Chris Penhall's Blog, page 7
October 6, 2021
Writing the raunchy times – Lucy Keeling
I have been asked how I write romantic and sexy scenes in my books. In all honesty, I’m still stuck in the From Here to Eternity waves lapping on the shore kind of thing, so I thought I’d ask my friend, Lucy Keeling, who has written three funny, contemporary novels with, as she says, ‘sexy times and happily ever afters’ for some tips
Writing the raunchy times
A quick how to guide for writing those raunchy moments
I’m Lucy Keeling romantic comedy author whose books tend to include those open door sexy moments.
Here’s some ideas of where to begin:
Make sure it fits the story
You can’t just plonk it in there (tee hee) you have to make sure that it’s necessary for the story, for character development and for the relationship development of the people involved. Think of it as an action scene if that helps. But if the idea or writing sexy times makes you cringe then don’t feel like you HAVE to include it.
Getting into the mood
When you first start you might want to light a candle, maybe get a glass of wine, maybe set up a playlist? You don’t have to go too far, just make sure you’re settled and comfortable. You may struggle writing those sexy times if you’re in the middle of a coffee shop, but, don’t worry with practice you can write the sexy times any time any place haha.
Logistics and senses
Remember to try and use all the senses, describe the action like you would an action scene. But remember that the logistics need to make sense, can arms reach that far without bending, is someone still wearing socks, is that deliberate? Also remember this is one scene in part of a larger story, so try and keep your pacing as needed. Is it fast and frenetic is it slow and sensual? Are they talking throughout, laughing or are they speechless, maybe more reverent.
Consent and contraception
You need to include both, there’s no excuse to miss these out. If you don’t include contraception I’m going to assume either a pregnancy or some sort of STI later on in the story. I’ve written a list of some of my favourite books below that all provide great examples of consent and contraception.
Language
Again this needs to be in keeping with the rest of the book and with the characterisation. The difficulty is avoiding getting too anatomical and biological, and avoiding such flowery metaphors that you confuse the reader with ambiguity. If you are aiming your book at a particular publisher then you might want to read the books they publish to see how your peers are writing these scenes. Publishers might have a house style that stipulates what you can and can’t include, for example swear words.
Mostly have fun
We write because we love it, or we write because we can’t stop ourselves. If writing sexy times will stress you out – then don’t do it. But whatever you do, write like nobody is reading. Just go for it. You can edit it later. Good luck xx
Book reading recommendations:
Contemporary Romance – Get a life Chloe Brown – Talia Hibbert, Before you say I do – Clare Lydon
Romantic Comedies – Sally Thorne – The Hating Game, Elena Armas – The Spanish Love Deception
Historical Romance – Tessa Dare – The Duchess Deal, Virginia Heath – The mysterious Lord Millcroft
About Lucy Keeling
Lucy Keeling is an author writing fun, sexy, stories with all of the happily ever afters. When she’s not typing at the kitchen table, she’s arranging and then re-arranging to see her friends for the occasional spot of day drinking. Lucy has written three books in a Contemporary Romance series, the first of which was Runner-Up in ChocLit’s ‘Search for a Star’ competition, ‘Make It Up to You’ in 2019. The other books in the series, ‘Just Friends’ and ‘Just Friends in Vegas’ were published in 2020 and 2021. All are available in paperback, e-book and audio.
About Just Friends in Vegas
Is love always a losing game?When Mya is with Smithy, it feels like her eyes are constantly rolling. His wheeling and dealing charisma charms everyone but her. Well, that’s not strictly true – Mya is only human after all, and there’s no doubt the man is hot with his suits and swagger. It’s just that Smithy knows Mya’s secret, and she’s not sure she can trust him to keep it from their group of friends. As they immerse themselves in the glamorous and mysterious world of ‘The Suits’, growing closer as a result, Smithy has to question whether his time with Mya is destined to become a case of ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ …
Keep in touch with Lucy:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucykeelingb...
Twitter: @Lucy_K_Author
Instagram: lucy_k_author
The post Writing the raunchy times – Lucy Keeling appeared first on Chris Penhall.
October 1, 2021
The road to publication: Anni Rose on Recipe for Mr Perfect
I love hearing how authors started writing and went on to get their books on the shelves. We are all different and the number of ways we got to achieve our ambitions to become published writers are as varied as the number of published writers themselves. That means that there are a lot! Maybe one thing we all have in common, though is tenacity.
Anni Rose has just published her second novel, Recipe for Mr Perfect, so I invited her on the blog to talk about how and why she began to put pen to paper
As a child I loved writing—letters, stories, anything. I have a drawer full of letters I have received over the years from all over the place. They mostly seem to start with “Thank you for your lovely long letter”. Well apart from the one from Reading Prison, that says it ‘it is afraid some of your questions if answered, would breach security. I am therefore unable to answer any of your other questions with one exception. Although the prison may seem dark and dingy as you pass, I can assure you that inside with modern strip lighting and tasteful modern decorations, it is light and bright in all areas.”
