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| Gorgeous artwork is by Sailesh Thakrar |
In The Mermaid’s Gift, an old family story about a mermaid encounter brings romance and drama.
♡
“My grandfather, Josiah Young…” he began, coughing as he always did. I once heard Grandmother say to Mum that she always knew the old boy was lying when he coughed, but I didn’t believe that. “…once saw a mermaid.”
Hello to the new year, although I’m guessing that feeling has finally sunken in as it’s the end of January 😊
Writing News ?
Did you make any
resolutions? I sort of did. Even with a house move several years ago, I still
managed to take loads of clutter with me, so I’m hoping to tackle it.
This also includes my ten shelves, one box and two moving bags of books, so I
do wonder if I’ll be in my fifties when I do finish them!
The new year for a writer also means deciding what goals to prioritise. Currently, I’m doing the finishing touches on the last part of The People’s Friend serial I’ve mentioned in past blog posts. I think I’ll feel adrift once it’s sent off, as I’ve been working on this for nearly half a year.
Hopefully I’ll be able to start a new one, perhaps
set during the summer.
Alongside fleshing
out ideas for several short stories, I’m planning on putting more time into my
timeslip fantasy novel. So far, the working title is just Robin. My goal is to
start approaching agents with the finished manuscript either by the end of this
year or the beginning of next.
Now, how about some more recent news?
PUBLICATION NEWS #
Back in October
2022 my highlander romance, The Rogue Redcoat, was released as a pocket novel
by The People’s Friend. On February 1st it will be re-released by Ulverscroft for their Linford Romance series as
a large print edition available in UK libraries.
When Tabitha Wynmere’s younger brother is kidnapped, she steals his spare uniform and braves the wild beauty of the Highlands. What she doesn’t expect is to have a knife held to her throat by a handsome, battle-scarred Scotsman hiding in the woods.
However, Hamish is more
involved in her brother’s disappearance than she realises.
I can’t wait to get hold of my author copies. As well as large print, I myself will release a digital version under its original title, The Redcoat’s Honour, in a few months’ time, so look out for another fantastic cover by Marcia Dye!
Also, I’ve recently had some ratings on Goodreads and Amazon. Five stars on The Wherryman’s Daughter and four stars on The Howl of the Hessian Hound. Thank you! I’m always ecstatic when I get good news like this. A lovely review or rating is a great present for a writer.
Preview !
It’s the year of
the wood dragon, so here’s a little scene from a past People’s Friend short
story, Here Be Dragons.
A
light entered his eye. “You’re after the dragon as well, aren’t you?”
Tilly
leaned forward, Jacob grunting as he slid on her lap. “Tell her the story,
Father.”
Mr
Ramworth stuck his legs out to dry. Harsh lights flared over his face as he
struck a match.
“That
dragon was a menace. The beating of its wings was mightier than any storm. When
mists crept across thick as snow, it was like a strand of night broken free,
slithering through fields to blacken crops and poison wells.
“But
one girl knew the dragon loved music. She lured it underground with her fiddle
and a millstone was rolled into place. Some say her music can still be heard
wandering the tunnels.”
I
blinked away the bright spots shimmering from the intensity of the fire. Flames
roared, quick and huge, yet cold crept into my bones.
“Peace came,” the story continued, “but that was long ago. Stone and earth soon erode. That shadow you see gliding through the marsh water might not be mere riverweeds.”
WRITING TIPS @
For this month’s tip, and as I’m working on my final serial part, I’m sharing how I approach magazines with a serial pitch. All publishers have their own guidelines, so always keep that in mind first.
So far, I’ve had four serials published with The People’s Friend and the fifth will be appearing later this year.
My submission email is normally quite brief and will include three .doc files. This is normally the opening, a synopsis which breaks down each individual scene and a character guide detailing characters’ backstories/development throughout the course of the story and any extra info.
They’re about fifteen pages long altogether, so I’m just going to include a small sample. Perhaps I’ll upload the entirety later on if enough people are interested.
