Home Thoughts Weekly

Kirsty Ferry Today, I'm delighted to welcome fellow Choc Lit author, Kirsty Ferry to my blog to talk about her latest book, The Girl in the Photograph, the third in her Rossetti Mysteries series.  Here's Kirsty... First of all, let me thank Chris for letting me invade her blog today. I know that Chris loves to write about beautiful homes and Interior Design, so in order to (hopefully) make this a bit more interesting than just the random ramblings of me as an author, I thought I’d talk about locations and, more specifically, the houses where two of my characters live. I love doing research , and to me one of the most important things as I start a novel is to get an idea of the ‘personal space’ of a character. If I can’t imagine them in their house, then I might as well give up. After all, they’ve got to have a base, and as I have quite a cinematic mind, I like to imagine my people walking around, going to bed, making a cuppa, opening a bottle of wine… in short, doing a...

This week it's my great pleasure to welcome a guest, fellow Choc Lit author Victoria Cornwall, whose debut novel, The Thief's Daughter is out now. I'm reading it at the moment and can thoroughly recommend it.  Here's Victoria to tell you about her novel the inspiration behind it. Victoria Cornwall Inspiration for a novel comes from many sources, a passing conversation, a newspaper article, a photograph, even an obituary. I suspect if you asked ten authors what inspired them to write their book you would get ten different answers. For me, a novel often begins with a location, whether it is a house, place or room and my debut novel with Choc Lit, The Thief’s Daughter, was no different. Although at the time I was a little breathless and in need of a drink! For many years I have attempted to walk the Cornish coastal path. Unfortunately, the lack of time, rather than a lack of desire, has meant I have only completed a quarter of the 296 miles so far. During one w...

No sooner have we waved goodbye to dear friends Jill and Martin who’ve been staying with us for a few days than I’m off to Aberystwyth with friend and blogger Preseli Mags to meet up with a group of blogging friends. Jo, Jayne and Jane are here, Mountainear has come down from her small mountain kingdom and Elizabeth has temporarily swapped one set of Welsh hills for another. We’ve ‘known’ each other for almost ten years now since we, and many others, started blogging for a competition in the hope of being picked to write a magazine column. Although none of us won we ended up with a much bigger prize, an enduring online friendship with bloggers across the globe. Today we have a chance to catch up; some of us have met before, others are new faces but those shared virtual glimpses of our lives make conversation easy. There’s lots of laughter, many cups of coffee but also an acknowledgement that real lives - with all the usual trials and tribulations - go on behind the looking g...

T his week’s been all about waiting – waiting sometimes calmly and sometimes in abject terror for the troublesome symptoms in my left eye to settle and waiting for happier news from Lily and Rose. For a control freak who likes instant results the uncertainty of all this waiting is somewhat testing so I’m taking my mind off it by joining in the promo for fellow Choc Lit author Alison May's new novel Midsummer Dreams which is out this Friday 12 June – not very long to wait at all! Alison’s given us three dream-related prompts to think about… which in my current state of heightened tension rather reflect my immediate concerns, however, here we go! I had a dream : Ooh, of waking up and being able to see perfectly! Imagine a day that didn’t begin like the blur of an impressionist painting speckled with shrapnel and ghostly floaters! Of being free from glasses and contact lenses. Ah, but that is just a dream. I had a nightmare: Hmm, the opposite of above, but living in fear is l...

Some of you may remember this . It’s just over a year now since what I thought was a teeny, harmless patch of eczema turned out to be a basal cell carcinoma. I’d neglected to take it seriously for so long that quite a chunk had to be removed from my arm. At the time, I wasn’t in the least bit worried about the scar, I was simply very grateful to the consultant for his prompt treatment, but for anyone who might still be reluctant to visit their GP for fear of what the consequences might be, let me also show you this. Nope, there’s not much to see at all, and that small scar just reminds me – as if I need it – to be careful in the sun. Blog time has got away from me this year for various reasons, some of which have been outlined in previous posts. Tom’s had some ups and downs following his fall from his bike after his charity ride as it’s become clear he’s done a bit more damage than we first thought, but hopefully he’ll be sorted soon. In better news, it was an...

