April 16th saw publication of The Home Front Girls, book 1 in my new Second World War saga series. I hope you are all going to love meeting Sally, Betty and their families.

That's Sally in the green pullover, and Betty in the patterned.

The story starts in the summer of 1940 when the Battle of Britain is raging n the skies. Steadfast, hardworking Sally and Good-natured, well-meaning Betty are both sent to work in a salvage depot - what we today would know as a recycling plant.

The trouble is they have already met - when Sally caused Betty to lose her job.

The Home Front Girls is available on Kindle and in paperback.

This week I'm delighted to welcome Kirsten Hesketh back to my blog, this time innher new guise as saga author Kirsty Dougal. She's here to tell us why she loves the cover of her first Kirsty novel so much.

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Cover Love for Wartime on Sanctuary Lane.

Kirsten Hesketh/ Kirsty Dougal.

What a treat to be back on my friend Susanna’s lovely blog – thank you so much for inviting me to say a few words about the cover for my debut saga written as Kirsty Dougal and called Wartime on Sanctuary Lane.

As soon as I saw the cover, I fell in love with it. Believe me, this has not always been the case with my previous novels. Although all my publishers have always been very supportive in trying to get things “right,” it can sometimes feel like an uphill battle matching my vision to theirs. I was thrilled and relieved that this was not at all the case here.

I love the model the design team chose for Ruby. She looks exactly as I imagined her – determined and thoughtful – exactly like Ruby! She also bears more than a passing resemblance to my lovely 22-year-old daughter – which can only be a good thing as far as I’m concerned.

The background is spot on too – in the book, Ruby leaves service during WW1 to return home to a terraced street in the East End of London to do her bit at a local munitions factory. I love the way the design team have the factory bearing down on the street and whole scene – much as it dominates my characters’ lives. And, of course, this is a book about setting up an animal hospital, so the cover wouldn’t be complete without some of our four-legged friends. The dog – who plays a huge part in the story – is appropriately centre stage, but can you spot the little cat in the background?

I’m so proud of this story, which was inspired by my grandparents and by all the wonderful pets in my life, and I really hope that some of you might enjoy it.

What do you think of the cover?

Lots of love,

Kirsten/Kirsty

xxx

Wartime on Sanctuary Lane - link to Amazon

I've said it many times before - as regular visitors to my blog will know - but it's true: no matter how many times it happens, receiving and opening up the box of author copies and seeing my books 'in the flesh' for the first time is always a wonderful moment.

It was especially exciting to receive my box of The Home Front Girls as this title is not only the first with a new publisher but also is my first Susanna Bavin book since The Poor Relation came out in 2020.

The girls on the cover are Sally (hands on hips) and Betty. I hope you're going to love meeting them and their families.

Here is the Amazon link to the paperback and here is the link to the Kindle. Both editions are published on April 16th. Not long to go!

A question writers are often asked is ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ The answer is that they come from all over the place – a snippet of overheard conversation, something on the news, a picture, a song…

I once got a terrific plot idea from listening to a talk given on a training day at work!   That idea subsequently added an extra layer to the scene in The Poor Relation when Mary, Nathaniel, Alistair and the men of the local community work through the night to get the clinic ready for business.

When I was writing The Surplus Girls' Orphans, there had to be a series of crimes going on, and these crimes had to fit in fully with the story and in particular with the children in the orphanage.   I gave it a lot of thought. Then, one morning, when I was listening to Today on Radio 4, a certain news report gave me exactly what I needed. It had to be adapted, obviously, for my book, but the idea was there.

That's the way it is with ideas - they don't get transferred onto the page unchanged. When a writer gets an idea, it doesn’t just mean using that exact snatch of conversation or that particular detail from a photo. What happens is that the original thing, whatever it was, blossoms and expands into something bigger and completely different inside the writer’s mind.

Before I had even thought of The Sewing Room Girl, I was told about something frightening that had happened to someone... and that's where the book originated - though nothing in the story bears any resemblance at all to the original event.

The wedding day details in The Railway Girls in Love were inspired when I saw two wartime wedding photographs in Bombers and Mash by Raynes Minns.

