MEET PAULETTE MAHURIN

I am especially pleased to introduce you to an author you may not know. I love her books, have read most of them and they not only tell a great story but have substance and depth. No way could you describe them as frothy and fluffy! My favourite is “The Seven Year Dress,” – once I picked it up I could not stop reading. Welcome Paulette, let’s start with a short bit about you.

Paulette Mahurin lives with her husband Terry and two dogs, Max and Bella, in Ventura County, California. She grew up in West Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Science.

While in college, she won awards and was published for her short-story writing. One of these stories, Something Wonderful, was based on the couple presented in His Name Was Ben, which she expanded into this fictionalized novel in 2014. Her first novel, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, made it to Amazon bestseller lists and won awards, including best historical fiction of the year 2012 in Turning the Pages Magazine.

Semi-retired, she continues to work part-time as a Nurse Practitioner in Ventura County. When she’s not writing, she does pro-bono consultation work with women with cancer, works in the Westminster Free Clinic as a volunteer provider, volunteers as a mediator in the Ventura County Courthouse for small claims cases, and involves herself, along with her husband, in dog rescue.

Profits from her books go to help rescue dogs.

 One of the darkest times in human history was the insane design and execution to rid the world of Jews and “undesirables.” At the hands of the powerful evil madman Adolf Hitler, families were ripped apart and millions were slaughtered. Persecution, torture, devastation, and enduring the unthinkable remained for those who lived. This is the story of one woman who lived to tell her story. This is a narrative of how a young beautiful teenager, Helen Stein, and her family were torn asunder, ultimately bringing her to Auschwitz. It was there she suffered heinous indignity at the hands of the SS. It was also there, in that death camp, she encountered compassion, selfless acts of kindness, and friendship. Written by the award-winning, best-selling author of His Name Was Ben, comes a story of the resilience of the human spirit that will leave you thinking about Helen Stein and The Seven Year Dress for years to come after the last page is shut.

A women’s Brokeback Mountain. The year 1895 was filled with memorable historical events: the Dreyfus Affair divided France; Booker T. Washington gave his Atlanta address; the United States expanded the effects of the Monroe Doctrine to cover South America; and Oscar Wilde was tried and convicted for gross indecency under Britain’s recently passed law that made sex between males a criminal offense. When news of Wilde’s conviction went out over telegraphs worldwide, it threw a small Nevada town into chaos. This is the story of what happened when the lives of its citizens were impacted by the news of Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment. It is a chronicle of hatred and prejudice with all its unintended and devastating consequences, and how love and friendship bring strength and healing.

An innocent Jewish military officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment on a desolate island. The news that could exonerate him was leaked to the press, but was suppressed by the military. Anyone who sought to reopen the Dreyfus court-martial became victimized and persecuted and was considered an enemy of the state.

Emile Zola, a popular journalist determined to bring the truth to light, undertook the challenge to publicly expose the facts surrounding the military cover-up. This is the story of Zola’s battle to help Alfred Dreyfus reclaim his freedom and clear his name. Up against anti-Semitism, military resistance, and opposition from the Church in France, Zola committed his life to fighting for justice. But was it worth all the costs to him, to those around him, and to France?

Hearing the words “it’s cancer,” threw Sara Phillips’ life into chaos, until an unexpected turn of events and a chance encounter with a stranger changed everything—his name was Ben. Based on real events, Ben and Sara discover that when all else fails, healing can come in the most unexpected ways. Chilling and heart-wrenching, His Name Was Ben is a triumph over the devastating circumstances and fear experienced when faced with a terminal illness. In this narrative, the power of love conquers shadows and transforms the very nature and meaning of what it is to be fully alive. From the award winning, best-selling author of, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, comes a story filled with soul and passion that will leave the reader thinking about it for days after the last page is closed.
“Paulette Mahurin compassionately renders an insightful tale about love and life in the moment, when a moment is all there is. Both ordinary and extraordinary, Sara and Ben kept me up at night rooting for them, as did Mahurin of course, a writer of exceptional heart, for her tender and wise depiction of love against all odds. A rare pleasure, His Name Was Ben is not to be missed.”—Lee Fullbright, author of The Angry Woman Suite.

You can find all Paulette’s books here.

 https://www.amazon.com/Paulette-Mahurin/e/B008MMDUGO/

As you can see, Paulette’s books have done incredibly well, rising high in the Amazon charts. She included these few words of advice:-

MY SECRET TO SUCCESS

You’ve never heard of me. Or my books. So how successful could she possibly be, you ask? I’ve never made it to The New York Times best seller lists nor been picked up by a well-known publisher. But, I have had several books on Amazon best-seller lists. My last, The Seven Year Dress, made it to Amazon Australia #1 best-seller Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, and Teen Young Adult. And to date, a year after publication it’s #5 best-seller in Literary Fiction on Amazon U.K. It’s also ranked up in the top twenty in the U.S. and is continuing to sell on multiple other Amazon worldwide sites. So what’s my big secret?

