The Season for cozy reads and some musings on friendship

 Every year I put aside the crime novels I have on my TBR pile and get out my Jane Austen novels. I know them all by heart, or, to be, honest nearly all of them as I never could get into Northanger Abbey. I have just started Sense and Sensibility. It's like visiting friends you haven't seen for a year. I know what to expect and it is all going to turn out fine. We all need that feeling in our lives and there is no better time for calling it up than the dark winter months before Christmas.

Speaking or should I say writing of friends, made me stop and think for a minute. In my latest Christmas novel CHRISTMAS AT THE WISHING WELL writing under my Romance pseudonym Peggy O'Mahony, one of the characters says: "There are people for short journeys and people for the long haul. Knowing the difference means understanding friendship."

Short haul people are very often the people you have a good time with when you go out. You can chat to them at parties, wave at them across the tables at restaurants and know they will wave back equally enthusiastically. But they are not the people you confide in when life kicks you in the solar plexus. Someone once said that real friends are the people who, when you have made an atrocious horse's rear end of yourself, don't think it's a permanent job. Real friends, few and far between as we all know, are the ones who know you and still like you. Now that is a comforting thought.

Back to Sense and Sensibility. I sometimes ask myself why the novels appeal to me so much apart from the feel-good aspect. As a writer, I have a fairly critical eye. Jane Austen stays true to her characters. They don't change into something else. In Sense and Sensibility, Sir John, a warm-hearted type with not much brain, ends up promising a puppy to the villain of the story when he sees how upset he is over Marianne, although he is very fond of the Dashwoods. That makes him very human and very believable.

One thing I know, I never can write like Jane Austen and I don't intend to try. I expect every author writes what is in them to write and we all hope that our readers will like it.

What I'm reading in January

 I'm back home from Germany. I always pay my respects to the sea first thing and the weather has been so good, it has been a lot of fun walking on the beach. I watched a fishing boat heading for home with a trail of seagulls in its wake, a few ducks swimming about near the shore looking unimpressed with these antics. The sea a wonderful blue, mirroring the cloudless sky. Home. Wonderful.

Over Christmas I read The Secrets of Primrose Square by Claudia Carroll. I had not read any of her previous work and would not normally go for a novel of this type but I wanted something light and easy to read for the holidays. The book did not disappoint. It was a pleasant read with a (predictable) happy ending. The characters were endearing and had me cheering for them. A perfect holiday read.

I have now started reading Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers. This novel was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021. I am really enjoying it, it has an intriguing plot, I love Clare's style of writing. In fact, it is considerably better than other novels I have attempted to read which have been cried up as "fantastic, engrossing etc".

I have ordered books, of course, although I still have Mary Higgins Clark's Stillwatch and Robert Goddard's One False Move. I am a fan of both these writers, especially their earlier novels.

There is absolutely nothing like settling down with a good book. But I don't have to tell readers that!

I now have to completely revise my Christmas novel which I never got round to doing much work on. Just haven't got into the routine of regular writing yet. I'll start tomorrow.....

Where to find a good thriller - am I too hard to please?

 I am currently reading a thriller which has been cried up as being "twisty, scary" and was recommended in the Sunday Times and on its cover by another crime author whose books don't appeal to me. Perhaps I should have been warned. This was a random purchase because I recognised the title. The plot is, indeed, scary but regrettably that's all I can say for the book. I could not bond with any of the characters, two of whom were depressingly similar, it was hard to tell one from the other. And it all went on and on, the hand-wringing, soul-searching, conversations which didn't do anything for the plot. I daresay I am out of kilter with what is popular in this kind of fiction. I loved Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and I sometimes get the feeling I am reading bits of this novel when I try other work out there at the moment. 

Being a writer myself, I appreciate all the hard work that goes into writing a novel and I also fully understand that reading tastes vary widely, and thank goodness they do, otherwise we'd only have one kind of book available to us. However, I have to feel empathy with the main character and if I do not feel that in the first ten pages of the story, my attention will start to falter. "They can all kill themselves for all I care" I have thought on a few occasions. 

I am currently flicking through this novel but I just cannot read through another chapter. I'll keep turning over the pages and checking to see who did it and why before I drop the book off at a charity shop. 

Nearly there with the new novel

 Well, I have finished my sixth or seventh draft of the new Sergeant Alan Murray novel and just need to read it one more time to check for errors and omissions and all that kind of stuff. I have to psych myself up to do this because I have been reading, re-reading and editing for weeks now, or so it seems. I feel I know every word by heart - and that is not good. Familiarity breeds typos, incorrect names and backgrounds of the main players, to mention but a few problems. So I need to knuckle down one more time.