‘Yesterday,’ reads the email , ‘we came up with the idea of the Twelve Days of Choc Lit Christmas.’ Then follows an invitation to get involved by writing a 500 word ‘Chrismassy and romantic’ short story. ASAP. This is what my dad would have called a ‘free’ job and, as a carpenter, he was never short of people offering him work without payment. Writers too, I’ve noticed, get a lot of free jobs which we tend to accept if there’s any chance at all of increasing our ‘discoverability’ (what a word). The fact is there are an awful lot of authors out there pushing an awful lot of books and a glance at my royalty statement, which also happens to come in this week, tells me I could do with increasing my discoverability quite a lot. It’s fortunate then that the rewards of writing, for me, are to do with that alchemy of creating something out of nothing; locations that seem real to me, characters I live with during the writing process and who often remain with me afterwards. The...

Ask an author which of their own books is their favourite and I suspect it’s like asking a parent to say which child they love best; it can’t be done. Turning the Tide will always be dear to me because it was my first full-length novel and it earned me a publishing contract. I’m proud of Move Over Darling because I wrote it during a very tough period with Stuff Happening externally and a crippling lack of self-confidence internally. Getting through that long dark night of the writing soul taught me a lot. Oh, but I did love writing Book 3! I loved returning to Little Spitmarsh, the setting for Turning the Tide , I loved seeing what Harry and Matthew had been up to and I loved my new heroine and hero. And fortunately, phew, everyone at Choc Lit loved them too and I was offered a new contract faster than I dared hope. One thing they didn’t love, though, was the title, so my working title went out the window and a new one was born, Follow a Star . Then I waited for my cover. ...

On the ninth day of Christmas my publishers, Choc Lit, and National Express are giving away … my short story Touch Wood together with my hero’s easy recipe for delicious hot chocolate. Click on the link here and enter the code SHORT and you can download both for free. The idea for Touch Wood , came from my cuttings file which, like my notebooks, contains photos and articles which speak to me in some way. An article about a craftswoman working with green oak had a particular pull, maybe because it brought back vivid childhood memories. My dad was a carpenter and joiner, although his area of expertise was not green oak but bespoke oak staircases and lantern lights. Oak’s a very costly material so there was a lot of tip-toeing around when Dad was setting out a staircase. ‘Measure twice, cut once’ was his maxim, because you really don’t want to do it the other way round! What if, I wondered, my heroine was an instructor, teaching the craft of green woodworking? Another photo ...

Remember this... ? (And a lot of people round here still chuckle at that hat, I can tell you.) Well, I'm pleased to tell you that that Choc Lit and National Express have teamed up again. As a special Christmas treat you can download a free short story from Choc Lit's Love Match Selection every day up until Christmas Eve!  All you have to do is collect the relevant code from National Express at their Facebook page or on Twitter and enter it here . The twelve stories in this collection are lovely (well, I would say that, wouldn't I?) and they all come with a delicious chocolatey recipe to match.  Mine's out on the... oops, nearly gave the secret away.

‘Be punctual, bring props’ is today’s brief . My publishers, Choc Lit , have linked up with the UK’s largest coach operator, National Express , to give away a great selection of ‘summer reads’ on selected coach services to major airports and from major cities throughout July and August. My new novel Move Over Darling  will be making its debut on the coaches, giving passengers a pre-publication preview which is why I’m on my way to Cardiff for a photo shoot. My anxiety levels are stratospheric, there’s the ‘be punctual’ bit for a start. I hate being late, so I leave the house at Crack of Doom to allow for tractors and milking time on the long drive through narrow lanes. I manage to find a parking space at the station (my next worry). The train turns up on time, phew, and there’s enough space for me, my big orange sun hat and my small red suitcase. In Cardiff I’m almost undone by the station loos where eight women are queuing for two cubicles one of which seems to be pe...

