My final Christmas guest.

You know by now that my fellow Choc-lit and Ruby authors have conspired together to convince me - a Christmas sceptic - about the joys of the festive season. So how is that working out? Have the efforts of Ella and Helen, Angela and Berni had an effect? Well, Timmy says they certainly worked for him, and he insisted that I should find his Christmas hat and coat. I must admit he looks very smart in it. Me - maybe we still have a way to go? Today I have a guest author who has made a bit of a speciality of writing festive books for Choc-lit. Kirsty Ferry has a new paperback version of her 2019 e-book for Choc-lit out - Christmas in the Isle of Skye  and she also has a brand new book for Ruby fiction- Christmas of New Beginnings. That's versatility.

Now I have my mug of advent calendar tea - a festive fruit mix of fruit and chocolate called Chocolate Fondu and today's chocolate nibble, a dark chocolate penguin, and am all ready to let Kirsty persuade me.  She's chosen to highlight four topics from the books that are vital parts of Christmas. 

Over to you, Kirsty.

Favourite Festive Films.

In Christmas of New Beginnings, Cerys and Edie try to plan their Christmas lunch around the timings of Edie’s favourite festive films, Holiday Inn and Willy Wonka,’ but it doesn’t bode well when it’s not a fuss-free meal. When it looks like Frosties and milk are on the menu, Lovely Sam swoops in to save the day. My favourite Christmas films are Elf and Muppets’ Christmas Carol. Elf is for when I wrap my presents and the Muppets are for Christmas Eve. It’s a festive feel-good tradition!

Quirky Christmas Gifts

In Christmas of New Beginnings, Cerys owns a craft shop and tea room, and arranges a village Christmas Craft Fair, and in Christmas on the Isle of Skye, Ivy has her little jewellery business in Glastonbury, and Zac has his in Skye. It’s all the more important to buy artisan or to buy from small businesses this year – I absolutely love quirky Christmas craft fairs…helped along the stalls by a good glug of artisan mulled wine and a home-made mince pie, of course.

Seeing Friends and Family

So, so important after the non-Christmas of 2020. In both my books, there is a strong sense of family and friendship, and no mention of That Christmas or That Year. I’m hopeful that this year my family can, once again, go to our Christmas Eve Carol Concert at church with our friends, and that we’ll have my parents over for coffee and mince pies on Christmas Day afternoon, after going to their house for coffee and mince pies on Christmas Morning.

Respecting other’s beliefs and being kind

A weird one, perhaps, but in Christmas on the Isle of Skye, Ivy and Zac embrace the winter solstice celebrations in Glastonbury, as well as the traditional Christmas they are used to having. Not everyone will have the same traditions and feelings about Christmas as we ourselves do, so it’s important to remember to respect other people and understand that they might not want a big celebration, but just prefer something on a smaller scale. If it works for the person involved, then know that is absolutely fine.

I think those four are really good choices - sadly I'm not sure we will be able to meet with family and friends in quite the free and easy way we were all hoping, but remembering them is still important. I'm really with Kirsty on the last one - one of the things that I dislike about December is the darkness and the cold and I do have a little celebration for myself for the solstice and light a candle, because it marks the point when we start going forward into the light again. I'm glad that Kirsty has reminded me about this. 

Has she succeeded in winning me round? You'll have to wait until later in the week to find out. I still have that empty tree, remember ...

***

Kirsty is writing for the first time for Ruby Fiction with Christmas of New Beginnings - but you can still be sure of a captivating story that's available as an e-book and a paperback 

Not all festive wishes come true right away – sometimes it takes five Christmases …

Folk singer Cerys Davies left Wales for the South Downs village of Padcock at Christmas, desperate for a new beginning. And she ends up having plenty of those: opening a new craft shop-tea room, helping set up the village’s first festive craft fair, and, of course, falling desperately in love with Lovely Sam, the owner of the local pub. It’s just too bad he’s firmly in the clutches of Awful Belinda …

Perhaps Cerys has to learn that some new beginnings take a while to … well, begin! But with a bit of patience, some mild espionage, a generous sprinkling of festive magic and a flock of pub-crashing sheep, could her fifth Christmas in Padcock lead to her best new beginning yet?

You can buy the book HERE

Christmas on the Isle of Skye is part of Kirsty's series that includes Spring at Taigh Fallon, Summer at Carrick Park and Jessie’s Little Bookshop by the Sea.

