Bev Spicer's Blog, page 30

Humorous books by Bev Spicer

There are three books in the humorous Bev and Carol series:
One Summer in France (just 99pfor your kindle and £6.49 in paperback) is the first adventure, which takes place, you guessed it, in the South of France, and is based on the author's experiences during a study break from university.  I wanted to write a humorous memoir about the wonderful sense of freedom and possibility we all feel when we are just starting out in life as independent people.  It's true that I had some very strange experiences but I had a lot of fun too.  What's more, I learned a great deal about France, its language and its culture.
Although Carol is an entirely fictitious character, the friendship we share in the book is real.  We don't always agree on everything, and like to get the better of one another from time to time.  Bev and Carol are certainly very different characters.  They see the world in very different ways.
One Summer in France has received many positive reviews from readers who perhaps remember a similar time in their lives, when they took so many things for granted that, in adult life, seem to have all but disappeared.
You can download a free sample to your kindle by following the link below.  Why not relax for a while in the company of Bev and Carolin One Summer in France (two girls in a tent).  I hope it puts a smile on your face and takes you back to a less complicated, more spontaneous time:

Go to One Summer in France (kindle version - 99p) Go to One Summer in France (paperback version - £6.49) 


Bunny on a Bike is the second in the Bev and Carol series. This time, the author recounts her real life experiences as a Playboy croupier in London in the 80s.  Bev and Carol are eager to stick together after university and find the prospect of the graduate jobs available too dull to contemplate.  They see an advertisement in the newspaper for blackjack dealers and apply.
I think you will be surprised at some of the realities of the less than glamorous lives they lead, always looking on the bright side even when faced with landlords from hell and stringent training schedules at Victor Lownes' mansion in Tring.
Bunny on a Bike has the same light touch as One Summer in France.  It's a humorous memoir which follows the lives of two girls thrown into 80s London, and gives an impression of what happened behind the doors of the Playboy casino.
Again, you can download a free sample by following the link below, where the Bev and Carol adventure continues:


Go to Bunny on a Bike (kindle version - £1.99)
Paperback version available shortly.


Stranded in the Seychelles is the third and most recently published volume in the Bev and Carol series, although I do have plans for a further book at some point.
Our intrepid heroines have had a few years apart after leaving Playboy and have met up once more for a new adventure, this time in the Seychelles as teachers.
Stranded in the Seychelles is based once more on the author's real life experiences as a teacher on the tiny island of Ste. Anne in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and includes lots of local colour and cultural insights along the way.  Bev and Carol are older, but not particularly wiser.  They savour this new opportunity to duck out of the lives they are leading in England and jet off to somewhere altogether more exotic.  Of course it's not all plain sailing and, as usual, the girls have to cope with the unexpected, such things as giant spiders, insect infested cornflakes, heart-stopping bus rides and accident prone cleaners.  But they enjoy their experiences and learn a lot about expat society.
Stranded in the Seychelles will make you laugh just as much as One Summer in France and Bunny on a Bike, but this time, Bev and Carol are faced with rather more sobering choices from time to time, in between the absurd and the hilarious.
Follow the link below to download a free sample and find out what they get up to this time:




Go to Stranded in the Seychelles (kindle version - £1.99)
Go to Stranded in the Seychelles (paperback version - £6.49)


So, that's it for my humorous books.  If you would like to look at my other books, please go back to my home page and select Novels by B A Spicer.

Humorous books by Bev Spicer There are three books in th...

Humorous books by Bev Spicer There are three books in the humorous Bev and Carol series:
One Summer in France (just 99pfor your kindle and £6.49 in paperback) is the first adventure, which takes place, you guessed it, in the South of France, and is based on the author's experiences during a study break from university.  I wanted to write a humorous memoir about the wonderful sense of freedom and possibility we all feel when we are just starting out in life as independent people.  It's true that I had some very strange experiences but I had a lot of fun too.  What's more, I learned a great deal about France, its language and its culture.
Although Carol is an entirely fictitious character, the friendship we share in the book is real.  We don't always agree on everything, and like to get the better of one another from time to time.  Bev and Carol are certainly very different characters.  They see the world in very different ways.
One Summer in France has received many positive reviews from readers who perhaps remember a similar time in their lives, when they took so many things for granted that, in adult life, seem to have all but disappeared.
You can download a free sample to your kindle by following the link below.  Why not relax for a while in the company of Bev and Carolin One Summer in France (two girls in a tent).  I hope it puts a smile on your face and takes you back to a less complicated, more spontaneous time:

