OUT TOMORROW: Twist of Fate by Avery Taylor

Twist of Fate by Avery Taylor is out tomorrow and available now to pre-order with a limited time only 30% discount.

TWIST OF FATE SYNOPSIS

It seemed like a dream ending to an arduous trip across far north Queensland but Joanna Denning’s overnight stay at a seemingly prosperous cattle station proved to be just the beginning of a nightmare that threatened her life.  Her only hope of survival lay with a total stranger, yet how far could she trust a man who was a self-confessed murderer? And when the chase was on who was the real target?  Had a strange twist of fate allied her with a man whose death was even more vital to their pursuers as they battled their way to safety across a wild and untamed land?

OUT TOMORROW: Scent of Madness by David Wiltshire

Scent of Madness by David Wiltshire is out tomorrow and available to pre-order now in hardback with a special 30% discount for a limited time only.

Praise for the Author:

‘Oh Joy! A properly constructed and satisfying story’  -  Historical Novels Review

‘Wiltshire tells the tale with great sincerity, and with occasional unexpected turns in the plot, so that one is made a believer’  -  Historical Novels Review

Here is the official synopsis:

SCENT OF MADNESS SYNOPSIS

As Lieutenant Tom O’Hara investigates several gruesome murders in a large teaching hospital a wave of terror about the escalating severity of the situation is sweeping through the nursing staff. Despite the obscene dissection of the victims’ bodies there are still forensic clues which point to the killer. O’Hara has one suspect, a soldier brought back from Afghanistan in a coma, the victim of a torture he associates with the scent of roses worn by a sinister and unseen woman. The very same scent which is unfortunately worn by Dr Jean Hacker, who works at the hospital…

OUT TOMORROW: Malice in Mind by A.V. Denham

Malice in Mind by A.V. Denham is out tomorrow and available to pre-order now in hardback, with a special 30% discount for a limited time only.

MALICE IN MIND SYNOPSIS

When Harriet escapes with her daughter, from the abusive Paul, she runs to South Wales where she is taken in by her friend Florence. In her new surroundings Harriet is introduced to James, home from fighting in Afghanistan and owner of a newly inherited garden centre. Attracted to him, needing work, and deciding to settle there, Harriet invests in his business. When a series of unexplained incidents threatens the viability of the centre and Harriet’s cottage is set on fire, there are questions to be answered. Is there an unknown arsonist at work, or someone closer to home? With James’s divorced wife and anorexic daughter still living close by and the very real threat of Paul returning, Harriet is determined to banish her fears and solve the mystery, putting herself in deadly danger…

Em Marshall Signs Copies of Music in the Landscape in Dorset

Em Marshall is the Founder-Director of the acclaimed English Music Festival, Director of the CD label EM Records and Chairman of both the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and Granville Bantock Society. Marshall recently headed down to Dorset to sign copies of her book Music in the Landscape.

Here’s what happened when The Book Shop welcomed Em Marshall to the Dorset landscapes…

As a relative newcomer to Dorset, I hadn’t yet had the chance to sample the delights of Bridport, so was delighted when my first book-signing event was confirmed for The Book Shop in that very town, on Saturday 17^th March. Despite being a rather overcast and chilly March morning, the town was absolutely packed – partly, it appeared, due to a popular street market, purveying everything from bananas to rusting old saws and door knobs! The Book Shop is centrally located on the charming and ancient main street, and I was warmly welcomed by Ross and his assistant Anne, who looked after me very well. We had good interest, with a variety of customers ranging from those who already knew me (pleasant surprises to see them!), through those who had never met me but had ordered the book in advance (it took me some time to wipe the grin off my face after one woman called me her ‘hero’ and ‘the person who has done most for English music in recent years with the sole exception of Richard Hickox’!), through to composers who just happened to be passing and noticed the poster in the window! I found it rewarding and interesting talking to these good folk about English music and the countryside, and the links between these. Several  had relatives who were composers and told me their stories of how their particular part of England inspired said relative. On the whole, it was a morning pleasantly spent – made all the better by an ensuing bag of chips on a nearby cliff!

- Em Marshall

Music in the Landscape is available to buy now in hardback, with a foreword by Jeremy Irons and introduction by Jonathan Dimbleby.

MUSIC IN THE LANDSCAPE

Music in the Landscape is an exuberant celebration of British composers and the landscape. The book explores the lives of some of our nation’s greatest musical names and sets them within the context of the rich variety of their native countryside – wherein Britain’s vast variation of colour, light and contour, from gentle rounded valleys to bleak mountain landscapes and wild coastland, has resulted in great masterpieces that brim with expression and emotion.

