Reaching out across the airwaves tuneful voices high and sweet echo brightly from a distant chapel of vaulted ceilings and flickering candles
She sings along, only slightly out of tune picturing pews of fresh-faced choirboys with golden halo hair and snow-white surplices wide-eyed and open mouthed
Smiling, she chops and slices as the voices transport her while her hands work busily preparing for the feast
Now the warm summer wind drifts through the open kitchen window while wintery hymns embrace her in nostalgia.
It’s my special festive tradition to listen to the carol service from King’s College Cambridge while cooking on Christmas Eve. This year will be no exception. Some particularly fond memories of mine come from the years when my husband had a bike shop and used to go out late on Christmas Eve to deliver the children’s bikes to their houses after they’d gone to bed, just like Santa Claus, while I made us a late supper of fishy treats.
Image credit: Shche-Team @ Unsplash (The image shows an outdoor scene. An old fashioned radio is placed next to a couple of candles and a wicker basket. Behind the radio is a pot full of blooming red flowers)
Next on our literary journey through the pages of my novels, we’re going to hop over to the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea, which lies between northern Great Britain and the north of Ireland, where we’re going to catch up with Pierre, our handsome leading man from You’ll Never Walk Alone, who’s treating Lucy to a little break away (although, if you’ve read the book, you’ll know he has another agenda).
I have fond memories of the Isle of Man, even though I only ever visited as part of my job as an insurance surveyor. I used to go there for three or four days at a time a couple times a year, but unlike Pierre and Lucy, who travel on the Isle of Man ferry, I used to fly over from Liverpool on a little Shorts 360 airplane.
The Isle of Man Ferry on the choppy Irish Sea & the Liverpool-Isle of Man flight, which could also be hairy in a high wind
Although I was working, I still managed to see quite a lot of the place between appointments. The island is probably best known for the notoriously hazardous annual TT motor cycle race. On one occasion I drove my hire car around the famous circuit, although at a considerably more modest pace than the TT competitors, of course. During the initial draft of the book, I’d been planning for Pierre to take part in the race, but the logistics became problematic. Maybe he’ll return to the island to do just that in a sequel to You’ll Never Walk Alone that my characters are still begging me to write.
I was also tempted to take Lucy and Pierre on a grand tour of the island, but it would have got in the way of the story, so I contented myself with a brief interlude in which they drive out to Peel Castle on the west coast of the island. It’s a partially restored Viking ruin, and a pretty, peaceful location where once I sat overlooking harbour to dictate a report. My typist (yes, it was that long ago) told me she wondered why she could hear seagulls in the background.
Peel Castle & The Palace Hotel in Douglas, the main town
Lucy and Pierre stay in the fictional Royal Hotel, where Pierre ‘has a bit of business’ to attend to. It’s loosely based on the Palace Hotel and Casino, one of the places I stayed in during my visits to the island. It made a fine and fitting backdrop to the story, although I never went to the casino itself where much of the action in this part of the book is set. Nor did I visit the ‘back of house’ areas in that particular hotel. Trust me, it’s not always a good idea to stay, much less eat, in a place where you’ve inspected the kitchens. However, my knowledge of hotel security did come into play.
Excerpt from ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’
Pierre crept along the second floor corridor. He’d left Lucy sleeping. As far as she was concerned, they were just going to help Verushka get away from the abusive Russian. Pierre hadn’t mentioned the jewels again. He decided he was going to make sure he got his hands on them himself, and since he still had the passkey and d-lock, what could go wrong? Provided he was careful.
He counted off the room numbers until he reached 287. Even from outside the door he could hear the Russian snoring. Pierre took out the passkey and ran it through the slot next to the door handle. The indicator light changed from red to green and the lock clicked open. Pierre paused and listened again; satisfied, he opened the door gently and slipped into the room. He closed the door quietly. The room was shrouded in darkness. The Russian snored on. Pierre could also hear Verushka’s slow, quiet breathing; she was also asleep.
Pierre moved silently over to the wardrobe and took out the pen torch he’d borrowed from behind the bar downstairs. As he opened the door, the Russian spluttered and muttered something. Pierre froze and killed the torch beam. He heard Denisovich turn over. Minutes passed. He heard the Russian breathing heavily again.
