Head Count by Judith Cutler
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books on December 31, 2017
I’ve written before about Judith Cutler, known as Birmingham’s queen of cosy crime. She has a knack of creating feisty female lead characters and also a prolific output. Judith knows her fan base well and how to please them, which she does time and time again. Her books are very readable and so I was pleased to hear about her latest novel, Head Count. This is the second in a series of novels featuring Jane Cowan, a primary school head teacher. 
In Head Count, Jane Cowan gets mixed up in the horrors of people smuggling, in particular children arriving in the UK alone and having to fend for themselves. It is cosy crime with a realistic and very topical sharp edge. As a writer I found the structure of this book very interesting. Generally, crime fiction begins with a body on page one and then the hunt is on to find the killer. In Head Count, Judith Cutler takes a different tack. The story starts with Jane being knocked off her bike and into a hedge. She’s not badly hurt and an elderly couple help her back on her feet – but when Jane later goes to their house to thank them with flowers, the couple have disappeared into thin air. From that point on the mysterious happenings come thick and fast – no local builder will touch the renovations needed to Jane’s house, a village do-gooder constantly interferes with Jane’s school and two small boys with no English keep turning up at the school’s breakfast club.
If you want to find out how to create a layered mystery rather than a traditional whodunnit, Head Count is worth a read.
Head Count is authentic and well-researched. As well as being a head teacher, Jane Cowan is also a cricket umpire and match descriptions and after match socialising events in the novel feel real. Jane Cowan also has friends in the police and I’m guessing that Judith Cutler does as well – the police involvement in the book appears true to life, in particular there’s a clever piece of advice included in the narrative about how to make a 999 on a mobile phone when you are in the process of being kidnapped and can’t speak out loud to the operator. It’s worth reading the book just for this advice – it might save your life one day!
Judith Cutler is not afraid to tackle topical and controversial issues but she does so in an empathetic and accessible way. If you like your cosy crime to be relevant to today’s society, rather than 1930s golden age, Judith Cutler is an author to watch out for and Head Count is a good place to start.
Now I’m off to catch up with the first book in the Jane Cowan series, Head Start.
Avoid Being Scammed!
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Computers & Technical, Lifestyle, Non-writing on December 16, 2017
Three things prompted the writing of this post.
Firstly, I received a phone call from the Serious Fraud Office to tell me that my bank card had been used fraudulently. I’ve had cards misused in this way before but the informant has always been my bank or credit card company. So I queried why the Serious Fraud Office was involved.
“We have someone in custody with a cloned copy of your card.”
“Can you tell me which bank the card is for?” Like many people I have more than one payment card. Also, alarm bells were ringing – the Serious Fraud Office surely wouldn’t bother with my little bank card?
There was a long silence and then the SFO man named a bank. I don’t have an account there and so put the phone down. If he’d named my bank, I hope I would have had the sense to still put the phone down and then call the bank direct.
The second prompt came via an email from a follower of this blog. He told me how he’d been one click away from falling for a scam and transferring a large sum of money to an unknown bank account. Fred (not his real name) received a call from someone well-spoken, supposedly from his bank. This man was querying a large payment that had just been attempted via internet banking from Fred’s account. Fred said the payment was nothing to do with him. The well-spoken man said there had obviously been a security breach and that he would put Fred through to someone in the Security department who would sort things out. According to the security man this meant setting up a new account and transferring over the whole balance from old to new account. He gave Fred the ‘new’ sort code and account number and talked him through doing the internet transfer. Fred was just about to hit the ‘Confirm’ button when he began to feel suspicious, the ‘new’ sort code wasn’t like the ones usually used by his bank.
He didn’t press confirm and instead rang his bank direct. They confirmed it was a scam. Fred had been one click away from losing almost £2,000.
