Death At The Seaside - Frances Brody

Nothing ever happens in August, and tenacious sleuth Kate Shackleton deserves a break. Heading off for a long-overdue holiday to Whitby, she visits her school friend Alma who works as a fortune teller there.
Kate had been looking forward to a relaxing seaside sojourn, but upon arrival discovers that Alma's daughter Felicity has disappeared, leaving her mother a note and the pawn ticket for their only asset: a watch-guard. What makes this more intriguing is the jeweller who advanced Felicity the thirty shillings is Jack Phillips, Alma's current gentleman friend.

Kate can't help but become involved, and goes to the jeweller's shop to get some answers. When she makes a horrifying discovery in the back room, it soon becomes clear that her services are needed. Met by a wall of silence by town officials, keen to maintain Whitby's idyllic façade, it's up to Kate - ably assisted by Jim Sykes and Mrs Sugden - to discover the truth behind Felicity's disappearance.
And they say nothing happens in August...

This is the third Kate Shackleton mystery I have read and I have to say, they are rapidly becoming a favorite series! Kate Shackleton is a widow, who after looking for more information about what happened to her husband in the war,  becomes an investigator aided and abetted by Jim Sykes and Mrs Sugden.

In this 8th installment Kate is off to visit an old school friend in Whitby, Alma Turner and her daughter Felicity. What she is not expecting to find is a dead body in the jeweller's or that Felicity has run away with her intended. Soon Kate is up to her neck in intrigue, finding herself under suspicion and locked up in the cells, thinking the worst of her school friend who maybe she doesn't know all that well after all and wondering exactly who might be a killer in the beautiful seaside town.

Death At The Seaside was an absolute pleasure to read, with stunning settings, amazing characters and a mystery that will hopefully bamboozle you as much as it did me! I really enjoyed the chapters that were written from both Felicity's and Alma's points of view. I can't imagine it's a good thing that the thing you're remembered for from school is fainting and Alma strikes me as rather useless unless she has a man! It was nice that all the subterfuge wasn't just happening in Whitby but also in a tiny sailing boat while Felicity desperately tries to find the father who left when she was small.

Favorite characters include Kate herself, her no-nonsense housekeeper Mrs. Sugden, local policeman Sergeant Garvin, Mr Cricklethorpe, and Alma herself - mainly because she just seems so scatty! They're all vividly written and so very lifelike that you almost expect to look up and see them in front of you. I was also very much intrigued to see the return of Chief Inspector Marcus Charles, Kate's love interest for want of a better phrase. Having proposed (and been turned down) in previous books I will always wonder what will happen between them!

I absolutely adore the 1920's setting and Frances Brody's lady investigator is perfect, reminiscent of Miss Marple, Daisy Dalrymple, and Phryne Fisher - some of my favorite period female detectives! There are hints and red herrings scattered all the way through Death At The Seaside and just when you think you've got it worked out? Boom! All your expectations are smashed and it's most definitely not who you think it was. I have the other 5 books in the series sitting in a pile here and I'm waiting for next rainy day where I can curl up and lose myself in the 1920's again! Oh, and if the absolutely stunning covers of the Kate Shackleton mysteries don't make you want to pick up the books to read then I don't think we can be friends anymore....

Death At The Seaside - Frances Brody

ISBN - 9780349406589

Publisher - Piatkus

Release date - October 6 2016

Find - Goodreads | Book Depository

About The Author

Frances Brody is the author of the Kate Shackleton mysteries, as well as many stories and plays for BBC Radio, scripts for television and four sagas, one of which won the HarperCollins Elizabeth Elgin Award. Her stage plays have been toured by several theatre companies and produced at Manchester Library Theatre, the Gate and Nottingham Playhouse, and Jehad was nominated for a Time Out Award.

Website | Twitter |  Goodreads

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Foxcraft: The Elders - Inbali Iserles

Isla's search for her missing brother, Pirie, has brought her to the vast Wildlands. The forest is a treacherous place for a fox cub, but Isla is talented in foxcraft - ancient arts of cunning known only to her kind.

Skilled though she is, Isla's grasp of foxcraft is still new. And she's not alone... A cruel and mysterious fox stalks the forest, with the power to enslave others to his will. In order to survive, Isla must learn to trust in the rustic Wildlands foxes.

But there are tales of others - a council of Elders who are masters of foxcraft, and who warily guard its most potent secrets. If Isla wishes to master her gifts and find her brother, then the Elders may be her only hope.

Following on almost directly from the end of Foxcraft: The Taken Isla is heading into the Wildlands still desperately searching for her brother Pirie. Alone on her travels, she stumbles across a young grey fox named Haiki who also appears to be searching for the Elders. Having been fooled (or so she thinks in the first book) Isla is slow to trust but lets her guard down and they venture further into the Wildlands.