All clear, Pierre thought. He switched the torch back on and fitted the electronic device into the lock of the safe. The little door swung open. Pierre reached in and drew out a thick, velvet covered jewel case. He eased back the little golden clasp and opened it. There was the necklace, with the matching earrings and a brooch; the complete set.
As Pierre stood up he felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun press against the back of his head. ‘Turn around slowly and give that to me,’ said Verushka softly.
You’ll Never Walk Alone is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon at a discounted price for the month of December.
Location No.7 – Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Paris (Wikipedia)
Returning to our literary tour through the pages of my novels, let’s pop over to the romantic city of Paris, where we’re going to join our main character, Laura and her boyfriend, Greg from The Silver Locket. The city of Paris is rather special to me, being the first overseas place to which I travelled with my husband, when we were very young, back in 1985. In a similar way, Paris is special to Laura, being the first place Greg took her for a weekend away.
Specifically today we’re going to tag along with them on their visit to Père Lachaise, the largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world. You may remember from the first stop on our tour that I share Laura’s fascination for old graveyards. You can’t get much more fascinating than Père Lachaise with its catalogue of famous decedents including Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Gertrude Stein and many, many more, so naturally Laura would choose to visit the place during her weekend away with Greg.
Poet George Rodenbach, climbing out of his grave (Wikipedia)
It’s a fascinating place where you can wander for hours amongst some of the most incredible funerary monuments. I’ve been drawn to the cemetery during several subsequent visits to Paris, which was an easy hop from Liverpool on Easyjet by the late 1990s.
The narrow lanes and twisting paths are the perfect place for another eerie encounter with the mysterious woman in the brown coat, whom Laura first meets in the Rufford graveyard, although on this occasion, Laura’s mistaken and it’s someone else. Greg’s reaction to her erroneous confrontation and, a little later on, to the silver locket with its naively-drawn picture and odd little talisman inside, show us how dismissive he can be of Laura. We start to see that he’s on different trajectory to her, scorning simple pleasures, like picnics by the river, which Laura continues to enjoy (as do I, provided there’s a nice bench to sit on).
Narrow lanes among the graves, perfect for an eerie encounter! (Fodor)
I have to say that I’m in rather good company with this particular choice of setting. Alexandre Dumas references the famous cemetery in his novel The Count of Monte Cristo as being ‘alone worthy of receiving the mortal remains of a Parisian family…’ and the protagonist of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is buried in Père Lachaise. More recently, in the film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the eponymous dark wizard convenes his followers at Père-Lachaise towards the end of the film.
Excerpt from ‘The Silver Locket’
Laura and Greg stood together poring over the plan of the famous Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise.
“Okay,” said Greg, “we’ve seen Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, the Belgian poet who’s climbing out of his grave…”
“Georges Rodenbach.”
“Yeah, Rodenbach, who else do you want to visit?” Greg looked around at the lines of gravestones and monuments stretching off in all directions. “We don’t want to spend all day here do we?”
“No, but can’t we just wander around for a bit? Oh, but we should see the wall where the communards were executed, that should appeal to you,” Laura laughed. “Round up the anarchists and shoot them.”
“Mmm, very amusing,” said Greg consulting the plan. “The Mur des Fédérés, as it’s actually called, is along here,” he said pointing to the map. “We can go there and then loop back along here towards where we came in.”
They wandered along in silence, Laura veering off the path to take a closer look at some of the more intriguing or quirky-looking tombs. A large ginger cat was happily curled up on the step of Rossini’s tomb. Laura stopped to stroke it. It purred loudly.
She looked up; Greg was already some distance away further down the path. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement. At first she thought it was another cat, the cemetery was full of them, but then she saw a figure emerge from inside one of the tombs. It was a large woman wearing a brown coat. It was her, Laura was sure. And this time she’d followed her all the way to Paris. Laura moved stealthily towards the woman. She wasn’t going to get away from her a third time. Laura crept as quickly as she could after the woman, keeping out of sight. The woman was on one of the main pathways now, heading towards the gate. Laura broke into a trot. She was almost on her when she heard rapid footsteps catching up behind her. She ignored them as she drew level with the woman and caught her by the arm.
