Emma's Review: The Liverpool Girls by Pam Howes

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

It’s 1966 and in Liverpool two sisters are about to have their lives turned upside down…

Sisters Carol and Jackie haven’t had the easiest of childhoods, but as they grow up and begin their own lives both hope for happier times ahead. Stylish Carol works in Lewis’s department store, while Jackie dreams of drama school, and a career on the stage.

But the sisters are heartbroken when they discover they have been dating the same man, and an unexpected pregnancy causes a rift between them. Parents Dora and Joe must overcome their past hurts and help their daughters, despite the meddling of Joe’s second wife Ivy.

As the sisters’ troubles spiral and difficult decisions must be made, can the family pull together – or will Jackie and Carol’s sisterly bond be destroyed forever?

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The Write Stuff with... Peta Rainford

Today it's my pleasure to hand the blog over to children's author and illustrator Peta Rainford to talk about how she uses words and pictures together in her books.

Probably the best thing that’s happened to me since I published my fifth children’s picture book, The Niggle, on 15 November, was being pursued up the road by a six-year-old on a scooter, who wanted to tell me he’d read the book and loved it! Five star reviews are wonderful in their way, but, for a children’s writer and illustrator like me, they just can’t beat the heart-felt enthusiasm of a six-year-old!

I liked what he said next even more. He told me that his favourite part of the story was ‘the bit at the end, when Joe went diving.’ The reason I liked this comment so much? Well, it’s because, in terms of the text, diving’s hardly mentioned at all. It’s the picture that gives all the detail, and, for the six-year-old, what the picture said, was just as much a part of the narrative as the words. Which, of course, is exactly how a picture book should work.

Emma's Review: The Beachside Christmas by Karen Clarke

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Snow is falling and there’s romance in the air. Curl up for a cosy Christmas by the fire at Seaview Cottage…

When thirty-year-old Lily Ambrose’s latest relationship ends in disaster, she remembers happy childhood holidays in the seaside town of Shipley and decides it’s the perfect place for a fresh start.

But when Lily arrives, the town’s spirits are as low as her own: the local celebrity due to turn on the Christmas lights has gone on a cruise instead. Keen to prove herself, she calls in a favour and secures gorgeous reality star Ollie. 

Lily’s neighbours are initially thrilled, but Ollie is as uncontrollable as he is good-looking. He can’t remember the town’s name, calls the Christmas decorations tacky, and manages to offend everyone. And whilst handsome but stubborn cameraman Craig tries to help, even he can’t stop Ollie’s madcap plans to stage a romance with Lily…

Will Lily be able to keep Ollie under control and bring the Christmas cheer back to Shipley – and find herself a real kiss under the mistletoe?

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Books Read: Meet Me under the Mistletoe by Carla Burgess

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the little flower shop…

Florist Rachel Jones might spend every day making beautiful bridal bouquets at her little flower shop, but her own love life is wilting as quickly as a bunch of dead roses.

Luckily, the arrival of handsome detective Anthony Bascombe, the new tenant upstairs is the perfect distraction! Although there’s a catch, Anthony isn’t looking for love – he’s looking for her ex-fiancé, Patrick…

But as the snow begins to fall and her little shop fills with mistletoe ready for Christmas, will Rachel manage to melt Anthony’s heart?

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Emma's Review: Lucy's Book Club for the Lost and Found by Emma Davies

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Sometimes you’ve got to run away to find yourself… 

Twenty-four-year-old Lucy needs a fresh start. Forever single and frustrated with her studies she gives up everything to run a little library in the leafy village of Tilley Moreton. 

Lucy loves reading almost as much as she loves fixing other people’s problems, so starting a book club seems like the perfect opportunity to do both. As she meets her new members, it’s clear she’s going to have her work cut out for her. Handsome but silent Callum is the biggest puzzle of them all... 

But Lucy’s meddling begins to cause more problems than it solves, and no one is more surprised than Lucy when Callum steps in to help. Could there be more to him than people think? 

As Callum and Lucy start working together to fix the broken hearts of the library’s most loyal customers, the first sparks of romance begin to fly.

