Meet Me In Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb - A Beautifully Romantic Novel!

What a fantastic writing partnership! What a fantastic book!
I've read all of Hazel Gaynor's books, and tempted by the story of Princess Grace's wedding, I decided to read Meet Me in Monaco, which she wrote together with award-winning American author, Heather Webb.
The fairytale romance between Hollywood's darling, Grace Kelly, and Prince Rainier of Monaco in the 1950s is mirrored in this book by the one between French parfumier, Sophie Duval, and British photographer, James Henderson, who meet when Grace Kelly ducks into Sophie's shop to avoid the paparazzi; in this case, James, himself.
The whole story is told beautifully, illustrating their emotions with the perfume of the flowers that Sophie grows, and with the eye of a photographer, James.
A clever touch are the articles written by a fictional reporter, Angeline West, from Philadelphia, Grace's home town, which give the point of view of the press to the unfolding events of the romance between the prince and the actress. And Angelina even grows too, with her own story arc.
The novel is written with one chapter in Sophie's words and the other in James', and it deals delicately with their growing love, despite Sophie's rich bullying boyfriend, Lucien, and James' ex-wife, Marjorie, and her rules about him seeing Emily, their daughter.
We all think we know about Grace Kelly marrying Prince Rainier, but Hazel and Heather go behind that film star façade to give us some idea of how that Philadelphia girl really felt.
Also, Grace and Prince Rainier's love affair depended on letters, and so did Sophie and James', in a time when communications were all the more leisurely and written on scented notepaper.
I loved this book. It was beautiful and it was a great pick-me-up as I read it in two days when I was recovering from the 'flu!

The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter by Hazel Gaynor will touch your heart and keep you reading until the end!

Hazel Gaynor writes with such historical detail in her latest wonderful novel, The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter, but this doesn't get in the way of the heartbreaking story of Grace Darling, and the parallel story of Matilda Emmerson, sent  away in disgrace one hundred years later, to Newport Rhode Island to stay with a cousin in a lighthouse until her baby is born.
The part that Grace Darling played in the rescue of nine people from the wreck of The Forfarshire on the Farne Islands in 1838 is well known, but this story goes behind the familiar tale of the heroine to explore what her life must have been like, living in a lighthouse with her parents, wanting to be a lighthouse keeper herself, but knowing that in the mid nineteenth century, it was not a job thought suitable for a woman.
Hazel Gaynor not only shows how Grace dealt with the events of the night of the storm when she helped her father rescue the survivors, but also how she dealt with the unwanted media attention of the day with letters to answer, locks of hair to be enclosed, and even artists and sculptors coming to capture her likeness for the people to see because photography hadn't been invented.
Added to all this Hazel found a hint of a possible romance with a young man, and the name being mentioned of a George Emmerson, so she linked this to the true story of Sarah Dawson who Grace rescued on that fateful night, taking it and exploring how her life might have been if she had fallen in love with him.
From the story of George Emmerson and Sarah Dawson, his ficticious sister, comes the story of Matilda in 1938 with many links to the past, right back to Grace herself, and an unexpected family secret.
Both stories touched my heart and kept me rooting for Grace and Matilda until the end.
It is a wonderful book and I can't recommend it enough!

I am also looking forward to this novel about another amazing Grace, Meet Me in Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and her writing partner, Heather Webb, due out in paperback on 5th September 2019!

The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor is a Truly Magical Read for the Bank Holiday!

I've loved all of Hazel Gaynor's novels because although she includes all the historical details the story needs, she has the fantastic skill to weave them into the story, set the scene, and reflect her character's emotions without the facts getting in the way.
Through her magic, I have sailed on the Titanic with Maggie from Queenstown, Ireland, in The Girl Who Came Home; I've sat beside Flora and Rosie Flynn, selling violets and watercress around Covent Garden, in A Memory of Violets; and I've dreamt of being a star with chambermaid, Dolly, in The Girl from the Savoy. (You can read my reviews here, here and here!)
Now, at last, I've got round to photographing fairies with Frances and Elsie in The Cottingley Secret, Hazel Gaynor's latest novel which is based on a true story.
Just over one hundred years ago, Frances and her mother returned from South Africa when her father was sent away to war, to stay with her mother's sister, Aunt Polly, and her cousin, Elsie. Missing her home in South Africa terribly, Frances became enchanted by the bubbling beck at the bottom of her aunt's garden, the 'flash of violet and emerald', and the 'misty forms (of fairies) among the flowers and leaves.'
However, forbidden by her mother never to go to the beck again because a young girl had gone missing in the area and had never been found, Frances tells her mother about the fairies and, to prove they exist, she and Elsie borrow her father's camera and take a photo which changes their lives for ever.