One photo was a close-up of three women – the bride and two bridesmaids. The bride was wearing a suit and hat, as many wartime brides did. As the war wore on, it became increasingly difficult to find new wedding dresses and many dresses were passed from bride to bride. So what was it about this photo that made it special for me? Well, it was the hats worn by the bride and one of her friends. Each hat had a frothy decoration attached to it, a cross between a flower and a pompom, to make the hats more suitable for a special occasion. The moment I saw these, I knew that knitting-mad Mrs Grayson would love to add the coordinating touch of knitted flowers to the wedding hats in my story.

The second picture was a group photo showing the bride and groom, an adult bridesmaid, two men and three child bridesmaids. It was the way the three little girls were dressed that gave me my second idea. I’m not going to say here what it was in case you haven’t read the book yet, but you may well work it out when you get to that part in the story.

Looking at the two wartime wedding pictures (which you can see for yourself in Bombers and Mash – they appear on page 177 in my paperback copy) didn’t just provide me with ideas for wedding clothes. Suddenly I was able to see the whole of the wedding day happening in detail from start to finish inside my imagination, complete with everything that would make it into the very special occasion that I loved putting on paper, including the flood at the church hall that meant the reception had to be moved at short notice into the station buffet.

The basic idea that started me off writing The Deserter's Daughter, my first published novel, came from seeing boxes of bits and bobs at an auction. If you fancied something, you had to buy the whole box.   That idea never got used in The Deserter's Daughter....

.... but it did get used some ten years later in The Surplus Girls.

It might take longer than you think, but ideas always get used in the end!

I'm celebrating publication day not just with a brand new book out there but also with four books in the Top 100 of the Saga Chart.

The Kindle and paperback editions of Springtime with the Railway Girls, plus the Kindle editions (on pre-order) of the first two Home Front Girls books are all there.

And don't these two make a lovely picture side by side?

If you are interested in reading Springtime, don't forget that you aren't going to find it in any of the UK supermarkets. You can get it online at Amazon or you can order it at any high street branch of WH Smith's or Waterstone's or at any independent bookshop.

Or you can of course request it at your local library.

I hope you all love reading it and finding out what happens next.

One feature of being an author is that you have no idea of the circumstances in which your book will be read. For example, I heard from one reader who told me that she started reading the Railway Girls series because of losing her nana, who had been a lover of sagas. On Nana’s bookshelf were the early Railway Girls books and her granddaughter started reading them so as to feel close to her darling nana. After a while, the characters crept into her heart and she found herself reading the stories not just for Nana’s sake but also because she was eager to find out what happened next. I was very touched to hear this, and I’m sure you feel the same.

When Colette first became a viewpoint character back in book 4, Christmas with the Railway Girls, I soon found that her plot had struck a deeply personal chord with many readers.

As her story has unfolded, I have heard from various women who have told me about their marriages to their own Tony and how they escaped. ‘Escaped’ is the word they all use. I have also heard from mothers whose daughters were married to a Tony and, as with Colette in the early days, no one else had any idea. I am honoured that these women feel that Colette’s story is true to life.

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Springtime with the Railway Girls   Kindle   paperback

This week sees the book-birthday of The Street of Broken Dreams by saga author Tania Crosse.   The Street of Broken Dreams had the honour of being named the Saga of the Year 2020.   Tania joins me here on my blog to share her special memories of the awards ceremony.

It was such a thrill when THE STREET OF BROKEN DREAMS won this coveted award. I'll always remember the moment the title was read out as the winner. I was so shocked, my husband had to tell me to go up on the stage to receive the award. Not expecting to win, I hadn't prepared an acceptance speech. I think I must have said something like it meant such a lot to me as this book is particularly close to my heart, being set in the London back street where I lived as a small child, and inspired by some of my own parents' wartime experiences, together with my own love of dance and the wartime experiences of my dear ballet mistress. I just wish they had all still been alive to witness the book's success on that wonderful evening.

Blurb:

In the summer of 1945, the nation rejoices as the Second World War comes to an end, but Banbury Street matriarch, Eva Parker, foresees trouble ahead.

Her daughter, Mildred, awaits the return of her fiancé from overseas duty, but how well does she really know the man to whom she so hastily became engaged before he went off to war?

Meanwhile, new neighbour, dancer Cissie Cresswell, hides a terrible secret. The end of the conflict will bring her no release from the brutal night that destroyed her life. Can she ever find her way back?

Under Eva’s stalwart care, can the two young women unite to face the doubt and uncertainty of the future?

