I'm excited to announce another of my pocket novels has been released by The People's Friend :)
Gorgeous cover art by Marcia Dye for my next kindle release, Curious Governess, Dangerous Lord, which will be a re-release of my The People's Friend pocket novel, Lord Winterton's Secret :) Ulverscroft will also be releasing the large print version of Lord Winterton's Secret in September.
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| Illustration by David Young |
Last month, I released the paperback version of my historical short story collection, The Wherryman’s Daughter. Just as I felt with my romance novel, The Bride Who Rode In With The Storm (published by Satin Romance), everything feels worth it when I finally get to hold the physical version in my hands.
The Wherryman’s Daughter is a self-published effort. It
wouldn’t look half as good without the gorgeous cover art by Marcia Dye. While I was sharing the
work in progress on Twitter, I was asked the steps on how to prep a cover. I
decided to do a blog post on how I did my paperback cover for Amazon, along
with what went right and wrong.
Blogger sometimes affects uploaded image quality, so if
anything looks blurry, just click on the image and it will show it at its
original size!
My final paperback version of The Wherryman’s Daughter ended up being 6x9 inches with 294 pages as I wanted it to be a large print version. Originally, I planned on it being a smaller book, the following screenshots show this, but the steps still apply whatever size you decide on. The photo editing software used is Corel Paintshop Pro X6.
In my last few blog posts, I’ve written about why the Vikings came to Norfolk, their mythology and housing, but what would Vikings have worn? Is there any truth to the illustrations that have depicted them in the past?
Most Viking clothes were made of wool, leather, animal skins or linen. Silk was an expensive import and used sparingly in embroidery as a sign of social status.
What colours would
they have worn, though? Archaeological evidence at an abandoned trading post in
Busdorf, Germany revealed walnut shells leftover from brown dye production.
Other natural dyes would have come from lichen, leaves and stinging nettles to create purples, yellows and greens. For a vibrant red, the Vikings would have travelled overseas on trading expeditions for the madder plant and its roots.
Rosa did not look around. A confrontation would do her no good. She focused on the sleepily clucking hens, the whispery rush of their ruffled feathers.
When she did look back, the women were gone. Men sat sharpening tools or hunched over vegetable patches eyed her warily. During the accident they had seen how easily she took control and did not like it.
Rosa had expected to at least see Björn again. His wound would need seeing to and a new poultice applied. Not once did he appear at her door, not even to visit his grandmother.
Instead, she found on the doorstep curious gifts: a flagon of ale, gulls’ eggs, even a basket of honey, the comb sticky and gleaming, broken into clumps. When she did manage to catch a glimpse of the boy, he bowed his head to her. It was a quick, nervous jerk, as if afraid.
This week’s blog post to go alongside The Bride Who Rode in With the Storm will describe what a Viking settlement would have looked like. Earlier blog posts were about the Vikings in Norfolk and Viking beliefs.
The Wherryman’s Daughter
Part One
Charity spied her father from where she knelt amongst the
reeds and rushes. Owen stood at the tiller of their wherry, the Marsh Lady.
The moon was a smooth pebble
throbbing with light but, like waves slowly dragging across, night mists
covered it. The painted white snout on the wherry, used to help other boats
spot her in the gloom, had been covered with ropes.
Wavering, Charity dug her feet
into the riverbank. Mud smeared over her skirt and legs, yet a bit of dirt was
better than tipping into that dark, grasping water.
Her father could not sail the
wherry alone. She should be there with him, helping guide the boat through the
river bends.
He had not dared to ask for her
help, though. Her father knew she would have disapproved of his reason, and
demanded he give the goods back to whomever had got him into this wicked
business.
At the stem of the wherry, there
was the hunched figure of another man. She could not tell who he was, as his
face was concealed by his downturned hat. He was too big and hulking to be her
cousin Alf. Could he be the smuggler or just another one of his lackeys?
Oh, Father, she thought, gritting her teeth, why do you do this? Couldn’t he see he was the one taking all the
risk, while some unknown person reaped the profits?
Charity was tempted to stand and
call for him to take the wherry home. However, she knew he was too stubborn. If
only her mother were still here, then she would have been able to get him to
listen.
She crept further along. Rain
still glistened on the grass. Damp reeds stuck to her cheek, tugging like a
child desperate for attention. Annoyed, she scraped them away, shivering as the
cold crept past her shawl.
