Two down (or up?), seven to go!

Paula’s novels are being re-released – gradually!

Last April, I received the shock news that my publisher, Rebecca J. Vickery, was closing down due to ill-health. Of course I understood why she had (very reluctantly) made this decision but I was still devastated. I’ve been with her for over 5 years, and she and her team have been the most supportive and friendly people any writer could ever wish to work with.

My major problem, of course, was what to do with my books. Several people encouraged me to self-publish them, but for various reasons I didn’t want to do that. My first reaction was to try a British publisher and I sent two books to them. However, when I discovered it could take up to a year for each one to be re-published, I withdrew them. No way was I going to wait for up to nine years for all my books to go online again!

To cut a long story short (including three months of uncertainty - and despair at times), I was over the moon when, with Rebecca’s help, I linked up with a new publisher. It was still a sad day when all my books were taken down from Amazon on July 19th, prior to being transferred to their new home with Fire Star Press, an imprint of Prairie Rose Publications, but I received a wonderful welcome from Cheryl, Livia, and Kaye.

They decided to re-publish my Irish novels first, as the ‘Mist Na Mara’ series. Anyone who has read the novels will know exactly what Mist Na Mara is! A flurry of activity followed, and I’m thrilled to report that the first two books in the series went back up online yesterday, with stunning new covers designed by Livia.

The cover of the third in the series is already done, and the fourth will follow. My other five books will be phased in after this – and at least it has given me the opportunity to do some re-editing – I can never resist tweaking and tightening, although without changing any of the actual stories.

So I am entering a new chapter in my writing life. I will always be grateful to Rebecca, who became a friend as well as a publisher (and we’ve both said we will continue to keep in contact) – and I look forward now to working with Cheryl, Livia, and Kaye.

My books are currently featured on the Fire Star Press blog https://firestarpress.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/new-release-irish-inheritance-and-irish.html (please pop in and leave a comment for me!)

and if you find my photo on the Prairie Rose website and click on the Q&A, you’ll see my answers to Livia’s interesting questions: http://prairierosepublications.com/

L is for Luke

Meet Luke, the hero of Paula's second Irish book, Irish Intrigue.

Charley reached Clifden shortly before five o’clock and pulled into the parking area of the supermarket on the outskirts of the small town. Still familiar with the layout of the store, she didn’t take long to collect some basic supplies.

A tall man in a sheepskin jacket stood near the chilled cabinet of yogurts and desserts, speaking on his phone. “Kate, which yogurts do the kids like? Melissa said something about pink pots.”

She reached past him to pick up some mixed fruit yogurts at the same moment as he turned and bumped against her.

“Oops! Sorry,” he said.

“No problem.” She put her yogurts in her shopping trolley, but couldn’t resist pointing further along the cabinet. “The pink pots are those strawberry ones.”

“Thanks.” He gave her a quick smile before speaking into his phone again. “It’s okay, Kate, I see them.”

She started to push her trolley toward the cash desk, but stopped when the man said, “Thanks again, but don’t I know you from somewhere?”

With a small grimace of resignation, she half-turned back to him. She didn’t recall meeting him when she lived here, but perhaps he’d seen her on television. Or else it was a clichéd chat-up line.

“I don’t think so.” She gave him a perfunctory smile as her glance took in rugged good looks in a square face and dark wavy hair. Not exactly tousled, but certainly untamed.

The man frowned for a moment before his face cleared. “You remind me of my mother-in-law.”

“Really?” She suppressed a grin. Being compared to a mother-in-law was a novel kind of comment.

“Not really, no. Her hair’s short and straight, not long like yours, and her face is rounder.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “So I’m nothing like her?”

“You’re much younger, of course, but your eyes are the same colour. Unusual.”

“Brown eyes are unusual?”

“Kind of coppery. I’m useless with colours, but that’s what she said hers were.”

“Oh, I see.”

It seemed an odd conversation to be having with a stranger in a supermarket, but her heartbeat quickened at the attractive twinkle in his dark eyes as he smiled.

He held out his hand. “Luke Sullivan. Pleased to meet you.”

Irish Intrigue

Charley Hunter returns unwillingly to Ireland to complete the filming of a TV drama series. She still hasn’t come to terms with the tragic loss of her husband there two years previously, and the last thing she expects is an instant attraction to an Irish veterinary surgeon.

Luke Sullivan’s life is full as he tries to balance caring for his two young children with his busy rural veterinary practice. After the break-up of his marriage, he vowed to leave women well alone, but now finds himself drawn to Charley.

While Charley struggles with the re-awakening of her emotions, Luke faces a series of unexplained crises at his clinic, as well as an impending custody battle with his ex-wife.

They grow closer as their initial interest in each other develops into mutual support and then into love. But how can an English actress and an Irish vet reconcile their different worlds? And will their relationship survive when Luke believes Charley has endangered his children’s lives – and then betrayed him?

S is for Skelleen, the village in 'Irish Intrigue'.

Paula likes ‘inventing’ places.

Skelleen is a village in Connemara, County Galway. Well, no, actually, it isn’t – because I invented it, mainly for my Irish Intrigue story, although it also had a few mentions in Irish Secrets. However, it wasn’t a complete invention. In fact, it’s an amalgam of a couple of Irish villages. Although I knew where I wanted Skelleen to be situated, I needed it to be somewhat larger than the village in that position which has a population of only about 200. So I ‘combined’ it with another larger village about 20 miles away (in County Mayo).



First village, in Connemara

Second village, in County Mayo 

The advantage of doing this, of course, is that you can ‘move’ buildings around to suit your story! By the time I finished Irish Intrigue, I had a clear picture in my mind of ‘my’ village, even though it was drawn from two different sources. The pub (Connolly’s) in my story came from the Galway village, the church from the other village (sorry, I don't have a photo of the church)
.

