Oct 25 2015

Bathroom breaks

Maybe it’s my age, but I find myself being critical of stories where the characters can seemingly go for days without going to the loo. I mean, really. How many of us, get up, get dressed, and rush out of the house without stopping to pee? Let alone any other morning rituals – shower, teeth brushing, coffee, food.

I remember reading The Da Vinci Code and thinking half way through – hang on, this guy hasn’t been to the bathroom in days. Perhaps, in an adventure story, it’s not advisable to break the tension by having the characters shoot off to the toilet now and then. They certainly won’t have time for sex either (I think they did at some point in TDVC – but they must have been very smelly and dirty – not having had time to wash or go to the bathroom). And even writing a romance, where the action’s not taking place at breakneck speed, you don’t want to spoil the moment with the love interest saying, ‘Um, excuse me, I really have to go. Where’s the bathroom?” (And, of course, they never fart at inappropriate times.)

Do readers either want, or expect, realism? In writing stories, there has to be a balance, I think, between describing a character’s movements (not bowel ones) in enough detail to make them seem realistic, and boring the reader to death with too much information.

I was given a diary when I was young, eight in fact. It was a small book and there wasn’t much space for each day’s entry. I still have this diary and the entries are very succinct: ‘I played’. ‘I went to school’ (only I spelled school backwards – did I think my parents couldn’t decipher this?). The most descriptive one – ‘We had a horrible lunch’ – I wonder what that was (and maybe I hoped my parents would read that one!).

The diary did have some useful information in it though, which may be why I’ve kept it.

And my point is? Well, I didn’t write in the diary that I got up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, ate breakfast…although I would have done all these things before ‘I played’ or ‘went to school’ or ‘had a horrible lunch’.

At the tender age of eight I realised that this was a given, so maybe I should just accept that it isn’t necessary for the writer to tell us that the character went to the bathroom before she set off to save the world, or whatever. I mean, it’s obvious. She would have had to. She might be able to leave the house without having a shower, coffee or food, maybe even forgetting to brush her teeth, but she would have had to pee. Or, is this just my age showing? There’s no way I leave the house without having visited the bathroom.

But, maybe not this one – it’s a bit too ‘outdoor’ for me.

(Note: the animal tracks stayed with me. When I got my first camera, some of my earliest photos were of animal tracks in the snow.)

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website

Oct 17 2015

Writing tools and NaNoWriMo

In last week’s blog I talked about how I use Scrivener – a software program designed for writers. This sparked some interest with comments from others who have wondered about trying it or whether it’s the right program for them. The makers of Scrivener, Literature and Latte, also provide a list of other options that might be useful if you’re looking for something to help your process along.

All I can say is, Scrivener works for me. I read an article in a writing magazine that listed what the writer considered to be ‘top tools’ and one that caught my eye was Zenwriter. This sounds great if you really can’t stop yourself from giving in to online distractions. (What’s happening on Facebook/I have three new emails!/A quick game of solitaire won’t hurt)

Zenwriter saves you from all such temptation by hiding your screen, replacing it with a lovely background image of your choice along with accompanying background music. And you can even apply the sound of an old-fashioned typewriter.

Sounds great. But I think I have enough self-discipline to be able to do this myself. I can ignore the little icons at the bottom of my screen, put some music on, concentrate on writing for more than half an hour. (Oh, excuse me, I have a notification on Twitter.)

How to increase your word count—or maybe not!

It’s coming up to November – which means NaNoWriMo for some folks. I’ve not tried this and I won’t be doing it this year either. But I know it can be a great motivator to get 50,000 words written in a month to maybe finish that novel you’ve been trying to write for ages. Anyway, another article I read recently gave tips on how to increase your word count to meet the daily quota. Some of the suggestions were useful, but others were just laughable and sounded like excellent ideas for making your work totally unreadable. For example: “add characters who tell long boring stories, starting again at the beginning if they get interrupted”. Another one was: “Don’t use hyphens. Make all compounds into separate words”. A sure fire way to piss off your editor! Or, how about: “Words such as ‘that’ and ‘some’ can be slipped in almost anywhere”. In my case it is usually “then”.

