Author Archives: R Cawkwell

Hi I'm Rosemarie and I like to write. I write short stories and longer fiction, poetry and occasionally articles. I'm working on quite a few things at the minute and wouldn't mind one day actually getting published in print.

Review: ‘Mavis and Dot’, by Angela Petch

Mavis and Dot Front Cover in RGB mode for screens jpg

Blurb

A warm slice of life, funny, feel-good, yet poignant. Introducing two eccentric ladies who form an unlikely friendship.Meet Mavis and Dot – two colourful, retired ladies who live in Worthington-on-Sea, where there are charity shops galore. Apart from bargain hunting, they manage to tangle themselves in escapades involving illegal immigrants, night clubs, nude modelling, errant toupees and more. And then there’s Mal, the lovable dog who nobody else wants. A gently humorous, often side-splitting, heart-warming snapshot of two memorable characters with past secrets and passions. Escape for a couple of hours into this snapshot of a faded, British seaside town. You’ll laugh and cry but probably laugh more.”This book is quirky and individual, and has great pathos…[it] will resonate with a lot of readers.” Gill Kaye – Editor of Ingenu(e). Written with a light touch in memory of a dear friend who passed away from ovarian cancer, Angela Petch’s seaside tale is a departure from her successful Tuscan novels.

All profits from the sale of the books will go towards research into the cure for cancer.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Mavis and Dot’, by Angela Petch”

November Bonus Review #7

Published By: Pen & Sword

Publication Date: 4th October 2018

I.S.B.N.: 9781526722034

Format: Hardback

Price: £15.99

Purchase Link

Blurb

She is the most prolific children’s author in history, but Enid Blyton is also the most controversial. A remarkable woman who wrote hundreds of books in a career spanning forty years, even her razor sharp mind could never have predicted her enormous global audience. Now, fifty years after her death, Enid remains a phenomenon, with sales outstripping every rival.

Parents and teachers lobbied against Enid’s books, complaining they were simplistic, repetitive and littered with sexist and snobbish undertones. Blatant racist slurs were particularly shockingly; foreign and working class characters were treated with a distain that horrifies modern readers. But regardless of the criticism, Enid worked until she could not physically write another word, famously producing thousands of words a day hunched over her manual typewriter.

She imaged a more innocent world, where children roamed unsupervised, and problems were solved with midnight feasts or glorious picnics with lashings of ginger beer. Smugglers, thieves, spies and kidnappers were thwarted by fearless gangs who easily outwitted the police, while popular schoolgirls scored winning goals in nail-biting lacrosse matches.

Enid carefully crafted her public image to ensure her fans only knew of this sunny persona, but behind the scenes, she weaved elaborate stories to conceal infidelities, betrayals and unconventional friendships, lied about her childhood and never fully recovered from her parent’s marriage collapsing. She grew up convinced that her beloved father abandoned her for someone he loved more, and few could ever measure up to her impossible standards.

A complex and immature woman, Enid was plagued by insecurities and haunted by a dark past. She was prone to bursts of furious temper, yet was a shrewd businesswoman years ahead of her time. She may not have been particularly likeable, and her stories infuriatingly unimaginative, but she left a vast literary legacy to generations of children.

Continue reading “November Bonus Review #7”

Blog Tour Calendar: ‘A Hollow Sky’, by M. Sean Coleman

Earlier in the month I took part in the blog blitz for the author’s first novel, ‘The Cookoo Wood‘, and now I’m taking part in the blog tour for his second novel, ‘A Hollow Sky’. My review post will be up on the 25th.

A Hollow Sky Full Tour Banner

Book Spotlight: ‘The 4th Victim’, by John Mead

I had planned to review this novel for the blog but I wasn’t well so I ad to turn the post into a spotlight post instead.

Mead1

Blurb

Whitechapel is being gentrified. The many green spaces of the area, which typify London as a capital city, give the illusion of peace, tranquility and clean air but are also places to find drug dealers, sexual encounters and murder.

Detective Sergeant Julie Lukula doesn’t dislike Inspector Matthew Merry but he has hardly set the world of the Murder Investigation Team East alight. And, it looks as if the inspector is already putting the death of the young female jogger, found in the park with her head bashed in, down to a mugging gone wrong. The victim deserves more. However, the inspector isn’t ruling anything out – the evidence will, eventually, lead him to an answer.

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fourth-Victim-John-Mead/dp/1912575361/

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-fourth-victim/john-mead/9781912575367

 

Author Bio –

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Born in the mid-fifties in East London, on part of the largest council estate ever built. I was the first pupil from my local secondary modern school to attend university.

I have travelled extensively during my life from America to Tibet. I enjoy going to the theatre, reading and going to the pub. It is, perhaps, no surprise that I am an avid ‘people watcher’ and love to find out about people, their lives, culture and history.

Many of the occurrences recounted and the characters found in my novels are based on real incidents and people I have come across. Although I have allowed myself a wide degree of poetic licence in writing about the main characters, their motivations and the killings that are depicted.

Social Media Links –

Amazon author profile: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07B8SQ2ZH

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnMeadAuthor

Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17891273.John_Mead

November Bonus Review #6

Landru’s SecretPublished By: Pen & Sword

Publication Date: 10th October 2018

Format: Hardback

I.S.B.N.: 9781526715296

Price: £15.99

Purchase Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurb

On 12 April 1919, the Paris police arrested a bald, short, 50-year-old swindler at his apartment near the Gare du Nord, acting on a lead from a humble housemaid. A century later, Henri Désiré Landru remains the most notorious and enigmatic serial killer in French criminal history, a riddle at the heart of an unsolved murder puzzle.

