Jenny Worstall's Blog, page 3

Home for Christmas

All you need is love…friendship…and the magic of Christmas!

Young army widow Anna falls for Will, but her five year old son Charlie’s not happy. Susie next door tries to help, but there’s an accident, a femme fatale and possibly a ghost to deal with before everyone can enjoy their best Christmas ever.

My latest book, Home for Christmas, was originally a two part pocket novel story published by DC Thomson for Christmas 2022 (And All Will Be Well Part 1 and And All Will Be Well Part 2).

Now my romantic comedy has a new life and is available in its original, slightly longer version as an ebook, paperback and hardback on Amazon.

Here it is as two pocket novels, published last year:

I think The People’s Friend do a fantastic job with the covers for their pocket novels. These are particularly festive!

And here is the original version with a different cover now on Amazon:

Don’t forget , you can read the first 10% on Amazon before you decide whether you want buy. And if you’re after a bargain, this book will be reduced to 99p (ebook) for UK customers only from 12th – 19th February 2023 in an attempt to cheer up February which can be rather cold and miserable. Brrr…talking of the cold, time for me to curl up in front of the fire with a good book!

Keep warm, everyone, and keep reading!

[image error]

Library Books!

I am thrilled to announce that my novel Face the Music has been accepted for publication by Ulverscroft as a Linford Romance library book.

Face the Music was originally a People’s Friend pocket novel and will now be a large print book available from all libraries, either from the shelves or on request. No publication date yet, but I will keep you updated.

In the meantime, if you missed it as a pocket novel and can’t wait for the library edition, it is available on Amazon as Allegra in hardback, paperback and as an ebook. Happy reading!

Dazzlingly talented violinist Allegra is travelling to Spain for a concert when she bumps into the last person on earth she wants to see, her ex-fiancé Zack.
There’s plenty of drama including a stolen violin, secrets from the past, mysterious photos and an unexploded World War Two bomb before Allegra finds her happy ever after.

Two of my previous DC Thomson pocket novels have already been re-published as Ulverscroft Linford Romance library books and are available now from your local library either from the shelves or on request. They are not on the shelves in my local library (quite a small branch library) but I am able to request them and they are ordered in from other libraries in the London Consortium very quickly.

Time now to pay a massive tribute to our library service in Croydon which has kept going right through the pandemic under the most difficult of circumstances. I remember when we could only access digital books and newspapers/magazines, then we could order physical copies online which we collected by appointment (fully masked and sanitised); the books were carefully handed to us in brown paper bags which had been held in isolation for the appropriate amount of time. Now everything is back to normal! Except for the reduced library hours, but that is another story…

Thank you to the wonderful library staff all over the country; your dedicated service is invaluable.

These are my two library books available now:

When Rosie Peach arrives for her interview to become Shaston Convent School’s new piano teacher, the first person she meets is striking music master David Hart. As her new role gets underway, Rosie comes up against several obstacles: her predecessor Miss Spiker’s infamous temper, a bunch of unruly but loveable schoolgirls, and her swiftly growing feelings for David. The nuns of the convent are determined to meddle their way towards a school romance, but David is a complex character, and Rosie can’t help but wonder what secrets he is hiding…

August 1970. Eleven-year-old Trixie is miserably homesick when she first arrives at St Hilda’s Convent School, but once she meets young novice Sister Anne and the new chaplain Father Tom, life becomes more interesting. There are obstacles aplenty to overcome before Trixie finally settles in: she gets caught up in a great adventure, and realises nothing is quite as it seems – especially Father Tom! Meanwhile, despite her vocation, romance blossoms between Anne and the priest…

SWWJ Christmas Tea and a Christmas Story

I recently attended the SWWJ Christmas Tea at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall.During the pandemic, competitions have been running as usual within the SWWJ but this is the first ‘real’ meet up we have had for two years. Imagine how thrilled prizewinners were to have our photos taken and hear ‘real’ applause!

Many, many thanks to the whole SWWJ team who made the occasion so memorable and special.

The competition I won was Winner Takes All 2020. The given theme was ‘There’s no business like showbusiness’ (250 words) and I wrote a story called ‘The Show Must Go On’, which I have shared here. It’s all about a very special present and is set at Christmastime.

We were so thrilled to hear ‘real’ applause for our competitions efforts during the pandemic!

