Stop #6 on my Children’s Fiction Book Tour is back on ‘It’s Not All Gravy’ – this time for a chat and a lovely glass of wine with Maryann, tlaking about the about inspiration behind Alf The Workshop Dog.
Here’s the REAL Alf who spends his days in an busy inner-city bus garage.
Find out how I worked backwards from meeting this little mutt to the mythical ancient kingdom of Zanubia, an evil king and a kind time-travelling prince – visit Maryann’s blog here.
Day Five and my Book Tour is visiting the blog of Maryann Miller which is called It’s Not All Gravy. 
She has kindly hosted all three books in the ‘Once Upon a NOW‘ series and includes a review of ‘ALF THE WORKSHOP DOG‘.
With a daughter who is a graphic artist she was particularly interested in the illustrations in the book.
I also know she downloaded one from the book to colour-in for herself.
Find out why she highly recommends these books for children of all ages..
Thank you Maryann!
Stop number four on my Book Tour for the Once Upon a NOW series is at the wonderfully named review site “GRAB THIS BOOK”.
It’s great to get a dad’s perspective on my children’s books. As a mother of sons whose father was frequently away and busy when they were small, I always felt it was a shame they never got to share special reading time with him.
It’s wonderful to be allowed in to this father and son’s story time and share an 8year old’s perspective on Alf The Workshop Dog. What a perceptive young man – and what a lovely review. Thanks to the little chap for telling us how the book made him feel. Thanks to Dad for hosting us on his blog.
Interesting too that the lad is now demanding to be a regular guest on his dad’s blog. The next generation of reviewers is here!
Take a visit and hear their thoughts on Grab This Book.
Today the Once Upon a NOW! series visits the Chapter 5 Book Review hosted by Kindergarten teacher and book blogger Joss Rodillo.
Which book in the series is her favourite? The clue is in the title of the blog….. yes she fell in love with Frankie Ferret the sidekick and adventure-buddy of Isabella in ‘ISABELLA’S PINK BICYCLE‘.
I was delighted that she gave the whole series a whopping 5***** and can’t wait to share the stories with her little charges.
Find out what else she had to say about ‘ALF THE WORKSHOP DOG‘ and ‘KOOL KID KRUNCHA AND THE HIGH TRAPEZE‘ on her blog here.
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| Distant snow covered hills try to imitate the pure beauty of winter Blackpool |
Through rain, sleet, ice and snow we battled through to Blackpool in the dark. The journey was the best part of 300 miles, half of it on the pitch black truck fest strip of the M6 motorway. Ooh what fun it is to slalom along in the spray and blurred windshield mess of mystery tarmac. Most of the time I had no idea where I was. Forget the sat naff. I needed radar.
In the swirl of icy night we arrived on the closed down Golden Mile. Loveless and mocked, Albericht once again had stolen the Rheingold from the maidens
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| Silent plastic sirens cling to lamp posts |
. The clamour of glamour had been gagged and bundled into a dark cupboard. The glitz hid pinch-faced with collar up in shuttered doorways. The fun of the fair sulked moaning that life was effing unfair. It wasn’t Bleak House – it was bleak homeless. Yet it was wonderful. Blackpool lay like a beautiful forgotten film star, her allure un-painted, her face bared back to nature ready for her next come-back. Blackpool – you are the electric daydream of the insomniac poet. You are the Kiss Me Quick Carnival of the Northern Post Industrial Venice.
Along the Promenade glowed the blue signed entrance of the Strand
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| Top hotel – a real spread and breakfast. |
hotel. The wind whipped the car door from my grasp and the air from my lungs.The gale shrieked through the tram wires and the giant plastic lamp post mermaids: Oh silent sirens of the raging deep. We fought the Atlantic blast to the front revolving door and spun into the foyer like circus clowns fired from a cannon. All was calm. A lovely smiley lass issued drinks. We were safe at last.
We slept well in room 101. The sea roared outside. I dreamed of the
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| The wild universe as seen from a warm comfy bed |
roaring wheels of hurtling trucks and the flip flop smear of windshield wipers. We awoke warm to gaze upon the merciless Atlantic ocean. Pity all those mariners and creatures of the wild. My thoughts were of this Island England and all that it could offer. Yes – a full Monty fry up breakfast. Oooh you have to come up north to stuff yourself on black pudding to fortify your soul. As Britain remembers the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s funeral, this was the land of tradition he fought to save. We had the lot – the egg, the fried bread, the mushrooms, the beans, the hash browns, the sausage, the bacon, the black pud and washed it down with hot dark tea. Strand Hotel – you scoop the spare tyre award with honours and distinction. As we munched the ocean threw its fury at our Island race. We fought back on the beaches with our insoluble cholesterol and never surrendered.
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| A Lancaster, Hurricane and Spitfire breakfast |
Blackpool surely offers the greatest choice of hotels in the Northern hemisphere. It is a competitive market and the value is extraordinary. You could stay for a week at the price of a London night. A big big thank you to all the staff at the excellent Strand hotel, Blackpool.
Emma Thinx: Darkness is but the stage where light reveals our part.
Today my ‘ONCE UPON A NOW’ tour visits the ‘Tales of Yesterday‘ book blog – run by Michelle Toy and ably aided in this case by her son Corey.
