Guest Author - Linda Gillard - Star Gazing and House of Silence/Giveaway

I would like to introduce you to Linda Gillard - Author of Star Gazing, Emotional Geology and more recently House of Silence. 
I read and reviewed Star Gazing a few weeks ago and gave it 5 out of 5. It was an amazing read.

Linda has joined us today to talk about Star Gazing but please do check out her latest novel, House of Silence which is available as a Kindle e-book. It is getting a lot of 5 star attention on the book forums and blogs.

SEEING STARS -  by Linda Gillard


The question everyone asks me about my third novel, STAR GAZING is, “Why did you write about a blind heroine?” (And not just someone who loses her sight, a woman who was born blind.) Readers have assumed there must be blindness in my family or that I have a blind friend, but it was purely an artistic decision and one I arrived at by a circuitous route.

My adult son refers jokingly to my writing as “playing with my imaginary friends”. (A pretty accurate description of writing fiction!) I had the idea of creating an imaginary hero, or at least an “Is he/Isn’t he real?” hero. It struck me that if you’re blind, you’re dependent on your sense of touch or the corroboration of others to confirm someone’s existence. (A voice could be a delusion.) When you met a man for the first time, you wouldn’t touch him and he would be just a voice to you. But what if you were alone? And he had a tendency to just disappear? What if no one else appeared to see him?…

I decided a blind heroine would allow me to pursue this storyline. It also gave me an angle for writing about the landscape of the Isle of Skye, where the novel is set. (I now live on the Isle of Arran, but Skye was my home for six years and I lived there when I was writing STAR GAZING.)

I’d written about Hebridean island landscape in my first novel, EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY and I didn’t think I had anything new to say about the spectacular beauty of Skye. It’s hard to avoid resorting to clichés when confronted with a world-class mountain range, but I realised I could present the island from an original point of view, or rather, no point of view. I decided to write about Skye from the “point of view” of a blind woman: what she heard, touched and smelled while she was there.

As I didn’t know anyone who was blind or even visually impaired I had to research blindness. I read several books written by people who’d gone blind, but I couldn’t find much written by the congenitally blind. (I wanted my heroine Marianne to have no visual frame of reference at all. I’m not one for doing things by halves!) I found a certain amount of information online, which got me started, but mostly I made it up. I just imagined what it might be like to be blind. I also removed all “sighted-speak” from Marianne’s narrative and focused on her other senses. Once I got going, I found it surprisingly easy, apart from the constant intrusions of “sighted-speak”, which were hard to eliminate. As Marianne says,



“Has it ever struck you how language favours the sighted? (Of course not, because you can see.) I don’t just have a problem seeing, I have a problem talking, trying to find words and phrases appropriate to my experience. Just listen to how people go on:
Oh, I see what you mean . . . Now look, here . . . The way I see it . . . Reading between the lines . . . I didn’t see that coming! . . . It depends on your point of view . . .


You get the picture?

I, of course, don’t.”

It was certainly fun creating my hero, Keir by describing how he sounded, felt, and smelled! This is how Marianne describes him:

“His voice was like toffee. Smooth and pitched low. But this voice didn’t have the drop of vanilla, the hint of a drawl that Harvey inherited from his Canadian mother. This voice was more like a good dark chocolate, the kind that’s succulent, almost fruity, but with a hint of bitterness. He hit his Highland consonants with the same satisfying “click” that good chocolate makes when you snap it into pieces. (The blind are as fetishistic about voices as the sighted are about appearances, so allow me if you will, to describe this man’s voice as chocolate. Serious chocolate. Green and Black’s, not Cadbury’s.)”

While I was writing, I had no idea if the book would be convincing. I had my doubts and at times the whole exercise seemed presumptuous. But after STAR GAZING was published, I had an email from a man whose daughter had Marianne’s condition. He said he thought I’d captured her experience very well - so much so, he was going to get the book brailled for her.

STAR GAZING was also a critical success. It was short-listed for Romantic Novel of the Year in 2009 and also for the Robin Jenkins Literary Award in Scotland (an award for writing that promotes Scottish landscape). Then in 2010 it was voted Favourite Romantic Novel 1960-2010 by readers of Woman’s Weekly magazine.