Pocket Novel Summer 2021

This summer, I was lucky enough to have three pocket novels published by DC Thomson.

The first, A Mystery At St Hilda’s, was The People’s Friend pocket novel 942, published in June 2021.

The second was Perfectly In Tune, My Weekly pocket novel 2036 (August 2021).

And the third was Face The Music, The People’s Friend pocket novel 946 (August 2021).

All 3 novels were on the shelves of WH Smith’s and various other newsagents and supermarkets, plus digitally on Readly, for a stretch of 2 weeks each. Once they were ‘off shelf’, I self-published them and they are now available on all Amazon sites as hardbacks, paperbacks and for Kindle (free to read if you have Kindle Unlimited). Just take a look on Amazon (or use the links on the ‘My Books’ page on this website).

A Mystery At St Hilda’s has become Happy Days with a new cover designed by my son.

Perfectly in Tune has the same title and a new cover:

And Face the Music is now Allegra and also has a new cover (thanks to Canva…designing a cover wasn’t quite as hard as I had thought it was going to be!).

Perfectly in Tune and Allegra are the start of a new series of books for me, Sweet Harmony. They are standalone books with different characters, linked because they are musical romances.(not because one is a sequel to the other).

So, it’s been a busy summer! My next project is finishing off a tale about a woman conductor (think orchestral, not buses). Then I want to try a few more short stories and I’ve got an idea for a novel…

I know the chance of having three books out within the space of eight weeks is unlikely to ever happen again. But it was fun!

Happy Days

My new novel Happy Days is available from Amazon for kindle and in paperback and hardback!

The tale is set in a convent boarding school in 1970 and is chock full of adventure, romance and comedy. You may detect a dash of Antonia White (Frost in May) and perhaps more than a hint of Enid Blyton (Mallory Towers) as we follow our eleven year heroine’s adventures struggling to adjust to life in a World of Women.

As the curtain goes up, Trixie is standing in the corridor in her dressing gown on her first night at St Hilda’s Convent Boarding School. Miserably homesick, she decides to sneak outside instead of returning to her dormitory. This much is a memoir. What follows is pure fiction. More or less…

Depending on your own life experience, you will either regard the details of life at St Hilda’s as just the way it was, or a glimpse into some sort of dystopian nightmare. Boarding school survivors will perhaps nod their heads and give a wry smile as they remember the two baths a week rule and being punished for running in the corridor or speaking your mind – whereas those who were fortunate enough to have a ‘normal’ upbringing will gasp at the descriptions of the inedible food and supervised Sunday letter writing sessions when a nun wrote the news you were ‘allowed’ to include in your letter home on the board.

Inspiration: thanks due to SWWJ and The People’s Friend

I had long been toying with the idea of writing something inspired by my school days (again – I used my old school as the setting for Three Hundred Bridesmaids in 2018). Then several events happened to spur me on.

In 2020, the Society for Women Writers and Journalists (SWWJ) ran a competition where we had to write a non-fiction piece with the theme Women. That summer, my old school (St Mary’s, Shaftesbury) had closed its doors for the last time after 75 years (combination of falling roles and Covid). I decided to write a factual account of my first night at the school, Imprisoned in a World of Women, when I had wandered outside in my dressing gown and contemplated running away. I entered it into the SWWJ Competition and didn’t win, but was mentioned in the Judge’s report. This encouraged me to keep writing. Thank you, SWWJ!

I expanded the piece into a novel (with a factual first chapter and the rest as fiction) and once it was finished, submitted it to The People’s Friend. To my amazement, they accepted it and it came out in June 2021. I hadn’t thought a piece written in the first person with an eleven year old heroine would be what they were looking for, but turned out I was wrong. Thank you, PF!

And the title? Happy Days? Well, when I was at school, Reverend Mother told me that for many, school days are the happiest days of their lives, but that in my case, fortunately that wouldn’t be true. I felt incredibly cheered to hear this. And she was, as always, right.

There is another convent-set novel on the way, as D C Thomson have also accepted Perfectly in Tune and it will be published as my first My Weekly pocket novel later this summer in August. They might change the title (I have no way of knowing yet) but it will be available on Amazon in its full version with my original title once the pocket novel is off the shelves (should be late summer this year).

