Childrens, fiction, Front Page, Uncategorized

Irish Tales from Coolshannagh
Christo Loynska

The Untimely Demise of Friday the Pig
Irish Tales from Coolshannagh

Coolshannagh is an ordinary Irish village situated on the coast halfway between Dublin and Belfast.
The villagers are pretty ordinary too; Father Joe, a clubfooted priest who likes to dance; Duffy the bar owner who runs a great pub; Stochelo a Gypsy bandolier and his mighty son Miquel; Eamonn McGarvey who loved his pet pig; Ludmilla the one handed Ukrainian Headmistress who escaped the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881; Mary-Ellen the village elder, wise-woman, and nurse in the Crimean War; Vincenti Quilto the Italian Matchmaker and teller of unlikely fables; Father Dan, a guilt ridden whiskey priest decorated for bravery in the First World war and The Diabhal (Devil) also comes calling intent upon mischief.
Published: Feb 2020
Paperback: 260 pages
Price: £9.99
ISBN: 9-781913-425074

UK Only
£9.99 (+ £2.50 postage)
Number of copies:

Available on Amazon
So, just an unremarkable Irish village going about its daily business; hum-drum times punctuated by birth, death, love, not much hate (except the Devil for whom hate is his only purpose).
And every word is true…
at least according to my father who came from Coolshannagh and passed these tales on!
Reviews...

 Debbie Turfrey - Authorised buyer
5 out of 5 stars Beautifully written Irish tale
This is a wonderful book, a whimsical yarn which flows beautifully!
In true Irish story teller style, the author weaves the threads of the story together.
I would highly recommend it to anyone!

Events

Kington, Book Reading at the Border Bean Café

Joanne McShane will be reading from her new novel, Honora and Arthur, the last Plantagenets, at the Border Bean café, in Kington on the mid-Wales border, on Wednesday 20th November at 3.00 pm. The book is a meticulously researched, fictionalised account of the life of Honora Grenville who married Arthur Plantagent during the reign of Henry VIII.

 

livesinprint

Blackbird Flying
Cate Collinson

On being a stroke survivor
Shortly before the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Emma goes to work as normal. Walking to the toilet, she closes the door. After a moment, she realizes that her right side is numb.
She wakes three days later to find herself in a bed at University College Hospital.
After two months at U.C.H., Emma is moved to Charing Cross Hospital. She has been told by the Almoner that there is a good chance she will get herself well again but that’s not how she feels about it. ‘I’m twiddling my thumbs in here,’ she says. She wants to go home. Meanwhile, Mark is fearful of his feelings. He knows things will never be the same but he agrees to take her home. When they get there, he tells her what he’s been doing to the house and shows her the shower down on the ground floor and the steps with a banister to the garden. Then he says suddenly, ‘I’m off.’
He doesn’t arrive home until midnight and the following morning he is gone.
Published: Oct 2019
Paperback: 146 pages
Price: £7.50
ISBN: 9-781912-419920
Available on Amazon

This is the story of Emma’s fight for recovery. She visits another hospital, King’s, where she has physiotherapy twice a week and speech classes for half-an-hour each week. Then she finds speech classes in Farringdon, twice a week. She goes to pottery and to singing at Southwark College. Later, she rides in the Stroke Association Bike Ride 1996 to mark almost ten years since she had her stroke. It’s a story of courage and hard work told with verve and feeling by new author Cate Collinson.
Reviews...

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Front Page, livesinprint

The story of six generations of an English Romany family
Netta Cartwright

new-2 Zillah Smith and her Romany Gypsy ancestors have travelled the lanes and roads of Staffordshire and the surrounding area for centuries. This memoir, set in the present day from the viewpoint of ninety-one-year-old Zillah, follows the stories of six generations of her family through a series of remembrances.
Dating from the late 1800s, this memoir gives us a glimpse into the resilient lives of a Romany Gypsy family in one of the most transformative centuries in British history. We enter into their world of birth and death, childhood and schooling, courtship and marriage, their domestic and working life, and their love of life up close to nature in their tents and caravans. These stories of the old and current travelling traditions show how Zillah and her family have survived and thrived through times of war, violence, evictions and persecution.
Published:July 2016
Paperback:146 pages
Price:£10.00
ISBN:9-781911-175193


Available from YouCaxton

£10.00 (+ £2 postage)

Number of copies:



Available from Amazon
Netta Cartwright is an author of educational books. This book, her first memoir, is written with and on behalf of Zillah Smith and her family.
Netta is a graduate of Aberystwyth, Cardiff, Keele and Birmingham Universities and is a school counselling trainer with thirty years school-teaching experience. She was Equal Opportunities Advisor for Staffordshire LEA where she promoted anti-racist projects in schools. She leads peer-support courses in the UK and abroad in primary and secondary schools in the public and private sector. Her publications include: "Towards Bully Free Schools: Interventions in Action" (OUP); “Peer Support Works: a Step by Step Guide to Long Term Success” (Network Continuum); and many articles in educational journals. Her work in schools has been featured on Channel 4 and BBC1.
Reader Reviews...

