Please join me in congratulating my lovely friend Joy Wood on the launch of her brand new thriller, Whatever it Takes. This story is an excellent read which I highly recommend. Readers really are in for a treat.

About Whatever it Takes

THE WIFE: Lorna lives with her husband in her dream home, loves socialising and has a passion for the finer things in life.
THE HUSBAND: Dan owns a successful accountancy business, enjoys golf and exercise, and loves Lorna deeply.
Life is good. Until new neighbours move in to the house next door.

Perry, a property developer is charismatic and friendly, with a beautiful young wife, Ingrid. They become friends, sharing intimate dinners, trips away and ultimately a holiday together in Greece. But all is not as friendly as it seems.
While there, a fatal accident occurs that changes their lives.

They don’t all return. But those that do, are hiding a huge secret . . . and there’s someone who will do whatever it takes to make sure that it never comes to the surface.

Want to know more? BUY YOUR COPY HERE

Please join me in congratulating my lovely friend, Suzi Bamblett, on her latest release, Pearl Seekers. This story is an excellent read which I highly recommend. Readers are in for a treat.

About Pearl Seekers

Two sisters, one broken home…

Rebellious and angry, sixteen-year-old Bekka has been seeking solace with the wrong crowd.
Meanwhile, her younger sister Liv – already plagued by feelings of failure – reaches breaking point when she falls victim to cyber-bullying. After a suicide attempt goes wrong, a chance encounter with the mysterious Neon seems to offer Liv all she’s been missing: escape; freedom; the chance for a fresh start. But at what cost?

Ensconced at the heart of her new ‘family’, danger mounts as charismatic cult leader,Master, eyes up newest recruit Liv for a special mission.

Determined to find her sister, and with the help of some unlikely allies, Bekka does everything she can to track Liv down.

But will Liv ever escape Master’s control?

And can Bekka bring her home?

Want to know more? BUY your copy HERE

I’m delighted to welcome fellow Hedgehog Poetry Press, poet, Lesley Curwen, to Patricia’s Pen for the first time. Lesley shares a blog about inspiration for her poetry, including her latest release, Rescue Lines. Without further ado, it’s over to Lesley.

Inspiration

Lesley Curwen

I often wake up at 4am with a poem burning in my mind. I stab out the first ideas into the notes folder on my phone, go back to sleep and sometimes wake again with a new line or a different idea and blearily edit on the phone. Later that day, or sometimes that week, I transcribe the poem on to the laptop, editing it again as I go.

It seems like the ideas form from my subconscious as I sleep. They don’t come from dreams, as such. I imagine my mind as a cup foaming over with words.

These ideas will be subjects that I have thought of before, but they crystallise into poems in my sleep, usually with a first line, first stanza and a rough idea of where they will go, although often the ending changes radically within the revision process.

To order a copy of Sticky with Miles, send a DM to Lesley via Twitter (X) or go to Dreich HERE

Some of the proto-poems come from musings about consumerism and globalisation, about our multiplicity of choice, and the heartbreaking amount of waste we live with. I spent many years as a business correspondent for the BBC, travelling to many places to report on the global economy. I saw garment factories in China, gas pipelines in Siberia and palm-oil plantations in Ghana, and I have understood the bitter bargain humanity makes between prosperity and environmental damage. These days, I try to use my poetry brain to tell this story. Some of these poems appear in my eco-chapbook from Dreich, Sticky with Miles.

To order a signed copy of Rescue Lines DM Lesley on Twitter (X) or visit The Hedgehog Poetry Press.

Other proto-poems are born out of anger, on behalf of loved ones and others, who suffered as a result of forced adoption and coercive control. I have written about this in my Hedgehog Press pamphlet Rescue Lines, about the difficulties of escape and recovery. Sometimes I use extended metaphors to say the unsayable, and sometimes the raw truth emerges. I admire Pascale Petit perhaps more than any other poet, and I wish I could use animal metaphors as skilfully as she does. I am trying to learn how.