At the age of eight I came second to a good friend in the school writing competition and won a bag full of gobstoppers, fruit salad and blackjack sweets and thought I had hit the big time!
Further successes, if you exclude the weekly 37½ p postal orders from the Junior Bracknell News weekly spot the difference or word competitions, took a while longer to achieve.
Until secondary school, most of my stories had a fantasy element, usually a prince and at least one witch and I was rarely found without my nose in a book.
I came out of school with “A”s in both English Language and Literature but then fell into accounts; despite harbouring desires to be a journalist. Writing, apart from financial reports, took a back seat until our local arts centre ran a ten-week writing course and I was hooked again.
Two things impressed on me at the time, were that I should keep a notebook close by and record things of interest. It is something I still do, I just wish I was more organised about it, I now have drawers full of hand-written notebooks all full of things I considered worthy of note at the time, but currently no way of retrieving those little nuggets. I should probably admit to being a stationery addict at this point. I love a new notebook and have a lot of favourite pens! During my working life I had to attend many conferences, seminars, and exhibitions. If asked what I thought of any of them, my answer would always be dependent on the quality and quantity of their stationery freebies.
The trouble is with my notebooks I get easily distracted as soon as I start going through one. Just this morning, searching through a relatively current notebook for a particular piece of information I knew was in there, I came across a letter that hadn’t been sent, an email relating to a family history question, and the reference number of my HMRC probate office complaint that still hasn’t been resolved. That in a nutshell is very like my writing process. I start with one idea and by the time I get to the end of the short story or the novel, I will have generated more ideas that I can’t wait to write, which partly explains why I have a drawer full of first drafts. I am trying to be better at going back and editing before moving on.
The other thing that I learned from that course was to write as often as I could and not feel guilty about it. Easier said than done. Sometimes I have weeks when the writing just flows and others when I get really stuck or bogged down by something else. But writing is very cathartic and quite often if I have a problem that I can’t see a way out of, I give it to one of my characters and see how they sort it out
I finished my first novel during that course, a historical novel set in a Victorian workhouse, it had been inspired by family history research. It was an idea I’d been playing with for a long time and couldn’t let go of, so it was lovely to get it down. But it was a huge learning curve and I have learnt a lot since then about structure and point of view. One day I will go back and give it a complete overhaul, but it will be a while before I’m ready for anyone else to read it. However, it did win a highly commended award in the Winchester Writers Conference – first three pages of a novel one year. That encouraged me to enter other competitions and submit to magazines. I had some success in Writers’ Forum, Writing Magazine, Yours, Hampshire Writers Society and I have had stories published in My Weekly and Sophie King’s “How to Write Your Life Story in Ten Easy Steps” as well.
By the time I’d finished my first book, I had planned (in the loosest possible sense) and mostly written a second book at this stage about a Victorian Grand Tour of Europe, but my first love was romantic comedy. I love a “Happy Ever After” book and if it makes me smile so much the better, so I knew that’s what I wanted to write.
That writing course finished, but most of us have kept in touch. Some have been published and some of us still meet regularly to critique each other’s work. Over the years I have been on other courses and joined writing groups and retreats including the Dunford Novelists. It is always lovely to be a part of a group of like-minded people. They are usually noisy affairs, but I always learn so much from other more experienced writers. It was on a writing retreat that another attendee suggested I might like to join Choc Lit’s tasting panel and I did. Five years on, I finally felt ready to submit my novel to a publisher and following their submission process, sent my synopsis and application to Choc Lit. I was beyond thrilled, when they came back and said “Yes” they’d like to see the book. When they asked to see a second book I was a complete nervous wreck for a while, but when they came back and offered me a three book contract, it felt like all my dreams had come true. And it was lovely to be part of such a supportive group of authors who I admired so much.
I am still not brave enough when asked what I do, to say I’m a writer. It still feels strange. I struggle with “imposter syndrome”, but I am finally a published novelist, living the dream. I know the work doesn’t end there, but when you’re doing what you love most, that’s really not a problem.
Recipe for Mr Perfect
How do you know if you’ve found Mr Perfect or Mr Perfectly Useless?
Jess Willersey realised things with Martin weren’t perfect, but it’s still a shock when he leaves. Is she destined to a singleton lifestyle with only her cat for company, or could a certain hat-astrophic encounter with a handsome stranger at a rather unusual wedding signal a turning point?
At the same time, Jess’s best friends and work colleagues, Maggie and Sarah, are going through their own personal disasters – from shocking family revelations to dodgy dating app-related drama.
