Angling

With worm hunter Mr Whitemore and family holidaying in the rain....

Spring?  It must almost be summer but the rain it raineth every day.
I believe it's the same all over Europe.  I have finished my latest book.

And so have started fishing again.
The fish don't mind the rain.

Isabella and Willow don't either.

Still haven't caught one. 
I don't mind.  It's the doing of things that's more fun than the final conquest.
(Until I do, Mr Fish, until I do...)

Branford Boase Award

After The Snow has been shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award.  Link here

In their own words:

"The Branford Boase Award is awarded annually for an outstanding first novel to a first-time writer of a book for young people. At the same time, it marks the important contribution of the editor in identifying and nurturing new talent."

Another case of fingers being tightly crossed. 

I have also seen the American cover of One Crow Alone which I love...

 

 

Spring has sprung

One Crow Alone

One Crow Alone had some kind reviews over the Easter weekend:  sounds awfully self promoting of me to post them, but it's very nice to get any review for something that you have been working on for over a year and a half, in what feels like total isolation...(nice excuse)

Geraldine Brennan in The Observer writes:

"The narrative delivers all the bleak hardship and reverses of fortune promised by the title, from a Polish saying that roughly translates as "one for sorrow", but Magda's rehabilitation through her childhood smallholding skills is infused with joy and the novel ends with a sense of space that could be filled with a second prequel volume, but does not need to be."



And Dinah Hall in The Telegraph:

"One Crow Alone,  conveys the bleakness of a world racked by permanent winter without tying down the reader’s imagination in detailed description. Magda is a Polish girl who goes in search of her mother with the emotionally damaged Ivan. Moments of quiet domesticity balance the scenes of terror-"


And here is a picture from my window.  A wonderful April day.

 

And out for a Spring walk...