Can they right all the trouble Lucy has created, and might there be a chance for a happy ending of their own?

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The Write Stuff with... Katey Lovell

Today it's my pleasure to hand the blog over to author Katey Lovell to talk about Acts of Kindness for the festive season.

Kindness is at the very heart of my Christmas novel Joe and Clara’s Christmas Countdown – it’s present in the community work of the youth group the protagonists run and in Joe, Clara and big-boss Deirdre’s commitment to raising funds for The Club on the Corner.  It’s evident when Joe, prompted by Clara’s guttural response to run when she sees her philandering ex, decides to prove to her there are decent men out there, and when Clara decides to take it upon herself to shower Joe with advent gifts to rekindle his love of the festive season.  

However, you don’t need to go to such dramatic lengths to spread a little joy this festive season.  Here are just a few ideas of simple ways you could brighten someone’s day.

1. Donate to a local food bank – tins, non-perishables, toiletries.  Many have websites with lists of items they most need at any given time.
2. Pay someone a compliment.  It might be just the boost they need.
3. Leave a review of a book you love on Amazon or Goodreads.  It will make an author smile and help spread the word.
4. Support a chosen charity.  This could be by giving time, money or raising awareness via social media channels.

The Write Stuff with... Maggie Christensen

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Maggie Christensen to the blog to talk about her writing journey and why she's chosen to write about older women.

I grew up in Scotland and began teaching primary school there, before emigrating to Australia in my mid-twenties. I was lured by ads of a semi-naked man in gown and mortarboard and the slogan ‘Come teach in the Sun’. I’m still looking for that guy! 

My writing journey all began over 30 years ago when I was working in Higher Education and took a forced transfer to teach in a country town university in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. I didn’t want to go the country. I wanted to get back to the city – to the bright lights of Sydney. However, to Wagga Wagga I went and there, to my surprise I met this hunk of a gentle giant who’d moved there from USA to teach in the same faculty as me. At the ripe old age of 37, I’d almost – but not quite – given up hope of meeting my soulmate. Here he was.

Fast forward around ten years, when I was close to retirement and had started to write fiction and my mother-in-law, now widowed and in her eighties, decided to move from California to Florence on the Oregon Coast. This meant we went to visit on a regular basis, and was my first introduction to that beautiful part of the world which reminded me of my native Scotland and which was to prove the perfect setting for the three books in my Oregon coast Series.

Emma's Review: The Pets at Primrose Cottage: Part One A Place to Hide by Sheila Norton

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Emma Nightingale needs a place to hide away. Pursued by the demons left by her ex-boyfriend, she takes refuge in quiet Crickleford, a sleepy town in Dartmoor, where she can lay low.

Life in Crickleford is quiet and peaceful, but it won’t be for long if people discover the truth about Emma’s past. Not wanting to make too much of a fuss, she ends up lying about why she's there - she's looking after some cats, she says - then suddenly the town’s new ‘pet-sitter’ is in high demand!

While looking after an Alsatian, Emma finds all attention is on her, and the handsome young reporter from the local paper takes an interest in her story...

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Author Interview: Peter Murphy

Today is publication day for Peter Murphy's latest book Walden of Bermondsey and it's my pleasure to welcome Peter to the blog to find out a little more about himself and his writing.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your writing journey?
My career was in the law.  I started writing fiction many years ago, as a relief from all the technical legal writing I was doing, but I only got really serious about it some ten years ago.  Along the way, I had the usual number of rejection letters, before a publisher finally liked two novels I’d written: Removal, and the first in my Ben Schroeder series, A Higher Duty.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for Walden of Bermondsey, what would it be? 
The book that answers the question: what would Horace Rumpole have been like as a judge?