To top it all off, it seems that the handsome stranger won’t remain a stranger – and when Neil Jackson turns up at the friends’ offices with yet another bombshell, how long will he stay ‘Mr Perfect’ in Jess’s eyes?
About Anni Rose
As a child, Anni loved writing fiction, producing reams of stories, thankfully most of them have been lost over the years. She hopes these days her stories are a little more plot and character driven than the “Missing Custard” or the “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” both of which turned up recently, but the love of creating a fictional world is still very much there and Anni says, ‘If I am stuck on a plot or a character, I find writing in long hand with a lovely pen, is a really good way to get rid of any blocks’.
At the age of eight she came second to a good friend in the school writing competition and won a bag full of gobstoppers, fruit salad and blackjack sweets and thought she had hit the big time!
Further successes, if you exclude the weekly 37½ p postal orders that would regularly turn up from the Junior Bracknell News’s weekly spot the difference or word competitions, took a while longer to achieve.
On leaving school, despite harbouring desires to be a journalist, the need to earn a living sort of got in the way of writing and she became an accountant where her only published work apart from regular financial reports was the employees’ handbook.
A local writing course and an encouraging group of writing friends re-ignited the fiction flame many years later.
Anni would describe her writing these days as mainly modern romantic stories with a healthy dollop of humour thrown in.
Away from writing Anni can usually be found behind a camera, walking the dogs, enjoying one of her husband’s curries or sister’s bakery treats.
Find out more about Annie here:
Twitter: @AnniRoseAuthor
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AnniRoseAuthor
Website: https://anniroseauthor.co.uk
Instagram: anniroseauthor
The post The road to publication: Anni Rose on Recipe for Mr Perfect appeared first on Chris Penhall.
September 26, 2021
Finding Summer Happiness – spot of gazing at the stars
I do love staring at the sky at night. I have no knowledge of astronomy at all really (although rectifying this is something on the top of my list of things to do, which I haven’t actually done yet…) However, what I can say with complete certainty is that a black sky full of twinkling stars utterly captivates me and a big orange moon hanging over the sea will stop me in my tracks.
I remember many years ago, in the last December I lived in Cascais picking my daughters up from a friend’s house in Alcabideche and catching sight of a huge moon suspended in a big dark sky and thinking ‘Stop being so beautiful, Portugal…I have to go….’ I really did that….
The Alentejo region Portugal is one of the best places for astronomers with its big skies, wide-open spaces and lack of light pollution, and of course, there are several fabulous dark sky spots in Wales too. So, setting Finding Summer Happiness on the Pembrokeshire coast was perfect – It meant I could introduce a spot of stargazing and a (grumpy) astronomer called Alan into the story who spends his time in the summer house in Miriam’s garden researching his books.
So, being a rom com fan, I thought I’d have a browse around to see if there were any romantic films that included a bit of staring at the sky. There are a few with references to it. Of course, George Bailey in one of my favourite’s – It’s a Wonderful Life, does say whilst wooing his soon-to-be-wife, Mary. ‘You want the moon? Just say the word, and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.’ Just gorgeous, that is in my opinion.
Of course, there’s another one, that I fully admit to loving, and I don’t care what you think….Only You, staring Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Junior, where Hope says. ‘I don’t believe in anything anymore! I don’t believe in the moon or the stars, or the sun…or destiny or magic…or men!’ Actually, I think Miriam Ryan, the main character in Finding Summer Happiness could easily say that as that’s how she seems to feel at the beginning of the book.
More recently there was La La Land. I just loved it and thought it was stunning to look at. The scene at the Griffith Observatory where the two main characters seemed to be dancing in the stars is one of my favourites ever. In fact I would like to do that sometime…any ideas on how? And talking about movies that are beautiful to watch there’s Steve Martin’s version of Roxanne with Darryl Hannah playing – of course – an astronomy student who has arrived in the town to search for a comet over the summer.
Miriam Ryan isn’t searching for anything apart from peace and quiet in Finding Summer Happiness. But she does end up with a few starlit nights.
About Finding Summer Happiness
You won’t find happiness without breaking a few eggs …Miriam Ryan was the MD of a successful events and catering company, but these days even the thought of chopping an onion sends her stress levels sky rocketing. A retreat to the Welsh village of her childhood holidays seems to offer the escape she’s craving – just peace, quiet, no people, a generous supply of ready meals … did she mention no people? Enter a cheery pub landlord, a lovesick letting agent, a grumpy astronomer with a fridge raiding habit – not to mention a surprise supper club that requires the chopping of many onions – and Miriam realises her escape has turned into exactly what she was trying to get away from, but could that be just the thing she needs to allow a little bit of summer happiness into her life?