Go to One Summer in France (kindle version - 99p) Go to One Summer in France (paperback version - £6.49) 


Bunny on a Bike is the second in the Bev and Carol series. This time, the author recounts her real life experiences as a Playboy croupier in London in the 80s.  Bev and Carol are eager to stick together after university and find the prospect of the graduate jobs available too dull to contemplate.  They see an advertisement in the newspaper for blackjack dealers and apply.
I think you will be surprised at some of the realities of the less than glamorous lives they lead, always looking on the bright side even when faced with landlords from hell and stringent training schedules at Victor Lownes' mansion in Tring.
Bunny on a Bike has the same light touch as One Summer in France.  It's a humorous memoir which follows the lives of two girls thrown into 80s London, and gives an impression of what happened behind the doors of the Playboy casino.
Again, you can download a free sample by following the link below, where the Bev and Carol adventure continues:



Go to Bunny on a Bike (kindle version - £1.99)
Paperback version available shortly.


Stranded in the Seychelles is the third and most recently published volume in the Bev and Carol series, although I do have plans for a further book at some point.
Our intrepid heroines have had a few years apart after leaving Playboy and have met up once more for a new adventure, this time in the Seychelles as teachers.
Stranded in the Seychelles is based once more on the author's real life experiences as a teacher on the tiny island of Ste. Anne in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and includes lots of local colour and cultural insights along the way.  Bev and Carol are older, but not particularly wiser.  They savour this new opportunity to duck out of the lives they are leading in England and jet off to somewhere altogether more exotic.  Of course it's not all plain sailing and, as usual, the girls have to cope with the unexpected, such things as giant spiders, insect infested cornflakes, heart-stopping bus rides and accident prone cleaners.  But they enjoy their experiences and learn a lot about expat society.
Stranded in the Seychelles will make you laugh just as much as One Summer in France and Bunny on a Bike, but this time, Bev and Carol are faced with rather more sobering choices from time to time, in between the absurd and the hilarious.
Follow the link below to download a free sample and find out what they get up to this time:




Go to Stranded in the Seychelles (kindle version - £1.99)
Paperback version available shortly.


So, that's it for my humorous books.  If you would like to look at my other books, please go back to my home page and select Novels by B A Spicer.

Novels by B. A. Spicer

I have written a number of novels, all of which are character-driven and involve intricate plots that will hopefully keep you guessing.

My Grandfather's Eyes is my first published novel, although it was not the first I wrote.
I tend to enjoy creating flawed characters, and Alex is probably one of my most complex.  There isn't much to like about her, it's true, but she does have some serious issues to deal with.  Her singleminded approach to investigating the past so that she can move on with her life often has shocking consequences.  What will she do next?  This is the question that drives the plot.
You can download a sample to find out whether Alex is the type of character who you want get inside your head by following the link below:


Got to My Grandfather's Eyes


A Good Day for Jumpingfollows the lives of Stephen Firth, a handsome, rich, promiscuous young man and Joyce Shackleton, a deeply surprising middle-aged woman. (No, they are not going to have a torrid affair - sorry to disappoint!  Their stories are linked in a much more subtle and interesting way.)Set in Greece, where I lived for two years, there is a many-layered plot involving characters whose worlds collide in the most disturbing ways.  There are characters you can really care about and others you may despise.  The world is not full of perfect people, after all.Follow the link below and look inside - you will find yourself in the small town of Rethymnon on the island of Crete, where Stephen Firth is considering his options.




Go to A Good Day for Jumping


The Undertaker's Son is quite different in format to my first two novels, with shorter chapters and rather more well-balanced characters, who lead normal lives and whose interactions do not always lead to disaster!  However, there are the usual scandals associated with a close-knit society and there is also Claude Cousteau (the undertaker's son) to add a touch of evil that will undermine the pleasant comings and goings of the small French village of St. Martin le Vieux, where our heroine, Martha Burton, has bought a traditional Charentaise house, and has attracted the attentions of her handsome neighbour. 
Follow the link and download a free sample to find out how the idyll of everyday life in a French setting has no bearing on a man who has grown up in an altogether more disturbing environment.







Go to The Undertaker's Son


That's it for my novels so far.  My work in progress, What I Did Not Say, will be published soon. [image error] Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Novels by B. A. Spicer I have written a number of novels...

Novels by B. A. Spicer
I have written a number of novels, all of which are character-driven and involve intricate plots that will hopefully keep you guessing.