I don’t try to write stories or contrive plots. I don’t try to design sentences that read grammatically correct. I don’t try to design scenes to entice readers. No, none of that. I just tell the story as if I’m sitting down with a friend and telling them about something that has happened. I vomit out the story, starting with concepts, then sentences, then characters who enter scenes and beef it up to give it richness. I communicate with my protagonist like I would any other new person I meet and ask them to describe themselves—as it fits with the context and then I ask why is your story unique? If it’s not unique then why is it special and of interest for someone to hear about it? Once I have an idea about the story I spew it out: vomit.

There’s no mystery to being a “writer.” What defines a writer is someone who sits down and tells a story. And I don’t know anyone alive who doesn’t have a story to tell. It’s how we communicate daily, in little vignettes. It’s how we relay interesting happenings to family and friends. Time spent at a computer doesn’t define a writer nor does the number of words on a page.

The simple mystery to my success is I tell stories. I vomit them out onto the page and don’t worry about grammar, creative content, formatting, etc. I don’t rely on my internal critic, which is never accurate anyway. I leave the critiquing, editing, polishing up the story, etc. to my publisher/editor.

Everyone has a story to tell. Tap into yours and vomit it out. No great secret or formula. Like the Nike commercial says, Just do it! I wish ya’ll much success and good luck with your storytelling.

Thank you, Paulette, for being my guest today.

(MER)LION AND LEADERS

Once I’d dragged DH out of the fort, we discovered the island was a mini Disneyland. Spotlessly clean, as you’d expect and I was too busy rubber necking to take many pictures.

The cable car stopped at several levels and you could get out and explore at each one.

The merlion is a mixture of a lion’s head with a fish body, used as a promotional symbol by the tourist board. Singapore was originally a fishing village but its original name was Singapura meaning lion city. The other picture is one you may have seen before and I’ll leave you to decide which is which.

UNBELIEVABLE HISTORY

Now it is said that George V didn’t like to sit to have his portrait painted, so he stood up instead. Here he is with his cousin the Kaiser on the left and his cousin the Tsar on the right. Yes, they were all related. And you know who was the common factor!

George probably didn’t think he’d become king until his elder brother Edward (yes, another one) died of pneumonia and the year after that he married the German princess Mary of Tek – a cousin and granddaughter of King George III. She’d previously been intended for big brother Edward so they passed her on so to speak. Honestly, being a princess isn’t all frills, flouncy dresses and dancing at balls, it’s more like the local meat market – aristocratic breeding and good child-bearing hips. Where did Disney get those silly ideas from? Which brings me very neatly to …

BOOKS

I’ve been tossing up whether to do a follow up to Unhappily Ever After. As it is, it’s a stand alone with all the loose ends wrapped up. It tells the story of how Cinderella decided to get a divorce from King Charming. No one ever questioned how this commoner, from the wrong side of the tracks, would fit into a royal household, and of course, she didn’t. All that protocol was too much for her, the other royals hated her, and she didn’t even produce a male heir only one princess who had a preference for other princesses. I guess my next project will come to me in the shower or other inconvenient place and by the time I’ve grabbed a towel, I’ll have forgotten what it was!

If you feel like a good laugh, here is the link  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DPVB4M8

Till next week, take care.

MEET MARGARET ELEANOR LEIGH

OK, OK I know I shouldn’t have favourites here but Margaret Eleanor Leigh is one of them. We’ve spent many hours chatting via pm and I felt for her every step of the way before and after hospital. I think we met through the Facebook group We Love Memoirs.

But, that is not the reason I just love her – I adore her books. Why? Because there is a smile in every sentence. I’m not sure how she does it, she spends a lot of time correcting doctrinal dissertations for students, but for me, her books are an absolute delight. I get a thrill every time I download one, the pure anticipation!  Researching her Amazon page I’ve discovered the only one I’ve not read and as soon as I’ve typed this up I’m off to download it. Time to meet Margaret.

You’ve probably never heard of me, and that’s partly because I’ve been quiet for a long time, and partly because I am one of those obscure writers no-one has ever heard of. (Obscure does not necessarily equal bad, mind you, although it certainly can ….)

I’ve been quiet for a long time because I’m not long back from the most horrendous journey of my life. It was the kind of journey everyone hopes they’ll never have to make. I’ve been on quite a few journeys in my time, and some of them were quite entertaining (see Memoirs One and Two, which are all about journeys of one sort or another). But there was nothing remotely entertaining about this latest journey, and not for nothing does it warrant the provisional title: Is There Life After Butchery?