Finding Summer Happiness is available in e-book, audio and paperback from all major outlets
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September 23, 2021
A Villa in Portofino by Evonne Wareham
I’m completely in love with Italy and have definitely put Evonne Wareham’s new novel, A Villa in Portifino on my to be read list. So, I thought I’d invite her onto my blog to give a bit of background to the novel. As she says…it’s complicated!
Many thanks to Chris for inviting me on to her blog today as part of the blog tour for the third in my romantic suspense series set on the Riviera – A Villa in Portofino.
Holding the threads
A Villa in Portofino was a complicated book to write.
Unfortunately I seem to enjoy complicated.
The main story line is simple. Megan Morrison inherits a neglected villa and overgrown garden in Portofino on the Ligurian Riviera. She enlists the help of landscape gardener Gideon West. Much pruning of roses and falling in love follow.
If only it was that easy. For a start, in order for Megan to have an unexpected legacy from a virtually unknown aunt, there has to be a bit of family history, so the book has five generations of a family in it, going back to the Second World War. There was a lot of manoeuvring and multiple time lines behind the scenes to make sure that it hung together. I hope it does. I have told my editor that I am never going to write a multi-generational story again. I hope I remember it.
In order for this to be romantic suspense, there has to be crime and a villain so I had to work out why the sinister Gabriella De Stephano thought she had a right to Megan’s inheritance and chart how she planned to take it from her.
And of course true love never does run smooth – so Gideon has something dark in his past that he really doesn’t want to remember.
All that is fine.
Then I started on the embroidery.
One of the things that fascinated me about writing a multi generational story was the idea of unintended secrets. “Wicked Aunt Olwen” eloped at the end of the Second World War with an Italian prisoner of war and was cut out of the family. As a result her life is one big secret – or at least an unknown. In deciding to make her home in the villa Megan sets about trying to find out more about her aunt’s life. That gave me the chance to play with imperfect memories, assumptions and misinformation. I had a lot of enjoyment creating red herrings of the things people thought they knew, or only partially remembered. Very frustrating for Megan but fun for me. I also had to research the “real” elements of Olwen’s life, the events, furniture and fashions in the 1970s when the villa was built and in subsequent years when Olwen lived there and slowly became a recluse after the death of her husband and son. There was darkness and tragedy there, as well as a great deal of happiness and love. Writing the end of that story, in Olwen’s own words, was quite poignant.
If all that wasn’t enough I threw in the mystery of the Italian poems written by a boy genius who was a contemporary of Byron and Shelly, which are the subject of Megan’s doctoral thesis. Did they also have a connection to the villa?
You can see how keeping all those threads from getting tangled was a challenge. Self made, so I really can’t complain and I do get satisfaction from keeping all the plot lines flowing and separate. This possibly makes me a bit weird, but if the result is a book that people enjoy reading, then I am happy.
In the famous phrase “It’s complicated.” But I like it that way. I hope readers will too.
Bio
Evonne is an award winning Welsh author of romantic suspense – more crime and dead bodies than your average romance. She likes to set her book in her native Wales, or for a touch of glamorous escapism, in favourite holiday destinations in Europe. She is a Doctor of Philosophy and an historian, and a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association.
Twitter https://twitter.com/evonnewareham
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/evonnewarehamauthor/
Website www.evonnewareham.com
Blog www.evonneonwednesday.blogspot.com
A Villa in Portofino
Third in the ‘Riviera’ Series of romantic suspense: love and mayhem in the sunshine of the French and Italian Riviera
From chambermaid to “got it made” …
When hotel cleaning temp and poetry academic Megan Morrison finds out she’s inherited an Italian villa and small fortune from her estranged great-great aunt Olwen, she doesn’t quite know how to react. That is, until she travels to Portofino to see Il Giardino delle Rose for herself. Then she knows exactly what she has to do: live there!
Enchanted by the beauty of the house and gardens, fascinated by the history, and more than a little intrigued by handsome hired landscape gardener Gideon West, Megan can immediately see the villa’s potential as a dream home.
But having long-lost relatives sometimes means long-lost secrets – and it seems that Olwen had plenty of those. Could these secrets and a jealous obsession be powerful enough to drive Megan out of the house that she’s already fallen in love with?
Available as an e-book from
Kindle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Villa-Portofino-Evonne-Wareham-ebook/dp/B09CDPWB98/r?tag=smarturl-gb-21
Barnes and Noble/Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-villa-in-portofino-evonne-wareham/1139997714?ean=2940162375562
Kobo https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/a-villa-in-portofino
Google playbooks https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Evonne_Wareham_A_Villa_in_Portofino?id=JylAEAAAQBAJ&gl=GB
Goodreads Reviews https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58773338-a-villa-in-portofino?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=1t6hnjlD7p&rank=6
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September 17, 2021
Chris and Lizzie’s Book Marketing Adventures: Trains, Planes and Automobiles – or ‘going with the flow’
I always look forward to meeting up with Lizzie Chantree. We have a lot of fun, talk about books, our ideas, how we write, and all sorts of random stuff!
