibly a bit of Bl...

#HistFicThursdays - Gothic Horror - The Lady Who Dances in the Ashes

One of the problems – or, perhaps, the best things – about Gothic Horror is that it does tend to be sad. Usually, there are at least one or two characters who don’t deserve whatever is happening to them, or who have done something which is being punished in a way which does not in any way fit the crime. M.R. James’s writing is perhaps a constant reiteration of the old proverb, “curiosity killed the cat”, but curiosity in itself isn’t a bad thing; while Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker’s Dracula fi...

#MGMonday #Genres Writing Middle Grade Non Fiction

Why is it that, when you're teaching genres to children, you go through historical, fantasy, science fiction, adventure... and so on... and then... non-fiction. You go into detail about all the wonderful types of fiction, and then non-fiction gets lumped in together.

Perhaps because there are too many genres of non-fiction to count. I can't even name them all. So, with that in mind, I will attempt to write a single blog post about non-fiction.

What is the most challenging aspect of middle grade no...

#HistFicThursdays - A Timely Post

 This month being #HistFicMay has got me thinking about my closest-to-being-finished WIP, Poisoned Pilgrimage. As much as possible, I'm attempting to answer all the prompts based on this one and hoping that it might spur me on to actually write the last few chapters...

Alas, so far, time has been a rare commodity this May!

That being said, we did sit down this evening and watch the announcement of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV and listen (via the most appalling automatic translation software!) to...