Newsletter

FREDA LIGHTFOOT
Quarterly Newsletter

Home About Me Bookshelf Coming Next Newsletter Readers' Pages Links

April
Apologies for the lateness of this newsletter, but we’ve been offline for over a week as our satellite system was down. We still don’t have a land-line, which in this part of rural Spain is hard to come by. We’ve only been waiting for five years! We’ve just applied again but we aren’t holding our breath that it will be any time soon. So frustrating. Trying to fix the internet while getting support on a mobile phone from Ireland is not exactly fun. Anyone thinking of purchasing a holiday home in Spain, do check out the possibility of a telephone, along with everything else, before you buy.

The good news is that on 1 May comes the publication of Who’s Sorry Now (see below for details) the fifth book in the Champion Street Market Series. So do rush out and buy a copy from your local bookshop! Or visit Amazon on line. It should also be available in Australia too at about the same time. See below for details of the latest Prize Draw.

I’ve had my head down working hard this month. David and I both celebrated our birthdays, so we’ll quickly draw a veil over that one. Thirty-five again. OK, forty-five. Huh, I wish! They come round quicker every year. Not that age matters, the sun is still shining and we’re still waiting for rain. None since early February, but we’ve been suffering from some severe Levante winds which has smashed a few pots on the terraces, broken a trellis and an arch, and flipped over the gas space heater, much to the annoyance of our roosting black wheatear. Fortunately we’ve had no structural damage although a friend’s garden wall has fallen into their pool.

The swallows have arrived for the summer, and we’ve spotted one or two bee eaters already. We’re off to the UK at the end of the month for a short visit, mainly to see family and friends on this occasion, but if you’re anywhere near Kendal on the 28^th, do pop in to Sizergh Castle where I’m giving a talk. The castle alone is worth a visit.

Book Club
So what have you all been reading this month? I’m just coming to the end of A Hollow Crown by Helen Hollick. I love historicals and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this one, except that at 800 pages I think it rather over-long. It could easily have made two books, as I felt the for a break in the middle. It’s set in Saxon England, which is unusual, and tells the story of Emma of Normandy, Aethelred and Cnut. A rich, textured, tale, very well written. Our reading group has also been reading Atonement which was beautifully written, a good story, but I found it rather slow and wordy in the first section. I had a few emails this month telling me of books you enjoy. Labrynth was one of them, Margaret Forster a favourite with some of you, Ann Tyler, and Jodi Piccoult. The book for next month in our Group is The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards. It was a winner in the Galaxy Awards. Did anyone read House of Riverton, which was another Richard and Judy choice? It was a good yarn, well written, although had some glaring inaccuracies in it such as a housemaid at the turn of the century pulling on her tights. The transition into different time periods was at times rather confusing, but generally I enjoyed it. I’ll let you know what I think of this one. If you want to make recommendations for other readers, do drop me an email.