Finally, the company I work for is extremely hot on all security issues. It has a particular thing about phishing emails which, if a single employee clicks on a ‘bad’ link, can invite hackers into the whole of the company’s system. Last week we all got sent a warning about fake charity emails. Apparently charity scams are particularly prevalent in this season of goodwill. The email will appear to come from a well-known charity, it might even be one that you support. The email might ask you to click on a link to check the record of donations you’ve already made or it may be inviting you to make a donation. Don’t click on any links you are not absolutely sure of! Instead abandon the email and go direct via the charity’s main web page to donate or check your account.
Tip: By hovering the mouse over a link in an email, you can see where it will take you.
Be vigilant and stay safe!
Mick Arnold – A Man in a Woman’s World
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books on December 7, 2017
The USP for Mick Arnold’s debut festive novel is his gender. The Season for Love is a Christmas romance and, unusually for a romance author, Mick is a man. I asked Mick how he came to be interested in writing love stories.
A mere four years ago, you could have described me as a typical male reader. I was (and always will be) a voracious reader of all things Terry Pratchett and general science-fiction. If you’d given me a romance novel to read, I’d probably have used it to prop open a door. Certainly, I’d never given thought to putting pen to paper or, nowadays, pop open my laptop. 
Then my lady wife persuaded me to read ‘The Christmas Factor’ by Annie Sanders. The next day, I opened my laptop and from who knows where, started to type, and type, and twelve hours later, I was finally persuaded to stop writing. So was born my first attempt at a novel and yes, it was a romance. ‘Flirty Something’ was born and remains unpublished. Not surprising really, as being my first attempt, the writing is poor, though I’d like to revisit it as the story is good (I like to think).
From somewhere, I heard about the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme and decided to join the multitudes clicking away at the ‘Send’ button at silly-o’clock in the morning, attempting to join. I got lucky when someone decided not to take up their position. Did I know what I was letting myself in for? Of course not, but it was the start of the most wonderful, unexpected ride of my life (apart from my marriage, of course)!
At no point I can remember, had I considered writing a book, let alone trying to get published. Yet, suddenly, I found I’d thrown myself into this new goal; and in a world dominated by the fairer sex. This latter was of no great surprise. What was, was the way in which I found myself welcomed into what can still be, a world every bit as alien as any created by Ridley Scott. I now know more about Jimmy Choos, Louboutin and Burberry than I would admit to any other red-blooded male. Such is the life I’ve chosen to enter.
I’ve never been happier to have made this accidental choice though and as I come towards the day each author dreams of, the release of their debut novel, I couldn’t have wished for a more supportive bunch of people to have shared this journey with. It’s still a little intimidating when I’m surrounded by all these talented ladies, not helped by being a naturally shy person, but I can’t imagine a more supportive group of people who make me welcome into what is and will always be perceived as a genre dominated by women.
Albeit, a little diluted by my good self now.
About The Season for Love
Believing she was responsible for the death of her husband, Chrissie Stewart retreats from all those who love her. A chance meeting with mysterious stranger, single-parent Josh Morgan and his bewitching young daughter Lizzy, breathe new life into her and gradually, she feels able to start to let go of the memory of her lost love. Unexpected links are revealed between the two families that strengthen the growing bonds she feels to this man and with the encouragement of her best friend Annie, herself hiding a hidden conflict from Chrissie, she battles with her demons to believe in her ability to trust and love again. Everything comes to a head on Christmas Day; which all goes to show that this is truly The Season for Love. 
The Season for Love is available from Amazon US , Amazon UK , Barnes & Noble, Bookstrand , Smashwords , Kobo US and Kobo UK
About Mick Arnold
Mick is a hopeless romantic who was born in England, and spent fifteen years roaming around the world in the pay of HM Queen Elizabeth II in the Royal Air Force, before putting down roots, and realising how much he missed the travel. This, he’s replaced somewhat with his writing, including reviewing books and writing a regular post at the http://www.NovelKicks.co.uk blog site.
He’s the proud keeper of a cat bent on world domination, is mad on the music of the Beach Boys and enjoys the theatre and humouring his Manchester United supporting wife. Finally, and most importantly, Mick’s a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.