Trying hard not to succumb to the temptation to write yet another convent story…I need to expand my horizons…and yet, it’s fair to say that a small closed community is absolutely fascinating and you can see all of life within its walls. Perhaps I should write a darker novel next time. Murder in the Convent, anyone?

Book Blog: 300 Bridesmaids by Jenny Worstall

I was thrilled to read this generous post from Cathy Murray about my novel, ‘Three Hundred Bridesmaids’. Cathy is the author of many books, including the delightful (and highly recommended!) ‘Cabbage and Semolina: Memories of a 1950s childhood’.

3 Sixty Five Blog

Michael and I were married on the last Saturday of July in 1976, the year of one of the UK’s most memorable heat waves. The sky was a cloudless, vivid blue until half an hour before the ceremony when a freak shower dampened the dust and freshened the roses beside the path to the church. Otherwise everything went to plan and we had a lovely wedding day.

So you can imagine my pleasure when I found that 300 Bridesmaids by romance novelist, Jenny Worstall, was set in that glorious summer of 76. For years I’ve enjoyed Jenny Worstall novels and short stories and thought I’d read them all but somehow I’ve missed 300 Bridesmaids so was quick to get it for my Kindle.

Piano teacher Rosie Peach starts a new job at a convent school where she soon falls for fellow music teacher, David Hart. But Rosie takes too much…

View original post 303 more words

Clubhouse Chat Guest: Jenny Worstall

I am delighted to be able to share this interview from Paula R C Readman’s wonderful blog. I had so much fun answering her questions with a strong freshly brewed coffee beside me.

From Funeral Birds to Stone Angels

Welcome to Clubhouse Chat page. Those of you who are not a member won’t be aware that the location of the Clubhouse is shrouded in mystery. The only way to visit it is via membership or an invite to the tearoom. Every few days, I’ll be sharing a conversation with all sort of writers and authors at different levels of their writing careers. Over tea and cakes, or maybe a glass of something stronger, I shall be chatting with my guest about their work in progress, or latest book release.

Today, I’m welcoming Jenny to the tearoom. Welcome.

Thank you for inviting me for a chat, Paula. The tearoom is amazing and look at all those cakes. Mmm.

Yes, the cakes are too lovely. I hope your freshly ground coffee is to your liking. My first question is can you choose five of your favourite authors and list them in…

View original post 609 more words

Remembrance

Earlier this autumn, I began thinking about Remembrance Day. I always find it very moving and, like many, have been wondering how the occasion would be marked in these strange times. Would there be poppies for sale? How would the Annual Festival of Remembrance take place amidst social distancing requirements? Could I write something as my own tribute to the brave men and women who give so much to keep us all safe?

Then I chanced upon the Romantic Novelists’ Association flash fiction competition; we were invited to to write no more than 250 words on the theme of ‘Chasing Rainbows’. Suddenly I knew what I could write about. ‘Chasing Rainbows’ usually means pursuing an impossible dream, but what if you were a really determined and courageous person – couldn’t you make that dream come true?

I called my flash ‘Marching On’ and you can find it here:

[image error]

Time For Change

I am thrilled to announce my short story ‘Time for Change’ has been published today on the Extinction Rebellion Creative Hub!

Please have a read and let me know what you think.

Many thanks due to Patsy Collins for broadcasting this opportunity on her Words about writing and writing about words blog.

Extinction Rebellion Creative Hub

... a short story for children of all ages ...

by Jenny Worstall, UK

‘Open the door! Let me out!’

Pulling at the handle, I glance out of the window. The spaceship’s taken off with me on board! I only stayed behind for a few extra minutes – how was I to know my teacher and the rest of the class would leave without me?

‘Weren’t you in that school party who were looking round?’

‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘What the…’

‘Come and see the captain with us – immediately.’

Argh! Was I in a whole heap of trouble or what?

Long story short, they couldn’t turn back; they just had to get over themselves and make the most of having a seven year old on board for the first manned flight to Mars.

It’s so exciting I can hardly believe it – I’m hurtling through deep dark space, on…

View original post 475 more words

UPDATED Check your Author Page! A warning to Amazon Authors.

Amazon changed the price of ALL my books to free yesterday (1st May), for reasons best known to themselves.