The official version of Landru’s lethal rampage was so shocking that it almost defied belief. According to the authorities, Landru had made “romantic contact” with 283 women during the First World War, luring ten of them to his country houses outside Paris where he killed them for their money.

Yet no bodies were ever found, while Landru obdurately protested his innocence. “It is for you to prove the deeds of which I am accused,” he sneered at the investigating magistrate.

The true story of l’affaire Landru, buried in the Paris police archives for the past century, was altogether more disturbing. In Landru’s Secret, Richard Tomlinson draws on more than 5,000 pages of original case documents, including witness statements, police reports and private correspondence, to reveal for the first time that:

Landru killed more women than the 10 victims on the charge sheet.

The police failed to trace at least 72 of the women he contacted.

The authorities ignored the key victim who explained why the killings began.

Landru did not kill for money, but to revel in his power over what he called the “feeble sex”.

Lavishly illustrated with previous unpublished photographs, Landru’s Secret is a story for our times: a female revengers’ tragedy starring the mothers and sisters of the missing fiancées, a lethal misogynist and France’s greatest defence lawyer, intent on saving his repulsive client from the guillotine.

Continue reading “November Bonus Review #6”

November Bonus review #5: ‘England’s Witchcraft Trials’, by Willow Winsham

 

England's Witchcraft TrialsPublished By: Pen & Sword

Publication Date: 6th September 2018

ISBN: 9781473870949

Format: Paperback

Price: £12.99

Purchase Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurb

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

With the echo of that chilling injunction hundreds were accused and tried for witchcraft across England throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. With fear and suspicion rife, neighbour could turn against neighbour, friend against friend, with women, men and children alike caught up in the deadly fervour that swept through both village and town.

From the feared “covens” of Pendle Forest to the victims of the unswerving fanaticism of The Witch Finder General, so-called witches were suspected, accused, and dragged into the spotlight to await judgement and their final fate.

Continue reading “November Bonus review #5: ‘England’s Witchcraft Trials’, by Willow Winsham”

Blog Tour Calendar: ‘And The Swans Began To Sing’, by Thora Karitas Arnadottir

I’m looking forward to sharing this one with you, it’s a memoir by Icelandic author Thora Karitas Arnadottir.

And The Swans BT Poster

The swans on the pond, quite abruptly began to sing. It was a singing so loud they were almost screaming. The swans were screaming, screaming as if they saw the horror of the world.

Gudbjorg Thorisdottir has been hiding from the ghost of an ugly secret for most of her life. When she finally faces the truth of what happened throughout her childhood, the ghost floats away. Painting an evocative picture of her life in Iceland, this is the story of a little girl who didn’t know how unnatural it was to experience both heaven and hell in the same house.

Thora Karitas Arnadottir (b. 1979) studied drama in the UK, and is a producer as well as appearing on stage and television. And the Swans Began to Sing is her first published book; her mother’s story, and formed the final dissertation for her MA in Creative Writing. The book was nominated for the Icelandic Women’s Literary prize Fjoruverdlaunin in 2016.

 

Website: Wild Pressed Books

 

 

Rosie’s top 10 of 2018

It’s a hard choice to make and these are in no particular order. These are my top ten favourite reads, not necessarily published this year but read this year.

Honourable mentions go to:

Top five audio books that saved my sanity this year:

  • For We Are Legion (We Are Bob), by Dennis E Taylor, read by Ray Porter
  • For We Are Many, by Dennis E Taylor, read  by Ray Porter
  • All These Worlds, by Dennis E Taylor, read by Ray Porter
  • Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs
  • Making Money, by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs

I pretty much have these on a repeat cycle, and just listen too them every time I leave the house.

Favourite Podcasts of the year:

  • Small Town Murder, with James Pietrogallo and Jimmie Whisman
  • Casefile True Crime

Blog Tour Calendar: ‘Mavis and Dot’, by Angela Petch

Mavis and Dot Full Tour Banner

Blurb

A warm slice of life, funny, feel-good, yet poignant. Introducing two eccentric ladies who form an unlikely friendship.Meet Mavis and Dot – two colourful, retired ladies who live in Worthington-on-Sea, where there are charity shops galore. Apart from bargain hunting, they manage to tangle themselves in escapades involving illegal immigrants, night clubs, nude modelling, errant toupees and more. And then there’s Mal, the lovable dog who nobody else wants. A gently humorous, often side-splitting, heart-warming snapshot of two memorable characters with past secrets and passions. Escape for a couple of hours into this snapshot of a faded, British seaside town. You’ll laugh and cry but probably laugh more.”This book is quirky and individual, and has great pathos…[it] will resonate with a lot of readers.” Gill Kaye – Editor of Ingenu(e). Written with a light touch in memory of a dear friend who passed away from ovarian cancer, Angela Petch’s seaside tale is a departure from her successful Tuscan novels.

All profits from the sale of the books will go towards research into the cure for cancer.

Finally submitted my final assessment

For the Writer’s Bureau Comprehensive Creative Writing course that I started in January 2015. It’s been a very useful course although I haven’t made my course fees back. I haven’t really been trying to though because of everything else going on. It’s been a difficult almost four years.

For my final assessment, I’ve submitted the first 2800 words of a sci-fi short story. The final work will probably be quite a bit longer than the target market’s limit, but it could easily be broken into a serial. I’m still writing the first draft, but I’ve already made changes between the hand-written and typed versions.

Now, I’m tired and my hands hurt so it’s time to get to sleep.