I’m guessing this article was written as a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ exercise. Although maybe there is some merit in this tip: “Introduce a child who has the irritating habit of repeating everything anyone says”. 1,667 words a day—no problem—make it 5,000!

For anyone taking part in NaNoWriMo, good luck! I will follow everyone’s posted struggles with interest…a bit like watching a marathon on TV…applauding the effort, but glad that I’m not taking part.

Well, that’s my word output for today. Time for a cup of tea and maybe a quick look at Facebook.

Happy writing…and reading!

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website

Oct 11 2015

Talking about writing

How easy is it to sit down in front of a blank page and start writing?

Bernard Cornwell was asked this question in a recent interview and his response was simply: “It’s not hard — you just write the first f**king sentence and go from there.”

Some days it works this way, other days it is a struggle and you wonder if the words are going to come…and how many cups of coffee will need to be consumed. Or maybe a glass of beer, once the pirate ship’s gone past (see Note below).

My main writing tool for the last two years has been Scrivener. The books I have written during this time have had a large number of characters but I’ve limited myself to six or seven points of view. Scrivener is particularly useful for me as the writer to keep the characters separate, and hopefully this helps readers as well when they see the finished product.

This is what the binder on one of my Scrivener files looks like, listing Chapter scenes from Carved in Stone (due out early next year).

A recent blog by Jordan Redhawk gave some very useful advice on using a colour-code to easily identify scenes. I think that’s a great idea that I may employ in future manuscripts but so far just using the character’s names has worked.

With Scrivener I can also add Character Sketches, which is great if I’ve forgotten what hair or eye colour one of the characters has and saves having to scrabble through scraps of paper or a tattered notebook. That was my method BS (Before Scrivener).

This doesn’t mean I never handwrite anything. I do still have notebooks with bits of information, things that come to mind at odd moments, bits of research, and sketches for future scenes. Sometimes even a bit of planning ahead (what a novel idea!). Just a line or two can be all I need to spark the idea for a scene. The notes on this page are for the early chapters of Arc Over Time.

Sitting down in front of a blank page – it’s not always easy. But when the words come it is immensely satisfying to read it back the next day and realise you have achieved something. That you have, perhaps, moved the story on or created space for another plot development. This is the way I write, chaotic at times, but in the end, with the help of Scrivener, I can draw the threads together.

Well, I think the pirate ship went past some time ago. Cheers! Happy reading.

Note: this is a reference to a holiday my wife and I took many years ago. We noticed that the pirate ship, a tourist excursion, sailed past the beach we were sunbathing on at the same time every day, about 11:00 in the morning. That was the cue for one of us to go to the bar. Ever since then, whenever we wonder if it’s time for a drink, we’ll say “it’s okay, the pirate ship’s gone past”.

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website

Oct 4 2015

October thoughts – a lot of firsts

I love this time of year with the change of seasons, as the trees start to change colour and we sometimes have crisp clear days as in this (yet another canal photo) picture I took during my walk on the first day of October.

A year has passed quickly with many personal milestones. On 1st October 2014, my debut novel was published. Along with the thrill of seeing my work in print, came a whole new set of things to worry about:

Would anyone buy my book?

Would readers like it?

Would reviewers like it?

The sales for Starting Over went well but I quickly got caught up in the newbie author habit of checking my Amazon ranking every day. I’ve now weaned myself off this – down to once a week. The book currently has 19 reviews on Amazon US and 11 on Amazon UK. I’m incredibly grateful to all who took the time to put reviews there and for the book to have a star rating of 4.8 and 4.4 respectively.

There were many ‘firsts’ for me during the months that followed publication. Having the book nominated in two Golden Crown Literary Award categories – Debut Author and Traditional Contemporary Romance; writing my first guest blogs for Women and Words and UK Lesfic websites with book giveaways, signing my first book, attending the GCLS Conference in New Orleans – meeting the Affinity team, including many of their other authors; two public readings, one at GCLS and one nearer home in Manchester; and taking part in a radio-style interview with Clare Lydon (which has had at the time of posting this, 727 plays).