 

Basically, I had a near-death experience at the hands of a talentless scalpel-wielding butcher, followed by a year of hell. Hell consisted of an abdominal wound the size and shape of the Grand Canyon that refused to heal, and not one, but two stomas. (If you don’t know what a stoma is, and are even remotely squeamish, don’t go looking it up, particularly just before dinner.)

Fortunately, for every scalpel-wielding butcher, somewhere else in the world there’s a scalpel-wielding genius. Six thousand miles from the site of the original carnage, I fell into the hands of one such miracle-worker. Against all the odds, and against all the negative prognoses, he reversed all the damage wrought by the butcher, including the stomas, and left me with just a neat little tapestry of scars and a well of gratitude as deep as the original wound. Oh, and a bad attack of writer’s block.

There’s no such thing as writer’s’ block. At least that’s what I used to say before I was felled by the wretched thing.  In this instance, the writer’s block can be explained by the self-evident fact that a close encounter with the Grim Reaper isn’t the most promising material for Memoir Number Three. You may even be making a mental note to avoid it when it finally appears, and that’s okay. Nevertheless, it is the job of the memoirist to take the raw material of life, whatever that may be, and turn it into something amusing for the enjoyment of others. I concede its going be a bit of a stretch to make this particular raw material amusing and I may have to settle for edifying.

I’ve written other stuff besides memoirs. Lots of stuff. Some of it is good, some of it is not so good.  And I hope to write lots more, because yes, there is life after butchery, and yes, miracles do still happen.

Now, Margaret didn’t mention her children’s books in her blurb, but I can promise you they are delightful too. And Margaret where is book 4? There’s got to be one for the last season!

You can find all Margaret Eleanor Leigh’s books on her Amazon author page – and please let us know when your ‘butchery’ book comes out – only you can make such a horrific event such fun to read.

https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Eleanor-Leigh/e/B00KD7AE7E/

FORTS AND FORMS

I can’t resist posting more pics of the cable car ride. I just adore these flights suspended in the air, swaying gently like a bird. The most frustrating thing is trying to clean the glass to take clearer pictures. DH wouldn’t let me open the door and hang out for the really good shots.

At the other end, our first port of call was Fort Soliso. DH took an inordinate amount of interest in this fortification built to protect Singapore. He simply had to explore everywhere and I got pretty fed up. The only picture I took was this peacock sitting on a wall.

I must admit they had set up some pretty impressive displays. DH spent hours yesterday looking for the ones he’d taken but they’ve gone to ground in some file on his laptop and so it was back to the internet.

HISTORY

George V’s full name was George Frederick Ernest Albert; I’m very puzzled why they give so many names to royal people, it’s not as if they are likely to get mixed up with the common folk.  I guess too they don’t have to fill in those fiddly forms which give you 2 centimetres to write a seven line address. Now that part would be easy for them, Buck House, London would find them I’m sure, but 4 Christian names? It’s just as well they changed to Windsor from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. I bet he never filled in a form at the post office NAME: ………   on which he had to fit George Frederick Ernest Albert Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

BOOKS

Several people have asked me if there is a synergy between me and my heroine Amie. I have to confess there is, except she trained for film work and I fell into it. She was left destitute in the African savannah, which was similar to me being left in the bush with a 9 week old baby. Admittedly I didn’t slog across the veld for days, but I did plenty of walking looking for that one pony who escaped more often than Houdini. The one huge difference is she’s a brave heroine and I’m the world’s biggest coward!  Have you read her books yet (I’ve had very little to do with them).

 

myBook.to/Amie1   myBook.to/Amie2      

http://www.amazon.com./dp/BO1M67NRG4

Till next week, take care.

 

 

MEET BETH HASLAM

Now, most of my blogs follow a formulae – a picture of the author, a brief (preferably witty) bio, the book covers and a bit of blurb on the storyline. Beth’s blog is going to be different as she sent me a story which is typical of the ones she writes on her blogs. I even had to nag her to give me book covers and links – but then Beth’s memoirs of going to live in France where they have integrated with the local people and set up what sounds like a miniature farm, speak for themselves. Enjoy!

The Unwanted Visitor

I’m one of those people who tends to be a little flimsy on a morning. No particular reason for this other than a touch of fatigue brought on by the family cat. Our morning routine is pretty consistent and begins at around 5 am. I am usually alerted from a lovely, deep sleep by the sound of throaty purrs. Brutus, our portly cat, has materialised on the bed and is making his way to my pillow for a session of face-time. Try as I might to resist his advances, I’m no match for his persuasive talents at that time of the morning.

Brutus steadfastly inveigles himself onto my nice, warm pillow and uses my head as a radiator. A cat with unnecessarily long limbs, he’ll extend an arm, using it to great effect by gently drawing my hand towards him. This is the signal that he wants to be stroked. Failure to comply on my part then involves the subtle use of claws, which he cleverly disguises as an act of affection. I imagine it’s rather like acupuncture. Mildly perforated and still enfeebled, I quickly give in and begin stroking his head, which causes him to turn into an inboard motor. The sensation of being in a ship’s engine room might be acceptable, soporific even, but the accompanying process of gradual suffocation, as Brutus gradually drapes himself over my nose, is eventually too much. I give in, turn over and fall off the pillow.