How far would you go to be with the one you love at Christmas?
The Isle of Skye is a magical place, especially at Christmas, and there’s no place Zac Fallon would rather be. But whilst Zac has everything he needs on Skye, there’s still something missing – and that something is a somebody called Ivy McFarlane.

Ivy used to work with Zac but then spread her wings and moved to Glastonbury. He’s missed her ever since. Now it’s almost Christmas and Zac realises that the Ivy shaped hole in his life is too big to bear. So starts his festive mission to the mainland – but will he be back in time to spend Christmas in Skye? And, more importantly, will Ivy be with him?

You can buy this one HERE

You can follow Kirsty on Twitter @kirsty_ferry

 

If you are are looking for one more Choc-lit festive read and haven't treated yourself to Marie Laval's 2019 book Bluebell's Christmas Magic yet - that one is now out in paperback too. HERE

Maybe it's starting to feel a bit like Christmas - talking to Kirsty Ferry about her festive book.

As everyone knows, I'm always reluctant to give up summer and sunshine, but the Christmas books on offer from my publisher, Choc-lit, are definitely something to enjoy. Today Kirsty Ferry is joining me to chat about her 2020 festive book, Holly's Christmas Secret. 

Welcome Kirsty. I've got some questions which I hope will disclose a few of the behind the scenes moments from writing Holly's story - and Sorcha's story too. 

Choc-lit has quite a tradition of Xmas releases and you have written several - what attracts you to the idea of writing a Christmas story?

I quite like the idea of a nice cheerful read you can pick up and relax with in between some busy and stressful moments. I do it myself, and I don’t really want to concentrate too hard on my reading at that time of year – something lighthearted and happy fits the bill. I’ve seen some quite miserable books on sale and I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. It’s like reading about Covid - who wants to do that? I want escapism and joy in my books, there’s enough awful stuff in the world as it is. My Pencradoc series has a few darker moments in the first two books (I do love me a bit of ghostly Gothic!) but Holly’s Christmas Secret is not dark at all.

You've chosen to set Holly's Christmas Secret in your fictional Pencradoc Estate - what are the plusses of using a location that is already familiar to the reader? Are there any minuses? 

I’ve made it a bit of a tradition that my Christmas books are part of an existing series, as lots of readers ask ‘what happens next’ and love reading about the places they know and already have a relationship with. It does make it a little easier for me too, as I have got to know the place so well, I can literally drop my characters straight into the location with their Christmas hats on, and away they go. I might have a problem with 2021, as the first book in my new series is as yet unwritten so we will have to see how that goes! It’ll be a new experience to try to do a Christmas book with no background, so to speak…

Your signature in writing romance is time slip - so we get two love stories for the price of one - will you tell us a bit about researching and writing about Christmas 1906? And about balancing the connections between the two strands of the book?

I had to pick 1906, as I knew I was leading up to Elsie Pencradoc’s story, who was eight in the last book. The timeline was solely based on Elsie’s age and the fact she’d be a young lady by 1906. I went down the Google rabbit hole of house parties and Edwardian Christmas parties and party games as I knew Elsie would well be up for that sort of thing. I’ve always loved the idea of the Bright Young Things and the big Edwardian social events they attended – sure, we might be a little way off that timeline, as the Bright Young Things were a group of  London aristocrats and socialites in 1920’s London, but to me Elsie fits in to that mould quite nicely – if a little ahead of her time. The rabbit hole also introduced me to the concept of the Dollar Princess, the name given to the American girls who were brought to England to marry titled young men, which was interesting yet rather shocking. I quite like the way the two stories dovetailed together. I’ve learned to write one thread first, then write the other one to interweave it in   - I have certain points where I know the two timelines have to merge (ie when they experience the ‘other’ story) and it’s a case of knowing where to put them, and trying to draw parallels along the way to make it kind of understandable why the modern day characters ‘fall’ into the story of the past.

 

Will you tell us a little about your hero and heroine - both sets - what made them the right choices for a Christmas book?

I introduced Elsie’s friend Holly as my historical heroine, and picked Sorcha who was a minor character in Lily’s Secret as my contemporary heroine. The readers would already be a little familiar with Sorcha, and her life leant itself very well to what I wanted to do with the book. Holly, being one of Elsie’s Bohemian arty friends, is completely different to the type of Society girl Elsie grew up with, and Holly’s story, to me, was exploring a little bit about a girl who was a wee bit outside her comfort zone but used it as a chance to live out a fairytale for the evening, and meet a likeminded soul in Noel. It was only a small leap of faith to make modern-day Locryn an antiques dealer, because that way he would also have a vested interest in the past – and in Pencradoc, as it turned out. Sorcha and Holly are both pretty much self-assured women who have a clear career goal in life, but maybe just need  a bit of a boost now and then, and obviously Noel and Locryn are the ideal men to fall in love with, and fall hard for, these two girls.