My second book was published in May 2015 – Arc Over Time, a sequel to the first. Sales-wise it hasn’t been as successful as the first book, but all the reviewers and also readers who have contacted me via Facebook, have loved it. With a 4.8 star rating on both the US and UK Amazon sites, it seems to have hit the spot with those who have read it.

So, with the above questions answered, I have managed to keep writing – with two books scheduled to come out next year and the first draft of another book coming along nicely.

And I haven’t mentioned the two short stories that were published last year – another first was the publication of There Was A Time which came out a month before Starting Over, and then there was my contribution to the Affinity 2014 Christmas Collection – some fun in space with The Christmas Sweepstake –and possibly a third story coming up in the next Affinity anthology.

Along with these other firsts – the pleasure of seeing my book on the shelf of our local independent bookstore, The Book Case in Hebden Bridge. (And they’ve even sold a few copies!)

When I retired two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined any of this. I thought I would be spending most of my time playing golf, shooting arrows and going on holidays with my lovely wife. I am, just about, managing to fit these activities in as my writing life continues to expand. Retirement, it seems, it just another word for finally getting to do what I’ve always wanted to do – be a full time author.

I’ll keep writing – and I hope you will keep reading!

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website

Sep 25 2015

Good news and interviews

A trilogy!

I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to announce that Affinity has agreed to publish another one of my novels – and it is part of a series!

When I began writing Starting Over, my debut novel, I had no idea I would go on to write a second and then, believe it or not, a third. OMG – a trilogy! (That was my sister’s reaction.)

The storylines for the second book, Arc Over Time, came into my mind almost immediately after I’d finished Starting Over. And not long after that one ended, I started thinking about the third, which is currently titled Carved in Stone – which were the last three words in Arc Over Time.

The impetus for the main storyline in Carved in Stone was the plans for the re-burial of Richard III’s bones. The city of Leicester laid on an impressive ceremony, which was televised – finally giving the much-maligned king a public send off worthy of his status. Benedict Cumberbatch, a distant relative, read out the poem written for the occasion by our Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy – which I found very moving – particularly this line: “Grant me the carving of my name.”

My story involves a royal personage whose bones are discovered at a remote hilltop farm in the first book, Starting Over. I was fortunate to come across an historical figure not much is known about, so I could make things up. She disappears from view after losing power, and nothing is known about where she ended her days. So, a farm on the moors above Huddersfield in West Yorkshire seemed as good a place as any.

In Arc Over Time, the bones and other artefacts are being displayed at the British Museum. As part of the exhibition, life-like 3D heads are created of the queen and her female lover. (Another departure from historical record, but something worth exploring, I thought.)

In Carved in Stone, Ellie Winters, the owner of the farm where the bones were found, becomes entranced by the image of the queen and starts to have conversations with her.

Historians haven’t been kind to this woman who was leader of the largest tribe in Britain in the first century. And she, too, it seems, feels she deserves to have a lasting monument; for her remains to be treated with dignity and honour.

I’m pleased this story is being published as I feel it completes the journey that began in Starting Over. As with the first two books, Carved in Stone is also a rollercoaster ride for the characters. And writing this book gave me the chance to give Jo Bright Flame – the owner of the camper van and a dog called Harry – an opportunity to find love, as she hadn’t had much luck in that department in the first two books.

GCLS Nomination
Another cause for celebration this week: I was notified that Arc Over Time has been nominated for a Goldie award in the Dramatic/General Fiction category! I really had an amazing time at this year’s GCLS conference and I have already booked for next year.

Live interview

The podcast of my interview with London-based author Clare Lydon is now live on the My Lesbian Radio website. Clare is a brilliant interviewer and I really enjoyed our conversation. During the interview we covered a lot of the usual topics concerned with writing and how I got started, but somehow veered into visiting sex shops with my mother. With that out of the way, Clare asked if I planned to work in either of my hobbies – golf and archery – into my stories. I had to say they haven’t really featured yet. So, I’ll leave you with a photo of this fine sculpture of an archer, taken during a visit to Helmsley Castle this summer.