“Got you,” Laura cried triumphantly. “Now you can tell me who you are and…” Laura’s voice trailed off. It wasn’t her. “Oh, sorry. Pardon, madame,” she said, letting go of the woman’s arm. She continued her apology, explaining in her fluent French that she’d mistaken her for someone else. Laura stepped back and bowed her head. “Pardonnez-moi.”
“What on earth do you think you’re doing, Law?” It had been Greg behind her.
“It was a mistake,” Laura said to Greg, then turning to the woman: “Une erreur, Madame.”
The woman brushed her arm in an exaggerated fashion, snorted, and headed off towards the gate.
“Do you think I should go after her?” asked Laura.
“No, I don’t. Just leave it. But what in heaven’s name were you doing? You virtually assaulted that poor woman.”
“I know, I feel awful. But this woman in a brown coat keeps following me. First I met her in the churchyard in Rufford. But then she was in Preston, and then I saw her by the park in Liverpool and then at the train station there too.”
Greg rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” said Greg. “There was a café near we came in, let’s go and have a drink and maybe you can explain what this is all about.”
Laura did her best to explain, but under Greg’s critical gaze, it did seem that her bumping into the mystery woman a couple of times was probably no more than coincidence. Laura took out the locket and handed it to him, telling him where she had found it and showing him how it opened.
“What’s this scruffy bit of paper?” he said, pulling out the little drawing. Laura was only just quick enough to stop it blowing off the table where Greg had dropped it in disgust. “And this stamp inside, it doesn’t look like a proper jeweller’s mark to me. Is it worth anything? At least you’ve not been tempted to wear such a naff little object.”
Laura snatched it back from him and carefully replaced Thomas’s drawing over the little talisman which still looked up at her imploringly. There was clearly no point in explaining anything further about it. As for the dreams, she decided she should keep those to herself. It was all very well trying to find out about the history of the house she’d inherited, but to try to get Greg to understand that she’d been trying to trace the existence of someone she had just dreamt about, however strangely and vividly, was really not a good idea.
The sun was high in the sky; it was past noon and people were leaving their offices for their customary long lunch breaks.
“Come on,” said Laura. “Let’s get a picnic from the boulangerie over the road there and take it down by the river.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to go to a nice bistro somewhere?”
“Not if we’re eating tonight. Oh please, Greg, let’s have a picnic. It’s what we always used to do.”
“That’s because it was all we could afford. But okay, if you like. I’ll leave the choice up to you, as long as you promise not to attack any more old ladies.”
The Silver Locket (written under my pen name Holly Atkins) is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon at a discounted price for the month of December.
Image credit: Cheryl Holt @ Pixabay (The image shows very two young girls heading off together, holding hands. One is of African heritage and the other seems Caucasian).
November is drawing to a close and another NaNoWriMo with it. Mine hasn’t been the all out marathon slog and final race to the finish as, once again, I’ve played by my own rules.
There’s one more day to go, but with that in mind, how have I done? Not bad. Not bad at all.
My target of 30,000 words won’t be smashed. But I’ll be close.
Twenty chapters? I’ll be a chapter short. Not a problem.
Have I enjoyed it. Certainly!
I have lots of flesh on the bones of my main plot and I’ve a couple of subplots bubbling away nicely. My characters have been chased up several trees and fires set under them. I still don’t know quite how it will end, but where would be the fun in that?
Now, like any good brew, I shall leave it to stand for a little time before launching into the second half of the book, which I hope to complete by next (southern hemisphere) spring. In the meantime, the novel I started last November, Song of the Sea Goddess, will be released in early January 2021.
My conclusion: November is a good month to start writing a novel.
Sinead opened the Book. Her name appeared in fine illuminated script. More words danced down the page.
‘You overcame the Oppressors, not doubting the might of the fabled Blue Orb. You conquered your fear and retrieved the Chalice of Earthly Liberation from the Maze. You unswervingly followed the path to the Edge of the World, bearing the Crystal of Nor. You befriended the dwarves who Forged the Freedom Key.
You and noble Moonsprite brought all these sacred artefacts here without question, because you believed unerringly in the Book.