We always start with a plan…a cup of coffee, and if our meeting is in Southend, a full English breakfast in one of the cafes in the Arches along the seafront. Our previous endeavours have been done in some fairly inclement weather. But not September’s. Oh, no! September’s was sunny. And hot, and gorgeous, and frankly rendered me a little more skittish than usual.
So I forgot to bring my notepad with my ideas in. The only one I had in my head was…tenacity..because I wanted to use a ‘Nobody puts baby in the corner’ gif from Dirty Dancing in the blog. However, lured out by the sparkling sea and clear blue sky, we decided that a walk along Southend’s iconic pleasure pier – the worlds’ longest at 1.33 miles – would be an ideal way to walk off our breakfast and help us bask in the sun.
http://www.chrispenhall.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/video-1631890661.mp4
So, that was the beginning of our ‘go with the flow’ day. Which is what my writing is like really – sometimes I just sit there with a plan, start to type and somehow go off in an entirely different direction to what I’d intended. I also write the scenes I feel like too, when I can’t get one out of my mind, rather that the next piece of the plot. I did that, for example, with the dancing scene in Lisbon in New Beginnings at the Little House in the Sun, and also, the last chapter in Finding Summer Happiness. And because I went with where my imagination was, instead of doggedly writing what I’d thought I should, what I came up with was much more vivid, and I went back to the bit I had planned to create with more enthusiasm and energy.
Just a few minutes after we’d stepped onto the pier, the sound of the bustling seafront seemed miles away, the noise of traffic and chatter giving way to lilting waves and seabirds, and it felt so very, very calm, only interrupted with the pier’s trains chugging past heading back to shore. We stopped several times to enjoy the view, then took the train back ourselves. I love days like these – the sense of movement and fun, just walking and getting on and off things. We got so excited with our trains, planes and automobiles idea when we were on the actual train, we decided to try and find a plane on a ride at Adventure Island. Sadly (or maybe just as well), it was closed, so Lizzie had a paddle in the sea and we spotted a helicopter advertising another ride….couldn’t get on it, so took a photo 
instead…it’s the thought that counts!
Then we headed up Pier Hill to Clifftown Parade, where there are some gorgeous, distinctive houses and little hotels, plus a cafe where we could have a drink – latte, always latte, and an orange juice and soda for me, thanks…. From here we were able to watch the world go by, once again just a few hundred yards away from the crowds, and plan our next trip.
Then I drove home in my car, and Lizzie drove home in. hers, so we did the automobile bit too.
Remember, nobody puts baby in the corner….no, I mean, go with the flow and let your imagination run riot. You never know what you might find!
Lizzie Chantree
I’m running a seminar on book marketing soon and I can’t stress enough, that marketing can be a lot of fun. I regularly meet up with fellow author Christine Penhall and we basically decide what we will be doing that day, as we go along.
This time, we had glorious sunshine and a trip to the end of a grade II listed, over 100 year old pier, that sticks out over 1.3 miles into the sea. Of course we made time to dip our toes in the water, drink tall glasses of coffee and also write pages of notes, for future projects. Such a hard day at work! We decided that our theme would be planes, trains and automobiles, as we drove to the seaside, got a train back from the end of the pier and Chris ran into every amusement arcade, to try and find a colourful plane to ride in. We had to settle for a helicopter!
We talked about future books, ones we are writing now and the world of publishing. Along the way, we walked to the end of the pier, took loads of gorgeous photos, used the time to think about some book or writing related places we could visit and had a real giggle. We ended the day by discovering a public garden hidden in the middle of rows of houses. It had a huge fountain with carved cherubs at the centre, where pigeons and butterflies were resting their wings and flowers bloomed in every corner. It would make a great setting for a romance novel and the hidden gem inspired us to want to uncover other intriguing scenery. Watch this space for our next instalment, which we think will probably be about unusual objects in book settings, but by the time we meet again, knowing us, our adventures will have a life of their own!
The post Chris and Lizzie’s Book Marketing Adventures: Trains, Planes and Automobiles – or ‘going with the flow’ appeared first on Chris Penhall.
September 9, 2021
Her Nanny’s Secret by Jan Baynham
My fellow Ruby Fiction author, Jan Baynham has a new novel published this week. Her Nanny’s Secret is set in Wales and France, and Jan explains how and why she choses her locations 
Thank you, Chris, for having me on your blog to talk about my third novel, Her Nanny’s Secret, published this week by Ruby Fiction. As with all my novels, it is set in both beautiful rural mid-Wales where I grew up and in a foreign location. In this case, the contrasting place is Normandy in Northern France.
