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I’m delighted to welcome JJ Marsh (Jill) to Virtual Book Club, my author interview series which gives authors the opportunity to pitch their books to your book club, be it virtual or real.  As an English teacher, actor, director and cultural trainer, Jill has lived and worked all over Europe. Now she’s a full-time author, publisher…
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Virtual Book Club has been socially distancing for a while but I’m delighted to be back with writer and broadcaster Christine Webber. We’ll be discussing her new novel, So Many Ways of Loving. Christine Webber tried various careers in her younger days – she was a classical singer, a Principal Boy in pantomimes, an undistinguished…
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I’m delighted to see that the BBC is using Call The Midwife’s five-million strong audience to highlight the scandal of Britain’s nuclear tests. The first episode of series 10 portrays Derek and Audrey Fleming, and newborn Christopher. At first, Christopher’s birth defects are thought to have been caused by thalidomide. After Derek reveals that he served…
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A happy dance I hate to wish new year away, but I know I’m not the only one who was glad to see the back of January. Fortunately, February kicked off with some very good news indeed. At the Stroke of Nine O’Clock had been selected for a coveted Historical Society Society Editor’s Choice flag,…
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I’m delighted to welcome Amie McCracken to Virtual Book Club, my author interview series which gives authors the opportunity to pitch their books to your book club, be it virtual or real. Amie McCracken edits and typesets novels for self-published authors and helps writers polish their work. She describes herself as an imaginist, with a…
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Why mix up historical and contemporary fiction when I would make my life as a writer a whole lot easier if I were to stick to one or the other? Because I don’t see a clear dividing line between the two. For me, when I think about my father saying, ‘I remember when all of…
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Rosemary J Kind and I have several things in common. We both write historical fiction. In our latest releases we tackle the complicated theme of justice. “Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is…
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Recent headlines have suggested that 60% of independent publishers in the UK may be out of business by autumn as a result of the pandemic. I believe that these publishers, who put their love of literature before commercial considerations, are critical to the health of the UK publishing industry, nurturing talent and producing novels that…
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Two independently published novels and a substantial work of non-fiction. Here’s what I read last month… The Empty Vessel by Vaughan Mason What drew you to it? This book, written under a pseudonym, was a complete departure for crime writer JJ Marsh, whose Beatrice Stubbs series I have greatly enjoyed. Genre/Themes: Post-war era, Capital punishment,…
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It’s not every day that one of your favourite authors agrees to an interview, so I was more than a little giddy when John Ironmonger said yes!    For those of you who have yet to discover John’s fiction, let me introduce you. John is the author of The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder, The…
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