I think STAR GAZING changed the way I write. I came to realise how much we limit ourselves – as people and especially as writers - by concentrating on visuals. We miss so much! As Keir says,

‘It’s not you with the limited perception, Marianne. Folk who can see just don’t seem to look.’



Writing STAR GAZING was an interesting experiment. I’d feared readers might be bored, as so much of the book lacks a visual element, but they seem to have been as fascinated as I was by the day-to-day practicalities of life for the blind and everyone seems to have been entranced by the way Keir “interprets” the island for Marianne, often through music, using her other senses. He even helps her to “see” the stars:



‘If you look east, one of the brightest stars you’ll see is Arcturus. It has a yellow-orange glow. Most stars look cold. Icy. They’d sound like… flutes. No, piccolos. Shrill. Arcturus looks warmer. A cello maybe… It looks like the stove feels when it gives off just a bit of heat. Arcturus glows, but it doesn’t burn or blaze like the sun. It’s like the feeling you might have for an old friend… or an ex-lover, one who still means something to you. Steady. Passionless. On second thoughts, make that a viola… How am I doing?’

*****
Thank you to Linda for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us about writing Star Gazing. Like the book, I found this fascinating.



STAR GAZING (Piatkus £7.99) will be published as a Kindle e-book for Amazon on 9th June.

I love this cover!

Linda’s latest novel, HOUSE OF SILENCE is available as a Kindle e-book from Amazon UK and Amazon US, priced £1.90/$2.99.

For more information about Linda and her books, visit her website: http://www.lindagillard.co.uk/

Linda has kindly offered the chance to win a signed copy of either Star Gazing or Emotional Geology and the chance to win a e-book copy of House of Silence.   (3 winners - 2 paperback books and 1 e-book to be won)

Please leave a comment, with your choice of book, if you are lucky enough to be a winner.
The winner of House of Silence will receive a gift certificate to purchase the e-book.

Winners will be notified by email or DM if a twitter follower, so if your email address is not available from
your profile please leave it with your comment (spaced out to avoid spam).  Thanks

Open WORLDWIDE.


Closing date 6th May 2011 
Please read Giveaway Policy

DizzyC

Review - The Untied Kingdom by Kate Johnson

The Untied Kingdom by Kate Johnson

Published by Choclit (April 2011)

ISBN 978-1906931681

The blurb

When Eve Carpenter lands with a splash in the Thames, it's not the London or England she's used to.  No one has a telephone or knows what a computer is.  England's a third world country and Princess Di is still alive.  But worst of all, everyone thinks Eve's a spy.

Including Major Harker who has his own problems.  His sworn enemy is looking for a promotion. The general wants him to undertake some ridiculous mission to capture a computer, which Harker vaguely envisions running wild somewhere in Yorkshire.

She claims to be a popstar.  Harker doesn't know what a popstar is, although he suspects it's a fancy foreign word for 'spy'. Eve knows all about computers, and electricity. Eve is dangerous.

And Harker is falling in love with her.

Eve is parachuting over the Thames when she plunges into the deep water.  She is rescued by the dashing hero Harker.  This story is not all it seems.  Eve does not realise that this is not the London she knows.

The people around her are suspicious of her. 

The handsome Harker is given the task of keeping an eye on her and using her knowledge as a 'spy' to intercept a computer.

This was my first paranormal romance and I must say I did enjoy it.  I was curious to see what the attraction of paranormal ficition is and I believe this is a good novel to ease into the genre. 

There is plenty of spark and romance between the lead characters and the story was not too obscure for readers who are new to the genre.  I had to keep reading to find out what happened.  I read it in a couple of days which can't be bad for a genre I had not interest in before.

Would appeal to newcomers, and fans of paranormal fiction.

 I like Kate Johnson's style of writing and would like to see what she writes next.

3 out of 5 for me.  I liked it.

Thank you Choclit for sending me a copy for review. 

A winner!