The Welsh setting for the novel is purely fictional. The main character, Annie Beynon, lives in a tiny village called Brynderi just outside the small town of Pen-y-rhos. Although loosely based on the area around Newbridge and Llandrindod, the setting is an amalgam of other small towns and villages you’ll find in mid-Wales. By choosing Welsh place names and common Welsh surnames for my characters, I hope that from the outset the reader will know exactly where the story is set. The use of the stunning Radnorshire landscape as a backdrop to the story hopefully adds to a sense of place.
As she cycled along the lane, signs of spring were now visible everywhere. In the shade of the budding hedgerows, clumps of pale-yellow primroses dotted the grass like jewels, and powdery catkins dangled in the breeze. It was always the skies that amazed Annie at that time of the morning on bright, clear days. That day was no exception – streaks of apricot merging into pale pink hung above the hills in the distance. Giant oak trees grew there as if guarding the village that had been named in their honour.
The story opens in 1943. Like many of the inhabitants of Brynderi, Annie’s father works on the Cefn Court estate owned by the wealthy Pryce family. The Beynon home is a tied cottage and the tenancy would come to an end once Ted Beynon could no longer work there. Annie’s late mother had also worked for the family and her youngest brother was a groom at the Court before he signed up to fight for King and country. I was able to explore the differences between rich and poor during wartime through the two families.
It seemed so wrong somehow that some folks had so much and others, like her da, had so little. All the luck of the draw, he used to tell her when she asked why they didn’t live in a big house like her friend, Edmund Pryce.
By setting the story in a rural village, I tried to create what it was like to live in a close community where everyone knew everyone’s business, not good if someone had a secret they tried to keep for over twenty years as Annie did.
Mrs Howells carried on with her gossiping. Quizzing, her da would say. That woman has to know everything. Ruddy old busy body, as bad as old Mrs Morgan before her.
In the story, I use a Welsh habit of referring to the villagers by the job they do. The butcher is Sid the Meat, the Postmaster is Pritchard the Post, the garage owner is Powell the Garage.
She ladled out the lamb cawl that was bubbling hot. ‘Here, Da. Get some of this inside you. That scrag end you managed to get from Sid the Meat has done us for two days now.’
The terms of endearment, cariad and bach, mentions of Young Farmers’ clubs, a Welsh barn dance, a twmpath, with a caller and a live band, as well as baking Welsh cakes and cooking cawl are just some of the things mentioned incidentally in the parts of the novel set in Wales. When Annie visits Normandy two decades later, the contrast with the life she knows in the heart of mid-Wales could not be more marked.
‘I’m in your hands, cariad. I’d never been further than Aberystwyth on my own … before I came to London to see you, of course. I thought I was being brave doing that.’
I hope that readers will enjoy visiting mid-Wales to learn Annie’s story and finding out why she kept a secret for so long.
*****
About Her Nanny’s Secret
How far would you go to save the person you loved the most?
It’s 1941, and Annie Beynon has just become the first stable girl for the most powerful family in her Welsh village. Whilst her gift for working with horses is clear, there are some who are willing to make her life very difficult on the Pryce estate, simply for being a girl.
There are other – secret – ways Annie is defying conventions, too. As the war rages, and when Edmund, the heir to the Pryce fortune, leaves to join the RAF, it seems that it’s only a matter of time before Annie’s secret is exposed. That is, until she makes a shocking decision.
It’s 1963 before Annie is able to face up to the secret she chose to keep over twenty years before. Justifying that decision takes her to Normandy in France, and an outcome she could never have expected …
Buying Links for Her Nanny’s Secret:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Her-Nannys-Secret-compelling-self-discovery-ebook/dp/B09BNP3S1P/
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/search?query=Her+Nanny%27s+Secret+Jan+baynham
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/her-nannys-secret-jan-baynham/1139955323?ean=2940162201946
About Jan Baynham
After retiring from a career in teaching and advisory education, Jan joined a small writing group in a local library where she wrote her first piece of fiction. From then on, she was hooked! She soon went on to take a writing class at the local university and began to submit short stories for publication to a wider audience. In October 2019, her first collection of stories was published. Her stories started getting longer and longer so that, following a novel writing course, she began to write her first full-length novel. Originally from mid-Wales, Jan lives in Radyr, Cardiff with her husband.
You can find out. more about Jan here:
Twitter: @JanBaynham https://twitter.com/JanBaynham
Facebook: Jan Baynham Writer https://www.facebook.com/JanBayLit
Blog: Jan’s Journey into Writing https://janbaynham.blogspot.com
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July 5, 2021
Chris and Lizzie’s Book Marketing Adventure: Films – where we take our books on location. Can someone make some films of our books please…?