Here’s an example of my pitch for Sabotage At The Big Top (The Wherryman’s Daughter pitch is lost as that was back when submissions were mailed in) as well as the first page for both the synopsis and character bible for The Wherryman’s Daughter.
Pitch - main points are time period and genre:
Sabotage At The Big Top would be a historical romance and family drama set around a Victorian travelling circus, would this be of interest to you?
Synopsis:
Part One.
Scene One: Charity is out at night, following her father as he sails the Marsh
Lady. He hides smuggled brandy in the water. She is forced to return to the
Copper Rose Inn in the hopes she can figure out a plan to stop him from getting
it to the smuggler.
Scene Two: The next day, the
local customs officer, Josiah Thiske, questions Charity about strange noises in the
night. She manages to distract him and can begin setting up breakfast for the
guests. Charity encounters Tom Sparrow with his dog, Bramble. Tom wishes to go
on a wherry but, as her father is with her aunt and the local squire, Charity
offers to take him with her cousin Alf.
Scene
Three: At the back of the inn, Aunt Mariah, Owen and Lord Rosewood are arguing
about Mariah and Augustus’s relationship. He believes they have been seeing one
another again, which they strongly deny. Owen ends up storming off. Mariah and
Augustus then begin to argue. He wants her to admit to everyone that they are
together, but she is afraid of what her brother will do if he knows his
suspicions are correct.
Scene Four:
Meanwhile, Alf is trying to unsuccessfully fix the fencing around the inn. As
he gets more frustrated, he tries to placate himself with the thought that soon
he’ll have everything he needs. Charity and Tom arrive, and he goes with them
to the Marsh Lady. As they sail the wherry, Charity notices Josiah watching
them. Upon Charity and Tom leaving, Josiah approaches Alf, who is struggling to
read a letter sent from Amelia. He helps him with this, once Alf agrees to tell
him about Tom and what Charity thinks of him. Alf is worried about what he
hears in the letter, as Amelia is afraid that her father plans to force her to
marry a man she does not love.
Scene Five: Night arrives, and Charity is about to sneak out, planning on dragging up the casks and hiding them. However, Bramble stops her from leaving and begins to bark. Someone comes down the stairs.
Character file:
The
Wherryman’s Daughter begins in the early 1800s in a village in the Norfolk
Broads. Twenty-four-year-old Charity is spying on her wherryman father, Owen,
as he mysteriously takes the Marsh Lady wherry out in the middle of the night.
Wherries, being small,
almost graceful, were used to navigate the Broads, carrying timber, coal and
ice to cities. This time, Charity’s father is carrying smuggled brandy casks.
She is horrified that he is
doing this, as smuggling carried with it hefty sentences if caught, and so has
to find some way of stopping him. The local customs man, Josiah Thiske, has
been attempting to court Charity, and she is worried he will notice what her
father is up to.
Charity and her father have
been staying and working in the Copper Rose Inn with her widowed aunt and
cousin, because of Charity’s mother passing in the winter from illness.
Since his wife’s death, Owen
has been fading away. Charity is desperate to get back the father she knew, and
knows the smuggler is using her father’s troubled state of mind to manipulate
him.
💮
It's almost been five years since The Wherryman's Daughter was first serialised, but it can still be read in my anthology series, which also includes several of my other People's Friend short stories.
See you all next month <3
Kitty-Lydia Dye wanders the beaches for inspiration with her dog Bramble. Her historical fiction has been influenced by the local myths roaming the haunting landscape of the Norfolk marshes. Many of her short stories have appeared in The People's Friend magazine. She has also released a collection inspired by Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. She enjoys knitting dog jumpers, gazing at the waves at night, exploring church ruins as well as taking part in amateur dramatics (and played the part of an evil flying monkey!)
As a lookback on my past works, this blog post is going to focus on my short story Lavender and Leeches. This was previously published in The People’s Friend magazine back in 2019.
Alongside it was this lovely illustration by Jim Dewar.
