Freda Lightfoot's Blog, page 10

Book Launch for The Amber Keeper

I enjoyed a wonderful book launch, held at Sizergh Castle restaurant last Friday for my new book, The Amber Keeper, published by Amazon publishing in their Lake Union Imprint.

I appreciate that book launches are not essential these days as the market has changed, but it was a wonderful excuse for a party and an opportunity to meet up with old friends. It also gave me the chance to meet

NINC conference 2014

I’ve recently returned from a fabulous NINC conference in Florida. It was held at Trade Winds on St Pete Beach. An amazing place with one of the top beaches in the world, and the weather was perfect.







Hubby enjoyed a sail out to look at dolphins, and took some lovely
pictures of birds, including this crane about to enjoy a paddle.









View from our bedroom balcony


Spouses and

Twelve Rules about Characterisation

1. Know your character and his or her problem.
2. Get inside her skin. Reveal character, emotion and problems, settings and protagonists from your main character’s viewpoint. Live the story through her thoughts and dialogue. Show don’t tell.
3. Describe the character’s external appearance as succinctly as you can, picking out the most essential and intriguing details, interweaving it with

Scotland

David and I have just enjoyed a wonderful few days break in Kirkcudbright. We used to visit every year when the children were small, in our caravan, so it was great to visit old haunts. It was part of a research trip for my next book but a lovely holiday too.

Broughton House on High Street was the home of the artist E A Hornel, which still has his studio, exactly as it was in his time, and a

Fair Girls and Grey Horses - review

Fair Girls and Grey Horses, the biography of the Pullein Thompson’s country childhood is a beautifully told nostalgic trip through the twenties and thirties right through to the end of the war. Related by Josephine, Christine and Diana in turn, it describes a delightfully eccentric family. The sisters spent their time raising bantams and geese, camping out in the garden on summer nights,

Southport Flower Show

 
Enjoyed a lovely visit to the 2014 Southport Flower Show at the end of last week with lovely weather, as always. There were some gorgeous gardens and flower displays. As you can see here.












We also enjoyed the dog display team. What clever, lively dogs they were, and they obviously thoroughly enjoyed themselves racing, jumping through hurdles and hoops, and pulling the fire

Biarritz

The beautiful Basque area was conquered in the sixth century by the Romans, who named the region as Aquitania, or Aquitaine, because of the tradition for raising horses. The name coming from the Latin word “equites” meaning horses.




Biarritz is one of Europe’s most beautiful and stylish cities, has been a popular all year round holiday resort across the ages, very much a favourite destination

Sanctuary from the Trenches of WWI

Enjoyed a fascinating day at Dunham Massey in Cheshire which was transformed into Stamford Military Hospital during Word War I. By the time it was closed in Febuary 1919, 282 soldiers had been treated there. Lady Stamford ran the hospital from her parlour and the nurse in charge was Sister Catherine Bennett.





For this centenary year the hospital ward has been recreated based on original

Ironbridge Museum

I enjoyed a wonderful day at the Victorian Town, Blitz Hill, Ironbridge on Friday. Fascinating place to visit. I do wish I'd had more time to explore but it was lovely to meet with readers and have time to chat. Here I am dressed as a parlourmaid. (I know my place)


 



 I shared a table with Jean Fullerton, dressed as a nurse with her World War II sagas.







Some of the other authors

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Regency England.

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane acquired its name as when first built in 1662, it was looked upon as being part of the Royal Household. The troupe wore royal livery in scarlet and gold, still worn by royal footmen to this day. It was quite small, originally, seating no more than 700 people and in 1672 was destroyed by the first of several fires.








David Garrick (1717-1779), actor, manager and