Kath Middleton's Blog, page 2

Writing - mine and other people's

My recent publication, Tales from Daggy Bottom, has had some lovely comments. It's provided the light relief a lot of people have needed just lately.
"A very easy going read."
"Some laugh out loud moments."
Really, really loved it.  More from this author, please." 
Comments like this really do spur you on to write more.

I'm not alone, I know, in finding concentration difficult during the pandemic. I seem to be writing more short stories these days and, apart from those in Daggy, I've produced four this year, for charity anthologies of various types. I'll let you know when they're published.

Meanwhile, I have a few recommendations for you. Books I've read recently and can really recommend as good reads.

The Lies I Tell by Joel Hames. The story of a criminal, a scammer, you can really root for. Twists your thoughts a bit, this one.

The Secret Wife by Steve Robinson. History, crime, mystery and excitement. One I really hope will see a sequel.

The Skittering by David Haynes. Modern times meet classic horror. If insects didn't give you the creeps before, they will now! A great, creepy story.

The Minders by John Marrs. Something for your inner conspiracy theorist that'll keep you turning the pages.

Gray Genesis by Alan McDermott. Prequel, and the start of an adventure series you'll really want to read.

Just to prove I don't just read war and death and crime, there's A Reluctant Hero by V K McGivney. Funny, wise, a look at the life of a middle-aged man sucked into problems not entirely of his own making. 

I hope you find something here to interest you. 

Kath xx

And when she's not writing...

 I've found myself revising writing rather than settling to new work, which I think is a consequence of the strange times we're living through. I'm dreaming of wartime situations and being pursued and I think many people are having 'lockdown dreams' of a similar sort. Not nightmares. Not enough to wake me with a racing heart, but definitely unsettling. 

I have two books almost ready to go but no feeling of urgency about them. My creative instincts are finding outlet in different ways. I've been knitting pairs of hearts for hospitals and care homes whose residents are separated from loved ones by the virus - even if they themselves don't have it. One stays with the resident/patient and one is sent to the family, as a small connection in a dislocated life.

I've been gardening like I used to when I had an allotment. We'll be up to our elbows in tomatoes, squashes and beans by late summer. Some of the tomatoes are those I bred myself.

And I've been cooking. From the lack of flour in the shops I'm not on my own! The Greatest British Bake Off is taking place all over the country. I've been making crisps too, something we've settled down to nibble on during the Downing St briefings. 

Tweaking recipes, breeding and repotting plants isn't all that far from editing! And the books will follow.

Stay safe, take care and let's look forward to meeting again in person.

The Making of Muriel's Bear

First of all, I made the bear. The teddy on the front cover was one of over 100 some friends and I made for the local Fire and Rescue Service to give to children who have experienced a trauma. A good friend said there’s a story in that. I disagreed. So you give someone a bear – what next?
 
What next indeed? I wondered who would get the bear. Why they were given it – a fire, obviously since we’d made them for the fire service. But what happened to the child later? How did it impact on her life? How did it change her? The bear was truly a story seed.
 
As I wrote about Muriel I came to admire her. She took the bad hand that Fate had dealt her and made the very best of it, with regrets, yes, but not self-pity. I didn’t foresee the ending until much later in the process. No more details or I’ll spoil the story. I hope you read it and it makes you think.

At the age of eight, Muriel Bradshaw lost her parents and little sister in a devastating fire which left her horribly disfigured. Her life and her face were left in ruins. A lady from the Red Cross gave her a knitted teddy bear which became her only friend.
 
In her eighties, Muriel finds the bear again when packing to live in sheltered accommodation. When she and her bear arrive there, she finds someone who knows about the fire.
​
Find it on Amazon

Book News

I wrote THE END under my latest novel about a month ago. Sir Terry Pratchett is credited with saying ‘The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.’ I left it alone for a couple of weeks, then took it up with a critical eye. I’ve amended, tweaked, changed, deleted, added – all the usual stuff, but it hasn’t yet been looked at by anyone outside my own head. I’ve just sent it to my editor – now for the first time I’m telling someone else the story. I hope it makes sense from the outside.
 
Unless he suggests using it to light the barbie, in a month or so I should receive suggestions and advice to make it a strong story and one that has impact (and makes sense). As fellow writers will know, this is the scary bit!

New Book News

This is the cover of my next book, The Angel Monument. As you can see, it’s a memorial style carving of three angelic heads. The original wall plaque in an abandoned chapel bears no inscription. It’s begging to be part of a story!
 