The Golden Chain by Margaret James

Published by Choc Lit (1st May 2011)

ISBN 978-1906931643

Congratualtions to Petty Witter!

Winner of a signed copy of The Golden Chain by Margaret James.

I have sent the winner an email

Thank you to all entrants. 

Look out on Friday 29th April for a WORLDWIDE giveaway from the lovely author Linda Gillard - Author of Star Gazing and House of Silence.

DizzyC

It's Monday - What are you reading?

Sheila a Book Journey

Last week

As expected, I managed very little reading whilst on holiday.  I do it every year, pack 3 books and tell myself I WILL read them!

I started the lovely Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris.

Too many distractions in a holiday caravan, tiredness and the fact that I seemed to have left my brain back in England resulted in the lack of reading.

I am really enjoying Letters from Home and did not want to spoil it when I could not give it my full attention.  I am like that with good reads. :)

Also reading How to Raise a Happy Toddler by Tizzie Hall - Parenting Guide

In my Postbox

Whilst away the postman did bring me.......

Izzy's War by Isla Dewar.  Thank you to Ebury Publishing. 

Isla Dewar will be guest author here on  6th May.

I purchased 2 books up in Scotland. 

Nella Last's War - Edited by Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming

Daphne - Justine Picardie

 I scoured the charity shops for Scottish titles, but admit that I didn't know where to start.  There was a wealth of new authors for me to try but I was overwhelmed with all the new titles and decided I should have researched this before I went.

Will definitely be checking out some Scottish authors now I am home. Isla Dewar (above), incidentally, is one of them. :)

Coming up this week......

Linda Gillard is guest author on Friday 29th April.

 

Linda is here to talk about her novel Star Gazing, available in paperback but  also due to be released as an e-book on 9th June.

She is also receiving 5 star reviews for her latest novel, House of Silence, available as an e-book from Amazon.

Plus there will be a WORLDWIDE giveaway from Linda Gillard here on Friday.

What does your reading week look like?

AJ's Highland Tour - Pt2

AJ and Nana, C is in the blue sweater in the distance. 
Beppe was running along the sand.

On the Wednesday, we travelled down to a little train station at Broomhill to ride on a Steam Train on the Strathspey Railway to Aviemore.  It was in the middle of nowhere and the station had just a waiting room, Station Master's House, and fields of sheep.

Station Master's Cottage

Broomhill Station.  The Sign says Glenbogle as Monarch of the Glen was filmed here

Mummy packed my lunch in my lunchbag and I laid it all out on the table on the train. I had eaten my lunch before we left the station (20 minute wait in the station)!

Our train turning round at the station, Aviemore

Mummy decided the conditions were not favourable for snowboarding at Aviemore (no snow) so she declined Daddy's offer of lessons.

On Thursday Mummy took C and me to Brodie Castle.  Mummy loves to see the historical sights.

Brodie Castle

Originally built in 1567 by the Clan Brodie and rebuilt after a fire in 1645.

Brodies lived in the Castle until recent years.

Brodie Castle has a collection of over 200 varieties of Daffodils, bred by the family!

It houses a wonderful collection of European, Chinese and Japanese paintings, furniture and porcelain.
One wing is let out for holidays and weddings, too.

On Friday we went to see the family one more time before our return home.

I don't have any photos of the famous Highland cows because we only saw a few and we were driving at the time.  Mummy was surprised that the Highland cows are in a very small area of the Highlands.  She had expected them to be more widespread.

We left in the middle of the night again to come home.  Mummy was disappointed as she wanted to see the Highland views on the A9 in the daylight again, but it didn't get light until we reached the Pennines.

We stopped off at 11am and I had my favourite treat a McDonald's.  Technically, it was my breakfast as I had slept until 9.30am.

AJ's Highland Tour

Picture by Maps of UK

We are back in England after our whistle-stop tour of part of the Highlands, Scotland. We covered 1545 miles in 7 days.  Our car behaved himself the whole week which surprised Daddy, I think.

We set off last Saturday at 1am. I was whisked from my bed, still in my PJ's, into the car for the long journey of over 500 miles. 