At this stage I’m semi-awake and then start dozing, desperately trying to return to my slumbers, but it’s no good – and why? Because Brutus has begun to clean his toes. The engine room transforms into a giant rasping workshop of activity as the lick-a-thon gets under way. As unmentionable detritus, including a goodly sprinkling of flowerbed, is carelessly flicked all over me I eventually surrender. Cussing about life with animals, I tumble out of bed and perform my required duty.

With slippers and dressing gown on, and Brutus doing his best to trip me up, I stumble downstairs to meet the next challenge. The dogs – Aby and Max. I sleepily fight off loving onslaughts from our over-affectionate Australian Shepherds, who behave as though they haven’t seen me for six months.

With wiggling bottoms, and toothy smiles that can light the dimness of any room, they pin me to the bottom step, moaning in delight, ready to plan the daily walk. Weakly I deliver a number of random pats, struggle free and shuffle into the utility room to prepare Brutus’ breakfast.

 

Fortunately this pattern, one that can only be endured by animal-lovers, is nothing that can’t be rectified by a nice strong cuppa, and also the product of my Christmas present – a juicer. This has been a true revelation to me and I adore it. With Max still grinning from ear to ear as he adoringly hangs onto the hem of my dressing gown, I drag us both to the sink, hoping not to unravel before I reach the chopping board. I reach for my random collection of fruits and vegetables and begin to hack them into juicer-friendly sizes.

Still half-asleep, I stuff the ingredients into my wonderful machine, which munches and grinds its way through the contents with consummate ease. It belches out ex-veggie bits into one container and a heady drinkable liquid into another. This can often be a strange colour but it is thrillingly packed with vitamins and minerals – I’m convinced it’s an act of magic.

Just enough for two glasses, I give one to my husband, Jack, who is decidedly less thrilled. His belief is that these bright green/orange/dark red concoctions containing more than six types of vegetable and at least three varieties of fruit appear much too similar to human waste, and should probably carry a gastro intestinal health warning. Disappointing though his attitude is, I shouldn’t be at all surprised given that he’s a die-hard carnivore. I’ve reminded him of the health benefits and, so far, all seems to be well down below. So, in spite of his continued scepticism, he manfully sips his way through most offerings.

The single downside to my magnificent machine is that it devours an inordinate quantity of produce. After my first few goes it quickly became clear that I would need a bigger vegetable rack to contain them. In the meantime, I made do by using three deep boxes which I left on the window ledge in the cool of the utility room.

A few days ago, following another nocturnal feline skirmish that I’d failed to repel, I was on my way to the utility room to collect my ingredients. Jack was already downstairs and commented, “I noticed a mouse in one of your veg boxes this morning. Huh, at least someone appreciates your devil’s brew mix.”

I took very little notice of him and shambled into the crowded utility room, which was occupied by both dogs and Brutus (on the worktop) all eating their breakfasts. I was about to collect a clump of celery when a head popped up between the sprouts. It was there again, but this wasn’t a mouse at all, it was a large rat. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m usually perfectly fine with rats, but they do need to be in their own place – and not mine.

I recoiled in horror and started shrieking at the animals to do something helpful. Aside from Max who raised an eyebrow, my appeals had absolutely no affect whatsoever. They were intent on eating their meal and a hysterical mum wasn’t going to get in their way.

Meanwhile, the rat, alerted to the possibility that it wasn’t welcome, calmly squeezed its bulk between my greens and started to waddle over the apples and lemons. My continued squawks brought Jack bounding in. “It’s a rat,” I ranted, “a huge one. Do something, Jack!”

“You’ve got a roomful of so-called shepherding and hunting animals in here, can’t they catch it? You feed them too much, that’s their problem. Anyway where is it?” he grumped with exasperation.

“Over there somewhere, behind the dogfood bins,” I replied, pointing nervously at two knee-high feed containers.

Jack fought his way through the furry mass and peered behind the bins.

“No, nothing here, it must have gone through the hole by the radiator. Useless bloody animals, catch a rat? That lot couldn’t even catch a cold. Now can you stop making such a noise please, I’m trying to watch the news.” With that he stalked off.

Feeling somewhat sheepish, I returned to the job in hand and studied my goods for signs of contamination. Our new visitor might be a carrier of several vile diseases for all I knew, a simple rinsing of my legumes might not be sufficient. Just as I was considering this important point the dogs, who had finished their breakfast, started to show a renewed interest in the food bins. At first I ignored this, assuming it was a late show of teaminess, when Aby started urgently whining and staring at me imploringly. Still under the impression that they were alerted by old scents I pulled back a bin and to my horror saw that the rat was still there and looking decidedly frisky.