My Grandfather's Eyes is my first published novel, although it was not the first I wrote.
I tend to enjoy creating flawed characters, and Alex is probably one of my most complex.  There isn't much to like about her, it's true, but she does have some serious issues to deal with.  Her singleminded approach to investigating the past so that she can move on with her life often has shocking consequences.  What will she do next?  This is the question that drives the plot.
You can download a sample to find out whether Alex is the type of character who you want get inside your head by following the link below:


Got to My Grandfather's Eyes


A Good Day for Jumpingfollows the lives of Stephen Firth, a handsome, rich, promiscuous young man and Joyce Shackleton, a deeply surprising middle-aged woman. (No, they are not going to have a torrid affair - sorry to disappoint!  Their stories are linked in a much more subtle and interesting way.)Set in Greece, where I lived for two years, there is a many-layered plot involving characters whose worlds collide in the most disturbing ways.  There are characters you can really care about and others you may despise.  The world is not full of perfect people, after all.Follow the link below and look inside - you will find yourself in the small town of Rethymnon on the island of Crete, where Stephen Firth is considering his options.




Go to A Good Day for Jumping


The Undertaker's Son is quite different in format to my first two novels, with shorter chapters and rather more well-balanced characters, who lead normal lives and whose interactions do not always lead to disaster!  However, there are the usual scandals associated with a close-knit society and there is also Claude Cousteau (the undertaker's son) to add a touch of evil that will undermine the pleasant comings and goings of the small French village of St. Martin le Vieux, where our heroine, Martha Burton, has bought a traditional Charentaise house, and has attracted the attentions of her handsome neighbour. 
Follow the link and download a free sample to find out how the idyll of everyday life in a French setting has no bearing on a man who has grown up in an altogether more disturbing environment.







Go to The Undertaker's Son


That's it for my novels so far.  My work in progress, What I Did Not Say, will be published soon. [image error] Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

My latest read: Crash by J G Ballard

J G certainly divides the camp with 'Crash'.  Released in 1973, the reviews were uncompromising: ‘Crash is, hands down, the most repulsive book I’ve yet to come across.’ New York Times, Sept. 1973 (the ambiguity of the phrasal verb is almost unbearable).  Martin Amis, Observer, July 1973 wrote: ‘Ballard has a brilliant reputation but this novel’s obsession with sado-masochism via deliberate car-crashing is repellent.’ 
Ballard himself says in his introduction: ‘...the ultimate role of Crash is cautionary, a warning against that brutal, erotic and overlit realm that beckons more and more persuasively to us from the margins of the technological landscapes.’  That got me.
I read on and discovered that Crash is undoubtedly explicitly pornographic, but there have been many novels that have crossed boundaries and appalled (or delighted) readers in the past.  Crash gets into a territory that is so new that I had to keep reading despite the natural revulsion I felt for some of the most deviant imagery I have ever experienced.  The intimate and devastating bringing together of automobile parts and human anatomy, where gauges and gear sticks leave scars that inspire the ‘nightmare angel of the expressways’, Dr. Robert Vaughan  to perform sex acts recreated from accidents he has witnessed had me squirming and yet...
...I went along with it, in some reassuring way, holding the hand of the narrator, who, although enjoying the kind of sexual freedoms that inhabit the most creative of imaginations, seemed at the same time, recognisably human - he cared about his wife, his friends, but, like me, was intrigued and wanted to know more about the decadent and highly charismatic Vaughn’s nightmare obsessions with the motor car and those injured or killed in crashes happening almost on a daily basis on the highway.
The thesis is extreme: that we are living on the edge of a cataclysmic event in which we will all be consumed.  Technology, and the dreams it ensnares us with, will destroy us.  In the process, it will continue to de-humanise us.
The impacts between metal, glass and upholstery and the human body seemed to blur the differences between what is animate and inanimate, but more than that, I felt that there was an element of sacrificial inevitability.  The many human fluids mentioned that appeared to decorate and mingle with the excretions of the motor car did not detract from this.
Crash caught me up and carried me into a startlingly new domain, which both horrified and fascinated me.  At no point did I doubt the wider aims of the author, who asserts that Crash ‘is an extreme metaphor for an extreme situation, a kit of desperate measures only for use in an extreme crisis.’  Elsewhere he states that Crash is a ‘psychopathic hymn which has a point.’
The descriptions are unswervingly detailed, the images deeply disturbing, the repetition of death and injury on the highways and flyovers relentless.  It’s worse than any bad dream you could imagine.
Am I glad I read it?  You bet.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

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Goodreads Book Giveaway One Summer In France by Bev Spicer Giveaway ends October 01, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter to win

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family:...

