Book of the Month: June

 

Love Notes For Freddie

 

by Eva Rice

 

Marnie FitzPatrick is a reclusive sixth-former from Hertfordshire with a dysfunctional family, a penchant for Pythagoras' Theorem and an addiction to doughnuts and gin. Julie Crewe is a disillusioned maths teacher who lives vicariously through the girls she teaches, yet who once danced barefoot through Central Park with a man called Jo she has never been able to forget.

This is the story of what happened in the summer of 1969, when the sun burned down on the roof of the Shredded Wheat factory, and a boy called Freddie Friday danced to the records he had stolen. This is about first love, and last love, and all the strange stuff in between. This is what happens when three people are bound together by something that can't be calculated or explained by any equation.

This is what happened when they saw the open door.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Set in the late 1960s, Love Notes For Freddie tells the story of three people brought together through dance. Although the book has a gentle, slow-moving feel, the story is a powerful cocktail of first love, heartbreak and reaching for your dreams.

 

Packed with character, nostralgia and intrigue, I thought Love Notes For Freddie was a fantastic read. My full review will be on Novelicious soon.

 

 

Click here to see all Books of the Month

 

Greedily Yours: Episode 1 - Taste Test by Emma Hamilton

 

 

Food blogger Mia Maxwell is a bit fed up with her relationship with city banker, Paul. They don't spend a great deal of time together and the spice has vanished from their love life. When Mia travels to Cornwall for the weekend to run an annual food festival, she meets Tom, a disgruntled local who isn't at all happy at his town being invaded by Londoners for the weekend.

 

Greedily Yours is an eight-part series, with Taste Test being the first instalment. I thought the beginning was a little slow, but I suppose this is setting up the series rather than focusing on just this one part. Mia is quite a likable character and I loved her adoration of food. She likes food in most forms and doesn't mind telling everybody about it! I also liked her best friend, Lizzie who runs a cupcake café (who wouldn't like some who runs a cupcake café???) as she was often the voice of reason, particularly when it comes to Mia's relationship with Paul.

 

The descriptions in this novella are great, especially the ones centred on food. I really want to go to the food festival in Cornwall just for the fish and chips! Greedily Yours is a fun, food-tastic tale that is set out in bite-sized portions. It's a perfect read if you have a free afternoon to gobble it up all in one go. There are also some bonus recipes of some of the food from the novella, so if the descriptions leave your mouth watering, you can have a go at making them yourself!

Coming Soon: My Summer Reads 2015

 

Last year, I ran a My Summer Reads feature throughout July and August, celebrating all things summer reading-related, from summer reading lists to favourite summery covers - and I'm going to be doing the same this year!

 

Coming Up This Year

 

My Summer Reads will begin next Friday, with a giveaway here on the blog. Look out for giveaways on Twitter and Facebook over the next few weeks too (you can find me on Twitter here and Facebook here)

 

I'll also be sharing my summer reading list and will be posting reviews and other summer-reading posts

 

Join In

 

Last year I was lucky enough to have some other bookish people joining in and I'm hoping others will this year - I'd love to know what you're planning to read this summer or what your favourite summery covers are (there are some GORGEOUS ones out there).

 

If you'd like to take part, email me at jenniferjoycewrites@gmail.com with your piece. Here are some ideas for you, but feel free to be creative - as long as it's summer reading-themed, I'm happy!

• Your summer reading list
• The book you're most looking forward to getting stuck into this summer
• Your favourite place to read during the warmer months
• Top 5 (or even 10) summer reads or summery covers
• What you look for in a summer read

You can also see all previous My Summer Reads posts here

 

Remember to include any images or links to you and your social media you'd like included in the post

 

If you're an author with a summery book out, I'd love to hear from you too! Why not tell us your inspiration for the book? O any research you did?

 

 

I'm looking forward to getting stuck into my summer reading list this year - and shouting about the books I love!

 

Blog Tour: Greedily Yours by Emma Hamilton

Today I'm delighted to be taking part in the blog tour of Greedily Yours with a guest post from the author, Emma Hamilton.

The joy of picking blackberries

Foraging wasn’t a ‘thing’ when I was little but I still loved picking fruit from the hedgerows and farms in Essex during the summer and early autumn and those experiences perhaps helped me with Tom’s enthusiasm for ‘Manna from the hedgerows’. In fact, my memories of fruit picking go hand in hand with memories of my childhood -those hazy summer weekends in June or July or August in the late seventies and early eighties. I’d be dressed in some old clothes, shorts and T-shirt most likely and driven out in a rickety old VW with scratchy wool seats; my brothers by my side. The metal of the seatbelt buckle would have heated up and would be burning through my thin cotton clothes as the engine chugged and we headed out of London towards Essex. I still remember the smell of those plastic baby / small child seats, the ones where your legs would get stuck to the plastic as the temperature increased and tempers frayed. The back of the van would be full of shallow plastic trays and punnets still stained with last year’s raspberries and strawberries. Finally, we’d arrive at the farm and we’d fan out, armed with punnets, trays and baskets to get picking. My favourites were the strawberries and raspberries, it was only when I was older that I could be persuaded to brave the sour thorns of the gooseberries. Blackcurrants and redcurrants were OK but more fiddly and less juicy to eat as you picked. Sitting in the strawberry patches, the straw poking through my sandals, bees buzzing and insects slowly crawling over the humped earth I’d pick and eat, eat and pick; Tell-tale red juice splodges appearing periodically on my T-shirt when I forgot that I was meant to be filling the punnet and instead popped the choicest specimens straight into my mouth. At the end of the day, we’d head for home, a few insects buzzing around the back where the fruit trays were giving off a sweet warm aroma, a taste of the jam, fools, cakes and compotes to come. For days later, my mum would be busy boiling, bubbling and transforming the trays of fruit into delights to last us into autumn.