In an instant both dogs exploded into a flurry of activity and started blundering around. Even Brutus looked up, mildly interested at all this canine activity.

“Jaaack, it’s still here!” I yelled.

Jack thundered back in and surveyed the perpetrator, which was scampering around in circles behind the containers.

“Quite a fatty isn’t it?”

“Yes, can you do something please, I’m frightened it’s going to escape into the house.”

Jack gave me a withering look and switched to operations mode. “Right, you take the empty bin and I’ll grab the full one, that’ll give the dogs or Brutus a chance to get it. It’s obviously too large to get through the hole in the corner, so there’s a tiny chance that one of them might have the intelligence to catch it.”

“Oh I daren’t go any closer,” I whined pathetically.

“Why not?”

“Well, I haven’t got any pants on.”

“Wha…what’s that got to do with anything?” he cried, totally nonplussed.

“You know what they say about rats running up drainpipes, anything could happen with me standing here with just my slippers and dressing gown on!”

With a look of complete frustration at my reticence, he snapped, “Ridiculous woman! For goodness’ sake, just get out of here then, I’ll sort it out with the dogs, although I dare say they’ll just continue knocking things over.”

With that I scurried out of the room and closed the door firmly behind me.

During the next couple of minutes the rooms bulged with the sounds of shouts, barks and scrambling noises, then the vacuum cleaner was switched on, which was strange. Next thing, the door was flung open and out shot Brutus looking like a mobile inflated toilet brush with the fluffiest tail I have ever seen. He galloped up the stairs, four at a time, and disappeared from view. Poor lad, he has always considered the vacuum cleaner to be a weapon of mass destruction.

One defender of the realm down, three to go. I felt sure one of them would manage to trap the perp.

Sounds of pandemonium continued, then Aby flew through the door with an enraged-looking rat in her mouth and Max in pursuit. As she dashed around the dining room table with it I attempted to do something useful by opening the kitchen door for her, but I was too late. Max-the-misguided had decided this was a great game and rugby tackled her just before she made the exit. Aby was floored, spat out the rat, which triumphantly scampered off to another corner of the kitchen.

“Bloody idiot dog!” raged Jack as he came into the kitchen with vacuum cleaner nozzle in hand. “Where has it gone now, and what are you doing up there?”

As a security measure, remembering my state of undress, I’d taken the sensible precaution of taking refuge halfway up the stairs. I ignored his insensitive question and pointed towards the area where our escapee was last seen.

“It’s over there. Can you shoo it out of the door before the dogs have another go?”

“I tried that last time. I got it nicely stuck on the end of my nozzle when Aby grabbed it and galloped off. Now she’s let it go again.”

“Actually it wasn’t her fault, it was Max and…”

“It doesn’t matter, they’re both idiots. Sort them out please, they’re causing havoc with the furniture!”

Jack went off to find his rodent-proof gloves while I attempted to control the dogs. When he returned they were both rigidly sitting to attention, on crimson alert, and whining in anticipation of the next fiasco.

“Ah, there it is,” he said, gently removing a chair with his giant red rubber gloves, “I reckon I can probably grab it now.” As he reached towards the defiant rodent Max somehow interpreted this to be a signal to advance. He sprang over Jack’s arm and pounced on the rat, which deftly swerved out of the way, scuttled through his legs and pelted out through the open door into the garden. This was Max’s second own-goal, but at least the intruder was outside.

“That sodding dog!” bawled Jack, from a seated position where he’d been felled, “If he were five times more intelligent, he still wouldn’t qualify as an ingredient for your vegetable juicer.”

“Never mind, darling,” I gaily replied, “at least the rat’s gone now. I call that a great result!”

Jack gave me a disdainful look and snarled, “I blame myself. None of this would be happening if I hadn’t bought you that damned juicer, which has resulted in the utility room turning into greengrocers. Now, fascinating though it may be, it’s too early to be on safari. Please don’t bother me again about helping out with invasions of anything smaller than a wild boar, I’m going to catch up on the news.” With that he tramped back to the TV.

I surveyed the scenes of gentle chaos. A couple of chairs had been knocked over in the kitchen, the utility room had fared less well. The empty dog bin was on its side, the other at a jaunty angle surrounded by red cabbage, sprouts and vacuum cleaner attachments. Well, I thought, at least nothing had been damaged in our early morning incident, not even the rat, which seemed to have been the calmest of us all.

Clearly I couldn’t blame any of this on my wonderful new juicer. It simply had to have its fuel. No, there was only one unwanted gift that day, and it was now happily sauntering around the garden no doubt plotting a return visit – one that none of us would look forward to.