Hurray! With a lot of help from the bride-to-be, I’ve managed to find the makings of an outfit for my daughter’s wedding.   Basically the secret seems to be to try everything on, something I’m not very keen to do by myself but which was much more fun with Lily to help.   Along the way we rejected The Intestine Dress (a dusky pink shade which I love but which drains me of all colour, in a tube design which was probably meant for someone seven foot tall) several Frumps R Us numbers (just because you are the mother of the bride doesn’t mean that you’re ready to look as, only Milla  could put it, like a sofa cover) and a couple of Trying Too Hard dresses (just because you can, doesn’t mean you should). In the end I bought a shift dress and jacket in a sea-green colour (which, by amazing coincidence, MiL tells me is just the colour she’s been looking at) that seems to hit the right note between mumsy at one end and mutton-dressed-as-lamb at the other....

S o much for, ‘Oh, I’m never ill!’ I studied enough Greek Lit at school to know all about hubris, the sin of pride, but lately all that boasting to myself about my robust health has come back to bite me. The latest attempt to evict the bug squatting inside my sinuses has seen me leaving the GP with seven varieties of medication and less five phials of blood. ‘This may leave a slight bruise,’ says the kindly nurse, removing the syringe.   ‘Oh no, I never bruise,’ I assure her, opening my big mouth again. Sure enough, I wake up the next morning with an arm like an old banana; all black, purple and yellow.  Tom and I go for a walk to the beach to blow the cobwebs away. On the way home, we attract lots of evil-looking flies, but it’s all right, because, as Dad and I always used to say to each other, confident that our rhesus negative blood repelled all blood-sucking insects, I never get bitten. Naturally, by the time I get in, my right thigh is sprouting a ...

‘Erm, I was wondering if you’ve done anything for our anniversary?’ ‘No,’ says Tom, looking anxious. ‘Have you?’ ‘No,’ I reply, thinking phew ! It’s not that we’re unromantic and, of course, it would be lovely to splash out on something frivolous like an iPad each – except that’s the best part of year’s heating oil - but money’s not really what it’s about. Which is just as well. Luckily for us , Lily and Rose and their other halves have very kindly made sure that our anniversary will be memorable. Our Christmas present from them is a night in a swanky boutique hotel (‘Well, we knew you wouldn’t do it for yourselves.’). Yippee! So we are heading north on our jaunt soon and greatly looking forwards to it. We’ve even decided to see a bit more of the area courtesy of a Premier Inn special offer… should be an interesting ‘compare and contrast’, shouldn’t it? In other news ... Monday 5 March sees the announcement of the category winners of the Romantic Novelists’ Association A...

I know it's a frantic time of year, but do find time, if you can, to pop over to  Choc Lit's Author's Corner  .  For the next twelve days we'll be sharing our thoughts on the festive season, beginning today with a discussion on when Christmas really starts for each of us. And, since it's Christmas, there are presents!  Every second day, you'll have a chance to win something from the Choc Lit selection  by simply joining in the discussion .  The best comment left over the next two days will win you a copy of my book, Turning the Tide.   I look forwards to reading your thoughts at Author's Corner.  Merry Christmas and good luck!

I’ll be back with more Home Thoughts very soon, but this week brought the announcement of some exciting news that everyone at Choc Lit’s been eager to share.  We all had to be a bit patient until the news could be co-ordinated to suit both sides of the Atlantic, but here it is, the official press release... Brand-led, commercial women’s fiction publisher, Choc Lit expand into North America with effect from 1st January 2012, represented by International Publishers Marketing (IPM). “North America is a key market for our expansion. We already have a loyal following in the USA and constantly receive great reviews. Finding the right partner, who believed in our brand and could offer the right support was critical. We believe we’ve found the perfect match with Jane Graf at IPM,’ states Lyn Vernham, Director, Choc Lit. Since launch, Choc Lit has published a string of novels that regularly hit the Nielsen’s Top 20 Small Publishers Fiction List. In the last few months, they have picked u...