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Goodreads Book Giveaway One Summer In France by Bev Spicer Giveaway ends October 01, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter to win

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: geor...

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important; text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif; background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layo... background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596; outline: 0; white-space: nowrap; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layo... color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; } Goodreads Book Giveaway One Summer In France by Bev Spicer

Giveaway ends October 01, 2014.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Life on Crete

I spent two years on the island of Crete and eventually managed to learn enough of the language to avoid embarrassing traps.  The baker loved to have a laugh at my expense as psomi is bread and psoli is an item of male genetalia.  Needless to say, he always asked me whether I wanted black bread, followed by another polite enquiry regarding the size I would require.  I didn't rumble this little game for quite a while and when I did it was a bit of a walk to the other bakery.

The Pandalis brothers owned the (open air) cinema one door down from our little house and almost managed to marry my mother when she came to visit.  The word for marry in Greek has a double meaning.  They plied her with ouzo (similar to Pernod) and souvlakia (a kind of kebab in a pitta) and told her she was the most beautiful woman they'd ever seen. That did the trick.  I would return from teaching to find her happy and delirious, sitting at a specially allocated table decorated with a single rose in an ouzo glass.  She eventually came home with me, until the next day...

I met some very interesting people in Rethymnon and learned a great deal about Greek culture, more specifically, Cretan culture, some of which was beautifully refreshing and some of which was rather alarming.  When I wrote 'A Good Day for Jumping', which is mostly set on the island of Crete, I was able to create some of my favorite characters.  Roula is a strong, pragmatic girl with ambitions beyond her humble island background.  When she meets Stephen Firth, son of an advertising tycoon, with a rather hedonistic view of the world and a definite playboy attitude towards women, I was interested to explore what they would make of each other.

For the next few days, 'A Good Day for Jumping' is 99p.  If you would like to take a look, here is the link:

UK link - click here

US link - click here

'Stranded in the Seychelles' (a Bev and Carol adventure - Book 3)