Lizzie Chantree and I during one of our long, industrious meetings (which is what we call a – breakfast, b – coffee, c breakfast and coffee, d – coffee and cake) discovered that we both love films and we are both rather keen to have our novels adapted for the big screen (although Netflix, Sky or Amazon Prime would be good too). I love a rom-com frankly, and can watch You’ve Got Mail on a loop. Bridget Jones’ Baby is also on fairly frequently, and I have recently revisited my very favourite film, When Harry Met Sally, which was the culmination of my home rom-com week towards the end of lockdown when I binged watched Love Life and Starstruck on the BBC i-player.
So we decided to take our books on tour of some movie locations near where we both live in Essex. Unfortunately, once again, the weather was against us (never organise a picnic on a day Lizzie and I decide to have one of our adventures as our track record for sunshine is pretty poor so far), so we limited ourselves to Chelmsford and Maldon, which do have movie links, actually.
Our first stop was at Hylands House, which was the location for the 2004 film, Chasing Liberty. That was filmed on location in..Prague, Venice, Berlin, London, Washington D.C. and Chelmsford.. …..Also, it doubled up as the White House in an episode of The Crown which I also binged watched in the early months of 2021.
For Lizzie it is a prime setting for one of her books Finding Gina
For me, I decided that as the V Festival used to be held there, and so was on tv, that counted as a location, so if the film crew that was making my latest novel, Finding Summer Happiness couldn’t get to Pembrokeshire, they could film the look-a-like-festival scenes from the book in that very park.
My first two novels, The House that Alice Built and New Beginnings at the Little House in the Sun are both set in Cascais on the Lisbon coast in Portugal. Obviously I would accompany the film crew over there to help guide them along. There is a park both, however, that Alice sometimes retreats to and we discovered just the place to film those scenes at should the budget not run to Parque Marechal Carmona.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at one us recording a trailer….
http://www.chrispenhall.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/WhatsApp-Video-2021-06-28-at-21.53.15.mp4
We then headed to Maldon which is where some scenes for the film adaptation of Sarah Perry’s book, The Essex Serpent have recently been filmed. Sadly, we were a few weeks too late to spot the film’s stars Cl
are Danes and Tom Hiddleston. But we did take some pictures by the waterside and also outside the iconic Blue Boar hotel.
Book shops have been prime settings for important scenes in romantic comedies, such as those I have already mentioned – You’ve Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally. Plu
s of course there’s Notting Hill…and I’ll stop there or I’ll just do a list. So, we took ourselves and our books to the gorgeous Maldon Bookshop at the top of the High Street, and had a browse around for a little while.
And of course, there’s coffee shops. There’s almost always a coffee shop scene in a romantic comedy, and they also play a part in both mine and Lizzie’s books, and we can often be found writing our own books in the ones we love all over the county, country and beyond.
(That’s me smelling my brand new paperback in a coffee shop…sorry..not sorry…)
Personally, I’m putting it out there – can someone make some films of our books please? Thank you….
You can find out more about my e-books, paperbacks and audio books by visiting
http://www.chrispenhall.co.uk/
Check out Lizzie’s post about our latest adventure and find out more about her books here https://lizziechantree.com/2021/07/05/chris-and-lizzies-books-on-tour/
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June 30, 2021
The Talking to my Friends About Books Podcast: Sue McDonagh and The Art Cafe Series
My new novel, Finding Summer Happiness is set on the Pembrokeshire coastline and reflects my love of the south Wales coast. i was born in Neath in South Wales and have always been entranced by the beaches, coves, cliffs and landscape of that part of the world.
I now live in Essex.
Sue McDonough was born in Essex and lives in south Wales. She has written four novels based around the gorgeous Gower peninsula, the latest of which, Summer of Hopes and Dreams has just been published.
So, we had a chat about me being from there and living here, and her being from here and living there, and us both writing stories set in Wales.
Sue is also a successful artist and has designed her own book covers, so we had a lot to talk about. You can listen here:
Summer of Hopes and Dreams
Can “Dozy Rosie” spice up her life and prove she’s not boring?
![Summer of Hopes and Dreams: The perfect uplifting escapist read for summer (Art Cafe Book 4) by [Sue McDonagh]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1625177916i/31576712.jpg)
Rosie Bunting has spent her life caring for others, often at the expense of her own hopes and dreams. But when she overhears somebody describing her as “boring”, she decides it’s time for a change.
Little does she realise that the outdoor pursuits weekend brochure handed to her at the local Art Café will kick start a summer that will see her abseiling down a Welsh cliff face in “eye watering” leggings, rediscovering her artistic side and unexpectedly inheriting an old fire engine. It also involves meeting hunky outdoor instructor, Gareth Merwyn-Jones – although of course he’d never be interested in Dozy Rosie Bunting … would he?
One thing’s for certain: Rosie’s path to achieving her hopes and dreams might not be smooth, but it’s definitely not boring.