I was amazed to click the link to Michelle’s blog and see the whole of the page decked out in ‘Once Upon a NOW’ bright egg-yolk yellow and the logos for my series plastered all over the screen. There was even a banner blending the blog’s logo with my book livery. I am totally bowled over. Thank you so much Michelle!
I was further delighted to find that Michelle and her son had read not one, but all three of the books from the series – and enjoyed them too. Phew.
Find out which book was Corey’s favourite – read their reviews on Tales of Yesterday .
One of the books in the series is still going FREE on Amazon for another day: http://www.smarturl.it/Kruncha – ends 28th Jan.
The next stop on the tour is http://chapterfive.wix.com/chapter5 on Wednesday 29th January. Can’t wait!
Today I am pleased to share with you the content from BestChickLit.com . They recently featured my ‘Once Upon a NOW’ series of children’s books and introduced the world to super-reviewers Ellie and Eden (aged 11 and 9).
Both girls read the books and between them created 5 wonderful reviews for ‘Alf The Workshop Dog’, ‘Isabella’s Pink Bicycle’ and ‘Kool Kid Kruncha and The High Trapeze’.
Coming up with one review is hard enough against a deadline, but these sisters have really got the reading bug. They are destined, I am certain, to become great literary star-reviewers of the future. The pair managed to read all three stories and came up with synopses of the plots as well as explaining the things they particularly enjoyed in each book.
A big thank you from me to them for all their effort and fantastic result!
(particularly as they liked the stories 😉 ).
Visit the blog and see all their thoughts and reviews on BestChickLit.com.
Kindle version of ‘Kool Kid Kruncha and the High Trapeze’ is FREE on Amazon Worldwide today & tomorrow (27/28 Jan 2015) http://www.smarturl.it/Kruncha.
Next stop on the tour is Tales of Yesterday readable from the 28th January.
Today is the first day of my tour of literary blogs for Children’s Fiction. Arranged via the wonderful efficient staff at CandleLit Author Services, it will feature my ‘ONCE UPON A NOW SERIES’ of modern fairy stories for kids.
The tour includes guest posts by me about the inspiration behind each book and reviews by readers old and young. There is also a giveaway where you can win a complete set of the series in audio book, paperback or digital Kindle formats.
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| It’s Calin day. Feel the love and just bloody well do it! |
Just to let you all know that today 21st Janvier in France it is international hug and cuddle day and my name “Calin” translates into English as hug or cuddle. In Paris the talk is of machine gunners, extra police and more laws to keep us all safe. Chiefs of police explain waves of arrests and findings of weapons of death and hate. For sure the world and the French psyche are soaked in futile blood and the fear of more.
Since all l’horreur and la violence I have kept my mouth shut. Pronouncements by light weight hackette story writers would seem gratuitous and trivial. But – WOW – how unstoppable is the power of gorgeous sex, romance and decadent trivial fun. Where is the jazz and the champagne fizz of French kissing in my beloved Paris?
Look guys – just give it all up. Surrender to the truth of life, get drunk, fall in love, light a fire, throw on a hopeless poem of impossible longing, let the depth of a lover’s eyes pull you down and down until you find compassion for all the world in your own pleading helplessness. Only my jealousy of young love is greater than my sympathy. Oldies – kiss and remember. Youngsters – kiss and make your memories.
Today is Câlin day in Paris.
Emma Thinx: La soupe of gods is love. Suck it up.
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| I saw the light |
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| Same picture without supernatural intervention |
I do love a nice omen don’t you. Recently a family member has been serving in Afghanistan. My life has been an omen quest seeking reassurance that he will be OK. The garden magpies are tired of being counted and saluted. I have studied tea leaves and cloud patterns. I have been opening books and selecting random words. Then there are the patterns of blowing leaves, not to mention songs on the radio. Not that I’m superstitious or influenced by these things of course. The fact is that all the omens were good and the lad has made it home for Christmas. On his last day there I turned on the TV by chance to see the movie Apollo 13 playing. It was the scene where Marilyn Lovell lost her ring down the plughole. Surely this was a post-modern reflexive omen with the message that things can come good even if there is a disconcerting omen.
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| The importance of being Artist |
So, imagine my agitation this morning when a cosmic collision of omens broke my sense of post-Christmas stupor. I was in the lounge. I had moved a painting to an unusual place in order to rearrange the room. As I reached out to the bookshelf to get down my new 2015 copy of the “Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook”. I saw a shaft of light fall on the painting as if it were a sun. The edge of a window pane was refracting the light and focusing it. I noticed that the book I wanted was on top of the works of Oscar Wilde, containing of course “A Portrait Of Dorian Gray”, in which a hidden painting reveals the true life of a man. This was omen OMG overload. I was trying to decide if 2014 was to be the end of my commercially invisible writing career. 2015 could be a scribble free zone with a proper paying job punctuated by meaningful three for the price of two experiences in Walmart. Was the cosmos sending me a sign? Should there be a third “Passion Patrol” title where the girl cop solves the case with supernatural assistance? She leaves her police equipment unattended while she cavorts in abandoned lust with her mysterious enigmatic lover. Later she opens her official notebook to find the writing of a phantom hand has provided a key to a major crime. Only thing is…… it hasn’t happened yet!
The picture is by Dorset artist Graham Towler and is called Dorset Hill Fort.
Emma Thinx: Will we know it’s the future when we get there?
Emma Undercover 