The ‘Now and Forever’ house in the story was a figment of my own imagination, a grey stone cottage with two storeys – but the idea came from The Quiet Man cottage in the Mayo village, where we saw Maureen O’Hara’s signature in the guest book (and if you’ve read Irish Intrigue, you’ll understand the significance of that!).

Slightly blurred, sorry, but the signature is on the bottom line!
 

Blending factual places with your own imagination can be useful because you have carte blanche to add/delete whatever you wish - as long as you stay true to the character and atmosphere of the place. Obviously, you can't add a tattoo parlour or a strip club to a village like this, but I did add a children’s playground at one end of the village, and the children’s school in my story wasn’t anything like the schools in either of the villages.

 

But, in one of the villages, there was a bridge spanning the point where a small river reaches the head of the lough (pronounced 'lock' by the way!), which I mentioned several times. Anyone who is familiar with this area of Connemara will probably know which lough I called Skelleen Lough (even though it isn't even called a lough in 'real' life!).



The view of the river and lough from the bridge -
and that low cloud was a rainstorm moving up the lough toward us -
we watched it approach and then got soaked as we ran to the pub!



 

C is for Connemara and Clifden

Paula loves writing about her favourite part of Ireland.

When I first had the idea for Irish Inheritance, I deliberated where to set the story. It needed to be somewhere I knew well, because I’m not comfortable using locations with which I’m not familiar, and it didn’t take me long to decide on Ireland. More specifically County Galway, and even more specifically the western area of County Galway, known as Connemara.

 

On my first ever visit to Connemara about eight years ago, I was fortunate that it was a beautiful autumn day, and I fell in love with the wild countryside, the dozens of small loughs (pronounced like the Scottish ‘lochs’), and the Twelve Bens, a range of steep-sided bare mountains.

Although I’ve been to many other areas of Ireland since then, Connemara was the place that captured my heart, and I’ve visited it several times in the last few years. Most times I’ve been very lucky with the weather, except for my visit in May this year, when there was usually more cloud than sun, and a lot of rain too- as you can see here!

Clifden, on the west coast, is the ‘capital’ of Connemara. It’s a small town with a population of about 2,500 which is swelled by tourists, hikers, cyclists, and water sports enthusiasts during the summer months. It has two main streets which are lined with shops, cafes, and of course lots of pubs!

 

A short drive out of the town takes you along a scenic drive above Clifden Bay and to the end of a narrow peninsula with a  view of the wide expanse of the Atlantic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historically, Clifden’s main claim to fame is twofold: in 1907 Marconi set up a radio station near Clifden, transmitting wireless signals to a receiving station in Nova Scotia, and in 1919 John Alcock and Arthur Whitten-Brown landed their biplane near the Marconi station, after completing the first non-stop transatlantic crossing. The ‘green field’ in which they thought they were landing turned out to be an Irish peat bog, and the plane ended up ignominiously nose down in the boggy ground. One of the pubs in Clifden has a fascinating display of photos and copies of newspapers from this time (which I mentioned in 'Irish Inheritance').

When I was writing Irish Inheritance and Irish Intrigue, I had to rely on my memories and my photos (and Google streetview of course!), so it was fantastic to return to Connemara and Clifden this year. Mentally, I was imagining where the veterinary surgery was, as well as Mist na Mara House, and of course I had to revisit the pub that I called 'Murphy's' in my stories.

 

For those who have asked me where the village of ‘Skelleen’ is (which featured in ‘Irish Intrigue’), you won’t find it on any map, as it’s a figment of my imagination, or rather an amalgam of several small villages. Here is one of them, which some visitors to Connemara might recognise.

 

And this is 'Connolly's' Bar in the middle of 'Skelleen'.

 

I’ve loved setting my stories in Connemara because it allows me to re-live my visits there. Another bonus has been that a shop in Clifden actually offered to stock my books!

 

I is for Ireland (of course!)

Paula’s second Irish novel is published.

 

This is perfect timing for the letter I, as ‘Irish Intrigue’ was released last week.

 

Charley Hunter returns unwillingly to Ireland to complete the filming of a TV drama series. She still hasn’t come to terms with the tragic loss of her husband there two years previously, and the last thing she expects is an instant attraction to an Irish veterinary surgeon.

 

Luke Sullivan’s life is full as he tries to balance caring for his two young children with his busy rural veterinary practice. After the break-up of his marriage, he vowed to leave women well alone, but now finds himself drawn to Charley.

 

While Charley struggles with the re-awakening of her emotions, Luke faces a series of unexplained crises at his clinic, as well as an impending custody battle with his ex-wife.

 

They grow closer as their initial interest in each other develops into mutual support and then into love. But how can an English actress and an Irish vet reconcile their different worlds? And will their relationship survive when Luke believes Charley has endangered his children’s lives – and then betrayed him?

 

‘Irish Intrigue’ is a stand-alone story, not a sequel, but some of the characters in ‘Irish Inheritance’ do make a reappearance, as does Mist Na Mara House, now an Arts Centre under the leadership of Guy and Jenna, the hero and heroine of my first Irish novel.

 

One new character is Alice Vernon, an elderly actress, who gives Charley some sound advice. In my personal blog last week, I wrote about the small incident that sowed the seed for this character. You can read this at: http://paulamartinpotpourri.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/a-signature-in-guestbook.html

So far, everyone who has read ‘Irish Intrigue’ has said how much they love Alice, and I’m already wondering how I can bring her into my third Irish novel, which I’ve just started.

 

And here to whet your appetite, are some photos of the beautiful Connemara countryside in which both novels are set.