If you’d like to chat with Beth here are the links to use:

Email: fatdogsfrance@gmail.com

 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005130648927

 

Twitter:  @fatdogsfrance

 

Instagram:  fatdogsandfrenchestates

 

Website:  http://www.bethhaslam.com/

 

THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN OFTEN

I’m trying to type this up with my eyes closed and that’s not easy for me as I’ve never learned to touch type. I do so hate this self-promotion stuff, but as DH informed me in ‘that’ kind of voice if I don’t tell anyone I write books then no one will buy them.

So I suggested he write this blog and got ‘that’ look. DH wouldn’t touch Social Media with a bargepole. He must be the only person on the planet who doesn’t have a Facebook page and has only learned that Tweets exist since they’ve been showing Donald’s efforts on the BBC news. He’s just told me to stop whinging and get typing. (Rumour has it he was browsing the yacht chandlers yesterday, but I’ll be lucky if I can afford a bath sized boat for him to play with – which I wouldn’t buy anyway as we only have a shower).

Big breath and here goes: My first memoir Walking over Eggshells is on sale until Monday at $/£0.99 if you want to grab it cheaply – available on all outlets. myBook.to/WoE

The blurb is:  Walking Over Eggshells is an autobiography that tells the story of a mentally abused child, who married a “Walter Mitty” clone. They moved from England to Kenya, from Libya to Botswana and on again to South Africa. It took all her courage to survive in situations that were at times dangerous, sometimes humorous, but always nerve wracking. She had a variety of jobs, different types of homes, and was both a millionairess and totally broke. She met royalty, hosted ambassadors, and won numerous awards for her writing and television programs. She also climbed over garbage dumps, fended off bailiffs, and coped being abandoned in the African bush with a seven-week-old baby with no money or resources. She admits to being the biggest coward in the world, but her survival instincts kicked in and she lived to tell her story. This book will make you laugh and cry and hopefully inspire others who did not have the best start in life either. 

This morning WoE rose to the giddy heights of 242 overall in paid Kindle books on Amazon but of course, I had a little help from BookBub, no, make that a lot of help! And, as they do, it’s sinking a bit now, but I was there with the screen shot. And the little yellow sticker has gone too and I only blinked once! You may say “Oh how sad Lucinda” here. But I am thrilled with over 600 sales since BB did not accept it for America. WoE is also up for a paperback giveaway on Goodreads, closing date September 10^th. That comes with a free bookmark and a pen – that’s the best I can do, I live in Spain and the postage is too expensive for mugs and aprons, wall hangings and Lucinda E Clarke pyjama sets. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/241508-walking-over-eggshells

As I’m getting ready to put the 4^th book in the Amie series up on pre-order, I’ve also dropped the price of book 1 to $/£0.99.

Amie – African adventure – in case you might like to meet her. As far as I know she is the only female spy in Africa – though that doesn’t happen until book 3. And the blurb for that is:

Just an ordinary girl, living in an ordinary town, with nothing but ordinary ambitions, Amie Fish is plunged into hot water when her husband is posted to a country she’s never heard of. Amie’s ability to adapt and make a life for herself in equatorial Togodo lands her in more trouble than she could have imagined, her life is threatened and everything she holds dear is ripped away from her. She is left fighting for her life. If she could have seen into the future, she would never have stepped foot on that plane.

It’s got lots of nice reviews and you’re not taking a massive chance at that price, are you? And, if you’re enrolled in KU it won’t cost you a cent. myBook.to/Amie1   

 

And, there’s more. I launched part one of my free book The very Worst Riding School in the World at the end of June and to date, it’s had over 1,200 downloads pushing that to #1 in genre on 5 Amazon sites.  myBook.to/WRS

Finally, if you still need reading material here’s a final reminder for the big book competition http://bookhub.online/book-giveaways/super-summer-reads-giveaway  press the link to enter before it ends on Sunday.

That’s all from me until Thursday and another author to meet, I so prefer that 🙂  And if you’d like to share this post, I really won’t mind 🙂 (Luckily you can’t see me grovelling at this point, it’s not a pretty sight!)

Take care.

 

AIR TRIPS AND TROUSERS

It’s really weird how the mind plays tricks on you. I checked out my scribbled holiday diary, and see that I’d had a bad night’s sleep in Singapore and the following day I took pictures on my phone rather than the iPad to keep the weight down in my bag. Do I remember now what was wrong? Not a bit of it.

Anyhow, on with the journey which of course had to include the Hop on Hop off Bus. They are everywhere now and they really are the best way to see everything – then we decide what to see in greater detail.  We wandered around in the Raffles areas and came across this interesting building.

It’s now a national monument but was originally built as a chapel, before being deconsecrated – I really must look that up as I wonder how they do that? They have left the beautiful stained glass windows in place although the altar was no longer there.

We then went over to Santosa Island – Singapore’s playground. It was the trip that thrilled me – by cable car.