Stumbling across another skulk of foxes the Taken are soon hot on their heels again and joined by new traveling companions after tragedy strikes Isla is sure she's close to discovering her brother. Things aren't that simple, especially not for our plucky heroine and she faces more betrayal, finds the elusive Elders and finally begins to get a grasp on her Foxcraft.

It's difficult to review this without giving too much away, especially from the first book. Needless to say, I absolutely adore foxes so reading about magical foxes? Definitely my cup of tea! Isla is a young cub who has gone through than most cubs, her family is gone and she has no idea where. She has had to learn to rely on herself and as a result has started to mature. In the first book, Isla did a lot of impetuous thinking and landed in hot water more than once. Now she (mostly) thinks before she acts and when it comes to meeting and trusting new animals Isla starts to heed her Greatma's advice "trust no one but family"

Inbali Iserles is one of the six writers that collaborate together on the Erin Hunter books so she has a lot of experience writing about animals. I adored her foxes, they were all so lifelike with very human traits and some absolutely fantastical magical powers. Foxcraft: The Elders is an amazing adventure, a fantasy and a story about the close bonds of family all rolled into one but also about learning to trust others outside of your family. There are some breath-stealing moments when you think it's all over but these moments are resolved, at the very last second sometimes, thanks to Isla's growing maturity and mastery over foxcraft.

A perfect middle grade read for both boys and girls, and for older readers who will enjoy reading about Isla's progress in the fantastical skills of foxcraft.

Foxcraft: The Elders - Inbali Iserles

ISBN - 9781407147147

Publisher - Scholastic

Release date - October 6 2016

Find - Goodreads | Book Depository | Amazon UK

About The Author

Inbali Iserles is the award-winning author of The Tygrine Cat novels and one of the authors behind the bestselling Survivors series under the pseudonym Erin Hunter. She lives outside Oxford.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Writing: Top Tips & When To Ignore Them - Mark Latham

 

Top Tips (and When to Ignore Them)

Mark A Latham

When you’re an aspiring writer, everyone wants to give you advice. And because you’re aspiring, you soak it up like a sponge (or, at least, you probably should). The problem is that when I say everyone, I mean everyone. No matter what level of writing success a writer has or hasn’t achieved, or whether they’ve even published anything beyond that self-help book gathering dust on a Waterstones shelf, they’re still ready to throw advice at newbies. The old chestnuts are there – Find your voice! Show, don’t tell! Think about POV! Don’t use too many exclamation marks! (Cough).

However, when you actually get down to the nuts and bolts of writing and start to get your work out there for public consumption, you’ll often realise that large swathes of the advice you were offered were simply… irrelevant. I certainly did. Sometimes, by trying to obey the rules, you end up hamstringing yourself, rather than find your own path. Only by failing, do we learn, young padawan. (Cough, again).

So I’m not going to offer you any advice in this blog. Well, I am, but not like that. No, I’m simply going to pass on the best bits of advice I ever received – things that I actually think on regularly, and that have stuck with me.

Never Compromise! 

 

This is a recent piece of advice I heard from SF author Rob Boffard, which is similar – but not quite the same – as Stephen King’s famous quote ‘first write for yourself, then the audience’. What he’s saying is, if you love writing a certain way (in his case, rip-roaring, fast-paced actioners; in my case, atmospheric and macabre stories), don’t change because people don’t like your style. He’s not saying ‘never listen to criticism’. He’s saying ‘find the audience that loves the style you write in, and write for them’. People telling Rob to write some slow, atmospheric scenes is like people telling me to write a happy ending full of rainbows and ponies. Ain’t gonna happen.

Never Respond to Negative Reviews

 

I’ve heard this many times, and boy is it true! Learn from them. Shout at them. Get mad. Get upset. Or just ignore them… whatever. Bad reviews are part of life. Some of them will come about because you genuinely messed up, and that mistake was unforgivable to a particular reviewer. Some will be because the reviewer just doesn’t get what you’re about, or missed some nuance in the story that other readers were okay with. It doesn’t matter. If you are in any doubt as to whether or not you should ever respond to criticism on the internet, just Google Stephan J Harper, read the tale of woe that follows, and think again!

Listen to your Editor

 

Hmm, turns out this gem actually is mine. So I lied, I am going to give you advice. A good editor is everything to a good book. Well, not everything – you have to write the damn thing first. But a good editor will help you make it shine. What do I mean by ‘good’ editor? One who works with you in a two-way process. One who has a clear understanding of your vision, a clear vision themselves of how the book will be positioned in the marketplace, and who the target audience is. Only then can they truly advise and guide you. And the process can be painful – you might decide to ignore some of their advice, or find a different solution than the one they suggest, but do so as part of an open and collaborative process, rather than from a position of defensiveness, and the book will be better for it.