Because of you the Sisterhood has seen the error of its ways and will unite behind you. Others will come and sit at your side with Tarron, Lord of Elves and the Hound, Prince of Beasts.
You have proved your birthright. Mother Earth entrusts her Kingdom to you. The following pages are yours to write. Rule well, Sinead. This is your destiny.’
Image credit: Pinterest
And so, Sinead’s Final Quest is over and finally she has fulfilled her destiny. Previous episodes of our an epic tale, unfolding in tiny 150 word increments, can be found here.
Just one tiny cake a candle-topped treat two bites big is all I can eat.
Gone are the days of parties and thrills just make sure I take all my pills.
But with memories rich I’ll celebrate don’t you know I’m a hundred and eight?*
Written in response toSadje’sWhat Do You See #57photo prompt. Image credit: Angéle Kamp @ Unsplash (The image shows a a single cupcake with a lit candle on top of it).
Week 3 came to an end all too quickly but I’m still almost on track to achieve my personal target for this ‘dedicated’ writing month. I’ve dropped a chapter behind, but it’s not a train smash. The story is shaping up nicely and a few unexpected elements have emerged. I love these kind of surprises!
Meanwhile this week, I launched the ARC for Song of the Sea Goddess – do help yourself to a copy, there are still some left. Since it’s the sequel to Sea Goddess that I’m writing now, I’ve been truly immersed in my imaginary world on the west coast. It’s an exciting place to be.
Eight more writing days left to the end of NaNoWriMo2020. I wonder what further surprises lie ahead? Apart from a planned interruption to the electricity supply for the whole of Tuesday, which is really not going to help. Ah well, this is Africa!
Have a wonderful rest of the weekend – whatever you’re up to!
This is the novel I started to write during NaNoWriMo last year. I’d already discovered a few of the key characters early on that year in a handful of short stories I wrote, set in a fictional town located somewhere on the beautiful west coast of South Africa.
Some of you might remember Albertina, Auntie Rose and Auntie Grace, Jannie, Sam and the Professor from those stories; some of you also know that my characters have a habit of plucking at my sleeve, reminding me that they more of their stories need to be told.
And so now, it is with the greatest pleasure that I can tell you that Song of the Sea Goddess is ready to share with you via the ARC: simply click here to download your copy and get started.
Here’s the blurb:
Sam thinks his problems are over when finds his fishing bucket filled with gold coins. There’s a problem though. The gold burns the fingers of anyone who touches it. His unlikely find coincides with the appearance of a mythical sea creature on the headland overlooking the town and the resumption of quarrying up in the mountains that is poisoning the streams and contaminating the town’s water supply.
Determined to keep his coins hidden, Sam goes up-river to bury them. There he encounters a beguiling young woman called Shasa, who lives by one of the tainted springs and just happens to have a fish’s tail.
As the blasting continues, the discovery of a series of recently-made drawings in the cave under the headland reveals a terrifying prophesy that will result in the earth spilling apart. Fearing for Shasa’s safety, Sam sets out find her again, only to meet the danger head on, as nature takes its revenge for the damage being wrought by humankind.
Will Sam and Shasa survive?
Set in a fictional location on the West Coast of South Africa, this moving story blends the charm of small town life with the threat of ecological disaster at the hands of a powerful force beyond human understanding.
Come the New Year the ebook and paperback will be available to buy on Amazon and I’m already excited!
Now I must get back to writing the so far untitled sequel… be right with you, Albertina!
Sunlight was sparkling through the trees when Moonsprite gently nudged her awake. Sinead rose and went to the bubbling brook where she rinsed her face and drank deeply of its rich waters. She’d had no food since she entered the Garden, yet she was sustained.
A gentle breeze rustled through the glade and Sinead remembered the voice in the night. Mother Earth had spoken to her. She looked around to see Tarron, the elderly elf, emerging from the trees. The Hound padded silently by his side.
Tarron greeted them both with a smile. ‘Let us consult the Prophesy Book one last time,’ he said.
‘But the pages are blank,’ replied Sinead.
Tarron held up his hand. ‘Let us look.’
Sinead removed the Book from Moonsprite’s saddle bag. The title of a new first chapter appeared: “All Will Be Revealed“. Tarron put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Now read on.’
luna's on line 