Hornsea Writer, Madeleine McDonald, On Writing

Give me a 3-word summary of what you will be doing, writing-wise, in the coming year.

Anything and everything.

Tell me more:

In 2022 my aim was to submit something somewhere once a week to competitions or anthologies that either paid a cash prize or rewarded authors indirectly by publishing under an ISBN number. Alas, online magazines that fill their pages by asking authors to work for no pay are mushrooming, and are to be avoided like the plague.

I am grateful to those generous writers who donate their time and effort to spread the word among fellow scribes by posting lists of worthwhile opportunities on the Internet.

In terms of success, in 2022, I had three short stories, and two non-fiction pieces published. 2023 has started well, with the publication of one poem and two cosy crime shorts.

A new departure for me was selecting and introducing stories for The Best of Cafe Lit 11. All the authors published on the CafeLit website are good writers, and selecting only a few took careful thought.

Tell me about a writing-related event from last year

The success I relished the most was to win Press 53's monthly competition to tell a story in 53 words exactly, after submitting to them for years. Their contest is great fun and I shall carry on trying.

Learn more about Madeleine here.

Forthcoming publication: Crime and Punishment in Tudor England

Crime and Punishment in Tudor England: From Alchemists to Zealots tells the story of the enactment of law and its penalties from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. 

The sixteenth century was remarkable in many ways. In England, it was the century of the Tudor Dynasty. It heralded the Reformation, William Shakespeare, the first appearance of bottled beer in London pubs, Sir Francis Drake, and the Renaissance. Oh, and the Spanish Armadas―all five of them! Yes, five armadas and all failures. 

 

 It was a watershed century for crime and punishment. Henry VII’s paranoia about the loyalty of the nobility led to military-trained vagrants causing mayhem and murder. Henry VIII’s Reformation meant executions of those refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. State-controlled religion―summed up through the five reigns as Roman Catholic; Anglo-Catholic; Protestant; Roman Catholic, and Sort of Protestant but I don’t mind so long as you swear the Oath of Supremacy―became an increasingly complex, not to say confusing, issue for ordinary people. 

 

 Although primary sources are rare and sometimes incomplete, the life of criminals and the punishments meted out to them still fascinates. 

 

Read about:

·       John Daniell and how he tried to blackmail the Earl of Essex.

·       The Stafford insurrection of 1486, the first serious opposition to the new king.

·       The activities of con-man extraordinaire, Gregory Wisdom, and many more. 

 

Crime and punishment didn’t start with the Tudors and this book summarises judicial practices built on tradition from the Roman occupation. It covers often gory details―what happens to the body when it is beheaded, burned, boiled, or hanged?

Arranged in alphabetical order of crimes, it recounts tales of blackmail, infanticide, kidnapping, heresy, and sumptuary laws. Told with occasional low-key humour, the book also includes Tavern Talk, snippets of quirky information. 

  Dip into it at your pleasure.

 

 Crime and Punishment in Tudor England is available from all outlets for pre-order now. 

Publication date 30^th August 2023.

You can read more about April Taylor here:

 Twitter  Amazon UK  Amazon USA YouTube

Hornsea Writer, April Taylor, On Writing

Give me a 3-word summary of what you will be doing, writing-wise, in the coming year.

Reissues. New series. Non-fiction

 

Tell me more

Dangers of Destiny – the all-new first book in the Tudor alternate-history-crime series, formerly published by Harlequin, will be published by March 2023. The other books in the series will be edited and re-issued throughout the year.

Series title will be The Luke Ballard Chronicles.

New series – current working title: The Guisborough Guardian.

 

The theme for the series is: Darkness cannot claim what the light refuses to surrender.

Catalogue of Evil is the first in the series. An historical crime novel set in 1971. The action centres around the market town of Guisborough in North Yorkshire. A series of young adult girls have been abducted and killed in a ritualistic manner.

When one of her library assistants becomes a victim, librarian Octavia Otterburn and her friend, historian Jeffrey Thompson set out to solve the murders. It is only as they delve deeper they discover the true magnitude of the problems—and dangers— they face.

 

Triumph of the Heart is a romantic suspense novel set in the 15^th century Wars of the Roses. The theme is becoming who you are, despite all opposition, is the true beginning of happiness.

 

Dependent upon acceptance, a non-fiction for Pen & Sword. The subject is under discussion.

 

 

Tell me about a writing-related event from last year

I wrote my first commission for Pen & Sword Publishing. Crime and Punishment in Tudor England will be published in July 2023. This was a completely new departure for me and stemmed from the Tudor alternate-history-crime books published by Harlequin under the series title The Tudor Enigma.