I've read that you have previously been a judge amongst other positions, how much of yourself is in Charlie Walden? 
Not too much, although I was a resident judge at the end of my career, and quite a lot of the book is based on personal experience.  But Charlie is a composite of two or three people (as my characters always are: I don’t use a single person).  But there is a serious aspect to Walden.  Charlie shares my own frustrations.  He knows how much irreversible damage is being done to the court system because of ideological cuts disguised as economic measures.  People are at a greater risk of suffering injustice now than at any time since the nineteenth century, because of attacks on legal aid, cutting back of courts and staff, cutting corners, and disempowering the judiciary.  I think he has something of my own sense of humour, too, and hopefully he shares my sense of why his job is important, and why it’s worth fighting to make sure justice is done in the court system. 

Emma's Review: A Winter Love Song by Rita Bradshaw

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Bonnie Lindsay is born into a travelling fair community in the north-east in 1918, and when her mother dies just months later, Bonnie’s beloved father becomes everything to her. Then at the tender age of ten years old, disaster strikes. Heartbroken, Bonnie’s left at the mercy of her embittered grandmother and her lecherous step-grandfather.

Five years later, the events of one terrible night cause Bonnie to flee to London where she starts to earn her living as a singer. She changes her name and cuts all links with the past.

Time passes. Bonnie falls in love, but just when she dares to hope for a rosy future, WW2 is declared. She does her bit for the war effort, singing for the troops and travelling to Burma to boost morale, but heartache and pain are just around the corner, and she begins to ask herself if she will ever find happiness again?

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Character Profile: Meet Matron Kathleen Fox

Today it's my pleasure to welcome saga author Donna Douglas back to the blog with an introduction to one of the central characters in her Nightingales series.  Regular followers of the blog will no doubt have spotted that I'm a huge fan of this series, having read most of the books in the series, as well as Donna's new Steeple Street series.

Since The Nightingale Christmas Show is the fourth festive Nightingale novel I’ve written, this time around I decided to try something different. Rather than writing one novel, I thought it might be fun to put together a collection of interlinked short stories. 

It’s Christmas 1945, and the staff of the Nightingale Hospital are putting on a festive show to cheer up the patients. But rehearsals have barely started before the sparks start to fly and old rivalries resurface. Can the nurses overcome the shadows of the past and pull together in time to save the show?

Each story looks at the same event from a different nurse’s viewpoint, from scatty student nurse Daisy to ambitious Assistant Matron Charlotte Davis. But as ever, holding it all together is Matron Kathleen Fox. 

Giveaway: Win a copy of Whiteout by Ragnar Jonasson

Today it's my stop on Ragnar Jonasson's Whiteout blog tour for which I had been planning to do a review but sadly I've been ill this week with a chest infection which has affected my energy levels and reading mojo.  So instead I have decided to do a giveaway for a paperback copy of Whiteout and will do a separate review at a later date.

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kálfshamarvík. Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop? 

Debut Spotlight: D.K. Hood

Today it's my pleasure to be shining the spotlight on US crime writer D.K. Hood and her debut novel Don't Tell a Soul which was published a couple of weeks ago.

I've always had a wicked sense of humor, and was the kid who told the ghost stories around the campfire. I am lucky to have family all over the world and have spent many wonderful vacations in places from Paris France to Montana USA and Australia. I use the wonderful memories from these visits to enhance my stories.

My interest in the development of forensic science to solve crime goes back many years. I enjoy writing crime, mystery and thrillers. With many stories, waiting for me to write I'll look forward to sharing many spine tingling stories with you.

D.K. Hood is an active member of International Thriller Writers.

Website: http://www.dkhood.com
Twitter: @DKHood_Author
Facebook: DK Hood author

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing journey? 
Writing for me has been a varied path. I started with romance but found my stories leaned more toward action adventure or suspense. I love to read crime, mystery and thrillers in a wide variety of genres, from military Black Ops to mysteries set in small villages. I had so many story ideas running around in my head, I decided to change my entire world around and write a crime thriller.

It took a lot of research to decide where to send my very first crime thriller submission and I decided to submit to Bookouture. I could not believe my eyes when a reply came back saying they loved my story and a three-book deal followed.

Being a debut author in a genre with a massive amount of brilliant writers has been terrifying but with Bookouture’s great team behind me and being with the best group of authors in the world, I’m confident my work will go out into the world the best it can be.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for Don't Tell a Soul, what would it be? 
Small town. Big Crimes. Dark Secrets.