One thing that creeps, or oozes into most of my poems is – the sea. As a sailor and a year-round sea swimmer, I feel its presence everywhere, its comfort and its danger. Some poems have come to me when swimming. I once interviewed a sea-obsessed artist who drew ocean waves on waterproof paper while hanging IN the ocean! I haven’t tried writing in the wet stuff yet, but perhaps I should give it a go.   

About Lesley Curwen

Lesley Curwen is a poet, broadcaster and sailor who lives in Plymouth. She writes about loss and rescue, and about our damaged marine environment. 

She won the Molecules Unlimited Poetry Prize and was a finalist in the Wales Poetry Award. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Her pamphlet ‘Rescue Lines’ is published by Hedgehog Poetry Press and her eco-chapbook ‘Sticky with Miles’ is published by Dreich.   Nine Pens published ’Invisible Continents’, a collaborative pamphlet from Lesley, Jane R Rogers and Tahmina Maula.

Other poems have been published by Bad Lilies, East Ridge Review, Black Bough, Broken Sleep, Atrium, Spelt, The Alchemy Spoon and  Ice Floe Press.

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I’m delighted and excited to share that I’ve a new book being released on 25th September 2024. The Woodhaerst Triangle is a 1970s love story wrapped up in family drama and the first book in a brand new trilogy. I can’t wait to hear what my readers think of it. I’m hoping you’ll all love getting to know Rachel and Peggy as much as Grace, George, and Elizabeth, in House of Grace,and Françoise and Tilly in The Oath.
The Woodhaerst trilogy is told through two first person narrators. Rachel and Peggy.

Rachel, a carefree, rebellious teenager – Peggy, a happily married woman with a family.

Preorder Available HERE

And here’s the prologue to add as a further teaser.

The Woodhaerst Triangle

Patricia M Osborne

 Prologue

June, 1953

A high-pitched cry fills the small room as the infant enters the world.

             ‘Is it all right? What did I have?’ The girl tries to sit up. Beads of sweat run across her forehead. Her white linen gown is bloodstained.

            ‘No concern of yours, lass. Lie back and let me finish cleaning you up.’ The buxom nurse pats the girl down below with a threadbare towel.

It shouldn’t be like this. She should’ve been allowed to have the infant at home, in her own surroundings. Not in this dingy room with an old woman telling her she has no right to know anything. It wasn’t fair. ‘But the baby’s mine. Please, what did I have? Please let me hold it.’

            ‘Take the bairn away’– the nurse waves her large hands at the female attendant – ‘take her. Quickly.’ 

            The skinny attendant wraps the baby in white muslin showing only a mass of dark hair.

            ‘A girl. I have a daughter. Please don’t take her away. Please. Let me see.’ The girl lies back powerless, too tired to even barely move.

            Ignoring the young mother, the attendant leaves the room with the infant in her arms. As she opens the door shrieks from another teen in labour echo along the corridor. The heavy door slams shut silencing the screams.  

            The girl sobs. ‘Please.’          

            ‘Forget her. She’s not yours.’ The nurse dips a flannel into a fresh bowl of lukewarm water, wrings it out and washes the sixteen-year-old’s face. ‘You’re a lucky lass. Normal delivery and no stitches. When the time’s right, and you have a husband, you can have more bairns. Forget this ever happened. Go home and continue your life.’

Chapter 1 opens with Rachel – November 1971.

Preorder on Kindle

The Woodhaerst Triangle will be released on 25th September 2024 in both paperback and Kindle format. It is available to preorder now on Kindle. Book 2, The Woodhaerst Reunion will be published late November/early December 2024, and the final book in the trilogy, The Woodhaerst Women will be published Mar/April 2025.

Watch this space for cover reveal for Book 2.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my followers, readers, family, and friends, for their constant support in both my books and blog.

Please join me in congratulating poet, Kelly Davis, on the launch of her new poetry collection, The Lost Art of Ironing, published by the awesome The Hedgehog Poetry Press.

In The Lost Art of Ironing, the metaphorical iron smooths out life’s creases as well as crumpled clothes, with poems about women as lovers, wives, mothers, muses, and editors and curators of their own lives. There are meditations on Emily Dickinson, Anne Sexton, George Sand and Lisa Gherardini (better known as ‘the Mona Lisa’). And the collection ends with five modern versions of Shakespeare’s best-loved sonnets, looking at time, love and mortality in the digital age. These poems sparkle with wit and wisdom and shed new light on the way women’s lives have changed – and not changed.