As usual, I have enjoyed writing the story, getting the characters to develop before my eyes and sorting out the whys and wherefores of the plot. Nearly there. I have the cover sorted (I hope). Next comes the blurb, the outline of the story which hooks the reader and persuades them to open the book or download to Kindle. I always find this the most difficult. What to leave out, what to put in? Basically, someone commits a crime (murder usually) and Sergeant Alan Murray has to find out who the perpetrator is and bring them to justice. Inbetween the crime and the solving of the crime, comes what the French so elegantly call the denouement, the unravelling of all those bits and pieces of information which I have scattered into the pages of the story. 

I have some loyal readers who are waiting impatiently for the novel to be completed and available. Readers are what makes it all worthwhile. So here goes.

Job Done or is it?

Finishing a novel when you've been working on it for so long, is always a bit of an anti-climax. Nearly every day, I do a bit of editing on what I have written the previous day. This is useful, as it keeps me from straying a bit - I have been known to start a novel in November and to have jumped by some strange miracle to the flowering month of May within a few pages. This is a warning sign to me that I still have to do a bit, well let's say a lot more work on the the setting - including the time of year!
There are writers who are so disciplined that they write out a synopsis of each chapter before they start the actual work of writing the story. I can only salute them. I start off with an idea and a character in my head. After a few weeks, the character will have been joined by other characters and the original idea will have been changed, fleshed out a bit, or completely readjusted. I can never get into the business of writing a plan for the whole novel. I know where and how it is going to end before I start. The journey, however, can twist and turn as characters take on a life of their own and pull me in different ways. That's the fun of writing!
Now that I have finished my final edit of A MAN CALLED GREGOR which I plan to self publish next month, I have just started thinking about a Christmas novel and looked over the beginning of the first chapter which I wrote last month. I'll probably change the plot a bit and possibly one of the characters might have to go as well. I know one thing for sure, it's not going to be the original story I had in my head! I'll have a short break from writing and then it's back to see what my characters are up to. Next week I'll be doing my annual house-sitting in the country, so I'll have loads of peace and quiet and country air to help me concentrate. Wish me luck!

World Book Day

It's World Book Day as all book lovers will know. Today is the day I feel a teeny bit sorry for people who don't read. Even the best film adaptation in the world can't compare with a really good book. And the nice thing is that you can read them over and over again.
Whenever I feel in the need for something entertaining but gentle, I pick out a Jane Austen novel. Following a nasty bout of bronchitis, I needed a pick-me-up and I am currently reading Emma, even though I practically know it by heart. Highbury and its inhabitants still makes me smile. As a writer, I appreciate Jane Austen's grasp of human nature. Her stories are peopled with characters who are so true to life. The polite, kind-hearted Mr.Woodhouse with his "habits of gentle selfishness" is as believable as Miss Bates, who sees only the best in everybody. The character of Emma is often said to be the most rounded of the Jane Austen heroines: you can't help but like her despite all her blunders.
Be all that as it may, I enjoy the story for what it is and the fact that it is going to end happily for everybody.
I am currently editing a novel I wrote several years ago. The cover is now ready which is a spur for me to get a move on and finish it.

I am using my own name for this book. I write crime as P.B. Barry and romance as Peggy O'Mahony. My crime novels and my romance novels are all set in Ireland. A MAN CALLED GREGOR shifts between Dublin, London, Germany and Croatia. When her parents are killed in a traffic accident, Lauren's Uncle Gregor rescues her from a round of foster homes. He provides stability in her life.When he goes missing, she sets out to find him and in the process her life turns upside down.

I'm hoping to publish around Easter this year but I still have a lot of edits to do. I am revising the ending to the story - this is the tricky bit, I find, how to sort and tie up the strands of the story in a satisfactory way.

Incidentally, I have written one novel set in Germany under the name Peggie Biessmann:
SPATE OF VIOLENCE, which is the story of a family who move home and are caught up in the social problems of a town.

Time to get down to doing some of that editing. Happy World Book Day to readers everywhere.

Finding the Story Teller

There is a lot of advice out there on how to write: use simple words, short sentences, don't have two characters with the same name. I could go on - I have taken several classes in creative writing, have read loads of articles on the craft of writing. And I have profited from all of this, I have to admit. I have served a long apprenticeship on learning how to write and I am still learning.

