Category: Hampshire

Book Chat with Charlie Cochrane

Posted on | by Rosie Travers | 7 Comments on Book Chat with Charlie Cochrane

This week’s Book Chat guest is author Charlie Cochrane. Charlie lives near me in Hampshire and since we first met at a Romantic Novelists Association southern branch lunch a few years ago, we discovered we had many things in common, including a mutual admiration for a wonderful Greek dentist called Nikos… But today we’re talking books not dentistry. Charlie has chosen TeaCups Cafe in Romsey as the location for our get-together.

Hi Charlie, and thanks for inviting me to Romsey. I’m loving the eclectic crockery collection on show here at TeaCups! Tell me what your latest book is called and what’s it about?

The Deadliest Fall. It’s a romantic mystery, set in 1947 (partly in and around a thinly disguised Stockbridge, Hampshire.) Leslie Cadmore’s tormented about whether the death of an acquaintance in a wartime training accident was really murder and whether his ex-lover, Patrick, was the killer. Leslie ends up teaming with the ex to establish the truth. Oh, and he’s got a dog, who threatens to steal the story.

What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most?

Discovering what happens in the narrative. I’m a total pantser and rarely know where a story will go—or ‘whodunnit’—when I start writing something new. It may sound odd but when I’m crafting a novel, I feel like I’m listening to the story being acted on the radio, and as I’m hearing it unfold, I’m adapting it for the page.

I’m a complete pantser too and enjoy watching my characters dictate the plotlines. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block, and if you do, what’s your cure?

I don’t think I’ve ever suffered a total block but there have been times when I’ve been right, royally stuck. I’ve got two contrasting solutions. One is to go and do something else completely: either short term, like a mindless, physical task (cleaning the kitchen floor works well) or, in the longer term, working on another project. That’s to let my subconscious mind have a shot at solving the plot point I’m wrestling with and which my conscious brain can’t solve. The other method is to write through the problem. It doesn’t matter if I produce a load of drivel that eventually gets deleted, somehow the process jogs my writing  muscle memory and a decent bit of prose emerges.

Mundane tasks also work for me, it’s amazing how quickly inspiration strikes when I pick up an iron…

How do you come up with names for your characters?

For surnames, I usually scroll through the BBC Sport site, looking at rugby or cricket teams, until I find the right fit for my character. In terms of a given name, I start with the era, which is how I came up with Leslie for one of my leads in The Deadliest Fall—a suitably mid twentieth century name. Otherwise, I try to find something that’s convincing for the character and setting but not stereotypical. 

If you could pick one character from your books to meet in real life, who would it be and why?

You don’t half ask a girl some tricky questions. My first thought was Jonty Stewart—who’s one of my Cambridge Fellows Edwardian amateur detectives—because he’s handsome, got an impish sense of humour and could tell me all sorts of amusing stories about his other half, Orlando Coppersmith. Then I had second thoughts and decided I’d half more fun if I met Jonty’s mother. We could have hours of fun discussing our offspring and swopping tips on successfully raising a brood.

Orlando Coppersmith – now that is a great name!

Imagine if Hollywood comes calling and you’re offered big bucks for film rights to one of your books, but you have absolutely NO SAY in how it’s adapted. Would you sign on the dotted line?

Absolutely not. Seriously, if they wanted to tinker with my plots and characters and I had no right to argue my point, I’d have to send them packing. I’m sure I can hear the blessed Dame Agatha Christie spinning like a top in her grave over the travesties of adaptations her books have undergone and if one of mine suffered the same I’d be mortified.

Charlie, you’re my first guest to turn down the megabucks, although I agree this one would be a moral dilemma for me too. Our books and characters are very precious!

Final question – in a dystopian future you’re only allowed to keep one book from all the books on the shelves in your house. Which one would you choose?

Oh. Oh! Could I have “Death at the President’s Lodging” on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and “The Charioteer” on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, please? I’ll forego books on Sundays as recompense.

Why those two? The sheer majesty of the writing. Mary Renault can say more in one or two words than most writers can on a whole page and Michael Innes can’t half produce a devious murder plot. I regularly reread both books so they’d be such a comfort.

I think that’s cheating Charlie, but I’ll let it go! Many thanks for taking part.

The Deadliest Fall Blurb

Some truths can’t be left buried.

The second world war may be over, but for Leslie Cadmore the scars remain. His beloved dog died, there’s a rift between him and his lover Patrick, and his father inexplicably abandoned the family for life in a monastery. Fate’s been cruel.

A chance meeting with Patrick’s sister stirs old memories, and Leslie starts to dig into both his father’s motives and long-unanswered questions around the death of Fergus Jackson. The worst of a group of disreputable pre-war friends, Fergus was a manipulative rake who allegedly fell on his own knife in a training accident. An accident for which Patrick was apparently the only witness.

Leslie’s persuaded to meet Patrick again, and the pair easily fall back into their old dynamic. They uncover connection after surprising connection between their hedonistic old friends and not only Fergus’s murder, but Mr. Cadmore’s abrupt departure. As their investigation deepens, Leslie and Patrick’s bond deepens too. But no reconciliation can occur until Leslie knows for sure that his erstwhile lover wasn’t Fergus’s killer.

