Susan (second left) and Sue (fourth left) with early arrivals at Burley library on Saturday.

PG Wodehouse hit the nail on the head: a reporter wants to interview one of his characters in Bachelor’s Anonymous. ‘I hate talking about myself,’ wails the diffident hero.

‘I dare say,’ ripostes the reporter, ‘but you’ve got to when you’re being interviewed.’

Ditto when you’ve agreed to deliver a talk to a group of readers.

And there’s the rub: Susan and I have spent our working lives in the wings, encouraging people to talk to us rather than spouting about ourselves.

It takes a bit of a mental shift to switch from being the person asking the questions to the person giving all the answers. Continue reading →

We’re delighted to be the first novelists to appear at a new event launched by Burley-in-Wharfedale Library.

It’s Meet the Author – although, of course, it will be ‘authors’ plural in our case – and we’d be really pleased if any of our Northern Facebook and Twitter friends and followers could come and join us. Continue reading →

It’s Yorkshire Day so a good day to celebrate Grit, a new compilation of short stories by Yorkshire writers.

Michael Yates, who put this anthology together, drew mainly from writers workshops in Wakefield and Pontefract.

The invitation was to write a short story of no more than 5,000 words and there was no theme.

In all, 14 writers – including me – contributed.

Our stories are not all set in Yorkshire but writer and broadcaster Ian Clayton, who wrote the foreword, hopes readers will find a pattern.

‘It’s a bit like making your way down a path made from crazy paving, each piece with its own tale to tell, but also fitting where perhaps it’s not supposed to, to tell a bigger story.’

Grit will be launched during Wakefield Literary Festival on Saturday, September 23, when contributors will be reading from their stories in Wakefield Central Library on Burton Street 11am-1pm.

Admission is free and there will be a ten per cent discount off the £10 cover price for anyone attending.

Hope to see you there.

By Sue Featherstone.

We’re often invited to take part in and contribute to other writer’s websites and we’re always delighted to be interviewed, asked to talk about books or write about writing.

So it was great to be invited by blogger and reviewer Jo Barton to take part in her Close to Home feature.

Sue appeared on the spot earlier this year and my turn came this week when I was able to write about living and working in the North – particularly Yorkshire.

There’s so much to say about this part of the world and I could have written a book about everything on offer here, but I managed to edit myself – and you can read the result here:

http://jaffareadstoo.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/close-to-homesusan-pape.html

Jo’s been blogging for six years and supports writers in a number of ways, including writing book reviews and running blog tours. Her overall aim is to promote books and reading – which we thoroughly approve of.

She says she’s usually found curled up with a book – with Jaffa, the cat, close by. See what the two of them get up to here:

http://jaffareadstoo.blogspot.co.uk

Happy Birthday to us!

It’s one year today since we launched the Book Lovers’ Booklist.

We’ve had bundles of fun reading, reviewing and writing about books.

And we’ve made some wonderful new friends right across the book blogging community – authors, bloggers and readers.

We’re very grateful for your support and encouragement.

So, Susan and I are celebrating our first blogging year with a giveaway of our first novel A Falling Friend.

For the next three days we’ll give away three copies of A Falling Friend each day.

Just click the link  here and hit the like button to go into a draw to win one of three free copies.

Closing date: midnight on July 24.

Ever wondered how Susan (left) and I ended up with indie publisher Lakewater Press – a fabulous boutique publisher, based in Queensland, Australia, and run by an Englishwoman?

Find out in my guest post about taking chances on Rachel’s Random Reads.

Blogger Rachel Gilbey is hosting ‘Chances Fortnight’, a series of daily features where different guest bloggers write about the chances that changed their lives. Continue reading →

Take a good look at the two women pictured here.

Do they look like a pair of hidden gems?

Of course, they do!

We, or rather, our website Book Lovers’ Booklist has been nominated in the Hidden Gem category of the annual Bloggers Bash Awards.

It’s a huge thrill just to have been nominated because it means that someone somewhere likes what we do on the booklist.

Voting closes on Friday (June 2) so there’s still time to get your voting fingers ready to push the button for bookloversbooklist.com

You can find out more about the awards and information about how to vote here: http://sachablack.co.uk/

Don’t you just love the atmospheric cover of One to Watch, book number three in Rachel Amphlett’s Detective Kay Hunter crime thriller series?

Like Will to Live (book two reviewed here) this promises to be a gripping murder mystery in which Kay must not only confront a growing number of suspects but also her own enemies, who are waging a vendetta against her.

About the book

Sophie Whittaker shared a terrifying secret. Hours later, she was dead.  Continue reading →

You could say I live north of Leeds rather than North Leeds, and Sue is in Wakefield, but that didn’t stop us from featuring in a great magazine called North Leeds Life.

Continue reading →