If you haven’t read them yet, here are the links to my first two books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Sep 17 2015

A day out

Last Saturday saw the inaugural Lesbian Authors Festival take place at the Hideaway café in Manchester. The venue is perfect for intimate readings and I was pleased to have been invited to take part. Seven authors participated and we had an audience of about twenty people. The organisers had given us each a ten-minute reading slot with time for questions for each author after their reading. I wasn’t as nervous as I had been for my first public reading at the GCLS Conference in July, so I managed to do it without losing my voice.

There was also time for a Q&A panel session with all the authors after the readings. And a bookstall had been set up so we could display our books and hopefully entice someone to buy one.

I enjoyed the interaction with the other authors and the audience. During the panel discussion there was an interesting exchange of views about how much sex readers either wanted or expected in this particular genre of lesfic.

All in all, a good day out. I sold a paperback of Starting Over and later, via Facebook, someone who had been at the reading mentioned they’d read this book and enjoyed it. I let her know that the sequel, Arc Over Time, is available. A few days later, I received a message from her saying she’d bought it and read it very quickly, wanting to find out what happened. She then posted this lovely comment on Amazon:

“So beautifully written this is a heartwarming tale of love and passion that had me reading until dawn to finish it.”

It is this kind of feedback that helps us writer-types to keep going.

And, speaking of Arc Over Time, Diana Prince interviewed two of the characters for the Affinity eBooks blog and the transcript of that interview is available here. As with anything involving Kathryn and Denise, it doesn’t go as smoothly as planned.

Finally, just because I like it, here’s a photo I took from the airplane window as we were approaching Copenhagen on our visit there two weeks ago.

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Sep 10 2015

September is here and winter is coming!

It’s only the first half of September but it feels like the end of summer. And what a summer it has been. The trip to New Orleans for the GCLS conference was the main feature. That was quite a week. The impressions and experiences will stay with me for some time – probably until next year’s event.

On Saturday I’ll be taking part in a much smaller, but no less significant event. The Hideaway Café in Urmston (Manchester UK) is holding an inaugural Lesbian Authors Festival. This is the line up:

Andrea Bramhall 2:15pm

I Beacham 2:25

Cari Hunter 2:35

Michelle Grubb 2:45

Break: 3:00-3:30

Jen Silver 3:30

Karen Cambell 3:40

Veronica Fearon 3:50

As I’m reading after the break, everyone will probably have filled up on cake and won’t be paying me much attention. This is only my second public reading – the first was at the aforementioned GCLS where I almost lost my voice halfway through. Maybe, fortified by cake, I will get through this one without choking.

Homemade salted caramel cake from the Hideaway Cafe

As well as preparing for this event, the editing process for my next novel, The Circle Dance, has started. It’s due out in February, published by Affinity eBook Press. This book features a different set of characters from the first two but is still set in the same part of the country where I live. (An excuse to show another photo of the canal near Hebden Bridge).

Boats moored on canal near Hebden Bridge

It’s also been a busy time for reviews. Last week the Wilde Times Tavern website posted a review of my debut novel, Starting Over. And this week, they put up an excerpt from the sequel, Arc Over Time.

Wilde Times Tavern review and excerpt

Although it’s called a ‘quick review’, the reviewer goes into some detail on what she liked and didn’t like about Starting Over. I was pleased that, although she didn’t like Robin to start with, after finishing the book she thought Robin was the character she would most likely want to take home.

Earlier this week I was also interviewed by the wonderfully talented Clare Lydon and you’ll need to tune into the next episode of the Lesbian Book Club on My Lesbian Radio to hear the result of that – which will be sometime towards the end of the month after Clare gets back from sunny Spain (at least she’s hoping it’s sunny). Check out Clare’s previous interviews here: http://mylesbianradio.podbean.com

So, that’s enough about me. Hope you’re all enjoying sorting out your winter wardrobe for the months ahead and snuggling down with a good book.

