After Mrs Hamilton by Clare Ashton

Rating

I enjoyed this book immensely it is well written with interesting women and very intriguing situations. At times I couldn’t put it down because I just had to know what was happening next. The story is more complex than most lesbian romance fiction; in fact I would go as far as to say that this book is a novel that just happens to contain a lesbian romance. I think it stands alone as a book worth reading without being pigeon holed into a genre.

Having said that there is a strong, compelling lesbian romance at the centre of this book between two women of different ages and backgrounds whose love transcends their potential difficulties. There is also another lesbian romance which is much more complicated and contains many surprises along the way.

This book is intriguing, compelling and worthy of serious attention when reading, otherwise you might get confused by the various twists and turns. It builds towards a wonderfully satisfying ending which made this reader very glad she persevered and compelled to read it again! Enjoy!

By Claire
 

Author Profile: Jade Winters

Jade Winters, author of "Say Something" and "Guilty Hearts" reviewed by Planet London earlier this year (and more), opens up about life behind the pen...

What’s your first memory of enjoying reading?
My first real memory was when I read Stig of the dump. I have no idea how old I was but I loved that book. It always made me sad that he lived in such a messy place and I wanted to go and clean it up for him.
What are you currently reading?
I'm re-reading Affinity by Sarah Waters - fantastic book.

Which character you’ve created/written do you wish you could spend a day as? 
Megan in Faking It. She led an unusual life and I would like to know what it feels like to live without a conscience.

Which character that someone else has written do you wish you could spend a day as?
I would like to spend the day as Ishmael from Daniel Quinn's novel of the same name. I would love to spend the day being wise and understanding the intricacies of life.

Have you created any characters you don’t like?
I have created a few. The one I disliked the most was Eddie in 143. He was an abusive, homophobic bully.

What was the first thing you ever wrote that made you think, “I want to be a writer”?
As a child I used to write scripts all the time. I would go through the yellow pages and find anyone related to the film industry I could send them to. As I got older I always had stories in my head but never actually got around to writing them. It wasn't until I had one particular plot in my head that I couldn't ignore that I started writing properly. When I'd finished 143 I knew that's what I wanted to do.
Do you edit as you go or as a full process after a first draft?
I hate editing so leave it as long as possible - I never do it as I go, I always leave it until after the first draft.
Where do you write? And what do you need around you?
I like to be comfortable when I write, so it usually involves sitting on my bed with my laptop, surrounded by my cats.

Pen and paper, typewriter or computer?
Mostly I use my laptop, but sometimes paper if I'm out and about and have ideas I need to write down.
Where do we find out more?

• www.jade-winters.com
• https://www.facebook.com/jadewinters
• Twitter: @jadewinters3

How can we buy your books?

Amazon, Createspace, Smashwords

Author Profile: HP Munro

The Edinburgh based historical Fiction writer and Goldie Winner, HP Munro let's us peek behind the scenes
 
What name are you published under?

HP Munro
 
What’s your first memory of enjoying reading?
Being taken to the local library by my mum and deposited in the children’s corner and not wanting to leave. I loved being surrounded by all the books and was disappointed that I was only allowed two books (I was eventually allowed to take 6 books out, once the librarian got used to my face peering over the desk practically every week).
 
What are you currently reading?
Just finished Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, it was my book choice for my wine book club.
 
Which character you’ve created/written do you wish you could spend a day as?
Anna Conor in Stars Collide, she’s lived through the heyday of Hollywood and now spends her time as a gin-soaked diva and throws outrageous barbs and comments around, but gets away with it all.
 
Which character that someone else has written do you wish you could spend a day as?
Hermione Granger, provided I could have use of the Time-Turner.
 
Have you created any characters you don’t like?
The book I’m currently working on has a character, Virginia Grace, that like Anna says outrageous things but without an ounce of the charm that Anna possesses. She’s not meant to be liked, so if she is then I’m doing something wrong!
 
What was the first thing you ever wrote that made you think, “I want to be a writer”?
I loved writing when I was young and would continually construct stories in my head, it was only in the past four years that I discovered if I got them out of my head and onto paper that other people might enjoy them too. I wrote fanfiction for around a year and the epiphany happened during that time.
 
Do you edit as you go or as a full process after a first draft?
Full process, I have to write sequential so can’t even go back to fix something earlier in the story that I subsequently change later down the line. I have to put notes at the bottom of the documents saying things like “Go back and insert/fix” If I go back during the first draft I’ll get caught up and never finish.

Where do you write? And what do you need around you?
To begin with I wrote while travelling for work, so it was on planes and train and in airports and hotels. Now I tend to write at home in whatever room takes my fancy or where the comfy seats are. I recently got some friendly abuse from some fellow writers from posting photos of me writing at the poolside while on holiday in Thailand, which was easily the nicest place I’ve even written.
 