Although readers may be aware of Elgar’s love of the Malverns or Britten’s identification with the Suffolk coast, nearly all British composers of the early- to mid-twentieth century were influenced by the landscapes in which they were born or chose to live, and so this book effectively presents a history of the Golden Renaissance of English music.

Marshall delves into particular places that were vital to the inspiration of musical landmarks – such as Tintagel, instrumental to Bax’s eponymous tone-poem; Maiden Castle of John Ireland’s Mai-Dun; and Egdon Heath, Holst’s evocation of the wild Dorset heathland described by Hardy in The Return of The Native. These works, and many others highlighted in this illuminating volume, epitomise the intimate relationship between nature and music that compels the attention of music-lovers throughout the world.

OUT FRIDAY: The Liberators by James Pattinson

The Liberators by James Pattinson is out this Friday and available to pre-order now with a 30% discount for a limited time only.

Praise for the author:

‘A perennial favourite’ -  Daily Telegraph

‘A crisp storyline and credible characters make it a cracker of a tale’  -  Bolton Evening Post

Here is the official synopsis:

THE LIBERATORS SYNOPSIS

English adventurer Harvey Landon is alone in New York  -  wanted by the police and with only a few dollars in his pocket. The Theodore Cranefield offers him a job that he can’t afford to refuse. Soon he is driving south with a gunman named Gregg to a rendezvous in Florida with the so-called El Aguila, Ramon Arturo Alvarez, and the tough young Pete. The drama swiftly moves across the hurricane-swept Gulf of Mexico to a country shortly to be ravaged by a volcanic eruption, an earthquake and a revolution in which Landon finds himself unwillingly involved.

OUT FRIDAY: The Cheshire Cat Murders by Roger Silverwood

The Cheshire Cat Murders by Roger Silverwood is out this Friday and available to pre-order now in hardback, with a 30% discount for a limited time only.

Praise for the author:

‘Solid plotting, unpretentious writing, thoroughly reliable entertainment’  -  Morning Star

‘Silverwood combines a classic mystery plot with well-developed characters’  -  Publishers Weekly

THE CHESHIRE CAT MURDERS – SYNOPSIS

Detective Inspector Michael Angel and his team are desperately searching for a wild cat on a killing spree in the South Yorkshire town of Bromersley. It appears that the cougar is under human control and is trained to kill to order. Retired schoolteacher and well-known cat enthusiast, Miss Ephemore Sharp, becomes the prime suspect, but Inspector Angel is unable to prove her guilt. Matters take a decisive turn when she is found in possession of the antique pot figure of a famous performing cat called ‘Pascha’. Angel is greatly tested and the investigations become more mystifying and dangerous, as he races to find the explanation to stop more mayhem and murder. This is the 18th in the highly successful Inspector Angel series.

To find out what Roger Silverwood thinks makes great crime fiction, check out his author post.

The Snuffbox Murders is out now in ebook.

OUT FRIDAY: For the Love of Catherine by Carole Llewellyn

For the Love of Catherine is out this Friday and is available now for pre-order with a 30% discount for a limited time only.

Praise for the author:

‘I was sorry when the last page had turned’  -  Myshelf.com

‘It is difficult to put down…a book well worth reading’  -  Red Roses for Authors

Here is the official plot:

FOR THE LOVE OF CATHERINE OFFICIAL PLOT – SYNOPSIS

14^th  APRIL, 1912.

RMS Titanic Struck by an Iceberg!

In the chaos of the sinking ship, Mair Parsons is separated from her infant daughter, Catherine, and her travelling companion and future mother-in-law, Ethel Jenkins, the kind woman who has tried to compensate Mair for the mother’s love she has never known.

The disaster changes all their lives. During her repatriation to Britain Mair has time to reassess her life and knows that before she can find true happiness she must find out the truth about her absent mother, even if it means leaving her beloved Wales and the fiancé and family who care for her.

Her search takes her to London where she becomes a Nightingale Nurse at St Thomas’s hospital and meets the exciting doctor, Andrew Baxter. With new love and a new career, can she be truly happy? Or will her heart be forever bound to those she loves in Wales?

The Legend of Psycho Continues with New Film

In 1959, Robert Hale Ltd published Psycho by Robert Bloch. Bloch himself won the prestigious SF Hugo award in the same year. The psychological horror followed Marion Crane as she stole money from her boss and fled to a motel and encountered the brilliantly creepy Norman Bates, who ran the now infamous Bates Motel. Bloch would later follow up Psycho with Psycho II and Psycho House, as well as numerous other books.

In 1960, only one year after Psycho was first published, Director Alfred Hitchcock released one of the most popular and successful films of his career – the film adaptation of Psycho. The film, which starred Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles, shocked audiences the world over and went on to gross an estimated $50 million worldwide.