I only found out about this by chance when I was scrolling through Amazon in an idle moment (yes, a lot of those at the moment). My eye was drawn to the cover of one of my novels with £0.00 written underneath, which led me to check my author page and find to my amazement everything was completely free (not just for Kindle Unlimited as usual, but everything). I didn’t mind about the short stories as I often put those on free download as part of a KDP promotion, hoping to draw readers to my novels (there are some short titles intentionally free at the moment), but I was somewhat agitated to see there had been multiple free downloads of my Sing with the Choir novels. Previously, they had only been free on a very few occasions, for example, Three Hundred Bridesmaids was free for a few days at the start of lock-down because I wanted to do something positive and cheery.

I am always happy, of course, to be discovered by new readers (and there’s the slight chance I might get a few reviews from Amazon’s mistake), but the feeling of powerlessness as I watched the books slipping away yesterday evening was tricky to deal with.

One of the problems with KDP is that you can only contact Amazon by email. They still haven’t replied (beyond an automated reply saying my email will receive a response in 1 to 2 days) but the books have now been priced correctly. Whether this is because I emailed in, or possibly some mighty bot picked up on the error, I don’t know (yet). Hopefully there will be some light shed on the subject later today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you feel moved to check out my Amazon Author Page (after hearing my tale of woe!), please be my guest.

Jenny Worstall Amazon Author Page

UPDATE: Sunday 3rd May

I’ve had not just one, but two emails from Amazon! One opened with Greetings from Amazon Senior Support (hoping this isn’t some sort of comment on my age or general decrepitude), and both emails expressed regret that all my books had been offered free, said their tech teams were aware of the problem and were working hard…thank you for your patience…etc. etc., you get the picture. Noticing the sign off warmest regards, my mind flooded immediately with visions of boiling pits of hell…again, you get the picture, but I digress.

In the meantime, my Facebook post about the subject has attracted a host of comments and I have learnt I am not alone (to misquote Matt Hancock). Many authors have sympathised; they too have watched helplessly as their books were downloaded with no payment. One author actually managed to get through to Amazon support on the phone. Well done you!

It’s worth pointing out that no one is blaming the down-loaders, as the books were advertised for free. Worth pointing out too that it’s obviously much worse for the more successful authors who have probably had non-paid-for downloads in the thousands. But even us less successful authors who get by with a few paid downloads here and there (and I am happy to admit I am in this category) have lost out, not least with the anxiety of the situation. At one point I was so desperate I considered unpublishing all my books (yes, all my babies, steadily growing on Amazon since 2012…). Only the bigger fear of trying to publish them again afterwards held me back; it would be bound to be horrendously complex and tricky and, knowing my luck, go spectacularly wrong. Besides, I had rather lost my trust in Amazon KDP at that point.

It has become apparent, although interestingly not confirmed (admitted?) by Amazon, that the whole kerfuffle has been caused by a computer glitch, triggered by the massive amount of price changing going on, itself a result of the abolition of VAT on ereading on Friday 1st May in UK.

Three cheers for the abolition of VAT on ebooks, but a miserable silence for the unintended adverse consequences for Amazon authors…

Will Amazon be compensating authors for lack of earnings? The jury’s still out on that, but I’m not holding my breath.

PS Reflect on this: the reading public now have kindles bulging with unintended freebies, and won’t be needing any new books for a long, long time.

PPS If you did, by any chance, download one of my books during the viral Amazon free-for-all, and, even bigger chance, you enjoy reading it, I have a very simple message:

REVIEWS ALWAYS WELCOME!

Jenny Worstall Facebook

Jenny Worstall Author Facebook Page

FURTHER UPDATE: Tuesday 5th May

Computer says no! Just heard from Amazon and they say this:

I hope this email finds you well and my apologies again that some of your books were falsely offered for free.

I understand your concern with the missed royalties due to the books offered for free, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. However, I hope you’ll understand that we are unable to offer compensation in relation to this matter.

That’s it then, although I have replied and will update if I hear anything interesting.

FINAL UPDATE: Friday 8th May

It’s VE day and I have good news! This arrived from Amazon:

On May 1, a technical issue caused your book(s) to be incorrectly set to free. We’ve since fixed the issue and will be creating a royalty adjustment in your KDP account to compensate for free units purchased. This adjustment will be added to your July royalty payment…We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

After a week, a result! Shows it’s worth (politely) asking again if the first answer is ‘no’. I sincerely hope all the other authors who have suffered in the same way will be getting a similar email very soon