And finally, one from Stephen King himself:

Writing is about getting happy. 

 

‘Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid or making friends. Writing is magic, as much as the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.’ I’m reminded of this every time I whinge about how hard my day has been, when the words won’t come on the page, or I feel like I’ve done a lousy job. Draw a line under it, and remember you’re doing the thing you love. It should make you happy, even when it seems like the hardest thing in the world. So go to bed, and get back at it the next morning, thinking happy thoughts!

 
Mark A. Latham is a writer, editor, history nerd, frustrated grunge singer and amateur baker from Staffordshire, UK. A recent immigrant to Nottingham, he lives in a very old house (sadly not haunted), and is still regarded as a foreigner.

Formerly the editor of White Dwarf magazine, Mark dabbled in tabletop games design before becoming a full-time author. A writer of strange, fantastical and macabre tales, his short stories have been published by Titan Books and Black Library Publishing. Revelling in the moniker ‘the Lost Victorian’, Mark’s research into nineteenth-century life has become something of an obsession, which he salves by writing on the subject for far longer than can be considered healthy.

Goodreads | Website | Twitter

Waiting On Wednesday #172 - The Lonely Hearts Hotel

Waiting On Wednesday, where we put the spotlight on upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating, is hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.

This week's choice is -

The Lonely Hearts Hotel - Heather O'Neill

ISBN - 9780735213739

Publisher - Riverhead Books

Release date - February 7 2017

Find - Goodreads | Book Depository 

With echoes of The Night Circus, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans in love with each other since they can remember whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future.

The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one's origins. It might also take true love.

Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1910. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen.

Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city's underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes after years of searching and desperate poverty the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same. 

With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.

I stumbled across this in somebody's round-up of forthcoming releases and I cannot remember where so apologies to whoever it was! If this is anywhere near as good as The Night Circus then I shall be glad I found it. A magical historical novel with musical language can't be all bad...

September New Release Giveaway!

Welcome to the September 2016 New Release Giveaway Hop, hosted by It Starts At Midnight! The hop runs from today through to midnight on September 30 2016. Up for grabs is any new release this month up to the value of $22 from the Book Depository as long as they deliver to your country - find the list of countries here. 

All you have to do is choose any new release published in September and fill out the rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the linky for lots of other chances to win, thanks for entering and good luck!

Bookmarked... #25

The return of the (mostly) weekly post letting you all know what I'm reading and have lined up for the week! It's my own version of Sheila at Book Journey's It's Monday What Are You Reading (now hosted by Kathryn at Book Date) and I have her permission to rename it for my own nefarious reasons...

I thought I'd got a lot of reading done this week but looking back on my reading journal tells another story. I still don't know what I did with my spare time over the last week as I don't seem to have achieved much! I did start watching some horror movies in preparation for my R.I.P. & Spooky Sunday posts but apart from that? Nothing much got done...

Read

I absolutely loved In The Woods! I honestly don't know why it's taken me so long to read it. I own a copy of this but it's been so long since I bought it that it's gone AWOL and I had to borrow a copy from the library.

Mixed feelings about Mr. Splitfoot... I loved some of it and hated some of it. That probably explains why it's taken me so long to read it!

Still reading

I'm struggling with this one. I quite enjoyed the first book but this one isn't holding my attention.

I'm savouring this book. I'm such a huge fan of Shirley Jackson so I like to take my time with everything I read or re-read! Let Me Tell You is more than likely going to end up on my top ten books of the year list.

Started

Both of these are for my R.I.P. challenge! Alison Littlewood is fast becoming a favorite author for me. I love Path Of Needles and A Cold Season, I'm really enjoying Unquiet House so far and I just got Hidden People from Netgalley so that may well be next on the reading pile! I picked Fell up on a whim at the library but so far, so good!

What have you been reading recently? Or not?!

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril XI

Better late than never but it's that time of year again, R.I.P. and featuring the spectacular artwork of Abigail Larson! Time to dig out all your spooky, scary, gothic, mysterious & thrilling reads/movies and make sure all the lights are on... Carl from Stainless Steel Droppings has resumed hosting duties again this year so head on over if you want to join in the peril too. The only thing that seems to be missing this year is a group read of something deliciously creepy...

Read at least four books that come under these categories -

Mystery
Suspense
Thriller
Gothic
Horror
Dark Fantasy

Easy! I think that's the majority of the books on my shelves. I have plenty to choose from, including a few review titles which I've been saving for this challenge.

I've got quite a few short story collections lined up so looking forward to this one!

I think this is the only peril in which I vaguely succeeded last year. I watch horror movies on a regular basis, even more so through September and October so Spooky Sunday will be returning!