What others say

“Here is a true poet. No game playing, no showing off, no trying to impress. These poems go straight to the heart of what it means to be alive in the day-to-day world most of us occupy. I’m amazed this is her first collection.” Brian Patten

“A sensitive and assured collection. Kelly Davis reflects on many aspects of her life and family history in tones that range from sorrow through wistfulness to wry humour. Her poems are both wise and probing…. This is a book to treasure and return to; each re-reading will yield new enjoyment.” Lucy Newlyn

“This collection offers the accumulated riches of a life well lived. ‘To My Hands’ provides an autobiographical framework; other poems sketch family history, sometimes tragic. But the heart of this book is celebration. ‘The Big Room’ is worthy of a place where jigs were danced and Christmases were celebrated… The celebration extends to Maryport where this house is located, which has seen better days but has ‘the best bloody sunsets in England.’  Yea! There is so much to enjoy here.” John Freeman

Available direct from the author, at £10 (incl. p&p) or £11 for a signed copy

Available from the publisher after 19^th August 2024

Online Launch Event

Kelly will be reading from her new collection at an online launch with Magaret Royall (Toccata and Fugue with Harp) and Kerry Darbishire (River Talk) on Wednesday 4^th September, 7pm, to celebrate the publication of their collections by Hedgehog Poetry Press in August. The event will be compered by Lucy Heuschen.

Please contact Margaret Royall via email at margaretroyall@icloud.com to register for the Zoom link.

About Kelly Davis

Photography taken by Clare Park

Kelly Davis lives in Maryport, on the West Cumbrian coast, and works as a freelance editor. Her poetry has been widely anthologised and published in magazines such as Mslexia, Magma, London Grip and Shooter. In 2021 she came second in the Borderlines Poetry Competition and was longlisted for the Erbacce Press Poetry Competition. She has twice been shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and she appears in the Best New British and Irish Poets 2019–2021 anthology (Black Spring Press). In 2021, she collaborated with Kerry Darbishire on their poetry pamphlet Glory Days (Hen Run).

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Please welcome Michelle Kidd, a talented author from across the pond, to Patricia’s Pen. Michelle is celebrating her brand new release, Finding Frankie, and shares her writing journey below.

From Crayons to Kindle: My Journey to Finding Frankie

Michelle Kidd

Thank you, Tricia. I’m so honored to share my writing journey and latest book, Finding Frankie, with your readers on Patricia’s Pen.

I’ve always loved books. My love affair with them began at a young age when I penned my first one with crayons and tied it with hair ribbons. There weren’t many words, mostly pictures, but I had a dream. Later, when I opened Charlotte’s Web and E.B. White transported me into the Arable’s kitchen, I was hooked. I loved stories.

As so often happens, life’s hurdles can challenge us, but I was given a unique opportunity in 2016 through Amazon’s Kindle Scout Program. This innovative experiment, launched by Amazon for reader-driven stories, featured books in a thirty-day campaign. Readers had the chance to read snippets and vote for the books they most wanted to see published. At the end of the campaign, Amazon reviewed the books for potential publishing contracts, with an acceptance rate of only 5%. My first book, Timeless Moments, was fortunate enough to be selected, and from there, my book took off. To date, my debut novel has sold over 48,000 copies and has over 4,200 ratings in the United States market.

I’d like to say that set me on an accelerated path, but the publishing road is not always paved and seldom straight. After the first book was so well received, I set out to write my second book. My agent shopped it around for about a year with great feedback before we turned our attention to my third book. This one was also met with great feedback, but we were told “Westerns” are a hard sell these days. The market isn’t right. Despite Finding Frankie being Southern fiction and set in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, it had that Western feel with outlaws, redemption, and revenge. Armed with all the positive feedback from publishers, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I loved the characters and felt they had a right to be seen and heard. I plunged into the world of independent publishing for this series. It’s been quite a learning experience but also fun. I designed everything from the cover to the format and have enjoyed the process. I guess one could say I’ve been creating books my entire life.