The Hall that is home to my characters is called Eccleton Hall, but is based on Eggleston Hall, in Teesdale. A day or two ago I pulled up the website for Eggleston Hall Gardens. It contained this snippet about the ruined chapel – “It is a part of the garden shrouded with history and tranquility, a small space for meditation, contemplation and reflection. Yet there are voices for those that wish to hear.”
 
Oh! You’d think they’d read the book! 

Old Year, New Year

In 2018 I read 138 books. I published two. They say that reading is inhaling and writing is exhaling but obviously you can do the first much faster than the second. Stephen King says that if you want to be a writer you must do two things: you must read a lot and write a lot. There are writers who don’t read while they are working on a book in case it somehow influences or taints their work. Unless you set out to write fan fiction or pastiche you must set out to develop your own style.
 
I don’t believe reading influences writing other than to give you a taste of good vocabulary and sentence construction. This, of course, means you need to read good writing. After a while you become more discriminating and I no longer try to persist in reading a book that’s clumsily written or with incorrect word choices. I love most of the books I read because I don’t finish those I don’t love. I think you can tell when a writer isn’t a great reader.
 
I’ve discovered some fantastic authors new to me this year. I shan’t list them because you’d nod off reading the list. I have a few authors whose new work I jump on as soon as I can, but I also love to find new favourites. Some are traditionally published but some are self-published. Many writers get hung-up on whether self published authors are real authors. In my experience the readers don’t notice who the publisher is for the most part. A good read is a good read.

I wish you many good reads for 2019.

Kath x

The Real Sundown House

Sundown House Retirement Home for Ladies is the setting for my recent publication. Physically, Sundown House is almost a replica of Holderness House, a care home in Hull. My mother-in-law spent her last couple of years in there and it’s an exemplary place. It’s not quite like Sundown House in that the latter is a retirement home so my ladies need, for the most part, less input. Both were magnificent private residences, however, left in trust by the civic bigwig owner.
 
If you knew the inspiration you would recognise the grand staircase, the library, the residents’ lounge and the dining room. You’d know about the magnificent grounds, the little arboretum and even the small summer-house from which several of my ladies eyed-up the new gardener. I must add, however, that the staff and managers of Sundown House came entirely from my own imagination!
 
We were sitting in Mum’s room one winter’s afternoon as the sun was lowering and the view was red, when she told us some of the gossip. The ladies were real characters. You don’t stop being you when you enter a care home or residential home. As you age and physically shrink a little, you become more concentrated. The kindly Millie is now benevolent. The tetchy Lilian is now irrascible. Just because people need basic help with living, they aren’t stupid and still want self-determination.
 
We noticed that, because there has to be some organisation to enable a place like that to run smoothly, like set mealtimes, not whenever the resident fancies eating, it resembled a boarding school. That’s when ‘St Trinian’s with arthritis’ leapt out of my mind and onto the page. My ladies became real people to me as I wrote them. I’m not sure whether I got into their heads or they got into mine.
 
As you get older, you realise this is something you’ll have to deal with. Being treated like a child. Not having your voice heard. Not being allowed choices. Still, when you lose younger friends on the journey, you realise you’ll be lucky to get that far.
 
If you read The Sundowners, I hope you’ll enjoy the story and realise there’s always fun in life if you put it there.

  Just a thought - If life gives you lemons, make a gin and tonic. We're all far too old for lemonade.

News!

A little update. One of my Facebook groups, the UK Crime Book Club, raised an amazing £2,200 for the two young people’s charities.  We held an auction of books and character names to celebrate the fact that the group had topped 5,000 in membership, and I’m very proud to have been part of it. The book in which the three members’ chosen names appear has now gone to my editor, so things are moving forward. Entitled The Angel Monument, it will be published in 2019.
 
In the meantime I'm looking forward to publishing The Sundowners. It’s a humorous look at life in a retirement home for ladies. Those of you who know me well might spot me there in various guises! I hope it will be available on Amazon from the end of the month. I also have a rather dark short story in the pipeline. Not sure what to do with that!
 
And on to the next book. More of that later!

Blog Blitz - The Third Breath by Malcolm Hollingdrake

What's the book about?

DCI Bennett is away on compassionate leave. After much soul-searching, he has decided to attend his father’s funeral.

