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February Florentines

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  On a dismal February afternoon, I got to thinking how food plays an important part in all my books. It’s never centre stage, but it often underlines how my characters are feeling, or is symbolic of what is going on in their lives. In “House of Shadows” my time slip novel Jo Docherty has an issue with food. When anxious or stressed, she cannot eat and at the beginning of the book she is struggling with the aftermath of yet another miscarriage and what feels like a failing marriage. Moving away to her studio in the grounds of Kingsfield House she is haunted by a girl in a blue dress, the girl who she played with as a child, but who lived two centuries before Jo was born. As the past encroaches and the sense of menace grows, Jo looks for help. Helene and Cecile have an insight into the occult and the danger that lurks in Kingsfield House, giving Jo hope that somehow she will be able to deal with what she must face. It is at this point that Jo bakes her Florentines. “In the bri...
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Is "Poet Voice" a Real Thing?

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  Have you been to a poetry reading where some of the poets read in the same way? The stretched pauses. The careful pacing. The slightly mystical cadence. The voice that quietly announces, “This is a poem.” If you have, you'll know that the prior   sentence, in “poetry voice,” would probably sound like this: The voice  that quietly  announces,  “This is a poem.” And it would be read with rising inflection at the end of every line, like everything was a question, or a revelation, or both. A recent  New York Times  piece looks at this, often called the “poet voice,” and asks why so many poets end up reading their work in nearly identical ways.  Poetry lives in two spaces at once. On the page, it’s quiet, interior, personal. Out loud, it becomes physical and shared. Breath matters. Silence matters. Tone matters. Pace matters. The same poem can feel like a different piece of writing depending on how it’s voiced. But sometimes readings by different po...
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Don’t mention the ... horizontal bricks?

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Credit: RAF Valentines Day 1943 The plane home from Hamburg thrummed steadily through the night, down the western side of Germany to Amsterdam, then across the narrow sea to Essex. I think a returning WW2 bomber would have crossed higher, spent more time over the sea than the land. Thousands of ordinary people fly to and from Germany every day. Our countries are allied against larger aggressors to the east and west. It’s not necessary to wake these hurtful memories of things that happened before most of us were born.  Except … when I had asked my brother earlier that day whether he’d like to live in Hamburg, he thought not. ‘Too many horizontal bricks,’ he said. We laughed at him of course. ‘That’s the way bricks are laid!’ but when he pointed across the street to one of so many postwar, Lego-like, redbrick rectangular blocks we understood what he meant. The pervasive evidence of rebuilding. My brother normally lives in former East Berlin, a city hung over by its own c20th history....
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Debbie Bennett's Two For One!

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A couple of weeks ago, we had  an unusual day - a first for us. Early start to the day and we were were off to Prestbury in East Cheshire, where Andy gave a talk on the history of stained glass. at a Probus group. This is one of the offshoots of  his small business  Moulton Glass , and he gives short (45 minute) presentations to community groups. Moulton Glass makes and repairs/restores leadlight windows, plus we have a presence at various craft fairs in the area, selling decorative items. We even run wiorkshops! But since he's been visiting the local WI groups, word has got out and he's now being contacted by the National Women's Register, Probus and the U3A. He's a good speaker and people seem to enjoy listening. We're currently booked throughout this year and into 2027 and branching outside Cheshire now. There wasn't that much wine! Then later on in the afternoon, it was my turn. Northwich's new local bookshop Cover2Cover invited me to host a talk about...
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Where Do You Get Your Ideas? (Cecilia Peartree)

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When I speak to people about my writing, if they haven't felt the urge to write themselves they usually express either blank disbelief - 'why do you do it?' - or mild interest in how I've managed to think of so many ideas. Some of the stories have their roots in real life incidents or situations, though I have only rarely attempted anything that actually depicts real people, so I doubt if I will be bothered by any libel suits in the near future. Actually the only example I can think of is a short story called 'Murder at the Drama Group' that I dashed off in a fury after someone annoyed me at a drama group for young people that I was involved in ages ago. I definitely won't be publishing it as it started with a (real) local council employee being found stabbed in the costume cupboard. I recently found myself using something that had happened in real life quite some time ago as the basis for a mystery novel. This isn't unusual, of course, though in this ca...
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How a 13 Year-old Girl's Diary Inspires Young People to Challenge Prejudice

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Last week I attended the Anne Frank Trust’s Annual Lunch for Holocaust Memorial Day 2026 . Candle-lighters at the Anne Frank Trust Holocaust Memorial Day lunch, 2026. If you haven’t heard of this excellent charity before, the first thing you should know is that while it’s inspired by one of the most well-known victims of the Jewish holocaust, it aims to educate and empower young people to challenge all forms of prejudice, not just antisemitism. In a moving candle-lighting ceremony, we heard the stories of a survivor of the Cambodian genocide and a young Ukrainian refugee, as well as a holocaust survivor and – perhaps most poignantly, because so immediate – the widow of one of the two men who died in the recent Manchester synagogue attack. Anne Frank photographed at school, Joods Lyceum, December 1941, six months before going into hiding with her family, July 1942. By Anonymous - http://www.annefrank.org/nl/ Anne-Frank/De-nazis-bezetten-Nederland/Naar-het-Joods-Lyceum/, Public...
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A Year of Horse Books: The Pony Whisperer by Esme Higgs and Jo Cotterill - reviewed by Katherine Roberts

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February 2026 sees the start of the Chinese Year of the Horse, bringing energy and bold moves after last year's snakeskin shedding. And this is a Fire Horse year, which means even more energy and even bolder moves! To get into the mood, I drew this picture at an author retreat earlier this month. It's based on an ex-racehorse I used to ride. He must have had a lot of energy because he once won a race, though if you saw him lying down in his field snoozing on a sunny day you'd never guess he'd seen a racecourse. That's the secret to winning races, plenty of downtime in-between, which for us humans means time to read books (not screens with their constant distractions). Since this is a National Year of Reading and also a Year of the Horse, I'm aiming to review a horse-themed book each month, bringing you a mix of fiction and non-fiction for all ages. We kick off with a title for young readers aged 8-11: "The Pony Whisperer" by Esme Higgs and Jo Cotteril...
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