So it never fails to irritate me a little bit when I start reading a novel which does not obey any of these rules, a novel by an author who has had several books published and, according to the cover is "acclaimed".  In the novel I am currently reading, a crime thriller, sentences are half a paragraph long, characters tell the story to keep the reader up to date, and everyone sounds more or less the same despite the author's attempts to give them different voices. Not one single character stands out or grabs my attention in any way. The story line itself is interesting, indeed it is very current in its theme, but to be honest, it wouldn't bother me if I never got round to finishing the book.

And here I perceive another lesson. No matter how good the plot, if the characters don't grab you, you are most likely going to give up before the story really gets started. There are natural born story tellers among us. I recall when I worked in London yonks ago in a typing pool, one girl told us the story of a film she had seen the previous night. She kept us totally spellbound. Years later when I saw that it would be shown on TV I settled down to watch it expecting an exciting film. It was boring in the extreme and I switched channels after around fifteen minutes. This girl kept us all enthralled with her own life story. She gave us the whole history or how she had moved to London, leaving her boyfriend of several years, and how she had met a new guy and was madly in love. We all hung on her every word!

Alas, there are far too few such story tellers in the world. Writers can learn how to create tension, how to plot, how to hook the reader, but once in a while there comes an author who really stands out by his or her way with words, a writer who can pull us into their world of fiction and make us never want to leave it. When you open a book like that, you have hit gold, believe me.

Yes, it's hard not to get distracted

I should be writing. I have loads of editing to do on my current work in progress or as I prefer to call it my baby:  Love At Close Range.  I have finished the second draft and let it for a week to stew around in my head.  I like to look in on the characters and see what they're up to. Boy, they've changed a few things since I stopped writing about them.  Which means a lot of work ahead.  Which is currently the reason why I am wasting time on social media.
 I am browsing Twitter for Tuesday Motivation - I'm not getting any, I have to admit. Who wants to hang off the edge of an iceberg while being stalked by a polar bear just to prove you can get over the hard times?  Yes, I know you have to never give up, keep going, pick yourself up, be kind, finish the novel, persevere to the end, love everyone and come up with a rose between your teeth... gasp! I admit to being hopelessly inadequate. I admit to having a very exclusive Twitter account (in other words, I don't really have that many followers) I admit to being a nobody because I do not have a Facebook account and therefore cannot admire all those cute photos of friends and family which everyone else keeps telling me about.
I just am, really. I enjoy writing but I also enjoy reading, walking by the sea, watching quiz shows on TV. I'm going to the Everyman theatre in Cork on Thursday night. The Factory Girls is a comedy and just what I need. I love to laugh. And I love the atmosphere of the theatre, especially The Everyman, because I feel like I've had a night out.
Having written all that, I feel free to return to my editing again. Just need a cup of coffee to keep me company.  Here's the cover of the new novel. It won't be available just yet. In fact if I don't start work on it, it will never get out there.

Holidays and failed holiday pics

I'm just back from Germany where I had some quality time with my daughter and two grandchildren. We spent a week in a holiday park in the Eifel.  There is an extinct volcano here and the country is rich in thickly wooded forests and deep valleys.  It is very pastoral.  Here's an impression from my not-very-technical camera:

This was taken at a small wildlife park and those dots you can see are in fact big fat turkeys.  There were goats as well - loads of them - who came up to the enclosure looking for snacks (which you could buy from the shop, all healthy stuff).

We visited a falconry and watched the eagles, kestrels and owls being fed and learned a bit about them.  We drove through another park and had to negotiate scores of deer and wild pigs and a few donkeys as well.
Here's a picture of the falconry but as usual I missed the action bit where the eagles were taking off but maybe you get a feel for the atmosphere?

There were some lovely picturesque towns in the neighbourhood.  My favourite was Bad Muenstereifel where we spent the best part of a day.  It is a walled town and the old part - overlooked by a castle which  appears to be a restaurant nowadays -  is a pedestrian zone. It was a very hot day.  We sat next to this little stream and had our lunch.  The castle can just be seen at the top of the picture.

 Here's another shot of the town. 

All in all it was a very enjoyable week.  Ladal Holiday Park is Dutch-owned.  It is situated on the border of Luxembourg and Belgium so had a real international flair.  Very comfortable accommodation and very efficiently run with plenty for the kids to do.

Now I am back to grey reality - literally.  Today it is raining, it rained yesterday, and it is slowly getting chilly.  Which all means that I will not put my nose outside the door today.  Instead I will knuckle down to writing the second novel in my Sergeant Alan Murray crime series.  I'm about halfway through the first draft - in other words there is a load of work to be done.  I usually revise about five times before I feel I can publish.  If you like a cozy crime novel to while away the evenings, you could try the first novel in the series:  Death in a lonely Place:  Here's the U.S. link http://www.amazon.com/Death-Lonely-Place-P-B-Barry-ebook/dp/B00LSP1I2U  and the Amazon UK one:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LSP1I2U/
I write under the pen name P.B. Barry to distinguish from my other novels.