Twitter – https://twitter.com/mick859
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MWArnoldAuthor/
Nottingham Writers’ Club National Short Story Competition 2018
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story on November 30, 2017
I’ve rather neglected the short story scene of late – my head has been stuck in the clouds, dreaming of becoming a bestselling novelist!
Last week Mars Hill from Nottingham Writers’ Club kindly sent me an email about the Club’s 2018 competition and I’m sure that some of you more down to earth people will be interested in having a go. My one dismal attempt at the RNA NWS came back with a comment indicating that it was easier to earn money with short stories than novels. So maybe I should get my head out of the clouds and have a go at this.
The prompt for the Nottingham Writers’ Competition is ‘Choose a Season’. It can be any kind of story in any genre, as long as your chosen season plays an important part. Maximum word count is 2,000.
The three main prizes are £200, £100 and £50. There will be five runners up prizes.
Entry fee is £6 online or £5 by post.
Entries can only be submitted between 1st February and 28th February 2018. But that means you need to start planning and writing now!
Visit the Nottingham Writers’ Club website to register your interest and get full details.
Creating an Author Facebook Page
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Computers & Technical, Promotion, Resources on November 20, 2017
Creating an author Facebook page is something I’ve been putting off for a very long time. For two reasons:
- I don’t understand what benefit it will bring me. If my fans (!) are searching for me on the internet, they will find this website/blog, which tells them about me and how to get in touch.
- All the author Facebook pages I’ve looked at have some wonderful header graphics across the top of the page. I’m not artistic and didn’t know how to create one of these.
Back in June, when I had my initial meeting with The Book Guild we briefly discussed how an author can help with book marketing and it was suggested that I create an author Facebook page. Since then it’s been on my ‘to do’ list like a hated piece of school homework. Next week I have another meeting with my publisher to discuss publicity and marketing. So, because I was a bit of a goody-two-shoes at school and always handed my homework in on time, I have finally created my author Facebook page.
A secondary reason for creating the page was that Facebook don’t like people ‘selling’ from personal profiles. Book promotion could possibly be classed as ‘selling’?
Was creating the page as bad as I expected? No!
I’d heard many people mention how great Canva is for creating graphics. So I signed up (it’s free!) and, fairly quickly, managed to create myself a banner (see below). It’s probably not the world’s best promotional graphic but hopefully it will do the job for now. As for creating the actual page, it’s as simple as filling in a form with Facebook holding your hand and making suggestions along the way.
But my sparkling new author page has given me two new problems:
- A page that’s not regularly updated isn’t very inspiring to anyone who stumbles across it. What shall I post on there?
- Is it worth annoying people by asking them to ‘like’ my page? More likes mean better page visibility?
I’d be grateful for any advice from you Facebook pros.
And if you have a page you’d like ‘liked’, please stick it in the comments and we’ll have a mutual ‘like-in’.
Public Speaking Tips for Authors
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Events, Lifestyle, Promotion on November 8, 2017
Those of you who’ve been following this blog for a while will know that a few years ago I joined Sutton Coldfield Speakers’ Club in order to gain the public speaking confidence necessary to promote myself and my books at author events. Last week I was part of a panel of three judges for a speech competition at a neighbouring club. The speeches were 6 to 8 minutes long and had a completely open theme.
Thank You Gift for Judging Speech Competition!
All the speakers were confident in front of an audience and all chose subjects with wide appeal. They all did well. After we’d decided on the winner and runner-up, we judges discussed the points the head judge should make in her summing up of the competition. The aim of the summing up was to give general advice for the contestants and members of the audience to take away. Listed below are some of these points plus other tips I picked up from my observation of the speakers. They maybe useful to those of you devising an author talk:
- Beware of meaningless gestures i.e. continually moving your arms as you speak
- Beware of keeping your arms rigidly still throughout – include a few meaningful gestures e.g. expanding your arms to describe the size of something or stamping a foot to jolt/surprise the audience
- Project your voice from the very first word you utter. Grab the audience’s attention!