The book was very intense, but, as a librarian, I loved all the research, but, not unnaturally, found some of the details distressing. While I have made every effort to back up the facts—with over 400 endnotes (that was fun!)—the writing remains informative but with low-key humour. It can be read in sequence or dipped into. There are also snippets of interesting information at the end of each section called Tavern Talk.

It has been received very positively by my editor and the dust-jacket, which will be revealed in due course, is stunning.

 

Learn more about April here.

Hornsea Writer, Penny Grubb, On Writing

Image: Mystic Art Design, Pixabay

Give me a 3-word summary of what you will be doing, writing-wise, in the coming year.

Editing, writing, blogging.

Tell me more:

EDITING: I’m editing for a publisher. I’m a second editor on books that are being prepared for publication later in the year. The big plus is that it pushes me into reading books I wouldn’t otherwise look at. If I were an initial reader, rather than 2nd editor, that big plus could be an equally big minus, as I might get stuck with badly written books that were a chore to wade through.

However, these are books that have already been approved and gone through initial edits from good editors. They might not be titles that I would have picked up off a shelf, but they are, by definition, good reads.

I’m currently editing an epic fantasy, a contemporary relationships story, and a historical romance. Not that I edit 3 at a time, but they overlap or I would miss my deadlines. I would never have chosen these 3 books to take on a trip with me, and yet if I had, I would not have been disappointed. Although I occasionally fall into the wrong fictional world and confuse myself over why a character in a WW2 drama is not using magic powers, I have become totally engaged in all 3 books.

These initial three have set a high bar for books still in the pipeline. I have hedgehog adventures, folk tales, and space adventures yet to come. Can’t wait!

WRITING: I completed a novel at the start of the year. It’s a crime story set in the 1990s. I’m hoping it’s at the final polish stage, but you know how it is, when you get too close to a book, you no longer see the flaws, the ambiguities, the plot holes. Several people are reading the manuscript for me and I’m leaving it well alone for a few months.

Meanwhile, I hope to get started on a new novel. I’m nurturing an idea for a new installment in my Private Investigator series. I’m also dabbling with a “slightly sci-fi” but given that “slightly sci-fi” isn’t a recognised genre, I might have difficulty placing it.

BLOGGING: I blog about life, the universe, and everything as the mood takes me. This is an article about handbags as a cause of marital strife. This one is about my flock of dinosaurs. And this looks into the oddities of writing life.

Tell me about a writing-related event from last year

My children’s book Horse of the Same Colour, written as Melodie Trudeaux, was launched in the autumn. The book is a sequel to Horse of a Different Colour. The launch video features the first chapter from each book.

Learn more about Penny here.

Valentine's Romance Promotion!

 

For the love of Romance, from 10th until 15th there are stepped price promotions via Amazon UK and Amazon USA on Historicals by Linda Acaster.

Beneath The Shining Mountains is set in the region now known as Wyoming and Montana in the USA; the date the early 1800s. For the Apsaroke people, the place is Apsaroke lands; the time, the good years between the coming of the horse and the arrival of land-hungry settlers. Game was plentiful; the creeks ran clear. A man could prove his worth by his military exploits – and a woman, if she wanted, could ensnare herself her chosen husband. But why would a man with so many lovers want to take a wife?

Native American daily life on the northern Plains has enthralled Linda since childhood —obviously too many Westerns watched on television — and over the years she collected a substantial reference library on what she discovered was both an ever-expanding subject and a fascinating way of life.

A chance meeting with like-minded individuals led to pow-wows in the UK, which is when her research morphed into what is now considered ‘experimental archaeology’. Beneath The Shining Mountains blossomed from this.

“...loved learning about their customs and rich culture...”


Hostage of the Heart is set very much in Britain, on the Welsh Marches, during the autumn of 1066 when the destiny of both Wales and England hung in the balance because of outside forces.

With the northern militia hurrying to York in support of the new king, Rhodri ap Hywel, prince of the Welsh, sweeps out of the forest to reclaim by force stolen lands, taking the Saxon Lady Dena as a battle hostage. But who is the more barbaric, a man who protects his people by the strength of his sword-arm, or Dena’s kinsfolk who swear fealty to a canon of falsehoods and refuse to pay her ransom?

“...a historical that really grips the reader with lots of twists and turns...”


The novels are clean Romantic Suspense, and between them have over 90 review ratings. Promotional prices start at 99p / 99c today rising back to full price on Wednesday evening. Grab them while you can, and snuggle down with a Valentine’s read of Romance and Adventure! 

Global Links:    Beneath The Shining Mountains            Hostage of the Heart

Crime and Punishment

I enjoy writing what I think of as short cosy crime mysteries. 

Murder or mayhem remain implausible, and that implausibility allows them to be entertaining. There is plenty of domestic detail, crimes happen offstage with no grisly details, and the police rarely make an appearance. All this can be wrapped up satisfactorily in short story form.