Don’t Tell A Soul is a fast-paced, crime thriller, featuring two ex-special agents looking to hide from their past in the sheriff’s office of a small US town.

Debut Spotlight: Stephen Norman

Today it's my stop on the Trading Down blog tour with a spotlight feature on author Stephen Norman and this debut novel which was published on Thursday.

Stephen Norman spent 20 years at the forefront of investment banking IT, facing industry turbulence, from the rise and fall of the dotcoms, the destruction of 911 and the banking collapse of 2008. He has worked in financial centres across the world – from London and New York, to Hong Kong and Tokyo – and has fulfilled a range of high powered roles including Chief Technology Officer at Merrill Lynch and an unusually long 7 year stint as CIO of RBS Global Markets. In 2012, he left the world of finance to focus on his writing.

Trading Down is Stephen’s first novel.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing journey? 
I’m a scientist, really.  I’ve always been interested in how things work.  I was good at maths and physics at school, and hopeless at languages.  Except for English.  For as long as I can remember, I have been reading and writing.  When I was a child, I wrote terrible adventure stories.  At college it was essays.  In my 20s I started a software company and I did the design, the manuals, the business plans and all the marketing literature and advertising.  I’ve written technical books.  In my second career, doing IT in banks, I have started a whole string of novels based on my experiences.  Trading Down is the first one to be published.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for Trading Down, what would it be? 
It’s a book about a bank which is under attack from a cyber-terrorist.  Our protagonist, Chris Peters, figures that out, but no-one else believes him.  Intertwined with his personal struggles (at work and at home), is a tragedy that happened years before, in Yemen.  At the climax of the book, as the bank is a few minutes away from destruction, the two stories and the two protagonists come together.  

Debut Spotlight: Asa Avdic

Today it's my pleasure to be shining the spotlight on Swedish journalist Asa Avdic and her debut novel The Dying Game as part of her UK blog tour.

Asa Avdic is a journalist who for years was a presenter for Swedish Public Service Radio and Television and is currently a host of Sweden’s biggest morning current events programme.

She lives with her family in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Dying Game is her first novel.

Oh, it’s really quite simple. I want you to play dead.’

On the remote island of Isola, seven people have been selected to compete in a 48-hour test for a top-secret intelligence position. One of them is Anna Francis, a workaholic with a nine-year-old daughter she rarely sees, and a secret that haunts her. Her assignment is to stage her own death and then observe, from her hiding place inside the walls of the house, how the other candidates react to the news that a murderer is among them. Who will take control? Who will crack under pressure? 

But as soon as Anna steps on to the island she realises something isn’t quite right. And then a storm rolls in, the power goes out, and the real game begins…

If this sounds like a book that you'd like to read then I have a short extract below to whet your appetite.

The Dying Game

A s a Av d i c

Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles

The next morning I left home before it was fully light out. A taxi picked me up on the sidewalk outside my apartment. Little snowflakes were dancing in the air as the taxi driver huffed and heaved my bags into the trunk. I was struck by the urge to turn around and take a picture of my building, as if I would be gone for a very long time.

The taxi driver drove out of the city and down to the large industrial wharves where the lake turned to sea; he wove around warehouses and stacks of containers before stopping at a pier with locked gates. He removed my bags from the trunk and placed them on the ground, but before I even had time to ask whether I was supposed to pay or sign a receipt he had hopped back into the taxi and driven off. I stood there alone, wondering what I should do, but then I saw a uniformed man approaching from the other side of the gate. Without a word, he unlocked the padlocks that fastened thick chains around the gates and let me in. As I looked around, I discovered that there was a surveillance camera mounted on one of the tall gateposts, and I assumed that was how they had learned of my arrival. The white snow had covered the ground like a thin layer of powdered sugar, and as we walked along the pier I turned around to look at my own footprints. They were already being covered by snow again.