In researching this book, Hazel Gaynor wondered if there were other people in Cottingley, caught up in the fairy fever, who saw the girls taking their photographs and who also believed in fairies, so she created the fictional characters of Ellen Hogan, Frances' teacher and the mother of the girl who disappeared; Martha, Ellen's friend and grandmother to Olivia, whose story is set in the present day.
Olivia is left her grandfather's bookshop, Something Old, in Ireland. There she discovers a memoir given to her nana many years ago: Notes on a Fairy Tale by Frances Griffiths. She reads this as she comes to terms with her imminent wedding to Jack that she doesn't want to go ahead with; supporting her nana who is in a nursing home; and reviving the bookshop. And, of course, there is the gorgeous Ross who comes into the shop with his daughter . . .
The novel was written with the co-operation of Frances' daughter,  Christine Lynch, who has always believed that her mother did see fairies during those far off summers, but you will have to read this truly magical book to make up your own mind!

Hazel's next book is The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter  due out on 9th October 2018, based on the story of Grace Darling. I can't wait!

The Girl From The Savoy by Hazel Gaynor - A Rich Story of Ambition, Secrets and Love in 1920s London

I am a serial book reader: as soon as I've finished one book, I have to start another! It's like travelling in time and space.
No sooner have I left a cosy Oxfordshire Christmas Eve (in How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry) than I arrive on a cold, icy railway station in Lancashire one hundred years ago, where Dolly is saying goodbye to her sweetheart, Teddy, whom she may never see again as he goes off to war. Two pieces of paper are in her pockets: one represents the life she knows and the other, the life she dreams of.
This is from the wonderful prologue to The Girl From The Savoy by Hazel Gaynor. I have really loved and enjoyed her previous two books, The Girl Who Came Home, and A Memory of Violets (you  can read my reviews here and here) so I was excited to read this one at last.
Dolly's dream is to be on the West End stage like her idol, Loretta May, so she gets a job as a chambermaid at The Savoy to be in London so she can attend auditions and hopefully get a job in the chorus line and work her way up. One day she literally bumps into Perry, sending the pages of music he's written all over the pavement. He doesn't think his music is worth saving, and throws it in a bin, only for Dolly to rescue it and hide it under her pillow because she feels drawn to him in some way.
Loretta, the Darling of the West End, meets up with her brother, Perry, each Wednesday afternoon for tea at Claridges, but however much she enjoys seeing him, she can't quite get herself to tell him her intimate secret.
Meanwhile Teddy, has been so traumatised with the war in France, that he's lost his memory, and a nurse at the hospital helps him in an effort to get his memory back by reading Dolly's letters.
At the same time, Dolly has her own secret which she keeps close to her heart but which is always there in her thoughts and dreams.
Hazel has written such a wonderful book, rich in the lives of people in the 1920s: Dolly at The Savoy glimpsing the glittering guests; Loretta and her life on and off the stage; and Teddy struggling to  remember who he is and forget the horrors of war in a stark Lancashire hospital.
It is a book about ambition, secrets, love, and the Jazz Age. Another world, perhaps, but only less than a hundred years ago.

Hazel Gaynor's next book, set in 1920s Yorkshire, is about the Cottingley Fairies and the two young cousins, Elsie and Frances, who maintained that their photographs of the beautiful creatures were genuine. I've always been fascinated about this story which should be out in Spring 2017, and I can't wait!

A Memory of Violets by Hazel Gaynor - Captivating and Wonderfully Written

I so enjoyed reading The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor earlier this year (review here) that I wondered how on earth she could follow it.
Well, she has, in A Memory of Violets which is just as captivating and as wonderfully written!
Set in 1876, it tells the heartbreaking story of two sisters, Flora and Rosie Flynn: one crippled and the other blind, bound together by poverty, surviving only by selling posies of violets and watercress around Covent Garden to those who will buy them.
But set also in 1912, it tells the story of Tilly Harper who escapes her past in the Lake District and comes to London to work at Mr Shaw's Training Home for Watercress and Flower Girls: a refuge where the girls are given a start in life, with clean living conditions, clean clothes, good food and training in making artificial flowers which are sold to help them earn a living.
There, Tilly finds Flora's notebook, and learns that one day Rosie slipped from her grip along crowded Westminster Bridge, and she has never given up trying to find her.
Tilly decides to try and find out what happened to Rosie, and at the same time discovers how to come to terms with her own past.
Hazel Gaynor is a very talented writer who can immerse the reader right into the heart of the story. I felt I was there beside Flora and Rosie in their bare feet and ragged clothes selling their posies in all weathers; and I was also there with Tilly in the bracing sea air at Clacton, where the younger girls were sent to the orphanage until old enough to learn how to make the flowers, as she fell in love with one of Mr Shaw's nephews (I won't say which one!).
There is so much to say about this book. It's visually beautiful with different flowers decorating each section and chapter. I would love to see a full colour edition, like a Victorian book of flowers, but I'm sure it would be too expensive. Hazel also manages to give many female characters the name of a flower, without distracting from the story, but hinting at the part each plays in it.
Her next book is out next September 2016. Set in the 1920s, The Girl From The Savoy is about a girl who rose from being a maid at The Savoy hotel to being a West End star. I can't wait!