- Don’t continually sway from side to side or move your weight from one foot to another. It’s disconcerting to watch a human pendulum!
- Inject a little humour. Not in the form of a joke but perhaps a throwaway observation on something the audience is familiar with.
- Make eye contact with all parts of the audience – this means shifting your eye gaze around the room as you speak.
- Speak with minimal reference to notes – this will free you up to make appropriate gestures and make lots of eye contact with your audience. Don’t read your talk!
From my own experience, I would add – don’t be put off if someone in the audience falls asleep. This has happened to me twice when speaking to groups of older ladies. The first time I put it down to the fact that we’d all just enjoyed a nice, big lunch. The second time, the organiser warned me in advance that one particular lady always went to sleep when they had a speaker and sure enough, I saw her head nod and her eyes close quite soon after I’d started.
However many times you do it, speaking in public is nerve-wracking – if you’d like to practise in front of a sympathetic audience, find a Speakers’ Club near you.
Too Little Time!
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Lifestyle, Non-writing on October 30, 2017
Do you ever get weeks when life seems to rush at you like a steam train and there’s barely time to eat or sleep? I’ve just had a couple of those weeks.
Escaped Sheep Enjoying the Garden at Nidd Hall
The catalyst was a four day weekend away. I’m NOT complaining about that, I had a lovely time at Nidd Hall near Harrogate with my mum and sister. But it meant that for two consecutive weeks I lost one of my two writing days (the three days a week for my day job still had to be fulfilled). In week one most of the remaining writing day was swallowed up by an author talk for a Women’s Institute group and in week two it was eaten into by the monthly reading group I coordinate, followed by a nighttime Black Friday rehearsal.
In case you’ve been living on the moon for the last few years, Black Friday is an opportunity for everyone and his dog to get stuck into some early Christmas shopping as retailers slash prices online and in store. It falls on the last Friday in November but preparations have already begun. The retailer I’m involved with staged an overnight rehearsal last week to ensure the website could cope with a large amount of price changes and customer activity. I acted as scribe for the rehearsal, providing a live feed about all the technical goings-on. It could be classed as a form of writing/communication but everything happened so quickly there was no time to edit or review my words, so it went straight out, typos and all.
Also, week two ended with a night of no gas supply, meaning no hot water or central heating. Following the installation of a new gas main in the road our gas couldn’t be turned back on due to a fault with the meter. Apparently, the meter is the responsibility of the gas supplier and we discovered to our cost that our gas supplier had no out of hours emergency phone line. So it was the next morning before an engineer was despatched to sort us out. Needless to say, we will shortly be changing energy suppliers to avoid being caught like this again.
Big Hole in Drive for New Gas Main
On top of all of the above, the final typeset proofs of The Promise arrived for my attention. I’d hoped to read them ‘on the go’ on my Kindle but because they were in PDF format the font couldn’t be enlarged and even with reading glasses I couldn’t read them (old age!). So I had to make time at the PC to go through them.
Fingers crossed, this coming week should be back to normal. There’s lots to catch up on, including preparing guest blog posts for you lovely people who’ve agreed to host me and The Promise around launch time early next year. But right now I’m going to have a look at Julia Thorley’s Yoga Blog in the hope of finding some inner calmness!
The Promise – Cover Reveal!
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Promotion, Successes on October 16, 2017
Exciting times! I can now reveal the fantastic cover of my forthcoming grip-lit novel, The Promise, to be published 28th January 2018.
Ta Dah!
As yet, the back cover is not finalised but the proposed ‘blurb’ is:
A man has been stabbed. A woman is bloodstained. The nightmares have begun again for Olivia Field.
Ex-convict, Tina is terminally ill. Before she dies, the care of her younger brother must be ensured. She calls in a promise made thirty years ago in a prison cell.
Tina’s terrible blackmail demands put Olivia’s entire future and, ultimately, her freedom under threat.