Ryalla Duffy
The Travellers Times Book review
Read this excellent review in The Traveller's Times

Dr. Martin Kovats
Political Scientist, Former Advisor to the EU Commission on the EU Roma Integration Framework
“I enjoyed this book very much. It provides such an insightful account of Zillah’s life as a Gypsy from an age of horse powered freedom to council sites. Zillah’s story illustrates the central importance of kinship as the world changes around her and her own life is transformed. For her it is caring for the chavvies, parents, siblings and husband that is most important. I also liked the use of photos, themselves treasured family mementos, to illustrate her memories. The text is honest using direct quotes to provide authenticity.”

Pat Sanderson, Poet.
 “Netta Cartwright invited Zillah in and got to know her and her family in a relationship that has spanned thirty years. This remarkable book is the result. She has told Zillah’s story with compassion and humour. It is a fascinating piece of social history.”

Thomas Acton OBE, Emeritus Professor of Romani Studies, University of Greenwich.
 “An unaffected and deeply felt depiction of the complex intensity of English Romani family life over the past one hundred years. It is a rare book about a Romani woman by a woman and valuable for that.”

Dr Liz Doherty, Professor Emerita, Sheffield Hallam University
 “This is an important piece of social history. The evocative narrative weaves Zillah’s current life together with memories and stories from the past, and a world of freedom, colour, hardship and fierce loyalty is opened up to the reader.”

Roy Samson, Writer.
 “Zillah’s story is of a life lived more intensely than most of us experience. The Many Lives allows us glimpses into a world that is close to ours yet intriguingly strange, seeming more natural but rapidly passing. Netta Cartwright tells the story with warm commitment and love.”

fiction

Healing Hearts and Apple Tarts
Annie Beaumont

Healing Hearts and Apple Tarts
and a totally demented dalmatian
 When Hetti returns home to discover that the locks have been changed she soon realises that her boyfriend, Daniel has absconded with one hundred-thousand pounds of trust fund money left to her by her parents.
Hetti isn’t the sort to let him get away with it and sets about trying to find him and recover her money. She turns to her gay godfather, Oscar, for emotional support. Oscar’s go-to comfort food and remedy for all ills is homemade apple tart.
Hetti finds a housesitting job and moves to Wisteria Cottage, in the Norfolk countryside. What she doesn’t realise is that the job involves taking responsibility for Tosca, a totally demented adolescent Dalmatian. Hetti has no experience of dogs, especially crazy ones.
Nathan runs a smallholding in Norfolk, close to Wisteria Cottage. He has been nursing a broken heart following a tragedy five years earlier.
Will Hetti find Daniel and retrieve her money? And will Nathan’s heart ever heal? Can Hetti and Nathan learn to trust again? Annie Beaumont takes us through a rollercoaster of emotions, dramas and comedic situations before we find the answers to these questions.

Published:Nov 2019
Paperback:282 pages
Price:£9.99
ISBN:9-781913-425005
Paperback edition (UK only)
£9.99 (+ £2.50 postage)
Number of copies:


Available from Amazon
Annie Beaumont was born in Scotland and left before her first birthday. She was brought up in various places around England and the Far East. At 47, she began her Bachelor’s degree at Sussex University and went on to complete a Master’s at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and a PhD at Essex. She has taught sociology at Essex University and social sciences at The Open University. Annie is currently a student at the Unthank School of Writing in Norwich. Set in Wymondham, Norfolk, the county she made her own, Daughters of Hamilton Hall is Annie Beaumont’s first novel.
Reader Reviews

Amazon Reader
 Healing Hearts and Apple Tarts is set in Wymondham, Norfolk, and is Annie Beaumont’s second novel.
Her first novel, Daughters of Hamilton Hall is also set in Wymondham and has received five-star reviews.