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Aug 28 2015

Talking about books

I was interviewed this week and one question – which tends to crop up in interviews – was: What books have most influenced your life?

If I’m calling myself a writer, I should probably answer this with – Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ or Strunk & White’s ‘The Elements of Style’. Well, excellent as these are, they are reference books essential to the trade, such as a dictionary, thesaurus and manual of style…all of which are handily placed next to my desk.

The real story though lies on my bookshelves – books I have kept through the years and various house moves, sometimes country moves. These are books I reread or refer to for the reference points in my life.

The three books pictured here have travelled with me through several decades. ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’ was the book I wanted for my 10^th birthday. I had a picture book on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table but the stories didn’t really grab me. My parents wouldn’t buy ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’ for my birthday as they, quite rightly, thought it contained too much adult content. Anyway, being a sneaky little git, I coerced my grandmother into getting it for me. And I devoured it. But re-reading it years later, I could see why my parents didn’t think it suitable reading for a ten year old. Apart from all the blood and gore described in the many fight and jousting scenes, there was incest, matricide, infanticide…and more. Well, all this passed over my head at the time. To me, at that time, it was the pageantry and tales of courage and heroism that caught my imagination.

‘The Hobbit’ was a sort of continuation of the Arthurian obsession. It wasn’t much of a leap to take in a world full of goblins and elves and dragons. Ursula K LeGuin’s book of essays, ‘The Language of the Night’, then helped to define and give credence to what is blindingly obvious to lovers of fantasy…this stuff is real; it lives in our heads.

My wife doesn’t read this stuff. When we first got together, I offered her The Hobbit. After page one she put it down and said, ‘this isn’t real. I’m not going to waste my time reading about a hobbit that doesn’t exist.’

We’ve been together for over twenty-eight years, and some of you might now be wondering how if we can’t share a love of imaginary worlds. Well they say opposites attract, so I guess that must be it. She has many other redeeming qualities.

Back to the interview question – I probably answer it slightly differently each time I’m asked – depending on the day of the week and whether or not I’ve had my second cup of coffee. So, a sample here of my bookshelves to remind myself mainly, of the wide range of books and authors I love. (And this isn’t even touching on the lesfic books!)

Link to interview with Fiona McVie

Two novels (dragons not included):

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Aug 20 2015

The telling of stories

Where did the telling of stories start?

There’s this story of when I started Kindergarten. My teacher was concerned that I wasn’t taking part in activities. Apparently I would just sit in a corner and watch. My mother was surprised when she was told this at a parents’ evening because I would come home and happily tell her all about my day at school.

So, is this when the telling of stories started?

I can remember making up stories in my head from an early age—a way of amusing myself if I was waiting to go somewhere or on a long car journey. I don’t think I ever had an invisible friend as some children do, but I did have the characters that populated my stories to keep me company.

I suppose this is why I always felt different from others my age, all through school and beyond. I liked the games where we made things up—role-playing. But my stint in the Brownies didn’t last long, maybe two sessions before I was fed up sitting around a fake fire in the village hall and having to be a kelpie. One day, not long after I quit, I was playing in the woods near our house, having a fine old time by myself with homemade bow and arrows. I had ventured out onto the road just as the Brownie troupe came by on an organized field trip. Brown Owl stopped the group and asked if I would like to join them. From this distance in time I don’t know what I replied, possibly just a shake of the head before retreating into the woods.

Happy days!

So, running about with a bow and arrow and a wooden sword, I wasn’t buying into the stereotypical princess role model for little girls. I wanted to the one slaying dragons and winning archery tournaments to impress fair maidens. I could live out those stories in my head.

Not much different now, really. Time to go – I sense a fire-breathing dragon heading this way!

Two novels (dragons not included):

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Aug 13 2015

Loving the Professor

Since the release of my second novel, Arc Over Time, I have focused on two of the characters in previous blogs: Denise, the journalist and her friend, Jasmine, a PR executive. They are both Londoners and enjoy the city life. However, in the first novel, Starting Over, they found themselves drawn out into the countryside. And not just the nice, fertile downs of nearby rural Surrey, but the sparser, northern moorlands, 200 miles to the north of the big city.