DS Owen is left at the helm when the discovery of a body in a car in the multi-storey car park is reported. Initially, the Coroner rules out suspicious circumstances but when a second body is found with similar symptoms, Bennett is back in the fold. He suspects that the coincidences must be of some significance.

Soon Bennett’s team are hunting for a callous and devious killer who has covered his tracks effectively.

Will Bennett’s perseverance and attention to detail eventually crack this perplexing case?

My review -

Something that kills people in three breaths? Something that leaves no trace. Cyril Bennett has his work cut out here. There are several victims and they seem to be linked together by coincidence. Do you believe in coincidence? We have an unusual killer with what seems to be a random selection of victims and it’s interesting to see how the pieces fit together. I enjoyed the further delving into Cyril’s past life, his bequest from his father, and Julie and his stepmother Wendy’s continuing relationship. There’s the most unusual murder method I’ve ever read about, combined with some delving into Cyril’s past relationships which give a balance of head and heart that I really liked. Engrossing and satisfying.

Who is Malcolm Hollingdrake?

You could say that the writing was clearly on the wall for anyone born in a library, that they might aspire to be an author but to get to that point Malcolm Hollingdrake has travelled a circuitous route.

Malcolm worked in education for many years, even teaching for a period in Cairo before he started writing, a challenge he had longed to tackle for more years than he cares to remember. 

Malcolm has written a number of successful short stories and has ten books now available. Completing ‘The Third Breath’ fulfils the seven book publishing contract with Bloodhound Books but there are exciting plans for the future, not only with DCI Bennett and his team but also with another series. More information will follow soon.

Born in Bradford and spending three years in Ripon, Malcolm has never lost his love for his home county, a passion that is reflected in the settings for all his novels.

This year, Malcolm self-published a beautiful and poignant short story titled ‘The Penultimate Man’ to commemorate the centenary of the conclusion of WW1. It has also been released as an audiobook.

Malcolm has enjoyed many hobbies including collecting works by Northern artists; the art auctions offer a degree of excitement when both buying and certainly when selling. It’s a hobby he has bestowed on DCI Cyril Bennett, the main character in his latest novel, 'The Third Breath'.

The book is available  from Amazon and you can find it on Malcolm's author page here. 

Blog Blitz - The Long Revenge

​Previously published as Ledston Luck (the name of a village in Yorkshire) .

What's it about? 

They say you can always trust a policeman. They are lying.
They lied thirty years ago and they are still lying today.
When a booby-trapped body is discovered in a long-abandoned chapel, CSI Eddie Collins and his team are called to investigate. But when the scene examination goes horribly wrong, Eddie and DI Benson are injured and one of the team killed.
Heartbroken by the death, Eddie is also guilt-ridden. But more than that he is angry. Very angry.
Eddie will stop at nothing to bring the guilty to justice, and will teach them that even when served cold, revenge is a killer dish.  

My review - 

Eddie Collins is such an annoying man. Sometimes I could slap him. He’s irascible, angry, stubborn, but usually, he’s right. He’s a man driven by a desire for justice. He’s at a scene when a booby-trap kills his colleague and injures him. It’s the scene of an old murder, but a new killing, also booby-trapped makes old and new murders come together. Someone higher in the system is trying to frustrate the case and sideline Eddie. They didn’t reckon with the fact that Eddie won’t let go, especially when he’s angry – and he feels guilty.
 
The wonderful thing about an Andrew Barrett book is that you often don’t totally like the goodies and you feel strong sympathy for the baddies. As with real life, there are no black and white characters, but many, many shades of grey. Stories like this make you think and there are often no easy answers. This book’s packed with action but there’s room for thoughtful contemplation, too. It works on many levels. A brilliantly good read.

​Who is Andrew Barrett? Andy has been a real life CSI since 1996, after a varied life working on a farm and in the Kuwait oil fields. His first trilogy, beginning with A Long Time Dead, features Roger Conniston, a SOCO (scene of crime officer as they were called then) and these were the first book of Andy's that pulled me in to his brilliant writing style.
Today, Andy is still producing high-quality, authentic crime thrillers with a forensic flavour that attract attention from readers worldwide. He’s also attracted attention from the Yorkshire media, having been featured in the Yorkshire Post, and twice interviewed on BBC Radio Leeds.
He’s best known for his lead character, CSI Eddie Collins, and the acerbic way in which he roots out criminals and administers justice. Eddie’s series is four books and two short stories in length, and there’s still more to come.

You can buy The Long Revenge here on Amazon uk and here on Amazon dot com.