Author Interview: Melissa de la Cruz

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Melissa de la Cruz to the blog on the latest leg of the Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe blog tour.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your writing journey? 
I’ve wanted to be an author since I was eleven years old, I wrote my first novel at 22 but didn’t sell it, instead an editor who was interested told me I should try to be a journalist so I could have professional writing credits. So I became a freelance journalist, and worked as a beauty and fashion editor until I sold my third written novel (and first published novel) Cat’s Meow in 1999.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe, what would it be? 
Gender-swapped Pride & Prejudice with one snooty Miss Darcy.

What inspired you to do a modern, festive re-telling of such a classic novel?
It always bothered me that Lizzy Bennet had so little options, like if Darcy didn’t marry her, she was going to be a poor spinster. So I wanted to write about a woman who had the world at her fingertips –so I thought why not make Darcy an alpha female? It’s also a homage to two of my favorite novels – Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, and Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. And the Christmas setting was because I’m working with a producer who makes a ton of Christmas movies, and he asked me to come up with Christmas ideas, and voila! 

Author Interview: Lisa Hobman

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Lisa Hobman to the blog to talk about her latest book A Seaside Escape which was published last month.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your writing journey? 
Writing is something I’ve always loved. As a teenager I kept note books with stories in and was recently handed these by my parents when they were moving house. It was a blast to look back on them. I never imagined writing a full novel and having it published so having this happen has been a dream come true.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for A Seaside Escape, what would it be? 
It’s a story about realistic characters dealing with loss, healing and falling in love, surrounded by the stunning scenery of the Scottish Highlands.

What would you say are the essential ingredients for writing the perfect romance novel? 
Passion, commitment and enthusiasm. But wine and chocolate help 😉

Describe Mallory in three words 
Curvy, loveable, realistic

Emma's Review: Christmas at Woolworths by Elaine Everest

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Even though there was a war on, the Woolworths girls brought Christmas cheer to their customers

Best friends Sarah, Maisie and Freda are brought together by their jobs at Woolworths. With their loved ones away on the front line, their bonds of friendship strengthen each day. Betty Billington is the manager at Woolworths, and a rock for the girls, having given up on love . . . Until a mysterious stranger turns up one day – could he reignite a spark in Betty?

As the year draws to a close, and Christmas approaches, the girls must rely on each other to navigate the dark days that lie ahead . . .

With so much change, can their friendship survive the war?

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The Write Stuff with... Hazel Gaynor

Today it's my pleasure to be part of the blog tour for Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb's novel Last Christmas in Paris.  I don't know about you but I'm always intrigued as to how a duo writing together works so I'm delighted that Hazel has taken time out of her busy schedule to talk about this very subject.

Hazel Gaynor
copyright Deasy Photographic

When people discover we have written a novel together, the question is always: how? How do two writers, with unique styles and voices, come together to produce a seamless novel? We first ‘met’ in 2013 after being introduced online by our mutual agent. We hit it off instantly, and in early 2015, Heather approached Hazel about contributing to an anthology of short stories: FALL OF POPPIES - Stories of Love and the Great War. As Fall of Poppies was nearing completion, we both felt there was more we wanted to write about the Great War. We were also really excited to write together again and the idea to co-write a historical novel began to take shape.

The idea for LAST CHRISTMAS IN PARIS developed from a frenzied Facebook Messenger chat one afternoon and the book was then written through a literal exchange of letters between us, writing as our characters. Hazel would wake up in Ireland, pen a letter from one of her characters, and wait for a reply. Several hours later, Heather would wake in the U.S. to find mail in her inbox and respond. The process felt so organic and the story flowed. The editing process was a little harder to manage, moving a partially-edited document between the two of us, but we made it work.

Emma's Review: The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

1917: When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, announce they have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished. But when the great novelist, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, endorses the photographs’ authenticity, the girls become a sensation; their discovery offering something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war.

One hundred years later… When Olivia Kavanagh finds an old manuscript and a photograph in her late grandfather’s bookshop she becomes fascinated by the story of the two young girls who mystified the world. As Olivia is drawn into events a century ago, she becomes aware of the past and the present intertwining, blurring her understanding of what is real and what is imagined. As she begins to understand why a nation once believed in fairies, will Olivia find a way to believe in herself?