Mummy and Daddy had been telling C that we needed our passports as we were going to another country. 
This backfired on them on one of the stop offs.  C asked when we would be in Scotland and Mummy said we are now in Scotland.  C said out loud "I thought we needed our passports to get into Scotland!"

Mummy has fallen in love with The Highlands and has already asked Daddy when we are going again.
She spent most of the journey, once we got to the Pennines, ahhhh-ing and oooh-ing about sheep, cows, hills, mountains, anything really.  We had sheep and cows here, too!

We stayed at a park at the harbour of Nairn.

On Sunday morning we took Nana, Grandad and their dog, Beppe to the beach.  Nana let me take Beppe on his lead. 
She asked me to hold her hand and I said "Nana, you will have to have this hand as it is the only one I got left!"

We went to visit family on the Sunday.

On Monday we went on a 2  hour drive along the Loch's down to Ben Nevis (highest mountain in UK). 
I have to tell you Mummy has a fear of heights and deep water before you see the next photos.

The view Mummy had all the way along the Lochs. This is Loch Ness - can you see Nessie?

The view on Daddy's side of the road (we had stopped here in a layby)



You can just see Urquart Castle on the edge of Loch Ness
We drove around the edge of this mountain and past Urquart Castle

When we got to our destination, Ben Nevis, Mummy and Nana sat outside the coffee shop whislt I went up in a cable car with the rest of the family, including Beppe.
The cable car took us up to 680 metres and we got out to have a walk around.

The restaurant - Ben Nevis

Still some snow on Ben Nevis

In Part 2 I can show you some photos of our day out to Aviemore on the Steam Train and our visit to a real Scottish Castle.

Last day for UK giveaway/The Golden Chain by Margaret James

Today is the last day to enter the giveaway for a copy of The Golden Chain by Margaret James. (UK adresses only)

To see the blog tour feature and enter the giveaway please follow link here

DizzyC



Local dialect

Me and me dad in 1970

When writing up a post, I am always aware that my English grammar and sentence structure is very different.  Not always grammatically correct.  My spelling is pretty good, though.
I am not fick (thick), I blame my heritage.

I understand that my Suffolk dialect is quite lazy.  I don't talk proper. I often don't write proper, either.

(Blue highlights our pronounciation)

We elongate our vowels or add vowels in words,
bath - barf
shoes - shoos
last - larst
going - goo-win
four - forwer
past - parst (e.g. 'alf parst forwer - 4.30)


and miss of letters at the beginning and end of words. 

theatre - fearter
morning - moorn-n
Saturday and Sunday - Satdee n Sundee

We even make up our own words

 shew - showed (e.g. he shew me 'is fotographs)

drew - drawed  (e.g. he drew me a picture)
suffen or sommat - something 
nutten - nothing
bin and gorn (been and gone)  -  an event that has passed
been (being or since)  e.g  I missed the bus, beens I was late.  Do yoo want anything, beens I am going down town
a coupla free - a couple or three (not sure how many that is!)
lug oles - ears
got the collywobbles - frightened

I really talk like that!

Our sentence structure is back to front and I found English grammar very difficult in school.

I am going down the town,  rather than to the town
I am coming round yours, rather than coming to see you

I have been mistaken for a Cockney, although I am nowhere near London. 

I am writing this post and post schedulin it 'cos I am off up to Bonnie Scotland and I don't know how either they are gonna understand me or t'other way round! I reckon there could be a fair few misunderstandins!

PS. Spell-checker has thrown a wobbly on this one!  LOL

We interrupt this holiday. .

Folks, I am keeping ur with all your lovely comments, but cannot reply on my own posts. :) My little phone will allow me to write a new post!
How about that lol.
Will reply to you all on my return. Missing you all Carol

UK/Ireland reading challenge

I set myself a UK/Ireland reading challenge at the beginning of the year.

I am keeping track of it here


Please take a look to see how it is going.

I am looking for suggestions for historical fiction, popular fiction or chick-lit set it the following areas

Wales
Scotland
Ireland

It's Monday - What are you reading?