“Searing emotional drama” – Bookish Jottings

Published in e-book and paperback by Aria Fiction, an imprint of Head of Zeus

Available to download from Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books and GooglePlay

Also available in Large Print and Audio

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Links:

Amazon link  

iBooks link 

Link to Google Play  

Kobo link 

Joan is a much-loved character in the Railway Girls series – and has been a viewpoint character no fewer than five times to date. So what is it about her that appeals to readers?

Here are some of the comments made about her in reviews from the early books:

“…kind-hearted Joan… I loved the relationship between her and her sister…”

"She is held back by her ultra-strict upbringing… How I wish she could break free of Gran!”

“Joan seems to be hiding something, even as her storyline and her personality take shape.”

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I’ve got to be careful how much I say here, because I mustn’t give away any spoilers – in fact, that’s why I chose to quote from reviews of the first three books in the series (The Railway Girls, Secrets of the Railway Girls and The Railway Girls in Love), in all of which Joan is one of the viewpoint characters.

Joan has had a tough upbringing. She and her sister were brought up by their grandmother, a stern, judgemental woman. As far as Gran is concerned, Joan is very much the second-best granddaughter. Even so, Joan feels no jealousy or resentment towards Letitia. The two sisters truly love one another and provide each other with friendship and emotional support. Joan admires her clever sister, whose aptitude for maths has gained her a special wartime job.

H

Joan’s first job on the railways is as a clerk in an office – much to her disappointment. She so wanted to be given a role on a station – ticket-collector or porter or announcer – or on a train – but she ended up as a clerk. Worse, though, she has to cope with having a dirty old man as her boss, something that brings Dot and Cordelia together as friends when they sort out this nasty problem for her. It gave me great satisfaction to write that particular scene!

As a volunteer first aider, taking care of the injured during air raids, Joan starts to grow as a person and her innate courage begins to show itself. Joan doesn’t just have physical courage – she has moral courage too, and this is tested to the limit by that mention of ‘hiding something’ that appeared in the review snippet quoted above. Even she has no idea of just how far she will have to go to protect her family when the past comes back to haunt them.

Joan is an important part of the Railway girls’ group, so why do the others value her? They admire the quiet courage that sees her cope with personal tragedy and they are delighted to see the happiness she eventually finds in her personal life, a happiness they feel she very much deserves. She is a staunch friend too – as Margaret in particular can testify. And while she has a stubborn streak, she will always dig deep into her thoughts and feelings and do what she knows to be right.

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Book 1 The Railway Girls

Book 2 Secrets of the Railway Girls

Book 3 The Railway Girls in Love

Book 4 Christmas with the Railway Girls

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Book 6 A Christmas Miracle for the Railway Girls

Book 7 Courage of the Railway Girls

Book 8 Christmas Wishes for the Railway Girls

Book 9 Springtime with the Railway Girls

This week I am delighted to share my pre-publication review of The Dubrovnik Book Club by Eva Glyn.

Eva combines her interest in relation-driven stories with her love of travel. In particular she loves Croatia, where her novels The Olive Grove, An Island of Secrets, The Collaborator's Daughter and now The Dubrovnik Book Club are all set. Eva also writes as Jane Cable.

Review of The Dubrovnik Book Club by Eva Glyn

My dad always listened to Desert Island Discs on Radio 4, but personally I prefer Desert Island Books. The principle is the same. It’s just that… well, you don’t need me to explain, do you? I know readers who take Desert Island Books very seriously. If they find a new contender for their list, which one is going to be struck off to make room? Only eight titles are allowed!

That’s the position I’m in now, because I have a new entry for my Desert Island Books list and it’s The Dubrovnik Book Club by Eva Glyn, who writes stories that are driven by emotion and relationships, set in Croatia, a place that is dear to her heart.

Unlike other Eva Glyn books, this one is not a dual-time, but is fixed firmly in the post-pandemic world, with a heroine, Claire, who is recovering from Long Covid and has lost the confidence to live her life to the full. She isn’t alone in not living the life she longs for. Luna, who is an assistant in the bookshop where Claire is the new manager, is gay and longs to come out – but how can she when she feels surrounded by prejudice? The friendship between these two characters and the way they support one another is one of the joys of the book.