What I have realised, looking back, is that all my victims somehow deserved their fate. There is the over-zealous council official, the supercilious husband forever putting his wife down, the Indian mother-in-law plotting to poison her half-English daughter-in-law, the high-flying executive who pushes her colleague to suicide, the love rat who destroys his girlfriend’s self-esteem, the money-grabbing antiques dealer, and – crème de la crime – the woman who poisons the dog alongside her intended victim.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

The ever entertaining Crimeucopia anthologies offer something for everyone and are published in ebook and paperback by Murderous Ink Press and available on Amazon, for example

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crimeucopia-Well-Right-Back-After/dp/1909498424/

 

Madeleine McDonald

2023 - The Year To Kick Back And Relaaax

Hello and welcome to a new day, a new month, a new year: 2023!!

Members of Hornsea Writers trust you enjoyed your Christmas feasting – food, drink, and reading books.

Fiction is what we offer, escape portals into other worlds to make your own, to ease your way through the absurdities of real life. And we have plenty to offer.

Do you believe in unicorns? 

Evidently Penny Grubb does, or at least Melodie Trudeaux, her alter ego who keeps her humorous Young Teen fiction separate from her seriously adult Crime novels. Horse of the Same Colour is the sequel to Horse of a Different Colour, with Megan and Amy finding more trouble with horses… and otherworldly beasts.

Paperback, Ebook, Kindle Unlimited

Linda Acaster moved from Contemporary Fantasy to Contemporary Mystery for The Forever House. 

After the death of her husband, Caroline Haynes is doing her best to carry on renovating their house. But with her son and his family only available on video calls, she has too much time to think. Does anyone ever know what layers of wallpaper might reveal? Or layers of life?

Paperback, Ebook, Kindle Unlimited

Very hot off the press comes Who Wants To Live Forever? April Taylor’s final novel in the Georgia Pattison Mystery series. 

Georgia may at last have agreed to marry her beloved Sir Edward Broome, but an unknown man calling halt mid-service is just the beginning of Gerogia’s problems in this multi-layered story of intrigue and corruption.

Ebook, Kindle Unlimited    

Other members have not been slothful. Many are writing fiction and non-fiction shorts for a variety of print and digital imprints, with Shellie Horst’s Whitebridge Heroes gaining an Honorable Mention in the prestigious “Writers of the Future” competition.  

Madeleine McDonald’s Enchantment in Morocco has a new cover, and she won an award from Press 53 for a flash fiction tale. Joy Stonehouse is putting the finishing touches to the fourth in her faction series set in 18th century Reighton, Yorkshire. Stuart Aken, author of An Excess of… and an SF trilogy set on Mars, has penned a contemporary Christmas short available to read on his website.

On the non-fiction front, Karen Whitchurch continues to entertain and inform with her monthly newspaper column on living with dogs.

Enjoy!

The Last Georgia Pattison Mystery and harp seals...

Fledging a book is quite a process. Not just the enjoyable creating the story bit, but the sometimes less than enjoyable editing. Then more editing. And just another edit, until the author is sick and tired of seeing/reading/hearing about the wretched book.

I decided it was time to send my first serial detective, early-music soprano, Georgia Pattison, on her final adventure. Why? Because new writing avenues beckon. 2023 is already planned and there isn’t room for our intrepid heroine. There may come a time when I fancy bringing her out into the cold light of day again.

In Who Wants To Live Forever, Georgia gets what is possibly the biggest shock of her life. It leaves her conflicted enough to put everything good in her life on the line in order to find this particular killer. And she believes that all her past experience in helping DCI Hamilton find killers, has led up to this one case. It is the one she cannot walk away from.

If you would like to read more about why some authors are like harp seals, you can find my blog here:

https://authorapriltaylor.blogspot.com/2022/12/why-are-some-authors-like-harp-seals.html

If you would like to buy the book, you will find it here: https://mybook.to/RRGsWE

And if you would like to find out more about April Taylor:

You can find me on Facebook, Twitter Amazon UK

53 Words, No More, No Less

Winston, the Press 53 mascot

The small indie publishing house Press 53 runs a monthly writing competition, offering a different prompt each month and inviting short stories of exactly 53 words. I often enter the competition, for the fun of devising a new story within the word limit.

This is the first time I have won, with a retelling of the Philemon and Baucis legend. I’m convinced it would have been the husband who jumped in and asked the gods that the couple might die at the same time. Trust a man to go for the grand gesture. Whereas the wife would have asked for something more practical. 

Photo by David Tip on Unsplash

You can read my story here.

Madeleine McDonald enjoys the challenge of writing flash fiction. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio and published in various anthologies. Her novels include the contemporaries Enchantment in Morocco and The Rescued Heart, and the historical A Shackled Inheritance.