I'm off to make a cup of tea and then I really will get down to some writing.  I'll just have another look at my not-quite-perfect holidays pictures first, just to remind myself that two short weeks ago I was sweating in a hot sun with a blue sky overhead in the company of my daughter and two very lively grandkids.  Ahhh!  

The Country Life

I'm house and dog sitting in the country again.  I've been here over three weeks now and am enjoying every minute of it. 
I chose to live by the sea when I retired because I have always loved the seaside.  There is something heart-shakingly beautiful about white capped waves crashing onto the beach in stormy weather.  On peaceful days I enjoy strolling along and watching the waves shimmer and glisten in the rays of the sun.  And when it is pouring rain outside, I don't feel guilty curling up with a book because I know that at the first opportunity I'll be back out there enjoying it all.  Just now the first boats are back at the quays ready for the long summer days ahead.
Here in the country, when I look out the front door across the valley I am awed by the mountain range.  I watch them for signs that the weather is going to change, something I learned in my childhood.  They make me feel as if I belong while at the same time I am daunted by the idea that they have been there since time immemorial.
There is something unapproachable and mysterious about mountains, I always think.  That is why I set my first murder mystery in a (fictitious) mountain village.  Death in a Lonely Place is basically a detective story.  I have not included gory details,  instead I have challenged the reader to find out who the perpetrator is.  The story takes places under the shadow of Ardnabrone mountain with its legend of claiming three lives a year and the main character, Sergeant Alan Murray, has problems of his own.
I am currently writing the next novel in the series and it occurred to me the other day that I find it easier to write here in the country with that mountain range in the background.  Maybe it is just the peace and quiet of the country, the lack of distraction.  Whatever the reason, the words just flow every morning.  Sure, this is the first draft and I am going to have to cut and pull and smooth out the story before it is ready for publication.  But that's the fun of writing.   Which reminds me, I must get started!

Rainy Days and Sundays

There is nothing I love more than to curl up with the newspapers and a pot of tea on a Sunday afternoon. When I lived abroad it was the one thing I really missed.  The various columnists with their take on the week's news and the behind-the-scenes reports from journalists in the world's hotspots and fleshpots have always held a fascination for me.  
My real weakness, though, is the glossy lifestyle magazines. I drool over houses with divine gardens and conservatories and kitchens fitted out like operating theatres. That little bijou apartment in Bayswater with a view of the park. Small but luxurious. London on your doorstep. Sigh, sigh.  Or - if you prefer the country - the ivy-covered cottage by the sea down in Co. Mayo with the cute little love-seat in the garden. Might need a little makeover but a bargain at the price.
When I've picked the house of my dreams - usually with reservations such as "not too keen on the second guest bedroom, needs refurbishing" - I turn my attention to the cookery section. This is just as much of an adventure, especially for someone like me who has three main dishes at her fingertips:  pasta with tomato and basil sauce served with a side salad; chicken breast in lemon and herbs with roast potatoes and a veg. if you're lucky; and beef curry with rice and a side salad, the curry sauce comes out of a glass jar and has only seen Madras at the factory.  Looking over the exotic dishes in the lifestyle magazine I realize how lacking in imagination my cooking really is - yes, I know you've spotted that yourselves. I tear out the recipes even though I know I am never going to use them.  The crostini with salsa verde just isn't going to taste right no matter what care I take to prepare it. I won't go into my attempts at that steak recipe using Tequila.  And if I do manage to bake one of those oh-so-easy-to-make cakes, it might taste okay but it always looks as if the mice were at it. So all I have is a drawer-full of glossy recipes, most of which I'm too scared to try out. Beans on toast, anyone?
And then there are the wines. I adore those descriptions, they get my taste buds working overtime:  silky, nutty, fruity with an edge of blackcurrant. How's that again - "an edge of blackcurrant"?  I could probably get the same effect at half the price using a dash of Ribena mixed with Australian shiraz.  But it does all sound too, too romantic, doesn't it? Makes me want to pop down the off licence and look as if I know what I'm doing when I pick out a wine.
When I've extracted the last bit of pleasure from the glossies, I feel geared up for the week again.  Who knows what gems - houses, recipes or wines - are awaiting me in next Sunday's offerings?