CHOC LIT SHORT STORY COMPETITION          Choc Lit are looking for short stories of up to 1,500 words in which the central theme is chocolate - eating it, drinking it, cooking with it, or anything else. Let your imagination take flight! PRIZES 1 st  prize £200, publication on the author’s corner blog and a box of organic chocolates from Plush A Runner Up will receive £50 and a box of organic chocolates from Plush RULES 1.         Your entry must be a maximum of 1,500 words. 2.         All work must be your own and not previously published. 3.         The entry fee is £3 per story 4.         All entries must be received by 31st January, 2012. JUDGES Your judges are Choc Lit authors Margaret James ( The Silver Locket, The Golden Chain ) and Sue Moorcroft ( Starting Over, All That Mullarkey, Want To...

Lately, I have been mainly composting. Well, that’s the answer I gave Kath Eastman yesterday when she kindly asked during a Twitter ‘conversation’ where I was with my writing. Only, instead of a series of wooden bins in a corner of the garden, I’ve got the notebook/box file equivalent. Hopefully they’re not filled with rubbish either, but with all sorts of ideas which, with a bit of alchemy, will transform themselves into a fertile growing medium for future work. My current notebook is the one with the raw ideas, all the base ingredients I’ve picked up and collected, hoping to make them into something sparkly. Flicking through at random, there’s a cutting on the use of external landscapes in fiction to reflect internal portraits, a poem by Simon Armitage and a picture of a hamster sitting in a mug. There are lists of names, words, messages to self and stabs at haiku: Winter clouds sinking. Sear yellow; summer’s last grass. Run it in colour. By stepping back a bit, and ...

Thursday 3 February Mobile again, we decide to take the little car, aka The Biscuit Tin, to do all the things that are stacking up in the south. The Biscuit Tin whizzes along impressively, although high winds make it skitter a bit which is interesting. Arrive at Ma’s to find her glowing with health (apart from the obvious injuries). She’s had to walk everywhere and looks reinvigorated for it. My sister, by contrast, is out of hospital but looking very thin and pale. Friday 4 February Tom and I both to London to catch up with old friends and former colleagues. I begin in Holborn and have a rare old time catching up with a dear friend from my trades union research days. (And, John, you can be sure I won’t forget now that the quote was from ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’!) John then points me in the right direction to join Tom at a restaurant in Earlham Street. Alas, as some of you will remember, being pointed in the right direction in London doesn’t mean I’ll end up in the right place...

Excuse me if I FREAK OUT just a little, won’t you? My keyboard should be smoking with activity, but today I’m having a bit of a moment. We’re off to the south east on Friday which is good because I’ll catch up with Ma. My sister and I are both trying to sell our houses at the moment so Ma’s been something of a Freak Control Red Centre, fielding calls from both of us and handling all the ‘It’s on/off/pile-of -cr*p/best-thing-I’ve-ever-seen/b*stards/heroes’ calls with appropriate pigeon noises. A very diplomatic approach, actually, since neither of us can throw her words back at her. But what’s really creeping up on me is Saturday, Day Two of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Conference 2010, because I’m joining the Choc Lit panel where we’ll be talking about our heroes. ‘But, mummy!’ said Rose. ‘The expert on your hero is you! What are you worrying about?’ And the answer is that I don’t know really, after all I’ve got up on my hind legs in a previous life and talked about su...

Look what the postman just delivered! For someone who’s supposed to be able to tell you about these things in words, I’m really struggling to describe the feeling of seeing everything I’ve worked and hoped for come together. Choc Lit produce the most beautiful covers; I’m utterly thrilled with mine and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to hold a copy of Turning the Tide in my hands at last.