A Great Day Out at the RNA Conference 2015

This year, as the RNA Conference was at Queen Mary's University, Mile End, London, I decided to just go for the Saturday, but to be honest, as I left at 5.30, I wished I was staying!
I travelled with Jen Gilroy (www.jengilroy.com) who, this year, is an RWA Golden Heart Finalist!! Their conference is in New York this week and I hope that you join with me in wishing Jen the best of luck!
Arriving in time to pick up our goody bags (you can see some of the contents in the photo), my first session was with Jane Wenham-Jones which I was looking forward to because she gives such entertaining talks. This one was a 'Wannabe a Writer We've Heard Of?' workshop, based on her book of the same name. In her inimitable style, she talked about making the perfect elevator pitch which, if it works before the publisher or agent has reached their floor, can be followed up with a good anecdote about why you wrote the book, which I found useful later in the day!

Then after coffee break, where I caught up with Jen and chatted with some people that I'd met on previous conferences (it's a fact that the more conferences you attend, the more people you know!) I went to Hazel Gaynor's 'Promotion Commotion'. With an impressive two video screens, she told us not only to excel at social media, but to also be a real person attending events and meeting people face to face which she did as a self-published novelist with The Girl Who Came Home, and also afterwards when it was taken up by publishers, William Morrow.

Lunchtime was rather crowded, but I did meet up with Rosemary Gemmell, a longtime online friend from Scotland. She is promoting her new book The Highland Lass, and I was impressed with her giveaway in the goody bag: a beautiful tiny thistle tied with tartan ribbon and a heart-shaped chocolate in a tiny cellophane bag together with a mini cover of her book. Irresistable!
After lunch, I went to Rowan Coleman's session about 'Five Reasons Novels Fail and How To Avoid Them'. I thought one of her best pieces of advice was to:
     'Find the time to write 500 words each day, then they will soon add up and you'll be 'in the zone' thinking about writing the story and you'll find it easier to write each day'.
I think that I'll definitely give that a go!
Then it was 'Following your Heart' with Jane Johnson. She had a captivating tale to tell of how she met her husband in Morocco. Being Cornish, she was intrigued to hear an article on Radio 4 about the Barbary Pirates who kidnapped Cornish people as white slaves, and remembered her mother telling her tales about someone from her family who had been kidnapped. Determined to find out more, she visited Morocco to do some research for a novel and, with a friend called Bruce, to do some climbing. She found the perfect Moroccan man to base her Pirate King on, who in turn rescued Jane and Bruce when they got stuck climbing a difficult rock face. And, dear reader, she married him! You can find out more about this by reading The Tenth Gift which I'm add to my reading list!
I actually had an appointment with a publisher during this talk, and was hoping to hear what happened before I had to leave, but luckily Cristal Phillips told me what I'd missed!
At the appointment, I was able to put Jane Wenham-Jones advice to use when I was asked what other books I had written. I'd only been thinking about promoting the current one, but put on the spot, I was able to remember what Jane had said about the perfect elevator pitch!
The last session was Jenny Barden and Joanna Hickson giving an entertaining talk about 'Researching Historical Fiction'. I loved it!
I had a wonderful day at the conference. Thank you Jan, Roger and Jenny who organised it!
But, I think I'll go back to staying the weekend though, next year!

The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor Captures the Amazing Story of the Titanic

One hundred and three years ago today, fourteen people from one village set sail from Queenstown, on the southern coast of Ireland, aboard the fastest, safest, passenger ship in the world: Titanic, and their amazing story is told by Hazel Gaynor in The Girl Who Came Home.
I bought the book at the RNA conference last year after hearing Hazel give a talk about how she originally self-published her novel and how it was taken on by an American publisher, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Apart from feeling just a little envious at that, I have to say that The Girl Who Came Home is beautifully written, capturing the life of people in Ireland just over a hundred years ago; the life on board the magnificent ship, the like of which had never been seen before; the horror of the collision with the iceberg, and the life of a survivor, Maggie, and the later story of her great-granddaughter, Grace. Hazel has pulled all the threads together to give a very satisfactory ending.
One of the images that appears through the story is cherry blossom. Maggie used to meet her sweetheart, Seamus under the sixth cherry blossom tree in Ballysheen every Wednesday, and she carries a handful of blossom in her coat pocket as she boards the ship, and when Grace takes her great-grandmother out for tea and apple pie each week in Cass County, Illinois, they go to The Cherry Tree restaurant. It's a beautiful story with Grace's love for Jimmy mirroring Maggie's for Seamus, and I can thoroughly recommend it.