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Author Interview: Emma interviews Gill Paul

Today I'm handing the blog over to Emma to interview bestselling author Gill Paul about her latest book Another Woman's Husband which Emma recently reviewed here.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your writing journey? 
Another Woman’s Husband is my seventh published novel. I feel incredibly, unbelievably lucky to find myself in this position, but it took a lot of trial and error to get here. I started and abandoned loads of novels in my twenties and early thirties before joining an excellent creative writing group called WritingSpace, run by a woman called Carol Cornish. The novel I wrote under her guidance became the first one to be published. It wasn’t plain sailing, though, because my first two novels didn’t sell very well so I didn’t get a deal for a third. I wrote non-fiction for a while before I had the idea for my Titanic novel Women and Children First and managed to get a deal from Avon, which took me back into fiction again. Champagne corks were pinging around that day, let me tell you!

The publication of Another Woman's Husband is very timely considering it is the anniversary year of Princess Diana's death. Did you feel the weight of expectation when writing the book as Diana meant so much to so many people?
I was concerned not to cause distress to any friends or relatives of Diana’s. Her death is so recent that she is in the living memory of many, and that puts additional pressure on anyone writing about her. I decided not to make her a character in the novel as such, but to write about the historical phenomenon of the public reaction to her death. One character, Alex, is a TV producer who is researching the conspiracy theories around it, while his fiancé Rachel thinks the poor woman should be left in peace and can’t understand the mass public grieving.

Emma's Review: Christmas at Mistletoe Cottage by Lucy Daniels

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

This year, vet Mandy Hope is looking forward to the holidays. Her animal rescue centre, Hope Meadows, is up and running - and she's finally going on a date with Jimmy Marsh, owner of the local outward bound centre.

The advent of winter sees all sorts of animals cross Mandy's path, from goats named Rudolph to baby donkeys - and even a pair of reindeer! But when a mysterious local starts causing trouble, Mandy's plans for the centre come under threat. She must call on Jimmy and her fellow villagers to put a stop to the stranger's antics and ensure that Hope Meadows' first Christmas is one to remember.

One thing's for certain: this Christmas, there'll be animal escapades, kisses under the mistletoe...and plenty of festive cheer for all.

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Author Interview: Sue Moorcroft

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Sue Moorcroft back to the blog for today's stop on her The Little Village Christmas blog tour.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your writing journey? 
It took me a while to get into reading and writing, owing to interrupted education, but once I began to get the hang of it I fell in love with stories. As soon as I realised that someone had to create the words in a book, I wanted to be that person. It took a while to get going but my first paid, published stories began to appear in magazines in 1996 – and are still appearing. My first novel was sold in 2004 and The Little Village Christmas is my 11th published novel. Along the way there have been more than 150 short stories, six serials (look out for the seventh, Moonlight Over Middledip, in My Weekly, issues 2 and 9 December), a writing guide, four writing courses and a multitude of columns and articles. I like to keep busy.

I was born in Germany, as I come from an army family, and spent much of my childhood until I was eight years old in Malta and Cyprus. I wasn’t that keen on coming home to the UK but I’m just about over the trauma now.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for The Little Christmas Village, what would it be? 
The Little Village Christmas is about discovering your new life in the ashes of the old. Alexia has to stay in Middledip and help rescue the project of turning The Angel pub into The Angel Community Café after someone runs away with all the money. Ben, who’s been hiding out in the woods at the edge of Middledip village, keeps finding himself drawn further and further into Alexia’s valiant rescue attempt.

The Little Christmas Village sees a return to your fictional village of Middledip, had you always planned to write another story at a later date or is this something that just crept up on you?
It just crept up on me! After visiting for a couple of chapters of The Christmas Promise I found I wanted to see what was going on in the village again. There have been changes! But what is the same is the charm of the little Cambridgeshire village for my characters. Alexia does dream of living a more sophisticated life in London for a while but she finds it harder than she’d anticipated to detach herself from her friends and the village she loves.