UK link US link CHAPTER ONE     Older but not wiser, we perused the Times Educational Supplement for jobs, on a dull afternoon in August at my house in Milton Keynes.  Carol was back, and suddenly, living in Milton Keynes didn’t seem to matter as much!  My bosom buddy had spent the previous year working in a school in the Himalayas, and had finally flown back to somewhere nearer sea level.  Outside, nothing was happening.  Inside, the walls remained perfectly aligned and painted magnolia. Carol sighed and looked out of the large, double-glazed window onto a square patch of lawn penned in by a chest-high, cheap, wooden fence.  “How can you live in a place called Pennyland?”As I didn’t know the answer to this question, I hedged.  “It’s only a name.”“It’s a stupid name.”I had to admit that Carol was right. It couldn’t have helped that she had been used to living in a mountaintop retreat in Tibet, above the clouds and as remote as you can get from affordable housing, inadequate porches and gas central heating.“How do you stand it?”“It’s not that bad,” I said, half-heartedly.A man cycled past.  “Christ!  It’s worse than science fiction!”Baffled as I was by this particular insight, I laughed, and Carol gave me a look that I recognised instantly.  It was a look that said it was time to set out again into the world, united against the banal, the drab and the superficial, determined to have some fun and wreak some havoc.  I went back to the newspaper and kicked off with something contentious:     “There’s one here for a maths teacher in Bejing. I could be the stay-at-home housewife.”      “No thanks,” replied Carol.     “Too much of a culture shock?  Don’t want the Saturday morning military training?”     “Nah.  Can’t stand Chinese food.  All those wriggly bits. And oyster sauce – can’t eat oysters since Alice!”     “In Wonderland?”     “Yeah.”     “The Walrus and the Carpenter?”     “The very same.  Poor little oysters…”     I realised that, cartoon horror apart, and allowing for Carol’s sketchy knowledge of proper Chinese cuisine, this would be a deal breaker.  Food was top priority.  Followed closely by sunshine, a great beach and a good library.  Good looking, intelligent men of independent means were also a consideration. “No blokes there, either.  Too short.  Too Chinese.”I could not argue, although I would not have put my feelings in quite the same way.  Carol spoke her mind, whilst I generally harboured my sharp-edged opinions.  I didn’t mention the fact that, this time, she was indulging in a stereotypical assessment of a nation containing over one hundred million people, not all of whom would be too short or, indeed, too Chinese.  “What about this one?” I suggested.  “English teachers required by the Seychelles government.  Sounds interesting.”     “Aren’t they in the Indian Ocean?” Carol sat back in her chair and poked a finger into her ear.  She was as beautiful as ever.  How I had missed her!       “I believe that is correct, you lovely tart,” I replied, pretty sure that Carol knew a lot more about the Seychelles than she was letting on.     “Capital?” she asked.     “Mahé.”     “Climate?”     “Tropical.”     “Food?”     “Fish. Creole style.”     “Chips?”     “I think it’s more likely to be rice,” I said, although I was not entirely sure.     “Fish and rice with curry sauce!”     “We can make our own chips,” I said, reasonably.  “Just need a chip pan and some Trex.”     “Granted.” Carol chewed the pencil we were using to circle ads.  It had also served as a coffee spoon and more recently, to kill an ant.     “Shall I read the rest of it?”     “Don’t see why not,” she said.       “The National Youth Service of the Seychelles seeks-     “The National what!”     “Youth Service.  Must be something like the Department of Education.”     “Doesn’t sound like the Department of Education.  Go on. Let’s hear it.”     “The National Youth Service of the Seychelles seeks qualified teachers of ESL to instruct secondary school students on the island of Ste. Anne.”     “Never heard of it.  There’s Mahé and Praslin and some kind of bird island.  Let me see.”  Carol grabbed the paper. “Twelve-month contracts. Flights and accommodation provided. Interviews to be held in London on 14th/15th August.” She closed the newspaper and got up.  “Want a cuppa?”     I followed my friend into the kitchen, thinking that the interviews would be at the end of the week, in three days’ time.     “Where d’you keep the biscuits, you bugger?  Hope you’re not still buying those Poptarts!” Carol was opening cupboards, rummaging.     “There are some Jammy Dodgers in the cutlery drawer,” I told her.  The mention of Poptarts had brought back a momentary nostalgia.     She eyed me and I eyed her back.     “Are we going?” I asked.     “Book it, Danno,” she said.     We were not the kind of girls to pass up an opportunity like this.  We had been through university together and worked for Playboy in London, as blackjack dealers. After that, Carol had left England to sell encyclopaedias in Germany and had thrown it in after meeting a businessman at a party who offered her a job teaching English to Buddhist monks in the Himalayas.  I had gone on to work as a secretary in London at various establishments which were practised in the art of exploiting as little as possible of a person’s potential and where, at my lowest ebb, I had slavishly typed out legal contracts for solicitors who patronised both me and their clients.  Later, I had worked for a very nice family with a business just off Oxford Street, in a small office, up some rickety stairs, where I had learned all there was to know about high-tensile low-density bin bags (didn’t take long), including how to fold them and label them, before sending them off with a quote for anything from a couple of hundred to tens of thousands.   And, after just over a year of knowing that I didn’t want to be in plastic for the rest of my days, I had applied for and, to my utter amazement, been accepted by Queens’ College to do a postgraduate teaching certificate at Cambridge University.  I subsequently took up my first post in Milton Keynes, where I discovered that I was no good at controlling a class of secondary school kids who didn’t care about Keats, and I gradually came to realise that the next proper adventure was long overdue.  All I had needed was the return of my best friend and sparring partner.Carol had descended from the mountains under slightly mysterious circumstances, which she refused to divulge, but which had probably involved some kind of extra-curricular activity with one of her students.  She had telephoned me to say that she wanted to come and stay for a while. So, with my probationary year as a very eager, but more or less ineffectual English teacher at Stantonbury Campus mercifully completed, and with no one begging me to stay, there was nothing to stop us, apart from fear of the unknown and crushing financial limitations.  We were in the market for some excitement and risk.  A teaching job in the Indian Ocean, with all expenses paid, seemed an opportunity too good to miss.       We looked up trains to London and, in the meantime, found out that the Seychelles was a group of volcanic and coral islands stuck in the middle of nowhere, with a language that was based on French, due to the fact that they had been colonised by… France.  Following this, the islands had been subjected to British rule, before gaining independence in 1976. I wondered vaguely whether we would be welcomed by the locals, until Carol pointed out that anything “we” had done to them was bound to be better than the treatment they would have received at the hands of our closest allies, the French, who, according to Carol, had used the inhabitants as slaves to work on their plantations and probably taught them to roll their ‘Rs’.  I dialled the number in the advertisement and asked to be put through to Roseline Bananne.