What brings them out of their comfort zone? Well, love, of course. For Jasmine, this doesn’t work out and she retreats to the city. But for Den, what started as a casual fling turns into something more serious in book two. She has fallen in love with the professor, Dr Kathryn Moss.

Several reviewers picked up on this aspect of the story and expressed the situations in the book with marvellous clarity:

“Dr Kathryn Moss is still obsessed with Ellie Winters, despite Ellie’s obvious commitment to and happiness with wife Robin. Despite her unrequited yearning the buttoned up professor has continued her affair with journalist Denise Sullivan – what Dr Moss hasn’t realised is how Den’s feelings are developing.” Velvet Lounger, July 2015

“Dr. Kathryn Moss is a bonafide archaeologist and university professor. She also appears, at times, to live within several isolated segments. Additionally, she does not understand how confusing and sometimes stupefyingly upsetting she is to women currently close to her and those previously close to her. I love how much she enjoys and executes her professional assignments, but her obliviousness to the concept of long-term relationships and even simple courtesies makes it complicated to be on her side. Possibly her parents missed a few vital steps in their childrearing practices or it may simply be Dr. Kathryn Moss at her most clueless. Amazingly incongruous!” J Johnson, Rainbow Book Reviews, June 2015

In this excerpt from Chapter Three of Arc Over Time, Den has travelled up north to see Kathryn give a talk at Huddersfield Town Hall. The professor hasn’t responded to any of her text messages or phone calls since the last weekend they spent in London together – so it was her plan to turn up unexpectedly and find out what was happening:

The lights dimmed and the hum of conversations died down with the occasional cough and sniffle. There was a brief introduction from Dr Ed McLaughlin who Den knew was a close colleague of Kathryn’s. She had seen him at the site the year before but hadn’t spoken with him. He kept his introductory remarks brief, as he was well aware the audience hadn’t come to see him. When Kathryn walked onto the stage there was a big round of applause. The professor waited for the noise to die down, acknowledging the crowd, smiling and glancing around.

The next hour was a torment for Den. She wondered why she had thought attending the lecture would be a good idea. Watching Kathryn as she gave a polished and commanding performance, she was aware only of the heat gathering between her legs and the tight knot in her chest. When the question-and-answer session started it was all she could do to stop herself from jumping up and shouting, why haven’t you answered my calls?

Ed McLaughlin came out onto the stage again and brought proceedings to a close and the audience rose as one to give Kathryn a standing ovation. The lights went up in the hall and people started to shuffle around looking for bags and jackets. Den stood and stretched her legs. She moved to one side to let the other people from her row out. Her eyes briefly caught Kathryn’s as she stopped by the lectern to pick up the notes she hadn’t used. Den raised her hand to wave and then let it drop limply to her side as Kathryn turned away without acknowledging her and walked out of view.

A wave of self-pity hit her. Why had she bothered? Tears threatened to fall as she tore her gaze away from the stage and the movement of the crowd carried her out into the foyer.

“Hey, Den! Is that you?”

She turned to face the voice and found herself looking into Robin Fanshawe’s hazel eyes.

“Wow, it is you? What brings you this far north without a minder?” Robin was smiling at her, looking as happy and healthy as when Den had last seen her, at her wedding six weeks earlier.

Den swallowed. She wasn’t sure she could speak. All she could do was look at Robin and shake her head. The tears were on their way and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

Kathryn does appear to be rather emotionally challenged in the scenes that follow from this. Can Den overcome these obstacles and continue to pursue the professor in the hopes of a proper relationship? Is Kathryn hoping to have another chance with Ellie Winters as she thinks Robin won’t be able to live up to her recent marriage vows?

I guess you’ll have to read the book to find out…and if you’re still undecided, here are the links to the two reviews quoted above:

http://www.lesbianreadingroom.com/arc-over-time-jen-silver/ by Velvet Lounger

http://www.rainbowbookreviews.com/book-reviews/arc-over-time-by-jen-silver-at-affinity-ebook-press by J Johnson