HISTORY NONSENSE

Now I’ve disposed of poor old Edward VII who only reigned for 9 years the next king was George V and he reigned sometime the last century, I’m sure the dates aren’t that important. Here he is:

And he proclaimed he was the House of Windsor, so he could be PROPERLY  BRITISH. And not German any more. He was Edward’s son, and his brother was George just to keep it all tidy and repeat the same names over and over and over again. If you’re not confused by now then you should be, because I am. Luckily by now, Kings were allowed to keep their trousers on for official portraits as they were fed up in posing in tights.

 

 

ADVERT BREAK

Yes, the embarrassing bit.

I’m either a multi genre writer or I’m a schizophrenic the jury is still out. I began with the memoirs, all laced with lots of humour (or humor if you’re American) with a comedy book thrown in and almost 4 adventure books. And dare I mention my novella as well?

If DH complains, then I remind him I could be throwing clay pots in the garden, or littering the house with easels messy tubes of paint, or half sewn garments, or even rearranging the furniture on a daily basis. Honestly, it’s a quiet occupation and you never know someone might just buy a book!!

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lucinda-E-Clarke/e/B00FDWB914/

Web page – http://lucindaeclarkeauthor.com

Till next week, take care.

 

 

 

 

 

MEET LESLEY HAYES

My guest this week lives in Oxford, England and is a psychotherapist by profession and a prolific writer. I enjoy her books which I would describe as deep, leaving lots of room for thought long after you read the last page.  Again, Lesley is one of the earliest virtual friends I met on Facebook and we’re both in the Indie Authors Support and Discussion group. We re-tweet regularly and I do recommend her books they are truly inspiring.

My name is Lesley Hayes and I write… It feels like the opening to a confession at Writer’s Anonymous, and in a way that’s appropriate. Writing is a kind of addiction, a craving that can attack the soul with the sharp bite of a need demanding to be answered in the dead of night, at dawn, or at any unguarded point throughout the day. I began writing stories while I was at school, neglecting every other subject (apart from History, which intrigued me with its many lies and mysteries) and ducked university at the age of 17 to work on Honey magazine, where my first short story was published. It was the beginning of a long and fruitful love affair with writing for publication, which has weaved in and out of everything else I’ve done over the ensuing years.

Oh yes, I should probably mention that I got married and divorced twice, had two children by the time I was 23, moved to Oxford in my late thirties and re-invented myself, fell in and out of love with disregard to gender a number of times, trained and practised as a psychotherapist for twenty years, and adopted a cat. For the past five years I have shed most of my therapy clients and emerged all damp-winged from the chrysalis of one identity into the bright uncertain dawn of another. The muse never really went away all those years as a therapist; she simply bided her time, as muses tend to do. I am impatient when it comes to change, and got quickly bored with knocking on the door of agents this time around, so in 2013 I began self-publishing my newborn novels and their older sibling short stories, many of which had been previously broadcast on BBC Radio Oxford.

The first novel to erupt with genie-like eagerness from the unplugged bottle was The Drowned Phoenician Sailor, which begins with the death of a psychotherapist (go figure.) This was swiftly jostled aside by A Field Beyond Time, which I’d actually been in the process of writing for ten years during my years as a therapist before the awakened muse finally goaded me into completing it. Round Robin, Dangerous People, and The Other Twin soon followed, and I have another in the pipeline which is still so top secret I would have to kill Lucinda if I disclosed it.

A writer’s life is often a solitary one (not so different from that of many psychotherapists) and as an introvert I am protective of my personal space and dread it when I’m invited out to show my face in public. You won’t catch me at book signings and literary gigs, parading my authorship and touting my wares, and the best thing about writing this for Lucinda is that I’m invisible. However, I’m no recluse and have a number of close friends and a cherished partner and Oxford is the perfect place to live with mild to moderate invisibility among other writers, eccentrics and people of diverse religions, ethnicity, and sexual preference. If you come across any of my books, read carefully between the lines if you want to find me… I have written clues to my true self into the characters of every one.

If you want to risk that journey visit my website: www.lesleyhayes.co.uk where you can find links to all my books. If you want to take a faster track follow the links here:

The Drowned Phoenician Sailor   http://bit.ly/1FQ5Vw9

A Field Beyond Time    http://bit.ly/UrraBL

Round Robin     http://bit.ly/1EPqxRh

Dangerous People       http://bit.ly/1OKTNBH

The Other Twin    http://bit.ly/2gzkfEF

Oxford Marmalade        http://bit.ly/1wQ6WN0

Thank you Lesley for being my guest.

I CAN’T WRITE PROPER

I am feeling quite depressed at the moment. Why? Once upon a time, I thought I could write. Not as well as Tolstoy, or Shakespeare, but the average, everyday stuff. This is a good thing, I thought I’m not particularly good at anything else. Don’t ask me to draw a smiley face, or cook gourmet meals, I plant, nurture and watch the green leafy things die, I’m best in the back row of the chorus (or off stage altogether) and … I could go on and on about my lack of accomplishments, but I’ll spare you.