It was my sixth story with the magazine and was heavily inspired by watching reruns of Victorian Pharmacy, a BBC documentary series starring Ruth Goodman where historians recreated working in a 19th century pharmacy.
Other influences came from the pharmacy display at the Bridewell Museum in Norwich, which, while based on a 20th century pharmacy, certainly has a varied and interesting selection of old medicines. There’s even a carboy 😊
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.
To celebrate the release of my latest book, the collection is at the discount price of £3.99 for the first week before going up to £5.99 -- so get it before the offer runs out if interested! ;)
In The Wherryman’s Daughter, Charity knows her father is risking his life and their wherry the Marsh Lady by smuggling gin and tobacco. Can she foil the smugglers or will she too disappear on the Broads?
Twenty seasonal stories of drama, romance and adventure set in Victorian and Regency Norfolk, with smugglers, ghosts and the all too treacherous Broads. Locations include Cromer, Winterton-on-Sea, Great Yarmouth and St. Benet's Abbey. Perfect for a holiday read or while staring out of a stormy window, wishing you were somewhere else. Features evocative descriptions of coast and country interwoven with historical details about local folklore alongside bathing machines, the Norwich yards, Victorian spiritualism, the history of ice-cream and omnibuses.
Previously these stories were published in The People’s Friend magazine and can now be read in an easy to dip into format. Included are photographs of Norfolk scenes and wildlife taken by the author.
Bitter Herbs and Sweet Pills
When a new pharmacy is opened in the village, herbalist Heather worries the old ways will be replaced by lethal concoctions and quack cures.
The Sea Stone
Hetty once believed in her grandfather’s stories about mermaids, but will a special stone passed down by her family really lead to her intended?
The Green Mists
Matthew ignores his mother’s warnings about the fey-like, mysterious Willow. Will an old folktale doom the courting couple?
Tell it to the Bees
After a devastating fire, Dorothy goes searching for her last remaining family. All she encounters is a sullen grandfather and his garden of bees.
Rivoli’s Gelato
Retired governess Agatha has returned to her childhood home to run an ice-cream cafe, only something doesn’t want her to succeed...
The Lucky Net
Seb has always been superstitious, but his marriage is under threat when he clings too much to his good luck charms.
The Runaway Bathing Machine
Maid Lizzie knows she shouldn’t be seeing her sweetheart while accompanying Lady Ashworth, but sneaks off anyway. Little does she know her employer has a similar plan in mind.
The Harvest Maiden
The making of the corn dolly has fallen to Merry this year. Can she make a suitable vessel in time?
The Silver Darlings
Gellie comes from Scotland to Great Yarmouth each year in search of her father, only to discover a young woman who looks exactly like her.
The Matchmaker
Spinster Hazel is forced to risk her reputation when her step-sister elopes to Gretna Green.
The Reluctant Passenger
A Norfolk born country girl finds herself inadvertently kidnapped by a London omnibus – all for the price of a fare!
The Fen-Nightingale
Bird enthusiast Horace stalks the Norfolk Broads in search of this elusive bird – will he instead find the family he left behind?
The Lantern Man
When Laura’s husband is left for dead on the riverbank, she must confront a childhood fear to discover the truth.
Ghostly Footsteps
Tessa has always done what her aunt demands, even played a ghost for her fake seances. Will she have a change of heart when otherworldly footsteps start following her?
The Marshland Monk
After a storm tears apart her father’s church, Mary discovers treasure and an unfriendly spirit...
The Seashell Necklace
The Dutch fair has returned to the beaches of Great Yarmouth and Eli plans on proposing to childhood sweetheart Morag. When a necklace goes missing and Morag ends up taken to the Custom House, he must find the true thief.
The Rushlight
Ruth’s little sister is terrified of tales about the ghost dog Black Shuck. When she goes out to pick rushes, a dark figure lures her through the snowstorm.
Including Carried by the Wind, Love Written on the Petals and The Cocoa Tree.