There’s something magical about opening a book and being transported to a new and exciting place. I hope readers check out my stories and characters for themselves.

About Michelle Kidd

Michelle lives with her husband of over 30 years, two gifted sons on the autism spectrum, and two adorable fur babies. Although she was sidetracked by work, motherhood, and homeschooling, writing remained her true calling. Nowadays, she delights her family with impromptu songs and creates vivid landscapes with her words. Her deep affection for Virginia fuels her passion for crafting historical sagas that resonate with readers. She believes faith should be at the heart of every story and continues looking for unique stories to transport her readers.

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Please join me in congratulating poet, Margaret Royall on the launch of her new poetry collection, Toccata and Fugue and Harp published by the awesome The Hedgehog Poetry Press.

Nature versus Nurture?

Reflections on growing up in the post war era, viewed through a lens of music and colour.

What others say

“How to compose a life in a single collection. Here, in the shadow of childhood strings, the walls hum with myth, magic, post-war tremors and religious oppression. Margaret’s ghost of youth, in search of escape, stomps its feet, speaks of the need to repress, to rage and most of all, to revolt. These are songs of the confessional, the confrontational, poems examining the child caught under the thumb, learning what to do with freedom when it’s found and later, as adult, learning about loss and the cost of scars. This is a bitter sweet cacophony that swings and sways from sermons to seductions, a Lincolnshire lass looking from the vase of yesterday’s rose, time travelling on the flap of a butterfly’s wing – fragile, frightening, finite, memories unspooling between Rachmaninoff and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Scores of truths, tastes and touches, notes that times has taken, tamed, and sometimes turned from hurt to a semblance of halcyon.” Damien B Donnelly, Poet & Editor

“I was delighted to delve into Toccata and Fugue which lives up to the title with its musical tone throughout. Margaret Royall skilfully wraps her memories in gorgeous imagery and sound echoes. Precious Jewellery, inspired by the colour amber and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, held my immediate attention with its ingenious experimental form. Royall takes the reader back to her childhood and beyond. The collection is split into two parts making it easy to dip in and out of at any one time. Highly recommend this for any poetry lover’s bookshelf.” Patricia M Osborne, Poet & Novelist

“In Toccata and Fugue, Margaret Royall presents an inspiring collection of poetry that impressively describes the marvels and challenges of a fulfilled life in music and colours. These lovely poems are Margaret’s heartfelt invitation to join her on her exciting journey from a postwar childhood shaped by religion to the fascinating charisma in the third age. Toccata and Fugue deserves a place on everyone’s nightstand.” Dr Antje Bothin (PhD MSc), Writer & Poet

“Toccata and Fugue is a memoir told through a series of anecdotes, in which we as readers are allowed the freedom to fill in the spaces. In these poems Margaret Royall takes us vividly back in time. She shows us scenes from her childhood and youth, along with a few from later years, giving us glimpses not just of what she sees and remembers of what happened then, but also hints of how past events and relationships may have influenced who the poet later became and the choices she made. Dripping on toast, beach-side holidays, the scent of Pears soap and Devon Violets perfume, alongside images of caring, anxious, god-fearing parents trying to navigate a complex, changing world themselves, conjure up a 1950s childhood and beyond. Composed with the energy and humour of toccata and the interwoven themes of fugue, this collection offers a rewarding poetic insight into a life that seems both familiar and unfamiliar in the present day – and perhaps turned out quite differently than it once seemed it might.” Phil Vernon, Poet & Author

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About Margaret Royall

Margaret has six books of poetry. She has won or been shortlisted in various competitions and widely published. She was recently chosen as an Erbacce Press featured poet. She has three books forthcoming in 2024 with Hedgehog Press, Dreich and Impspired.

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Please join me in congratulating Desmond Childs on the launch of her latest poetry collection The Vagaries of the Heart published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press

The Vagaries of the Heart is the debut collection from Desmond Childs and beautifully explores Love with gentle musicality in word and cadence, exploring shade and fracture in relationship in all of its petal-scented form.

