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Category: Books (not Jan's)

  1. KIck Anxiety eBook FREE until March 31st 2020

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    Greetings from Scotland!

    I hope you’re okay during these trying times. Even some of the most relaxed people are finding it hard to stay calm. Therefore, I’ve made my Kick Anxiety eBook free until Tuesday 31st March at 11.59 pm PDT.

    Also, I recently released a novelette, I Can’t Go Back to Maplethorpe.  At the moment, it’s just 99p or equivalent. It’s a rom-com set in the 1970s and has a little story behind it...

    In the sixth form, my hubby’s mate, Dave announced, ‘A gorgeous girl has moved in with me.’

    ‘But you live with your parents,’ said my hubby.

    ‘I know. But Mum and Dad feel sorry for her.’

    ‘Why?’

    Dave had met a pretty girl in a disco and invited her to tea the next day. After swallowing a bite of Victoria sponge,’ she burst into tears and said, ‘I can’t go back to Mablethorpe.’

    Turned out the girl hated life in her seaside town and had spent all her spare money on a few nights in London. And whenever someone suggested she should return home, she’d cry and reiterate, ‘I can’t go back to Mablethorpe.’

    ‘So, what happened to her?’ I asked my hubby a few years ago after he told me the story.

    He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

    I know – frustrating.

    So, I changed Mablethorpe (a real place on the east coast of England) to Maplethorpe (a faux seaside resort on the east coast and tapped away on the keyboard as  I Can’t Go Back to Maplethorpe appeared.

    That’s it for now, folks. 

    Stay happy and healthy, and I’ll see you soon.

    Janet xx

  2. A LETTER FROM F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, QUARANTINED DURING THE SPANISH INFLUENZA OUTBREAK.

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    A sunless balcony in the South of France,

    1920

    Dearest Rosemary,

    literature-326075_640


    It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears. The streets are that empty. It seems as though the bulk of the city has retreated to their quarters, rightfully so. At this time, it seems very poignant to avoid all public spaces. Even the bars, as I told Hemingway, but to that, he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadn’t. He is much the denier, that one. Why, he considers the virus to be just influenza. I’m curious of his sources.

    The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a month’s worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy. Please pray for us. You should see the square, oh, it is terrible. I weep for the damned eventualities this future brings. The long afternoons rolling forward slowly on the ever-slick bottomless highball. Z. says it’s no excuse to drink, but I just can’t seem to steady my hand.

    In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while. And yet, amongst the cracked cloudline of an evening’s cast, I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better morrow.

    Faithfully yours,

    F Scott Fitzgerald

  3. Just for Fun -- share the first twenty books which pop into your head...

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    I am still in post-Christmas procrastination mode. So, instead of organising an Amazon or Facebook ad (groan) I wrote down, without stopping to think, twenty books I've loved.

    And here they are. Drumroll...

    The Thorn Birds

    Rachel's Holiday

    The Boys from Brazil

    Perfume

    The Big Picture

    Tell no One

    Rosie Meadows Regrets

    Hotel du Lac

    All Quiet on the Western Front

    One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

    Tell No One

    Mrs Pettigrew Lives for a Day

    I Capture the Castle

    The Thirty-Nine Steps

    The Rich are Different

    Polyanna

    Heidi

    Ballet Shoes

    Jennings Goes to School

    Anne of Green Gables 

    PS. I reread the children's books as an adult.  

    What books instantly pop into your head? Please reply in the comments.

    Right, now to make (another) mug of tea and do something worthy...

    Like watch Ugly Betty. 

    Bye for now,

    Jan xx

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