The film spawned a remake in 1998 starring Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche and Julianne Moore and numerous sequels including Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986) and Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990).

Now, it seems, a new film has begun to take form in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho – a film, as the title suggests, about what went into making the 1960 adaptation and Hitchcock’s struggle to get funding for the picture. So far, Anthony Hopkins has been cast as Alfred Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife Alma Reville, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh and James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins. Jessica Biel has recently been added to the cast list and is set to play Vera Miles. The film is rumoured to be released in 2013.More than fifty years after its initial release, people are still talking about Psycho – a book The New York Times called “Icily terrifying”. Who knows what it will have become in another fifty years…

Source: Collider

Flickering Myth Reviews Holy Franchise Batman! by Gary Collinson

The Dark Knight Rises hits cinemas worldwide in July. To commemorate the hotly anticipated film, Robert Hale Ltd will be publishing Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen in June. Flickering Myth called it “indispensable reading material” for Batman fans.

Read the full review and find out more about the book over at Flickering Myth

ABOUT HOLY FRANCHISE BATMAN! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen

Since the Caped Crusader first made the leap from comics to silver screen in the early 1940s, generations of audiences have been captivated by the screen adventures of Batman, establishing the celebrated comic book hero as a true icon of popular culture. Now, Gary Collinson traces the entire screen history of Bob Kane’s Dark Knight Detective, providing a fascinating insight into one of the most successful media franchises of all time.

Beginning with the early movie serials of the 1940s, Holy Franchise, Batman! charts the development of Batman’s many exploits across both live-action and animation, presenting a comprehensive overview of his illustrious screen career. From the classic 1960s television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward to the hugely successful blockbuster feature films from directors Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher and Christopher Nolan, as well as early Saturday morning cartoon outings through to the acclaimed ‘DC Animated Universe’, this book explores the evolution of Batman – a journey that has taken him from ‘camp’ crime-fighter to Dark Knight.

‘The Unexpected Miss Bennet’ Author Patrice Sarath on Miss Mary Bennet

Like many Jane Austen fans, I’ve read Pride & Prejudice many times and each time I’ve gained a deeper appreciation of the story, the characters, the setting, and the social commentary that Austen excels at. I became very sympathetic to Mary, the not-pretty, socially awkward, priggish middle sister. Austen is kind of unforgiving toward Mary. Mary makes dull observations, she has no sense of humor, she can’t play the piano or sing very well, and she sermonizes unendingly. She was probably really annoying to live with. I thought, wow, Mary really has middle child syndrome.

And I thought, hmmm – why doesn’t Mr. Collins want to marry Mary Bennet? She’d be perfect for him, right? They’re both insufferable and stupid – it would be a match made in heaven. Thankfully, Jane Austen reserved Mr. Collins for Charlotte Lucas, thereby clearing the field for me.

In writing about Mary I had to take a character who is one-dimensional and round her out a bit. But first I had to understand her better and to do that, I turned to that expert on all things female in the 18th and 19th centuries – Fordyce, as in Fordyce’s Sermons for Young Women. Yes, I read Fordyce’s Sermons as a way into Mary Bennet’s psyche. This was actually really fun. Even in Jane Austen’s day Fordyce was considered old and stuffy, but he provided some good advice. Some of this I use in The Unexpected Miss Bennet, as in the scene when the older ladies are hoping to get Mary to gossip, and she knows to beware of their wiles because Fordyce warned her about these types of women, who seek to lead young women astray. (Yeah, he had issues). Mary also comes to see that Fordyce is not the be-all and end-all of knowledge, and maybe it’s time to find a new guide for her new life.

I wanted to make sure that ‘my’ Mary was identifiable as the Mary Bennet created by Jane Austen, and I think I succeeded. Mary is still devout, and she still sermonizes – a little. But she sees there is a wider world out there, and she gains some self-knowledge and makes new friends because she has become open to what life offers. Regency-era women lived very constrained lives so I didn’t have her go through any crazy adventures, but only what makes sense for the character.

I’m a romantic at heart. Romance is such a hopeful genre, and I thought it was a perfect way to explore a character who is mostly overlooked. When writing The Unexpected Miss Bennet, I found that I felt very protective of Mary. After all that she had been through in Pride & Prejudice, she deserved to fall in love with a good guy. When I created a love interest for her, I wanted Mr. Aikens to be a breath of fresh air. That was fun too, to create my very own new character for Pride & Prejudice.

No one can out-Austen Austen, but I hope I successfully kept to the spirit of the original while writing my sequel. It was a fun, fascinating experience, and I hope that readers end up with the same sympathy for Mary Bennet that I have.

- Patrice Sarath

The Unexpected Miss Bennet by Patrice Sarath is available to buy now in hardback