Pen and paper, typewriter or computer?
Sometimes pen and paper, usually computer and occasionally using the recording facility on my phone to dictate when something pops into my head and I have nothing else.

How can we buy your books?
They’re on amazon in kindle format or paperback
http://www.red-besom-books.com/

Author Profile: Ellen Dean

Ellen Dean takes the plunge with the Planet London author profiles... find out how the Famous Five influenced this author...

Taken at a Waterstones
book signing

What’s your first memory of enjoying reading?
My first memory of reading on my own is when my cousin gave me a copy of one of the Famous Five novels by Enid Blyton. I was captivated and imagined myself being in the story with the characters. From then on I was hooked on books.
 
What are you currently reading?
I'm currently reading 'Beauty' by Louise Mensch, formally Louise Bagshawe. I love her work.
 
Which character you’ve created/written do you wish you could spend a day as?
It has to be Hyacinth Dickinson from Beautiful Strangers and Beyond Midnight, Books 1 and 2 in the Hyacinth Dickinson Series. Tall, blonde and gorgeous. Hyacinth is psychic and can use telepathy to get into people's minds and learn all their secrets, or make them do what she wants them to do. Plus, she owns valuable and rare diamonds (a girl's best friend) two fabulous houses, a yacht and enjoys partying with a wide circle of friends. It would be a hard to decide where to actually be: in one of her fabulous houses, controlling the Amethyst Coven or lazing on the yacht in Cannes. Oh, decisions, decisions!
 
Which character that someone else has written do you wish you could spend a day as?
Lucky Santangelo created by Jackie Collins, another of my favourite authors. Lucky is a savvy, strong woman, with her eye on the main chance, and she owns a hotel in Las Vegas as well as a film company in Hollywood. She takes no prisoners. In the morning I would be overseeing things at the film studio in Hollywood and then fly in the private jet to Vegas, for the rest of the day.
 
Have you created any characters you don’t like?
Lady Penny Corday. She's a conniving back stabber who doesn't know when she's well off.
 
What was the first thing you ever wrote that made you think, “I want to be a writer”?
I wrote a short story about a mountain bear when I was about eight or nine years old and I still have it in a school book. I really enjoyed making up the story and I guess I got the writing bug from there.
 
Do you edit as you go or as a full process after a first draft?
I usually write the first draft and then go back to edit. However, I have been known to edit a chapter in the first draft if something comes to mind that I feel needs attention straight away.
 
Where do you write? And what do you need around you?
I try to write in my study, but really I can write almost anywhere, and usually end up writing within close proximity to the kettle. It's surprising how many cups of tea us writers need. I like to have music playing in the background that fits with what I'm writing about. i.e. If I'm writing a scene set in France, I listen to French music. It's not unusual to hear pipes and drums when I create a scene that is set in Scotland. At the moment I am working on Vampire Farmer the first of the Penny Farthing Series which has evolved from a screenplay I've written called The Icing On The Cake. The music for that one has included My Son The Vampire and Monster Mash.

Pen and paper, typewriter or computer?
I write the initial draft with good old fashioned pen and paper. I love stationery and have a great collection of pens to choose from. After that I upload to the computer and do the first edit at the same time. 
 
How can we buy your books?
Print and ebooks can be bought from Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Waterstones. Many small bookstores have my books in stock, but they are too numerous to mention. Vampire Farmer (ebook) will be for available to pre-order soon and will publish on November 26th 2014. 

Keep in touch with Ellen at

www.facebook.com/ellendean36
www.twitter.com/ellendeanauthor

Author Profile: Karen Campbell

Karen Campbell allows us to interrogate what goes on behind the scenes of a crime writing and short story author...

What’s your first memory of enjoying reading?  
I remember being about 7 and waiting to get a book out of the school library that I had my name on the waiting list for. It was a book of child-style scary stories and there was a horrible witch on the front. I can still remember the excitement of waiting to get home and start reading it.

What are you currently reading? 
I always have four or five books on the go at the same time. I’m on the second “Game of Thrones” book by George R R Martin. I’ve got “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffenegger, “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole and I started reading V G Lee’s “The Comedienne” again, just because I love it.

Which character you’ve created/written do you wish you could spend a day as? 
I was torn here. Having created a character who is psychic it would have been nice to see what her brain was like but the winner is Gemini, from a short story I wrote called “Heart’s Desire”. Gemini has the ability to see into people and read their heart’s desire. I thought that would be interesting.

Which character that someone else has written do you wish you could spend a day as? 
Heathcliff. The greatest literary character of all time!!

Have you created any characters you don’t like? 
No. I love them all in their own unique way, from the liars to the serial killers.

