NEWLY RELEASED! In Plain Sight

Based on a long hoarded story told from mother to daughter. A family history retold with love for those gone by.

As the dark clouds of WW2 begin to roll away from England’s shores, lives change forever in the Croft household.

Moira waits impatiently to leave her loathed boarding school, dreaming about entering the male dominated world of horse racing. Her brother Peter, an RAF bomb aimer, struggles with both monotony and fear as he flies with Bomber Command over Europe.

Peace finally arrives, and the family moves to a new home, which ever entrepreneurial Father turns into a Country Club. Mother meddles and tries to thwart everyone’s plans with her own.

Can they all build new lives, or is there heartbreak before each one finds happiness in the post-war world?

Free on Kindle Unlimited. Paperback and eBook. 

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Writer Review: Alex Cotton

I felt bound to do an author review as I haven’t enjoyed someone’s work so much for a long time!

I picked up the first of Alex’s books on the freebies and I was so hooked, that I had to read them all. Born the same year, we share many of the same experiences from childhood through to teenage and marriage – but  I’m not saying exactly which apart from the country dancing!  However, what struck me through reading these parallel experiences, is as you’re growing, you feel that you are unique and have no conception that others are going through the same experiences and same culture shock – and although we don’t share this one, I never realized just how many other kids went off and got the make-up out after David Bowie’s Starman performance on TOTP until I heard it on a tv programme!

The now completed Quadrology (my word) takes us through Alex’s marriage, birth and  childhood of her daughter until today, and her family doesn’t get any less wacky. The four could easily make one volume, hilarious and well rounded.

Alex has a unique and funny style. The books could have been written as deeply dark and traumatic, but no, they’re treated with humour, tolerance with a straightforward voice that keeps you gripped and want to read on. I hope she never has an editor tell her to change her style, do this and that to the editing of the works, she is unique, but I imagine form reading her work, she would probably just tell the aforesaid editor to get stuffed! I’d love to see her try some fiction!

So any ladies born in the early sixties, who were teenagers in the 70s, read and just enjoy, and see a another perceptive on your own growing years!

Book of July;The Tower of Babel by G.T. Anders

Exciting, new, fresh, a complete suprise!

Having been asked to review this book, I was looking forward to a dip into Science Fiction  being a child of the Asimov generation, but not having read much SciFi for years.

A dying world, where a new Tower of Babel is being built.  A hero who is an artist and a sort of  mystic and a  call to go back to complete a mission.  What’s going on?  I’m not going to tell. Suffice to say, this is a book with a plot that is fulfilled in all the literary ways.  It has drama and great suspense, and it’s unique.  The words of the hero Austin is often more poetic than prose. G.T Anders has experimented with new ideas with prose, and they work, they aren’t intrusive, they build this fantastic, sad world. There are monsters and mysteries and bad baddies and a narrative that spoon feeds you nothing. No long-winded explanations, you have to work at it like the characters but you are carried along.   The ending is beautiful in it’s technique and the final divine love that comes through.

Amazing.  This book needs to be picked up by a Publisher.  Now.

Coffee, Tea, The Gypsy and Me by Caroline James

You can now click on the picture for more!

It was actually the title that caught me eye, as it sounded a bit different to the run of the mill and on a quick read thought the link to the horse fair would make it interesting.  I’m going to have to try so hard not to spoil it, but it was an un- putable downer for me and I loved it.

Set in the 1980s, the setting was so accurately described in that I could see the outfits that Jo was wearing and could see how the politics of the time had their effect on the narrative.  The year of this book I was busy having my daughter so this made the book a bit special too! My only reservation was that when she buys Kirkton house, we don’t hear much of the renovations, and that makes it seem to easy – maybe I watch Gand designs too much, but old buildings always have unexpected problems.  Jo’s set downs of her errant husband are so funny he’s well and truly stitched up himself by the end.  There are horses which of course is a bonus for me and the description of the trotting race reminded my of the time we saw Farnham -by pass being closed by a rolling road of cars as a pair raced down it on a Sunday morning. The only thing that didn’t work for me was John, he had so little depth and I couldn’t really see why Jo fell for him!

Caroline’s depictions of life in a busy hotel, a small village, the gypsy world, made this book different for me.  It’s almost as if she has post written, the pre heroine of so many heroines in romances today!

A week at the Beach by Virginia Jewel

Now you can click on the image to see more!

I must admit to being completely shallow and downloaded the book because I liked the cover. I did think maybe this is going to be a rich bitch sex romp type thing and was ready to put it down.    It does appear to start that way, but no, while Chrissy lives well to the stereotype, Cami while seemingly a hanger-on, is not.

What I loved is the simplicity of the tale, although some might say its a bit understated and slightly lacking in depth, but it reminds me in essence of the Barbara Pymm books (that dates me), in that in its straightforwardness, you can sit and be carried along, enjoying the dialogue (which it majors in) and in the simplicity enjoy.

Cami has all the heroine’s typical traits of being self unaware,  and moves to a new awareness of her past and how her life has been.  I don’t think Nick changed particularly, but he was always strong, after what he had overcome.  Oh, its so difficult not to write a spoiler!

The reviews I’ve read seem to echo what I’m saying too! I feel the book description for me is a bit overstated, but a good sales pitch!  Enjoy!