The various characters, especially the four viewpoint characters, are beautifully drawn and I cared about all of them. Eva Glyn usually touches on the effects of war on the individual throughout their life. In The Dubrovnik Book Club, the war plays an important part in the story, but it is the effects of other issues that impact on these characters the most. The many-layered plot and multi-viewpoint telling is all held together by the bookshop itself and the mystery that Claire and Luna set out to solve. No spoilers here but when Karmela finds out what she finds out, you’ll want to run a victory lap.

This is Eva Glyn’s best book yet. It’s just plain wonderful – captivating, thought-provoking and atmospheric. Written with a light touch, it will make you feel that you’re sitting at a table on the pavement outside the local cafe, watching events unfold. A book to be treasured.

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The Dubrovnik Book Club will be published on Kindle on March 8th.... and in paperback on March 14th.

Before I started writing my Surplus Girls Quartet (written as Polly Heron), I planned it all out in meticulous detail. As well as writing a series, I wanted each of the books to be able to be enjoyed as a stand-alone.

To achieve this, I decided that:

- each book would have its own heroine and hero;

- the heroines would have secretarial school in common;

- the two sisters, Prudence and Patience Hesketh, who run the secretarial school would have a continuing story that progressed from book to book, but...

- each part of the Heskeths' story must feel complete to the reader of that individual book;

- characters from previous books would appear in the other books; and

- a tiny plot point in book 1 would become a major plot point in book 3.

I started by putting together a huge synopsis of 20-something pages, with each book's characters and plot written in detail. I didn't write it as a consecutive document - book 1, then book 2 etc. I wrote the synopses for all the books at the same time. This meant that if I got stuck, say, on Molly's story (book 2), I could switch to Nancy's (book 3) and concentrate on that for a while until I hit a wall, at which point I might switch back to Belinda in book 1.

When planning each book, I used the same formula:

- write about the heroine, her family background, her personality, her job, her hopes etc;

- ditto for the hero;

- work out the full plot, including information about the other characters;

- plan that book's allocation of the continuing story of the Hesketh sisters.

Here is what I wrote about Belinda, the heroine of book 1, in the synopsis:

In the first book, the heroine is BELINDA LAYTON. Belinda is from a large, impoverished family. The Laytons are pretty awful. They used to be respectable, hard-working working-class. But dad DENBY has gone from bad to worse where jobs are concerned and each job has dragged his family further down the social ladder. Mum KATHLEEN despairs of him and whenever she appears, you can smell the burning martyr. Denby is always trying to get money out of his three working children, much to Kathleen’s annoyance… but then she creeps after them and tries to wheedle money out of them herself.

Belinda moved in with her fiancé’s widowed mother ENID SLOAN and grandmother BEATTIE SLOAN when, aged 15, she got engaged; but her fiancé, BEN SLOAN, died towards the end of the Great War and since then Belinda has been a pretend-widow. She owes a lot to Enid and Beattie. Their cottage might be tiny but it is a big step up for Belinda, whose family is crammed into two rooms in a shabby house containing four families, all of whom share a stinking privy in the back yard. For Belinda, being invited to live with Enid and Beattie was a massive relief, but also a source of guilt, because she feels she shouldn’t be glad not to live with her family. Every week now, after she has tipped up for her bed and board with Enid and Beattie, and slipped Kathleen some money to help out, she has only a few coppers left for herself and she can’t see how to change this. Had Ben lived, it would have sorted itself out naturally once they got married, but now it feels like she is in a financial trap.

Belinda has received nothing but kindness from Enid and Beattie and is deeply grateful to them. Moreover, their shared grief has brought them extra close – but is she grateful enough to spend the rest of her life in mourning for Ben? For a long time she was happy to wear black and live in mourning, but now she wants to live a normal life again. She doesn’t expect ever to meet another man – she doesn’t even want to – but she is no longer content to live her life swathed in black. She wants to gain some skills so she can support herself and have a decent future, but Enid and Beattie struggle with the idea. Will Belinda rise above them in the world? They love her and don’t want to lose her, but above all, they believe Ben would want Belinda to stay with them.

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Book 1: The Surplus Girls   Amazon link   The Surplus Girls is also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Book 2: The Surplus Girls' Orphans   Amazon link   The Surplus Girls' Orphans is also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Book 3: Christmas with the Surplus Girls   Amazon link

Book 4: New Beginnings for the Surplus Girls   Amazon link