 

Were there any vital touches that you felt had to be included in the book to make it feel Christmassy - even though it is Cornwall, with a milder climate, will there be snow? 

There is snow! I did have to say well it might not lie long, but look, it’s here! I needed it to snow for the very last scene anyway, so I made it lie for a bit! There is festive baking and Christmas trees and descriptions of Christmassy things like writing cards, buying presents, telling ghost stories, and lots of lovely decorations – and mistletoe of course. I like to make my readers feel as if they’ve dropped into a magical, old-fashioned Christmas, when I do a Christmas timeslip – like one of those lovely jigsaws or prints you see depicting them. A writing tutor once told me you have five senses, use them all, so I always try to include scents in there as well. We all know how gorgeous a Christmas cake smells when it’s cooking, or the fresh, earthy scent of a real tree, or even the scent of frost and cold outside. It brings it all to life a bit more, somehow.

You have to be quick on your feet to manage two sets of lovers, but as this is part of a series, there will be other people that the reader recognises - and maybe some who will get their own books in the future? How important is the supporting cast for this story? 

As I’ve said, Elsie is going to have her own story – it’s a request many, many readers have sent my way – so I’m happy to say she will star in Pencradoc 4. It’s with Choc Lit now, so hopefully she can shock Society in the summer. And she is truly shocking for a woman of her time – but I can’t help loving her. The contemporary tale will focus on Coren and Sybill, characters who have been in the series since book 1, and again people who readers have asked to hear more about. They’ve never actually got together, despite everyone knowing they are ideal for one another and despite both of them having strong feelings for one another. This story might go some way to explain why it hasn’t happened yet and we explore a few more of their deepest secrets. I also move on Merryn and Kit’s story in a very happy way, which I hope people will like as well.

How do you expect to be spending the holiday? Do you have any special things that you always do, decorations that have been made or handed down, things you like to eat? (I'm always about the food) 

I honestly don’t know how I will be spending it. I can tell you what I hope to be doing, but as we all know, things can change so quickly in the current climate. My husband is scheduled to be at work, but hopefully my son will be home from Uni for Christmas, we’ll see our friends on Christmas Eve for our usual church carol service and follow that with Chinese takeaway and Muppet’s Christmas Carol on DVD, then put wine, mince pie and carrot out for Rudolph and Santa  (yes he’s 19 but I still make him do it!). We’re planning to have Christmas lunch with my parents if we can mingle households by then – prawn cocktail, turkey and all the trimmings (including my annual intake of sprouts and the fact my dad and I insist on Yorkshire puddings) and Christmas pudding, of course; and the afternoon will be spent eating chocolate and drinking prosecco in my pjs! I will also be eating my bodyweight in mince pies, and my favourite decorations will come down for the tree – a pom pom Santa and a pom pom owl I made when I was little, and a felt snowman I also made which my gran knitted a scarf and hat for. It still seems a long way off, but it’s not really, is it?!

 

Once upon a Cornish Christmas ...
It’s almost Christmas at the Pencradoc estate in Cornwall which means that, as usual, tea room owner Sorcha Davies is baking up a festive storm. And this year Sorcha is hoping her mince pies will be going down a treat at ‘The Spirit of Christmas Past’ exhibition being organised at the house by new local antiques dealer, Locryn Dyer.
But as Locryn and Sorcha spend more time together, they begin to uncover a very special story of Christmas past that played out at Pencradoc more than a century before, involving a certain ‘Lady’ Holly Sawyer, a festive dinner party and a magical secret encounter with a handsome author ...

You can click to by the book HERE

Kirsty Ferry is from the North East of England and lives there with her husband and son. She won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition in 2009 and has had articles and short stories published in various magazines. Her work also appears in several anthologies, incorporating such diverse themes as vampires, crime, angels and more.

Kirsty loves writing ghostly mysteries and interweaving fact and fiction. The research is almost as much fun as writing the book itself, and if she can add a wonderful setting and a dollop of history, that’s even better.

Her day job involves sharing a building with an eclectic collection of ghosts, which can often prove rather interesting.