When I became a student, the joy of finding some unexpected blackberries for free in a hedgerow was even better. Blackberry crumble, blackberry compote, blackberry cupcakes or an autumnal Pavlova would follow as I picked, washed, cooked and hummed, happy at such a bounty from very little effort. As I was writing the first book last summer, the hedgerows in Cornwall where we holidayed were full of blackberries. I went out every evening with some bowls from the cottage and plundered, returning home with salty hair and purple stained fingers and bowl full of blackberries. I added peaches, pears and apples, some flaked almonds, and a crumble of flour, butter and more almonds, or sometimes just ground almond and butter and voila, a delicious blackberry and apple crumble to reheat you after a day spent surfing or walking along the windy clifftops of my favourite county in England.

Foraging like this makes me happy, it conjures up the simplicity of childhood, the happiness of transformation and the comfort of home cooking. In a world that sometimes feels like it’s speeding up, where almost everything can be obtained at the touch of a button, going back to nature, even for a city girl who can’t recognise half of the plants and flowers in the woodland, blackberry picking is easy, delightful, fun and delicious; and what could be better in life than that?

Greedily Yours,

Emma Hamilton

 

 

Guest Post: Suz Korb

Exclusive Interview With Stella Andromeda Sunne
as interviewed by Ethel; an OAP turned age 18 again

Ethel: Thanks for agreeing to do this interview, Stella. As you know we could be gambling in Las Vegas right now, but the readers want to know!

Stella: No problem, Ethel. Thanks for having me! And you can’t gamble in Vegas anymore, you’re only my age thanks to melding with that alien Xygon and him de-aging you in less than thirty seconds flat.

Ethel: Yes well I know where we can get some fake IDs, but that’s beside the point…

Stella: I beg to differ. Where can we get these fake IDs like right now?!

Ethel: Seriously, Stella! Concentrate.

Stella: Okay.

Ethel: Now, for the first question. This is from a reader who heard we were doing this interview from on board the International Space Station and was well jel she couldn’t join us in outer-space. She asks what it’s like kissing the Xygon King in zero gravity.

Stella: Good question! What’s the reader’s name?

Ethel: Oh yes sorry, she goes by @FlashGordina online.

Stella: Oo! I like that name. Okay so yeah it’s kinda great kissing someone as hot as Zar in outerspace, but trying to walk in zero gravity isn’t easy I’ll tell ya! And Zar’s lucky, he just uses his tentacles for everything, including kissing! It’s amazing being wrapped up in his appendages while he smooches me without getting me pregnant in any way whatsoever.

Ethel: You do know how the birds and the bees thing works, right Stella?

Stella: Yeah, why? I’m just saying, Brux got me up the duff without even a kiss, remember?

Ethel: Yes, I remember. Brux is hot. I wish he’d impregnate me.

Stella: You wouldn’t like it.

Ethel: Why not?

Stella: Because becoming a parent requires great responsibility!

Ethel: You didn’t have a baby, Stella.

Stella: I know, but still. You can’t know what it’s like to be a parent…

Ethel: I’m a grandmother of six.

Stella: … in outer space. Let me finish what I was going to say next time.

Ethel: Anyway! Onto the next question. @KingLoq of Ubzervon 4 wants to know if you’ll become his queen…

Stella: Next question! I already have two royal husbands. I don’t need another.

Ethel: @51183422222 is offering laser gun shooting lessons on planet 666 if you’re interested please contact it via wormhole anti-matter mail.

Stella: Planet 666? Where’s that? Hell? No thanks! Freaky.

Ethel: Well that’s it then!

Stella: That’s it? Then what are all these other pages?

Ethel: Stella no! Oh great. Now there’s papers floating all round the ISS cabin. They’re never going to let us interview in space again and you know Jax isn’t in our quadrant of the galaxy until he reverses time…



Thank you for joining Ethel and Stella on their automatically computer transcribed interview. It sort of went downhill in the end there. Sorry about that. Stella isn’t one for sitting still, she’s been on intergalactic space adventures, what do you expect?! And if you want to find out more on Stella’s cosmic journeys, read her book by me: Superstellar; available now.