“Jenkins spins a web of intrigue” – Judith Cutler
At this point I’d like to give a very grateful shout-out to two of the very few people who have read the book so far:
Womag writer, Sharon Boothroyd acted as my beta reader and gave valuable feedback on the parts of the story where what was in my head didn’t quite make it on to the page. Thank you for your patience and constructive comments, Sharon!
Prolific series crime writer, Judith Cutler read The Promise and gave me a great shout line for the front cover, ‘Jenkins spins a web of intrigue’. Thank you for making time in your busy schedule to read my book, Judith.
The Promise is now available for paperback pre-order, either from Amazon, Waterstones and other book shops or direct from The Book Guild. Why not treat yourself and get a lovely, brand new, first edition (!) paperback book through the post in the dark days of January?
Alternatively, leave me your email address and I’ll send you a reminder about the publication date in January and let you know when the e-book editions become available (should be the new year too).
And if any of you bloggers out there would be willing to host a guest post/interview spot around January 28th or into February 2018 please get in touch. I would be grateful for any help with publicity! I can be emailed at sallysjenkins ‘at’ btinternet.com (replace ‘at’ with @).
Thank you all for sticking with me over the years.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books on October 5, 2017
The brilliant thing about book clubs is the encouragement and opportunity to read books outside your comfort zone – that’s how I found myself reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell. 
It’s a thick book written over 100 years ago and viewed by some as a classic. It has much to say in favour of socialism and the edition I read had an introduction by Tony Benn. However it is possible to push the politics to one side and read it as a piece of social history.
The story centres around a group of painters and decorators living in poverty. They are in and out of work depending on the season and very badly treated by their rich, fat cat employers. Health and safety is non-existent and this is long before the safety net of the welfare state and the NHS. The book follows these wretched men and their families over a twelve month period, contrasting their circumstances with those of their bosses.
I found the first chapter hard going – there were far too many characters introduced all at once. But I persevered and the subsequent chapters focused in on individuals which made the going easier. I became fond of Owen, the deep thinker of the group, and young Bert, who worked for nothing in an exchange for an ‘apprenticeship’ which taught him only the skills of being a dogsbody. I also felt for their wives, who often went without food so that their children and husband could eat.
Verdict: It took me three weeks to read the book and only 30% of the book club members stuck with it all the way through. It made me incredibly glad that I wasn’t born 100 years earlier into a society that had to live hand to mouth. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is not a ‘good’ read but I’m very glad I’ve read it – in the same way that I’m often very glad I’ve been to the gym even though pounding the treadmill or doing sit-ups was not a good experience.
What’s Your Theme?
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Resources, Writing on September 22, 2017
Having a theme for a novel or story is something I’ve always struggled with. I can cope with the internal and external conflicts that a character must have and the plotting of the ‘journey’ each character must go on, in order to emerge, changed in some way, at the end of the tale. The theme is something much bigger but also much simpler than all of this other detail. The theme will not be mentioned explicitly in the story but will occur and reoccur subtly throughout the narrative in the actions of your characters. The theme will generally be something to do with being human, for example growing old, maternal love or keeping secrets.
I don’t believe it’s necessary to have the theme before starting a fiction project because often it will evolve organically. For example you may notice that your characters are all motivated by greed, be it in slightly different ways, maybe one is greedy for money but another is greedy for fame and attention.
So what made me start thinking about theme?
A friend of mine, children’s author Lorraine Hellier sent me a useful link to an article on theme on the Reedsy blog. The article compares the structure of a novel to an iceberg split into three sections:
- Plot i.e. the events of the narrative. This is the smallest part of the structure.
- Story i.e. internal and external character conflicts.
- Theme. This is the huge chunk of iceberg beneath the water and drives both the plot and the story.
I’ve found this a useful concept to muse on as I ponder over what should happen next or how a character should act/react in my current WIP.
Knowing your theme makes it much easier to tell others what your book is about. Instead of delving into the detail of the plot, start with a sentence on the theme, for example, “It’s about how power corrupts.” (Animal Farm by George Orwell)
Why not take a look at the Reedsy article and let me know what you think?
Sally Jenkins 