STORYWORLD

New books on my shelves: Feature and Follow Friday #168 New books on my shelves include: Creepy, suspenseful thriller with unexpected plot twists The second book in this exciting series Love all the Gillian Flynn books. This is her first novel but the last one of hers I've read. I hope she comes out with another one soon! WHERE DO I LIKE TO READ? Here's a beautiful spot in the park where I like to take a book sometimes. It's a Japanese garden. Very peaceful!

I thought I'd share with you a little more background info on life in a mining village during the 19th and first half of the 20th century. This will give you an insight into the world of THE PITMAN'S DAUGHTER. In my grandmother's house I always remember a tin bath hanging on the wall because of course there wasn't an actual bathroom in most colliery houses. The toilet was outside (a flush one thankfully by the 1940's) and most washing was done at the scullery sink. Often the tin bath was kept out in the yard. Pit baths were available for miners after a shift was done, which really eased the workload of the miners' wives but some miners preferred not to use them.  Info from The People's Collection of Wales reveals that   some miners refused to wash the coal dust from the small of their back because they thought it would diminish their strength.   Most often bath night was on a Friday. It took place in the kitchen - the nerve-centre of the house. The tin...

Miners' wives hang out the washing(1940's) # 1 - Thank you for all your support with my new release THE PITMAN'S DAUGHTER! Sales are really starting to take off, particularly in the UK (Thanks to all of you in the North-East) with some in the USA, some in Canada and some actually in Germany! This has also improved sales of THE FOREVER ONES. Also, I made some enquiries, Amazon.ca has lowered the paperback price of THE PITMAN'S DAUGHTER"to a more reasonable one. #2 - OOPS! If you ordered a paperback version of THE PITMAN'S DAUGHTER, you may or may not have noticed a typo on the back cover. It reads "Their relationship is complicated by the tragic Maggie, abused wife of seven children and Ella, the childless street gossip with her nose in everyone’s business." No it's not THAT kind of story. It should read, "Maggie, abused mother of seven children." My apologies for that oversight. It's being corrected as we speak but...

Laura's latest cake! Giant cupcake with roses Once  in a while it's great to feature something totally different. To step away from fiction and focus on something  really delectable, fun, yummy and decadent. Something that just makes you happy. I'm talking about cakes. And not just any cake. I mean the CAKE BOSS TYPE!     Check out these gorgeous cakes made by my daughter,  Laura. She's a designer and this is her latest interest. These cakes were custom made for some very special people. The Vegas Cake complete with fondant dice!     Bowtie and suspenders                   Barbie Girl I think they're gorgeous and one thing's for sure - they made the recipients very, very happy so why don't you take a break on this Friday 13th and make, buy or order the most decadent cake you can think of. Or better still - get Laura to make you one! You'll feel way better for it.

Today's post is just a quick one. I'll be putting something longer out next week! For my Canadian followers, I just want to let you know how to find a PRINT/PAPERBACK version of THE PITMAN'S DAUGHTER. Go to Amazon.com to buy it here  (direct link to my page). You'll find the reasonable price of $12.95 +postage. If you go on Amazon.ca they're charging about $32 and I have no clue why.  That's not the price I fixed.  Customers on Amazon.co.uk are fine. The price is the one I set. Otherwise, if you live in my city, both of my books, THE FOREVER ONES and THE PITMAN'S DAUGHTER will be available at the wonderful McNally Robinson Bookstore . The Forever Ones is there now in the Teens section and The Pitman's Daughter will be available there next week. Pay a visit to your local bookstore and ask about my books. They can order them if you ask OR you can get them to contact me directly and I'll supply them.  It's a complicated business but that...

This post was inspired by another terrific blogger  +Jennifer Ricketts  .  I read her post and got thinking about how writers often struggle with character development because it really is the most important aspect of writing a book.  It's a writer's biggest challenge to create unique characters that take on a life of their own and infiltrate the reader's life so completely that saying goodbye at the end of the book is worse than a teen breakup! Memorable characters often stay in the reader's mind forever, conjured up again when someone else reads the book and reminds them. So how do writers come up with characters?  Here's a few ideas on that: the writer often uses aspects of their own character or the person they'd secretly like to be  the writer takes aspects of people they know (friends and particularly family) and combines quirks, habits, physical attributes into a composite character. (Beware friends/relatives of authors.  You could...