Last week

I finished The Untied Kingdom by Kate Johnson

and The Silver Locket by Margaret James   Review

Margaret James was guest author on Wednesday and there is the chance to win a copy her new novel The Golden Chain  here

In my postbox

I treated myself to a couple of books this week

The Art of Falling by Deborah Lawrenson   and

Songs of Blue and Gold by Deborah Lawrenson.

What I am reading now

Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris

What I have packed in my suitcase

Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris

More than Love Letters by Rosy Thornton  from my TBR shelves

The Wilding by Maria McCann  from my TBR shelves

What does your reading week look like??

Going abroad!

 http://www.picturesofengland.com/mapofengland/

I am off on my hols.  Going out of the country.  Only to the neighbouring country of Scotland. :)


We are travelling from Suffolk up to the Highlands, may as well be Land's End to John O'Groats, as this will be the longest car journey we have undertaken as a family. My partner has family living there and he used to live there as a small child. 


If my computer skills don't let me down I have left some posts for the week.  This is so you don't forget me!  :)


As regular followers will know I always reply to comments. Please still leave comments and I will catch up upon my return.


I have my checklists all ready for each family member's suitcase. 


Book
Wellies
Book
Raincoats
Book
Thermals
Passport  ;)


AJ's Postman Pat case will contain his toys and books to keep him going the week.


I have Google Earthed our holiday destination.  There are no major supermarkets nearby.  
(Add Kitchen sink is on the checklist.)  I have Googled book shops, petrol stations and pubs for lunches, so think everything is covered. 


I have printed off the AA route finder for our journey.  It gives an estimated journey time of just over 10 hours. My partner will always knock an hour off this time.  He forgets we have teens, a toddler and me all needing regular journey breaks.


Stop offs have been accounted for and my dear partner says that Gretna Green* is not one of them!


I believe we will need more stop offs than my dear partner is hoping for. 


If I can find a computer I will check in during the week. If not, will post updates on my return.


We are off to Bonnie Scotland! 

*Lord Hardwick's marriage act in 1754 outlawed marriage in England without paternal consent before the age of 21, young couples started to elope to Gretna Green just over the border in Scotland, where they could be married at 16 years of age.
It is a popular spot for weddings these days.  Would be lovely for a quiet, 'no fuss' wedding, don't you agree?

Review - The Silver Locket by Margaret James

Published by ChocLit Nov 2010

ISBN - 978-1906931285

The Blurb

It's 1914 and young Rose Courtenay has a decision to make.  Please her wealthy parents by marrying the man of their choice - or play her part in the war effort?

The chance to escape proves irresistible and Rose becomes a nurse. Working in France, she meet Lieutenant Alex Denham, a dark figure from her past.
He's the last man in the world she'd get involved with - especially now he's married.

Rose comes from a privileged background. One where her parents expect her to do her duty to the family by marrying well.  Rose has more ambition and decides to volunteer for the war effort to escape her suffocating life.

Alex Denham, has known Rose most of his life but they are from different backgrounds.  Alex is sent to the front line in France where he meets up with another familiar face from home, Michael Easton.  These men have a reason not to like each other.

A novel set in World War 1 following the lives of soldiers on the front line and the women who volunteered to nurse them. There is lots of romance, but it also explores the conditions and awful results of war. It visits the front line struggles of the young soldiers who did not know it they would make it home.  It visits the nursing trains bringing the wounded and dying soldiers home.

Weaved into this account of WW1 is a tangled love triangle.  With a raging war will Rose find true love and a happy ever after?

I loved this fast paced, action and romance packed novel and am looking forward to the 2nd book in the trilogy, The Golden Chain.

4 out of 5 - I loved it!

Guest Author on Blog Tour - Margaret James + Giveaway

Today I have the pleasure of introducing Margaret James - Author of The Silver Locket, and the next installment of the trilogy The Golden Chain,  as her blog tour visits us here

Thank you, Margaret, for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us

Publisher: Choc Lit (1 Nov 2010)

 ISBN-13: 978-1906931285

Publisher: Choc Lit (1 May 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1906931643

Photos with kind permission of the author



I’m delighted to be on Dizzy C’s blog today – thank you for inviting me!