What was the first thing you ever wrote that made you think, “I want to be a writer”? 
I knew when I was little that I wanted to be a writer, so I started writing my first “novel” when I was about 13. It got quickly abandoned after my best friend laughed at it, but I wasn’t to be put off, starting another one. I still have it. I probably wrote about 20,000 words as a sixteen year old. Complete drivel obviously but a best-seller in my head.

Do you edit as you go or as a full process after a first draft? 
I edit as I go along because I’m so lazy that between episodes of writing, I forget what I have done so I have to go over it all again and remind myself, then I realise I’m writing rubbish so change it.

Where do you write? And what do you need around you? 
I write anywhere I have an A4 pad and some music. Generally, I do it in front of my computer but that's just so that I can lean on the table and blast my songs. In the summer, I was out in the garden. I shouldn’t though, as I get carried away and sing.

Pen and paper, typewriter or computer? 
 I always write long hand. I’m a pretty fast typist but I am an even faster long-hand writer and I can get the ideas out better. Plus, I can do it anywhere. Writing long-hand feels like creating, writing on the computer feels like work.
 
Connect with Karen... 
I don’t have a website but I am on Facebook and twitter. https://www.facebook.com/Ringe70 https://twitter.com/RingeAlba

How can we buy your books? 
My three books “The Knowing”, “Little Whispers” and “Violet’s Story” are all on Amazon as paperbacks or e-books. “The Knowing” can also be ordered from any book shop.

'The Knowing' by Karen Campbell

Rating:

The Knowing is set in Glasgow and is narrated by a psychic psychology lecturer named Jen Keith. Her girlfriend, Kate Coutts is a police officer who finds it hard to believe in Jen’s powers. Jen’s life is a constant struggle with trying to cope with the visions she is seeing and convincing the police and Kate to act upon said visions and save people’s lives.

This book is probably one of the best I’ve ever read. The character of Jen is fantastically written and I really felt like I connected with her on every level, actually feeling every emotion she experienced, both good and bad. There are so many twists and turns in this book you really don’t know what is going to happen next and this made we want to continue reading, I found it hard to actually put the book down.

I would recommend this book to fans of mystery, thrillers, and the supernatural, in fact I would recommend to it anyone who likes reading, and to anyone who doesn’t, this book could certainly change your mind.

A thoroughly enjoyable read and I can’t wait to read the next one and find out what happens to Jen and Kate. 

Available from AustinMacauley Publishers Ltd in e-book and paperback.

Review by Amy

 

Jean Erhardt: The Kim Claypoole Mysteries

Ratings
Small Town Trouble

Deep Trouble




I thoroughly enjoyed both of these books, firmly set within the lesbian crime genre, with the required heroine, Kim Claypoole, a typical lesbian detective, unlucky in love, big drinker, dry wit, eclectic living situation and unwittingly getting herself into trouble, just as you would expect. That is where the clichés end; unusually these books are set in the smoky mountains rather than a big urban city with plenty of lesbians which brings for a very pleasing contrast and glimpse into the realities of life in a very small town.

In Small Town Trouble, I really enjoyed reading the sub plot, about the two gay dads who were doing their best to raise a child in the face of extreme prejudice without completely unravelling as a couple. The main crime plot was thrilling and a real page turner, I just had to keep reading to see what happened next and who was behind all the random murders.

Deep Trouble, was less original than the first with hillbilly counterfeiters as the main villains but it still had plenty of wit and enough drama that kept me gripped and I couldn’t stop reading until it was done. The characters in both books, are well developed not just our heroine but her mother how can you not love a woman who names her house Tara after Gone with the Wind especially when it is nothing like that grand structure. Kim has a not totally unexpected crazy family and many interesting women in her life. All of the characters, even the villains, are well written, three dimensional people who you can see and believe in.

These books are a welcome addition to the cadre of lesbian crime, they are anything but clichéd; they are funny and moving, offering an alternative view of a part of America that isn’t usually all that welcoming to gay people. Also let’s not forget that these books are thrillers and they are real page turners, as the stories unfolded I was gripped, unable to stop reading until I had found out what happened. Great summer reads and not that expensive on kindle right now. Enjoy! 

Available from  Amazon (from £1.91 each)

By Claire Estelle

High Rack by Wollie Boehm

Rating:

 
Wollie Boehm's modern urban fable offers a quirky, beautiful look at love and the choices we have to make.

From their first meeting Issy, an orphaned chick and Freddie a fearless fox cub, feel a connection that transcends their backgrounds and upbringings that points to being soulmates.

Drawn together because they recognise a shared value within each other, and a desire to break free from their current situation, where they are outsiders because of their beliefs, will they be able to over come their naivity and innocence to prove to their families sometimes following true love is more important than conforming to what is expected.

Simply told, but conveying sophisticated ideas, this novella explores the debates that have rattled humans since the very beginning. By taking the concepts outside of human territory perhaps we have the chance to view the arguments from a different perspective, and change the way we act before it's too late? 

Available from Amazon

By Katie