At least I can write, pop words onto paper in reasonable order, tell stories and the extra bonus is I can do that as long as I have wiggly fingers and the mental capacity – unlike those super sporty people whose career is on the downward slope by the time they’re 25.

My belief in my one and only ability- I won’t go so far as to call it a talent – was reinforced by all the people who paid me to write: important people who ran banks, government departments, magazines and newspapers, radio and television, corporations and educational institutions. And I mean pay, yes real money not the pennies Amazon dribble into my bank account at the end of each month. This big money paid the rent, bought food, clothed us and put petrol in the tank. It even paid for the odd cruise and trips abroad. It continued for almost 40 years until I retired and began to write books.

Now, I know that was all an illusion because ‘I can’t write ‘proper.’ How do I know this? I only have to look at my editor’s red pen marks on my drafts of Amie book 4. Frankly, that is all I can see, a sea of red, it’s almost impossible to make out the underlying black print under all the corrections. For example, I’m a victim of ‘tautology’ – yes I had to look that up too – Horrors, I use five words when I should be using only two! I sprinkle commas all over the place where they shouldn’t be and leave them out where they are an absolute must.

Now what I want to know is, who are these faceless little, grey men who sit somewhere declaring that this sentence is correct, while that sentence is not? I know that the French literary people meet once a year and discuss the purity of their language and decide to ban such abominations as ‘le sandwich‘ and ‘le weekend‘ so I must assume there is a similar gathering of English speaking experts who do the same?

The rules seem to multiply and change daily.  Nowadays you must never, ever start a sentence with an -ly word eg. ‘Suddenly the silence of the night was shattered by the roar of …”  NO! NO.! NO! Adverbs are out this season, you must find a different word. No longer can we put she walked slowly – even if that is what she is doing – it must be shuffled, or ambled or sauntered or another simile. But what if she is approaching the gallows  – her last few steps on this earth – would she really amble or saunter towards the hangman’s noose? She might shuffle of course, but we want to convey that she approached with dignity and courage. Heaven forbid we put She walked slowly and courageously to her death …

Ans when did it become necessary to hyphenate every thing in sight? I don’t remember reading nine-year-old in books when I was younger? Why is nine year old wrong? Grammarly has just put a huge, fat red line under it for me.

English is such a precise language. I read somewhere that it has more words than any other and each one is precise and conveys a slightly different meaning to any other word.

And as writers, we all know there is an army of grammar nazis out there just waiting to pounce on our books and complain. Some writing is obviously wrong – we was sat – is a great example (who sat them if they weren’t inanimate objects?)  But real people in the real world do say that. Looking at this paragraph, I remember being told in English class you never, ever, ever start a sentence with AND or BUT – they are conjunctions or joining words – now you see it all the time.

Punctuation has also undergone a shake up. Colons and semi colons are rare, the looooong dash is now popping up all over the place. It has even got a name to differentiate it from the short dash.

I despair, I really do.  I know my editor is right, she’s got dozens of English and editing degrees and stuff to prove it, and I know once Amie 4 is out there no grammar nazi will dare criticise it. But I’m not sure it’s quite the (incorrect) way I write anymore and I quite liked my ‘chatty, who the hell cares if I use too many words, I write as I talk’ sort of way.

I love my editor I really do, despite my moans, I couldn’t do without her, she’s really the best.

I’m not sure what the answer is. Do we blaze a new trail of English as what she is wrote and spoken in the 21st century?  Or do we blindly follow the rules?

What do you do? Right now, I’m off to get my dark glasses so I can continue editing.

We have still to finalise the cover, which do you prefer?

Have a great week and take care.

Indie Author Friday: Lucinda E. Clarke #IndieAuthor #thriller #autobiography @LucindaEClarke

Thank you, Teri Polen, for the interview, those were really interesting questions 🙂

Books and Such

Today’s author, Lucinda E. Clarke, has lived a colorful life so far – and after reading this interview, I’m inclined to believe more adventures lie in her future.  She shares with us a variety of award-winning books and a special talent I can identify with – ‘I’m a very average cook and my claim to fame is I’ve not poisoned anyone yet.’  My family can confirm this.

Walking over Eggshells:  myBook.to/WoE – available on all outlets

My story of growing up with a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and my whirlwind life with a Walter Mitty husband who country hopped all over Africa. It covers 5 decades, 8 countries with never a dull moment.

Truth lies & Propaganda: http://goo.gl/Ws7b4w  &

More Truth, lies and Propagandahttp://goo.gl/Ws7b4w – available on all outlets

Tales of my writing and filming career in Africa, from meeting Nelson Mandela, witchdoctors, royalty…

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