I’d like to talk about my historical novels The Silver Locket and The Golden Chain, and also tell you something about me.


Why do I write historical novels? I think it’s because I love to write stories which give me the chance to delve back into the past, and to see how what happened a long time ago affects the present day, or even the future.


I admire novelists who can take six weeks in a character’s life and write a story around what happens in that short time. But personally I find I need a bigger canvas and a much longer time span. My stories usually start off featuring casts of thousands (well, hundreds, anyway), but a lot of them get culled in the rewrites. As a novelist, I don’t seem to be able to think small!


The Silver Locket and its sequel The Golden Chain started life while we were on a family holiday in Dorset. We drove past a large, square mansion built of the beautiful honey-coloured local stone. It had obviously been empty for ages, and I wondered who had lived there a hundred years ago. Rose Courtenay, the landowner’s spoiled and cosseted daughter who became the heroine of The Silver Locket, walked into my head and said – I did! So write about me!


Rose’s story turned out to be involved and long enough to make a trilogy of novels, which starts with The Silver Locket and continues with The Golden Chain. The first story opens in 1914, just as the Great War is about to get under way and change everyone’s lives forever. Rose’s parents want her to marry the son of a baronet, but Rose falls for the local bad boy, who is also married. So of course that creates lots of problems, and by the end of the story Rose has got what she wants most in the world, but has lost almost everything else.


Mind you, I think my hero Alex is worth it. I’m sure that in Rose’s place I’d have done what she does, because what is the point of living a life of comfort and prosperity if it’s also a life full of regret?



The next novel in the series continues the story of Rose and Alex, but is about their children, too. At the end of The Silver Locket, Rose and Alex adopt a little girl, and Daisy gives them almost as much grief as Rose gave her own parents. The Golden Chain is set during the Depression, in the world of provincial theatre, because both Daisy and the hero Ewan are aspiring actors. I’m in love with the Ewan, who is a handsome, red-haired Scotsman. He happens to be a cousin of Alex’s worst enemy, but so what? It just adds to the fun! Ewan’s ambition is to become a great Shakespearian actor, playing all Shakespeare’s heroes such as Hamlet, Coriolanus and of course Romeo. He wants Daisy to be his Juliet, and in some ways The Golden Chain is a Thirties version of Romeo and Juliet, although nobody ends up stabbing themselves in an Italian cemetery.


When I’m writing a romantic novel, I always have to fall in love with my hero. Quite a few of my stories have ended up in the deep, dark vaults of my hard drive, and are probably destined to remain there unfinished, because although I started off loving their heroes, somewhere along the way it all went wrong between us. But I’m still in love with Alex and Ewan. We got on from the start.


I’ve been a novelist for about twenty years. I’ve written a few contemporary novels such as A Special Inheritance, which are still hanging around Amazon Marketplace in paperback versions at a penny each. But, after I’ve had a short flirtation with the present day, I always seem to be drawn back to my one true love, the historical romance.


I’ve also written a paranormal novel called Elegy for a Queen, which was ahead of its time genre-wise and got some lovely rave rejections from mainstream publishers before it was finally published by Solidus (www.soliduspress.com), a small imprint in the UK. Paranormal is hugely popular nowadays, and I was delighted when a year or two ago Woman and Home magazine chose Elegy for a Queen as one of the top five time slip novels, describing it as fast-paced, intriguing and tense.


So that’s something I’m bearing in mind for the future – writing another time slip novel, in which I can combine my interest in the past with what’s going on in the present day. But I’m also busy with lots of other writing projects, including planning another historical trilogy.


I’m on Facebook and Twitter – www.twitter.com/majanovelist.
I have a blog at www.margaretjamesblog.blogspot.com and a website at www.margaretjames.com.


Links to books:
The Silver Locket and The Golden Chain are published by Choc Lit.



If you’d like to win a copy of The Golden Chain, please leave a comment below. Who is your favourite romantic hero?


