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Crow Moon by Suzie Aspley#Extract #Giveaway #AMarthaStrangewaysInvestigationBook1

  I am delighted to introduce the first in a new series by debut writer, Suzie Aspley . The atmospheric thriller, Crow Moon was published by Orenda on March 14th. Today I have an extract for you to read and the chance to win a print copy of Crow Moon . Details on how to enter are at the foot of this post. When the crow moon rises, the darkness is unleashed… Martha Strangeways is struggling to find purpose in her life, after giving up her career as an investigative reporter when her young twins died in a house fire. Overwhelmed by guilt and grief, her life changes when she stumbles across the body of a missing teenager – a tragedy that turns even more sinister when a poem about crows is discovered inked onto his back... When another teenager goes missing in the remote landscape, Martha is drawn into the investigation, teaming up with DI Derek Summers, as malevolent rumours begin to spread and paranoia grows. As darkness descends on the village of Strathbran, it soon becomes

A Cornish Inheritance by Terri Nixon #AuthorGuestPost #Giveaway



I am delighted to welcome Terri Nixon to the blog today to talk about her writing. Before we hear from her, here is a little about her latest historical family saga, A Cornish Inheritance, which was published by Piatkus on 6th December 2019. There is also the opportunity to win a signed copy of A Cornish Inheritance. Details on how to enter are at the foot of this post.
 
Welcome to Fox Bay Hotel, where family fortunes rise and fall.


1920, Bristol. Helen Fox is happily married to the love of her life: charming, former playboy Harry. With their three children, glamorous lifestyle and extravagant parties, they have the perfect life. But after a tragic motorcycle accident, nothing will ever be the same...

Helen is forced to leave their home and move to the Fox family's hotel on the Cornish coast - where she discovers her perfect life has been based on a lie.

Now Helen must find a way to build a new life for herself and her children with the help of a vivacious new friend, Leah Marshall.
But when the future of the hotel is threatened, Helen discovers that she hasn't left her past behind after all, and unless she takes drastic action, she's going to lose everything all over again...



 Welcome to the blog, Terri. Now, over to you!


                                                         All the Fun of the Easter Egg
 

“Wow, small world.” We’ve all said it at one time or another, and sometimes it seems as if the coincidences in life are too ridiculous to be borne; going on holiday halfway across the world, and running into your hairdresser at the same hotel? Really? Lying on your consultant’s bed in an Inverness hospital and realising you’re chatting to someone who once lived two minutes down the road from you in Cornwall? Oh, please!  But it happens all the time in real life. 

You put that in a book, however, or on TV, and the entire reading or viewing public throws their hands in the air and closes the book/reaches for the remote! I’m guilty of that myself, I must confess, but I shouldn’t be. Truth is stranger than fiction, and surely the joy of writing fiction is the licence to step outside the confines of truth, and to embrace every possibility and then some. It’s the “then some” that has people hopping up and down and crying, “As if!” But it shouldn’t. Not really. And here’s why:

To date I have written three complete series, and I’m now embarking on series four. 


  1. The Oaklands Manor series; three girls from different backgrounds, before and during WW1.
  2. The Penhaligon Saga; a small fishing and mining community in the early 20th century.
  3. The Lynher Mill Chronicles; a mythic fantasy series ranging from bronze age to current day; Cornish folklore and contemporary life twisted together.
  4. The Fox Bay Saga; a roaring twenties family drama set in a glamorous hotel in Cornwall.


Each one is linked to the others in a hundred tiny ways; throughout every one of them there are little nuggets, hints of the others; some dropped in as a passing comment, others integral to the plot of whichever book it’s infiltrated. 

Lizzy from the Oaklands Manor books was born in Plymouth, so when I was writing the Penhaligon Saga it was simple to pop her and her young twin brothers onto the grass by the lighthouse tower, while my historian mused over the lighthouse’s origins. Their paths crossed only briefly, but something in the way she was looking after her boisterous charges made an impression on him, which would later move him on towards his destination with equal determination and patience. 

The diaries which form the major storyline in the Penhaligon books have had their story told in full in the Lynher Mill Chronicles, which had already hinted that the main character was descended from someone in that town; and in the Fox Bay Saga a lifeboat is named The Lady Dafna, after a fleeting encounter by a small child with one of the fae characters from the Lynher Mill books. (Of course they just smile and indulge him; no-one believes him, because this isn’t a fantasy book, it’s an historical saga. But we know he’s telling the truth, don’t we?)

The pleasure of linking all these books together isn’t simply to give myself a private little smile, and to see if anyone notices; it actually pulls the histories of all these places together in the same way places and people are linked in the “real” world. I feel as if I’ve re-written both the geography and the history of Cornwall; the people of the town in one series have heard the awful stories of piracy and slavery that provided the founders of another town with the money to flourish… because that town is only a short hop up the coast, and of course they’re aware of it. It would be weird if they weren’t.
A very young character from the Oaklands Manor trilogy is now sixteen in the era of the Fox Bay saga, and a logical series of events brings her into the sphere of the Fox family and their hotel. It makes everything feel so much more real to have paths crossing and memories shared, and that one major character might be seen by another as a fleeting moment in their own story just highlights the way we see others as we hurry through our own stories, forgetting sometimes that they are massively important to the lives of others, even if they aren’t to us. 

This definition from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows says it best:

sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

My characters appear and disappear to one another, are mentioned once and dismissed, but often influence one another without even knowing it, and that’s what makes the strange, sharp pang of finishing a series bearable. On to the next! 

Thanks so much Terri. That is a fascinating insight into your characters. 

About the Author



Terri was born in Plymouth. At the age of 9 she moved with her family to Cornwall, to the village featured in Jamaica Inn -- North Hill -- where she discovered a love of writing that has stayed with her ever since. She also discovered apple-scrumping, and how to jump out of a hayloft without breaking any bones, but no-one's ever offered to pay her for doing those.

Since publishing in paperback for the first time in 2002, Terri has appeared in both print and online fiction collections, and is proud to have contributed to the Shirley Jackson award-nominated hardback collection: Bound for Evil, by Dead Letter Press.

As a Hybrid author, her first commercially published novel was Maid of Oaklands Manor, published by Piatkus Entice.

Terri's self-published Mythic Fiction series set in Cornwall, The Lynher Mill Chronicles, is now complete and available in paperback and e-book.

Terri also writes under the name T Nixon, and has contributed to anthologies under the names Terri Pine and Teresa Nixon. She is represented by the Kate Nash Literary Agency. She now lives in Plymouth with her youngest son, and works in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Plymouth University, where she is constantly baffled by the number of students who don't possess pens.

You can read my review of Penhaligon's Attic here.

You can follow Terri here: Twitter   |  Website

Book link: Amazon UK 

Thanks to Terri Nixon and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours  for a place on the event.


                                                Catch up with the rest of the tour 

Giveaway (UK only)


To win a signed copy of A Cornish Inheritance, just Follow and Retweet the pinned Tweet at @bookslifethings.  Closing Date is 14th December 2019 and there is one winner.


*Terms and Conditions – UK only.  The winner will be selected at random via Tweetdraw from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

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