 

For more information on Kirsty visit:

www.twitter.com/kirsty_ferry
https://www.facebook.com/kirsty.ferry.author/

An Interview with Kirsty Ferry

As regular readers will know I have a cupboard full of 'To be Written' books that keep banging on the door, trying to get out. One day. Quite a lot of them feature works of art - usually getting stolen, but that's a romantic suspense author for you.
Today I have a guest who has centred her series for publishers Choclit on works of art by the PreRaphaelite painters - who I must say are also some of my favourites too -beautiful colours and pictures that tell a story. The series is actually called The Rossetti Mysteries, with a modern day hero and heroine, but with more than a few ghosts wandering through them! The latest, third in the series, is out as an e-book on 7th March (on pre-order now if you read on Kobo) and this time has both art and photography. It's called The Girl in the Photograph. I'm pleased to have the author here to tell us about the book (which has a gorgeous cover by Berni Stephens) and answer a few questions about writing inspired by art and artists. I will be taking notes.

A big welcome to Evonne on Wednesday to Kirsty Ferry.

I told you it was gorgeous.

The Girl in the Photograph
What if the past was trying to teach you a lesson?
Staying alone in the shadow of an abandoned manor house in Yorkshire would be madness to some, but art enthusiast Lissy de Luca can’t wait. Lissy has her reasons for seeking isolation, and she wants to study the Staithes Group – an artists’ commune active at the turn of the twentieth century.
Lissy is fascinated by the imposing Sea Scarr Hall – but the deeper she delves, the stranger things get. A lonely figure patrols the cove at night, whilst a hidden painting leads to a chilling realisation. And then there’s the photograph of the girl; so beautiful she could be a mermaid … and so familiar.
As Lissy further immerses herself, she comes to an eerie conclusion: The occupants of Sea Scarr Hall are long gone, but they have a message for her – and they’re going to make sure she gets it.



 I asked Kirsty to tell us more about her novels, her approach to writing about famous people from the past, research, and knowing when to stop - oh, and also about those ghosts.

* As your books have ghosts in them, I think of them as supernatural, rather than paranormal. Is that how you feel?
I think you could use both terms – ghosts are more ‘supernatural’ and more unexplained in a story, and a lot of people immediately assume that a ‘paranormal’ novel involves vampires or werewolves, so I can see where the confusion would lie. Out of interest, I just did an Internet search for ‘supernatural romance books’ and it brought up a whole host of vampire romantic fiction! I suppose that suggests that the terms are interchangeable, but it’s a very good question!


* Where do your books start out - with the love story, or the supernatural element?
The supernatural element I would say. I think of a place and a ghost and then I wonder how I can incorporate a modern day viewpoint and a dual timeline– which naturally leads onto the romantic element. I have done a couple of contemporary love stories as well, and the first one I did was really tough – I kept wanting to put a ghost in it. By the time I did the third contemporary, I’d sort of got the hang of it, but I do love my ghosts!


* Many of the stories are centred around pieces of art - what research do you do (and how do you stop yourself doing too much)?
For the Rossetti Mysteries books, I started with lots and lots of reading. I have acquired a huge pile of books on the Pre-Raphaelites, many of them from charity shops, second hand shops, bargain book shops and second hand sales on amazon. I also have a friend who is a Librarian by nature and by training, and she loaned me lots of her books as well. I use the Internet quite a bit too, and as I studied Lizzie Siddal in some depth for my Masters degree (which was Creative Writing and Research), I used a lot of academic resources as well. Tullie House Museum in Carlisle is about fifty miles away, so we’ve had some day trips there to see their Pre-Raphaelite collection, and my local art gallery in Newcastle has a few Pre-Raphaelite paintings too. On holiday, we went to the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, which is all about photography, and even little local museums like Bellingham Heritage Centre near Hexham have resources on photography I can take information from. Plus I had a tutor for one of my Degree modules who is an authority on Laura Knight, and Laura crops up in The Girl in the Photograph. I’ll even email people if I see a website and think they would be able to answer a question. How do I stop myself from doing too much? I don’t really. I do a lot, and take away what I need; then use the rest for a different project if I can! I’ve done several projects on Lizzie Siddal, for example, all stemming from the same research but all very different. I think the thing to do is not info-dump in the novels. I end up with loads of information stored in a Word document, but only some of it finds its way into the story, and only, usually, enough to support a particular point.