 I've always been fascinated by Titanic because A Night to Remember was the first film that I was ever taken to see!
Last year, I was also able to visit the Titanic, The Artifact Exhibition in Las Vegas.
That probably sounds a bit tacky, but actually it was as serious an exhibition as you would expect to see at any museum in London or New York.
It told the stories of the people who had lived or died on that fateful night. In fact your ticket, or boarding pass, bore a name and details of a passenger, and you didn't know whether they had survived, or not, until you went out afterwards and looked for their name on the lists, just as anxious friends and relatives would have done all those years ago.
So many passengers made a last minute decision to sail on the ship because of a miners' strike which had meant that other ships couldn't get any coal. Titanic, itself, used one pound of coal a second to move only sixty feet!
The entrance to the exhibition was through the third class cabins to the foot tapping sound of Irish tunes, then we waltzed through to the first class cabins to the sound of an orchestra. The ship was so luxurious that conditions were often better for those travelling third class than for those left at home, even though there were only two bath tubs for seven hundred third class passengers.
There were so many interesting artifacts like china and glass decorated with the distinctive White Star Line flag, and also personal papers and letters which were preserved in leather Gladstone or hand bags, and which had been brought up from the bottom of the sea.
One of the most chilling experiences was walking outside onto the reconstructed starlit deck on the calm, peaceful night of April 14th 1912, whilst music played behind in the salons. Hitting an iceberg and the resulting chaos would have been the last things that any passenger expected.
The most amazing exhibit was a big section of the actual ship that was brought up from a depth of two and a half miles from the North Atlantic ocean.
So if you are ever in Las Vegas, and you are interested in the Titanic story don't forget to go and see it.
Meanwhile, you could always read Hazel's book, The Girl Who Came Home!

My 'To Be Read' Pile of Books - Autumn 2014

'I look at books as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.'
Elizabeth Gaskell

After spending the summer reading about sunny holidays in Devon and Cornwall, it's definitely time for a change, so here's my 'To Be Read' pile for the next couple of months before I turn to a more Christmassy theme!

The books are in no particular order, and I'm not really sure which one I'm going to choose first either!

Kate Atkinson Life After Life
I have only read Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, but his one intrigues me because of the premise of the possibility of having an infinite number of chances to live your life until you finally get it right.

Lisa Jewell The Truth About Melody Browne
The Truth About Melody Brown is the first of two Lisa Jewell books in my pile because I enjoyed Before I Met You, set in Guernsey and London in the 1920s and the 1990s. This one attracted me because it's about a nine-year-old girl who loses her memory after a fire destroys her home, and doesn't begin to recover it until she attends a hypnotist's show in her early thirties. However nothing is as straightforward as it seems and she has to uncover many mysteries before she can find out the real truth about her life.

Leah Fleming The Postcard
This book is also about uncovering family secrets. Finding a postcard to someone called Desmond amongst her deceased father's belongings, Melissa sets out on a journey across oceans and into the past. This sounds like my sort of story!

Ali Harris Written in the Stars
A more light-hearted sort of novel about Bea who slips whilst walking down the aisle on her wedding day which triggers two parallel lives: one where she gets married and one where she doesn't.
Each life has its ups and downs, but which one will make her happy ever after?

Alice Peterson By My Side
'By My Side' refers to Ticket, a golden Labrador, who becomes a companion to Cass who is paralysed from the waist down after being involved in an accident with a truck. This is an unusual story, but love grows when she meets Charlie on a flight to Colorado. Will he be able to help her to live her life to the full again?

Hazel Gaynor The Girl Who Came Home
I heard Hazel speaking at this year's RNA Conference about how she self-published this book, and it was so successful that an American publisher offered her a contract. How fabulous is that?
It is based on a true story about Maggie who survives the Titanic disaster in 1912 and, in 1982, shares the painful secret that she's kept for a lifetime with her great granddaughter, Grace, resulting in events that change both their lives.

Lisa Jewell The House We Grew Up In
This is my second Lisa Jewell book. It explores the devastating event, one Easter, many years ago, that shattered the perfect Bird family's life, but which they are forced to confront when they return to their childhood home.

Well, these are my choices. Which one would you read first?