This is a delightful collection and one that you will treasure from a poet who be-guides as well as beguiles.

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About Desmond Childs

Desmond was born in Birmingham in 1958 moving to Lichfield in 1959 at the age of 9 months, where he now lives with his wife and youngest daughter and their two dogs. His favourite pastimes are working in his greenhouse and garden, walking his two dogs, and reading and writing poetry. His poetry has been published in anthologies by Hedgehog poetry press, The Vagaries of the heart is his debut collection also published by Hedgehog poetry press. Desmond works for the local Authority as a garden/groundsman and is due for retirement, which he intends to spend gardening and writing poetry.

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I’m delighted to welcome poet, Laura Theis, to Patricia’s Pen. Laura is celebrating the anniversary of her poetry collection, A Spotter’s Guide to Invisible Things. Without further ado it’s over to Laura to tell you all about it.

Happy Book Anniversary to A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things…

Laura Theis

I always feel like publishing a book is like a little time capsule – a snapshot of the things that I was grappling with at a certain point in time.

My very first book of poems, how to extricate yourself, came out in December 2020, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic’s hard lockdown, and just days after the sudden shocking death of a dear friend.

A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things contains everything I wrote in the three years since – and one of the ‘invisible things’ referenced in the title is a hidden undercurrent of grief running below the poems, even though many of them are about a search for wonder and myth and language and imaginary scenarios like a person crashing through my skylight, a surreal ride on a night mare, or matching with the sky on a dating app…

Now, A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things is approaching its one-year publication anniversary and time is showing off its ability for strange contortions again: so much has happened in this period – from the incredibly painful to the magical.

Very recently, I read a German translation of the opening poem of this collection while fighting back tears at another dear person’s funeral. But I also read from it on a Swedish Lake with wild roaming reindeer listening in during the Alpine Fellowship symposium, or in my friend’s fairy-light-glowing forest grove of a living room in Devon, or at an International Women’s Day Celebration in Hay-on-Wye, or at a wonderful festival for translingual writers in Graz.  I am so grateful the book exists and that I still get to share these poems – connecting with readers is always what makes me the happiest. Ada Limòn, a poet I fiercely admire, once said that ‘we write with all the good ghosts in our corner’ and I am so grateful for the truth of this.

Another thing that will always be special about this book is that my dear friend and favourite fine artist Rose-Marie Caldecott has been creating work that speaks beautifully of all the things I was trying to find words for, and I love the book so much more because it has been graced with one of her astonishing paintings that show the making of invisible rooted connections, of trees reaching for each other under the surface.

There are already two new books on the horizon for next year – one of them my children’s debut. But A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things will always be incredibly special to me and I will always be grateful and excited for it to spread out its roots and wings and tendrils and find another soul with whom to connect. Maybe it will be you, reading this?

“This is a collection full of unexpected observations: slant ways of looking at the world. From the opening poem through ‘in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing’ to ‘ a sci-fi story about flying urn hauntings that would make an excellent Hollywood blockbuster’ the reader encounters intriguingly titled poems which demonstrate a wry humour as well as an adroit use of language. The poet deals with myth and everyday occurrences equally adeptly. Selkies, Taygete, tree surgeons, angels, bindweed and animal rescue centers are all at home in these poems. Reading this collection was an enchanting journey along an unpredictable route with a new delight on every page.”  – Susannah Hart

About Laura Theis

Laura Theis writes poetry, songs, and fiction in her second language. Her work appears in POETRY, Oxford Poetry, Magma, Rattle, Aesthetica, Mslexia, and others, and she has received the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, the Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, the Poets & Players Prize, the Hammond House International Literary Award, the AM Heath Prize, the Mogford Short Story Prize, as well as a Forward Prize nomination. Her debut how to extricate yourself was an Oxford Poetry Library Book of the Month, was nominated for the Elgin Award by the SciFi&Fantasy Poetry Association and won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. Her new collection A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things won the Live Canon Collection Prize and received the Arthur Welton Award from the Society of Authors. A new poetry collection from Broken Sleep Books and her children’s debut Poems From A Witch’s Pocket (Emma Press) are forthcoming in 2025.

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