A misstep, and the squelching
splash of mud seemed to echo. Her lips snapped together as she held her breath,
waiting for her father to cry her name.
The brim of the stranger’s hat
twisted in her direction. Her pale blue eyes seemed to stand out even more as
they widened. Breath spluttered out of her as her heart writhed, wanting her to
run.
Do not call out, Charity prayed desperately in her head. I am nothing but a shadow, a trick of the
mind.
Then a barley bird shot out from
a bush nearby. The stranger and her father chuckled, though it was empty of
humour.
Her father turned back to the
tiller. They were just as nervous. The sound of the boat cleaving through the
water and the groan of the oak body pierced the silence.
A bright leaf green flag at the
very top of the mast fluttered and danced at the slightest of breezes. It
curled around the little tin Marsh Lady
vane: a woman with a hat of feathers and a long river weed dress.
The wind blew Charity’s way and
her nose wrinkled. No matter how long she worked on the wherry, she would never
be fond of the whiff of tar and herring oil that the sail had been dipped in.
The Marsh Lady slowed. This was it. She had an idea of what her father
planned. Although they were far from the fields, there would be one man sowing
the crops, as men down the Copper Rose Inn said as they laughed into their
tankards.
Heaving and grunting, straining
his already weak back, Owen lifted up a cask of something. Brandy, most likely.
There was a rope attached and she knew a stone was tied at the end.
Last week, she had curiously
watched him pick stones from the path back home from church. He even had such
plans on a Sunday!
The cask was pushed overboard,
and it made a deafening splashing sound. He stiffened, anxiously turning his
head side to side. Was he checking that the customs and excise men weren’t
about to leap out of the water?
After a while, he started up
again. Charity quietly counted under her breath as each cask struck the water.
One, two . . . thirteen!
None rose. They were weighted
down and hidden until someone came to dredge up the booty and carry it down to
Norwich.
The Marsh Lady continued on. Charity hurried home, scowling.
She had seen all she needed to
prove her suspicions. Now, all she had to do was figure out how to get her
father safely away from the smugglers.
****
“Have you seen anything strange these past few nights,
Charity?” was the first thing she heard that morning, upon opening the front
door.
Her fingers tightly clenched the
door handle to try and contain the tremor in her hand.
Josiah Thiske, the local customs
man, stood there with his hat in his hand. He was only five years older than
her, twenty-nine, yet he had a sunken, craggy face. Sharp winds had whittled
his skin from when he had hunted for smugglers along the coast.
He was smiling at her, revealing
the crooked, chipped front tooth that looked like a fang. Apparently, it was
caused by a Dutch smuggler who had struck him with his cosh. It gave him a
hungry, wolfish look.
A shiver was scraping up Charity’s back. Was she the prey? Had she been watched and followed as well, as she had done to her father?
The 21 Stories for Ukraine anthology has just been released. All royalties will be donated to DEC. A paperback version will also be released soon :) My own story is a historical romance drama set in a music hall - The Ghosts of Barley Meadow.
Blurb:
We are a group of writers who, along with the rest of the world, were stunned and appalled by the invasion of Ukraine and the consequent refugee crisis. However, war brings out the good as well as the bad in mankind and around the globe people are doing amazing things in an enormous effort to raise money for Ukraine and its people. With this in mind, we came together to compile this book; a variety of lighthearted short stories. Everyone has given their expertise freely and all royalties will go to DEC towards the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
Authors: Linda Barrett, Rob Nisbet, Wendy Janes, Ginny Swart, Fran Tracey, Kath Kilburn, Madalyn Morgan, Sally Trueman-Dicken, Sharon Haston, Glynis Scrivens, Jenny Worstall, Carrie Hewlett, Liza Miles, Elizabeth McKay, Christine Sutton, Elaine Chong, Claire Buckle, Kitty-Lydia Dye, Alan Barker, Raine Cooke.
Cover design: Jonathan Temples.
I'm really excited to announce that one of my short stories will be in the science-fiction anthology Darkness Blooms. Here's a little preview of what the collection is about, and soon I'll do another blog post about what The Dream and the Weaver is about and my inspiration :)
I'm excited to announce that my pocket novel, Lord Winterton's Secret, is available now on shelves and via The People's Friend website :) It is set in the Hemsby and Winterton-on-Sea area. Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn heavily inspired me.
More about the book can be read in my Writer of the Week interview: https://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk/2022/01/17/writer-of-the-week-kitty-lydia-dye-2/