Love from,

Suz Korb xx

www.suzkorb.com

 

 

 

If you would like to appear here on the blog via a guest post, email me at jenniferjoycewrites@gmail.com

More details here

 

#AmWriting Through The Slump

For Book 4, I set myself a target of writing 10,000 words per week. All was going well and I was reaching my target each week - until the inevitable happened as I approached 40,000 words: The Slump.

The Slump is an evil little sod. It doesn't matter if you've planned out the whole book (which I haven't this time) or have the story set in your head. If The Slump hits you, those words aren't coming out in a hurry.

There are three things I have done to try to combat The Slump:

Planning Chapters

Yep, I fell back on my old friend, planning. I usually plan to death, but I didn't with this book so I took out my notebook and started jotting down what should happen next in my book. I already knew in my head what should happen, but writing down a few notes helped me to separate the next chapter from the rest of the novel, and one chapter doesn't seem quite as daunting as 80-90,000 words. It wasn't a magic cure, but it did help me to focus and move on. Slowly.

Word Races

I've seen people taking part in word races on Twitter but I hadn't actually taken part in one as I was either at the wrong stage of writing (Draft 2 tweaking, edits etc) or I saw the call out tweet too late. But, being in The Slump, it seemed like the perfect time to pop my word race cherry.

Word races take place over an allotted time agreed by those taking part, with a specific timeframe. The ones I took part were an hour long. So, in that hour, you write like a demon, getting down as many words as you can in that hour. Afterwards, you let the others know how you got on. Simple.

Word races are a great way of giving yourself a kick up the arse and get the words down. You only have an hour (or however long is set) so you don't have time to mull over ideas or stare out of the window. The Slump can't win. You don't have time to let it.

Miranda Dickinson's vlog

Miranda Dickinson uploads regular vlogs about her books and writing and luckily a recent vlog covered getting the words down and reaching The End. So I watched that vlog a few times to remind myself that slumps do happen and they do pass. Eventually.

You can watch Miranda's vlog here 

Slowly, the words built up and surprisingly, I reached 70,000 words. I don't quite know how those 30,000 words made it onto my screen, but they did. And that means that The End is tantalisingly in sight. And there's no better motivation than that!

Guest Post: Jenny Marston

My Favourite Children's Books

The reason I decided to write about my favourite children's books I read growing up was because the other day, I remembered the name of one of the best books I read when I was younger. I've been trying to think of the name of this book for, literally, years. I could remember exactly what the cover looked like and what the book was about but I just could not remember the damn title. Then the other day it just hit me. So I swiftly got on Amazon and bought myself an old, used copy of the book so I could re-read it. Isn't it funny how something that you read so long ago can come back and hit you like that? Here are some of the books I used to read as a child:

1) Harry Potter

Of course, Harry Potter would be on here. When I was younger, I didn't actually read these myself – my mum read them too me. Partly because I was lazy but partly because it was my mum who introduced me to books and my love for reading and when my dad used to work nights, I would sleep in my mum's bed and she'd read, not just to me but to herself too at night before we went to sleep. I think we only got up to the 4th book which is why I'm currently reading The Order of the Pheonix, because I'd love to finish the whole set.



2) Sheltie the Shetland Pony series by Peter Clover

I had absolutely no interest in ponies or horses – in fact, I was terrified of horses (and still am) but I completely and utterly loved these books and had every single one in the series. Shetlie the Shetland Pony is about a little girl called Emma who after reluctantly moving to the country, meets Sheltie, the Shetland Pony who quickly becomes her best friend and they go on lots of little adventures together and get up to lots of mischief. These books were just so fun and cute and light-hearted and Sheltie was just the cutest!



3) Jacqueline Wilson

I couldn't just pick one book under the Jacqueline Wilson umbrella and I'm sure 99% of girls will agree with me in saying that she is one of the most influential authors for pre-adolescent girls, ever. Her books come with so many viable lessons and messages which at the time, you probably don't immediately notice because they're so much fun to read as well. Sleepovers was a favourite of mine also The Lottie Project, The Illustrated Mum and of course, Tracy Beaker.



4) The Fire Within by Chris d'Lacey

This was the book in question in my first paragraph – the one that I couldn't think of the name of. I am so excited to receive this in the post so I can re-read it because I just know that as soon as I do, I'll remember reading it as a child. I think this was one of the first somewhat grown up books I read, or at least remember reading and I treasured this book so much because of that. The Fire Within is a fantasy novel about a series of dragons in the modern world and a young boy called David who is given his own special dragon and unlocks the mysteries surrounding them.


The books you read as a child are so important and I know when I have kids, I will surround them with not only modern children's books, but some of the books I used to read as well. I'd love them to experience all that children's literature has to offer.


Thanks for reading! You can find me at:

Blog: www.jennyinneverland.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennymarston_xo

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jennyinneverland

If you would like to appear here on the blog via a guest post, email me at jenniferjoycewrites@gmail.com

More details here