Cheryl Burman's Blog: Blog posts for readers and writers, page 3

The Secret Lives of the Doyenne of Didsbrook Tessa Barrie

Sprinkled with a good deal of humour, some lovely imagery, and a cast of intriguing characters, The Secret Lives of the Doyenne of Didsbrook is an easy, fun holiday/weekend read.

You have to love a classic British cosy mystery – the beautiful ancient village, the aristocratic family living in the manorial home, the connections, the newcomer who doesn’t understand how things are done around here, and the young heroine who refuses to believe that her famous mentor’s death can possibly be suicid...

Letters from Shadow Oaks K.L. Small

When Nina, a former art teacher, gives up her apartment to move into an assisted living facility, she struggles with the feeling that life is now over for her, and all she is left with are special memories.

Megan, forty, with a successful career in marketing, a loving second husband, two daughters and a nice home, is on top of life – until things go very wrong in all directions, one of which being her relationship with her oldest daughter, teenager Penny.

Penny finds herself always arguing...

An Unfortunate Situation Carolyn Blake

An Unfortunate Situation is historical fiction set not long before WW1 when things were different in the UK and the classes mostly knew where they belonged – except some who dared to dream.

Violet comes from a loving working class family but when she falls in love with the son of her well-off employer and falls pregnant to him, her dreams of marriage and family are rudely shattered by his parents. Packed off to the family summer house in Windermere to await the birth of the baby – for whom t...

Sell by date

Sell by date comes courtesy of a Dean Writers Circle writing workshop. The other pieces I wrote on the day will never see the light LOL.

‘You’re past your sell by date, you know that, don’t you?’ Ben had hissed the words across the kitchen table when she told him she was leaving him. ‘Don’t even think about finding someone knew.’ He’d pushed back his chair, legs scraping on the stone floor.

The flung insult stung. Ellen stood too and then wondered why, bit it was awkward to sit again. Ben...

In the rose garden

I saw you in the rose garden. Last summer, when the roses were at their peak – luscious reds, whites, pinks and peach parading against verdant foliage.

You, however, put me in mind of the tightly furled buds, keeping their beauty shyly hidden, biding their time, waited to be coaxed into brilliant bloom.

I watched as the young man courted yo with words I couldn’t hear but which made you blush, and I ached to protect you, to send the wordy beau slinking away like a scolded puppy, and ...

Why are you so nice to me?

Why are you so nice to me is a prompt from a writing workshop.

It drove her mad.
‘Can I help you with that?’ he would ask as she struggled with a box of printed reports. And without an answer he would take the box from her and carry it to the shelf she indicated in the storage room.
‘Can I carry those coffees for you?’ And again, with no answer, he would pick up the tray and take it to the meeting room, leaving her to follow with milk and sugar.

She tartly asked if he didn’t have any work t...

The artist glared at his canvas

Vincent slipped into his studio with the stealth of a cat. Early light seeped through the thin curtain covering the big window. He regarded the air, glanced towards his easel, and stole to the window where he hesitantly pulled the fabric aside – an inch at a time, all the while checking the impact on the light around his work space. Back and forth the curtain slid until, with a nod, the artist was satisfied.

This task complete, Vincent approached his work table with the stealth of a burg...

Wilderness

Wilderness was the theme for Dean Writers Circle’s internal monthly writing competition for April. Here’s my 150 word submission. (You can read the hauntingly beautiful winning entry by friend Jean Cooper Moran here.)

The garden was at the back of Merry and William’s newly-wed home, a mid-terrace cottage.

Merry first saw it in summer, delighting in its rippling wilderness of buzzing grasses stretching from the tacked-on kitchen to meld into a tangle of brambles against an invisible back f...

The Scream Edvard Munch

The Scream Edvard Munch was a picture prompt from a Dean Writers Circle ‘Creativity and Cake’ evening, stolen as usual for my FaceBook prompts.

Daisy eyed the painting critically.
‘That poor person,’ she said.
Andrew nodded. ‘Is it a he or a she do you think?’
‘Hmm.’ Daisy tipped her head to the side as if what would be a gender revealing gesture. ‘Hard to tell.’

‘I mean,’ Andrew said, ‘you can’t go on the fact they’re bald – they might have cancer and be suffering chemo effects.’
‘Precisely...

In the summer time

‘In the summer time, when the weather is fine’ is the first line of an old upbeat song, and was a prompt from a Dean Writers Circle ‘Creativity and Cake’ evening, stolen as usual for my FaceBook prompts.

In the summer time, when the weather was fine, Betty loved to kick off her shoes and run through the park’s long grass, her toes curling in the silky coolness. That connection with nature had first thrilled her at age three – she remembers her mother laughing, walking backwards with her arms ...