Amazon page: https://tinyurl.com/y5f44qd5
Sue McDonagh Writer Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SueMcDonaghWriter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SueMcDonaghLit
Choc Lit author page: https://www.choc-lit.com/productcat/sue-mcdonagh/
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June 25, 2021
The Talking to My Friends About Books Podcast: Gina Hollands
In this episode of The Talking to My Friends About Books Podcast, fellow Choc-Lit and Ruby Fiction author, Gina Hollands chat about her latest novel, Yours Trudy and our shared love of salsa dancing.
She explained how she started salsa
Listen here:
https://christinepenhall.podbean.com/e/the-talking-to-my-friends-about-books-podcast-gina-hollands/
About Gina Hollands
Originally from Yorkshire, Gina now lives by the sea in West Sussex with her husband and son. When she’s not working in her job in marketing and PR, or writing her latest book, Gina can be found dancing everything from lindy hop to salsa, shopping (she loves clothes far too much for her own good), eating out (she hates washing up far too much for her own good), or relaxing, which generally involves reading a book someone else has written or indulging in her new hobby of learning to play the piano. She has a sneaky suspicion she may be a musical genius in the making, but isn’t about to give up the day job just yet.
Yours Trudy
How many positive words and exclamation marks can you fit into the space of one email? A lot is the answer, if you’re Trudy Drinkwater. As ‘Head of People Happiness’, her cheery emails are carefully written to boost the morale of her ‘fellow finned friends’ at Pink Fish Web Design. Yay! But, in reality, there is very little Trudy has to say ‘yay!’ about in her home life.
Can Trudy keep up the chirpy pretence of her day job, or does she really need a new start and a second chance at true happiness?
For more information about Gina and her books visit www.ginahollands.com
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May 31, 2021
Chris and Lizzie’s Book marketing adventure! Or Lizzie and Chris and the Blustery Day…
From Chris: Writing can be very solitary really. Even if you’re sitting in a café working on your latest masterpiece, you’re still alone with your own imagination, because, basically, you have to be to create the world you’re putting on the page.
So, its lovely to hang out with other writers and chat about what we do and how our brains work! I’m fairly new to this world – 8 years of working on my first book, The House That Alice Built, before it got published. Now I’ve written two more , I’m finally becoming part of this wonderful writing community.
So, when Lizzie and I chatted about getting together to not only talk about writing, but to post about it too, I jumped at the idea. And this is the result of our first ‘formal’ project, or as I like to call it, Lizzie and Chris and the Blustery Day (Big fan of Winnie the Pooh!)
We met at a café on Southend sea front in May, armed with notepads, two microphones and our mobile phones. What was recorded on the microphones was a lot of dramatic windswept noise. Really, that’s all you can hear! What we were actually talking about was how when you’re writing, you may start with one idea, then it will evolve into something else, because our best laid plans of what we were going to do were disrupted by the weather, so we had to be imaginative and do it a different way.
And as we walked along the sea front, we not only noted how the weather was affecting the sea and the sky, but we both described what we saw in slightly different ways.
So, here is our photo/film story of that day. Apologies for the hair….
From Lizzie: Hello everyone. When I spoke to Chris about trying some fun marketing ideas, we weren’t sure what we would end up doing. We decided to meet, (which may or may not have included a huge cooked breakfast) and to record our chats about writing and marketing. We thought we’d include what worked and what didn’t. A seaside stroll seemed a great way to begin and what followed was a comedy of errors
The wind was so feisty that we could barely hear ourselves speak and the video I took of Chris describing the sea was hilarious, as you can’t actually hear a word she says! This could be seen as an epic fail, but to look at it another way, the video was funny and the photos that we thought would be glamorous (the seafront) and professional (us) were so ridiculous that we decided to post them anyway. Even the photo of Chris with the microphone managed to end up looking like I had a weird hair bobble or antenna!
http://www.chrispenhall.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/WhatsApp-Video-2021-05-21-at-12.05.38.mp4The content though, could still connect us with our readers and hopefully make them smile, which is what we look to do in our books. We both write women’s fiction. Like Chris, it took me a long time to publish my first book, as I hid it in a cupboard for five years while I battled imposter syndrome. Today, I love writing novels, talking to readers and I find marketing an interesting challenge. Connecting with people isn’t always about doing things the expected way and although our meeting didn’t go the way we thought, I don’t think I’ve laughed so much all year and I’m now excited to see what our next monthly instalment brings.
Insert words here…..!
http://www.chrispenhall.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/WhatsApp-Video-2021-05-21-at-12.09.12.mp4
Find out more about Lizzie’s romance books that are full of sizzling romance, beautiful settings and second chances at love. All of Lizzie’s books are available from Amazon and her latest book, Shh… It’s our secret, is available in bookshops worldwide and in audio.
https://www.facebook.com/lizzie.chant...
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