* The books are the Rossetti mysteries - do the real members of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood feature - and/or are your characters based on them?
Yes! The Girl in the Painting incorporates the real members of the PRB as a major thread in the novel. Daisy Ashford, my Victorian heroine, is obsessed with Lizzie Siddal, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. Daisy turns into a bit of a stalker, and leads the world, through her diary, to believe that she posed for Millais’ Ophelia painting when Lizzie Siddal was indisposed. Daisy does everything in her power to emulate Lizzie and make Dante fall in love with her, and it was an interesting journey to slot this crazy, drug-addicted - and quite wonderful - fantasist into the ‘real’ world of the PRB. It did involve fictionalising the members of the PRB, which I actually found quite easy to do – but I had to have the dates and events spot on and fit Daisy into the ‘real’ timeline. So I hope I got it right! Some Veil Did Fall is based more on the concept of Dante’s poetry about Lizzie – about soulmates and reincarnation – and The Girl in the Photograph is more about Pre-Raphaelite photography and Julia Margaret Cameron’s influence on one particular woman; so the only one I’ve given voices to real people in was The Girl in the Painting. But I loved every minute of writing about them.


* Do you invent works of art for the books, and would you base these on existing paintings?
I invented a ‘found’ Rossetti painting for The Girl in the Painting, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that there could be some of his work floating around in attics or in private collections that we know nothing about. I also invented a painting of Daisy by Henry, Daisy’s art tutor, which was in the PRB style, and I made up a Landseer portrait of Lady Ella Carrick, my Victorian heroine in Some Veil Did Fall. Ella’s portrait was based on umpteen portraits I’ve seen in stately homes over the years of beautiful Victorian ladies posing for the artist. The ‘found’ Rossetti was simply out of my head – an image of a redheaded woman looking very sensuous, but with her face hidden. The picture by Henry was maybe a bit more traditional – but again, based on an idea, rather than anything in particular.


* The new book is 'The Girl in the Photograph' what made you chose a photo, rather than a painting?
It was a natural progression. Some Veil Did Fall was based on poetry. The Girl in the Painting is set a couple of years after Veil, and as the PRB moved more into art, my book did the same. The Girl in Photograph is again set a few years after Painting – and by then, the Pre-Raphaelites had a foothold in photography with the likes of Julia Margaret Cameron coming along and translating their paintings into photographic plates; so it just seemed the right thing to do to tie up the series.


* Do you have a favourite Pre Raphaelite painter and picture?
It’s a difficult choice – I do love Waterhouse’s work, and I love his Tempest picture which is the painting on my blog. However, I think the most special painting has to be Ophelia by Millais, as I lived and breathed it when I wrote The Girl in the Painting. I do love some of the more informal sketches of Lizzie Siddal by Rossetti – so much passion
shows in those few pencil lines. So art wise, I’d say Millais and Waterhouse were the most talented; but Rossetti is the more interesting character. So I have lots of ‘favourites’, really!

Thank you Kirsty for sharing some of your writing processes. And good luck with the launch of The Girl in the Photograph. 

Kirsty is from the North East of England and won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition in 2009 with the ghostly tale Enchantment. She has also written North East based novels, short stories and articles for magazines such as Weekly News, Peoples Friend, Ghost Voices and It’s Fate. Her timeslip novel, Some Veil Did Fall, a paranormal romance set in Whitby, was published by Choc Lit in Autumn 2014. This was followed by another Choc Lit timeslip, The Girl in the Painting in February 2016 and The Girl in the Photograph in March 2017. The experience of signing Some Veil Did Fall in a quirky bookshop in the midst of Goth Weekend in Whitby, dressed as a recently undead person was one of the highlights of her writing career so far!
Kirsty’s day-job involves sharing a Georgian building with an eclectic collection of ghosts – which can sometimes prove rather interesting.

A little something for Halloween?

Drum roll, please, while I present the Choclit  Halloween Round Robin. 

Five Choclit authors who ought to know better were prevailed upon, against their better judgements, to produce a story for Halloween.  You know the format - everyone writes their bit and passes it on. Doing it is fun and a bit scary.  The moment when you open the e-mail, read what  the others have done ... and decide to leave the country. 

Anyway we did it and the result has spells, musketeers, magic ... 

Owing to a slight  technical hitch two of us managed to write part four, but with a little adjustment everything worked out. The running order and links are below. I'm now part five on Reviewed the Book, actually on Halloween, and Berni will be finishing the story on the Choc lit blog. 

Enjoy!

Berni Stevens  on Bookaholic Confessions 27th October Here

Jane Lovering on The Romaniacs 28th October Here  

Christina Courtenay on Dark Readers 29th October  Here    

Kirsty Ferry on Girls Love to Read 30th October Here 

ME on Reviewed the Book 31st October Here 

Final part by Berni Stevens (the story comes full circle) — Here