One copy of The Golden Chain will be awarded to the winning comment, chosen by Margaret James. 

UK addresses only, please.
If your email address is not accessible from your profile, please leave it (spaced out) with your comment entry. No anon. entries please.

 Ends 24/4/11


DISCLAIMER

Giveaway copies are supplied and posted to winners via publisher. This blog hosts the giveaway on behalf of the above.

Please see giveaway policy

Review - The Secret Diary of a New Mum (aged 43 1/4) by Cari Rosen

Published February 3rd 2011 by Vermilion

ISBN 9780091935658

The Blurb
This insightful and hilarious true story of one woman, one new baby, a slipped disc and rather too many wrinkles reveals the true nature of being a modern middle-aged mum and why some things are worth the wait.

Firstly can I say, you do not need to wait until you are a mum in your 40's to read this very funny account of motherhood. 

In the style of any parenting guide this novel is set out in chapters following the progress of mother and baby from conception to toddler.  Cari writes about how society views a mum over 40, pregnancy, the early days, and those wonderful milestones with baby.

I found myself nodding in agreement with a lot of the funny, embarrassing and special moments. There were some fabulous trips down memory lane, from my childhood and as a 2nd time around mum, of a toddler, in my 40's.

Jokes aside, there are some wonderful insights and advice in between the laughs. 

I would recommend this to any mum to be, new mum or mum who just wants a trip down memory lane.

4 out of 5 for me!  I loved it!

I received a copy of this book from Publisher Ebury Press, for my honest review.
Thank you.

We have a winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered this giveaway.  The winner was chosen at random by Random.org.

The Winner of a copy of The Surprise Party by Sue Welfare is Jules (TGTB)

CONGRATULATIONS!

Book Blogger Hop -The non-weekend edition!

Jennifer says.....
I had a really busy week last week and was unable to get the Book Blogger Hop post up in time over the weekend. So, I present you with the first ever NON-WEEKEND Book Blogger Hop! This Hop will run through Thursday! Have fun!!





This week's question comes from Aislynn who reviews at Knit, Purl, Stitch...Read and Cook!



"Outside of books, what is your guilty pleasure?"

Well top of that list would be chocolate. 

My favourite comfort chocolate is Dairy Milk. 

I do love Bendick's bitter mints,too.  These are usually only available to buy here at Christmas time.  My mother-in-law was very ,this year, and kept a box back for my birthday, last month!

What is your guilty pleasure?????

It's Monday - What r u readin?

Hosted by Sheila at Bookjourney

Last week

I finished

Reviews to follow in next day or so.

In my Postbox

Personally, I blame My Fairy Godmother by Claudia Carroll - I won this! Thank you Claudia  :)

I have taken one step closer to getting an e-reader........

I have heard good things about  House of Silence by Linda Gillard which is available on Kindle. 

I am still not sure about getting an e-reader but am desperate to read this latest offering from Linda. 

I have just realised I can download a reader from Amazon to my PC. 

I have done so and got my copy of House of Silence.  I am a little excited, but realise it will take me a while longer to read as I have to fire up the laptop to read and cannot slip it into my handbag for the odd 10 mins waiting in the car or a waiting room.

What I am reading?

The Untied Kingdom by Kate Johnson

Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris

How does your reading week look?

AJ checking in

The last couple of weeks as I have seen it.......

Mummy got all stressy and almost hit meltdown with several hospital appointments from M and me, tearing the ligaments in her foot after another mishap in the kitchen, and the holiday coming up.

Oh, and C is revising for her exams!

Enter C's room as your own risk! Note all the screwed up notes and the bathroom tissue roll for her cold.

Last week C was attending her friend's 16th party and sleepover.  C loves to bake and here is the cake she made for her friend.

On Friday evening Daddy had the best idea of going out to eat.  We don't do this very often, but Mummy had said something about cabin fever, though she didn't look unwell, and Daddy decided we needed some family time.

We went to Frankie and Benny's.  It was great.  I don't eat a lot at home but when I get to F&B's I have a feast.  Pizza, Ice cream and lemonade!  :)