Pre-order link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5W5VB4Y/

About Charlie

Because Charlie Cochrane couldn’t be trusted to do anything grown up, she writes cosy mysteries. These include the Edwardian era Cambridge Fellows series, the contemporary Lindenshaw Mysteries and her 1950s Alasdair and Toby series where two actors play Holmes and Watson both onscreen and off.

Charlie is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association, Mystery People and International Thriller Writers Inc, and has regularly appeared at literary festivals, reader conventions and author conferences.

Links: Website: http://www.charliecochrane.co.uk

FB: https://www.facebook.com/charlie.cochrane.18

Twitter: https://twitter.com/charliecochrane

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Out of My Comfort Zone

Posted on | by Rosie Travers | Leave a Comment on Out of My Comfort Zone

I’ve written before about how my writing journey has forced me out of my “comfort zone” when it comes to social media/marketing. Shy wallflowers like me are not great at self-promotion; I’ve had to force myself every step of the way.  The actual writing has always been the soft squidgy part of the process.  That’s what I’m good at, sitting at my laptop and playing with my characters, manipulating them to do my bidding.

Writing my Isle of Wight mysteries has been the literary equivalent of putting on a pair of well-worn slippers. It’s been a joy, a delightful escape which has kept me occupied for the best part of the last three years, and I do feel a little sad it’s come to an end (although never say never because I’ve had an idea for a possible future Christmas special for Eliza and Charlie…).

But now I’m casting those slippers aside to put on a pair of super-high stilettoes, the type of shoes you buy and wear only once because they pinch and rub, cause blisters and broken ankles…

My next project requires RESEARCH on a large scale and it’s anything but comfortable. Each Eliza Kane mystery has involved a limited amount of research – I knew nothing about the Isle of Wight’s aviation industry until I started writing A Crisis at Clifftops, even less about golf, but it was very much a case of looking things up as a I went along, and also with the knowledge that most readers probably knew even less about these things than I did.

But now I’ve got to man-up! My WIP (work in progress) – which is still very much at the in my head stage – is a major epic, a historical saga very different to anything I’ve written before. It is based on real events that took place during the Second World War,  and I need to stick to the facts. Not only that, but the relatives of the central characters are still alive and kicking, and have very kindly allowed me to re-tell the family history. I have to do them and their ancestors justice. I want the background/setting for this story to be as accurate as it can be, even though I have a licence to embellish the plot.

Fortunately my local library has several shelves of local history books. My reading list is growing. There’s also the internet research and YouTube videos…

The setting for the story is the local to me in the New Forest, in particular the villages on the western banks of Southampton Water. These days this side of Southampton Water is dominated by the enormous oil refinery at Fawley, but the refinery wasn’t constructed until the 1950s. Before then, the western banks of the water were flanked by open fields and farmland.   

Any descriptions of the local landscape I include in this new novel, when I finally get round to putting my fingers to the keyboard, are going to vary a lot from what a visitor to this area sees today. It’s not as if I can go for a walk and experience the same sights and sounds as my 1940s heroine. If you think a stroll in through the trees in the Forest might help, think again. Most of the New Forest was out of bounds for the entire duration of the War, requisitioned by the military for top secret training camps, dummy bombing raids and hastily constructed aerodromes. (Research paying off already!)

The War itself is very central to the story. I’ve read a handful of novels set during that time, I know about ration books and air-raids, black-outs, the Home Guard, digging for Victory, etc, but now I need more detailed knowledge. What music did my heroine dance to? There must have been more choice than Glen Miller and the Andrews Sisters. What was she wearing? Probably something she made or altered herself. What was her favourite tipple? A watered down beer – how delicious! There’s a lot of information out there, but filtering out the bits I need will take time.

In addition, I need to adopt a new “serious” voice. This isn’t a frivolous story, and although I’m sure humour will creep into certain scenes, I have to make sure it’s appropriate for the setting and the time. My characters will have fun, but they also have some huge choices and heart-wrenching decisions to make. I can’t trivialise that.

I’ll keep you updated on my progress but I’m in this for the long haul. It will be a learning curve, and a challenge, but I’m determined to give it a go. I don’t have a title, and the three central characters have already undergone several name changes before they’ve even been cast onto paper (I’m not using their real names but coming up with new ones that suit them is proving a bit trickier than I thought). I’ll get there. Some parts of the story are set in stone, others have some wriggle room.

On a lighter note, and talking of things that wriggle….Ed the cat has been a great hindrance during the proof-reading of Trouble on the Tide, but we’re still on target for ebook launch at the end of June. Paperbacks will follow later in the year. Cover reveal coming soon!

Island Hopping

Posted on | by Rosie Travers | Leave a Comment on Island Hopping

Continuing on the theme of locations, this week I’m talking about the setting for my new book, A Crisis at Clifftops.

For my previous novels I created my own slither of the south coast to suit my plotlines. I drew on aspects of familiar local surroundings to create the fictional run-down resort of Hookes Bay in The Theatre of Dreams, and the sailing village of Kerridge in Your Secret’s Safe With Me. For my third book, I’m heading overseas – or at least across the Solent to the Isle of Wight.

At just 23 miles across at its furthest points east to west, and at approximately just 150 square miles, the Isle of Wight is England’s largest island. Prior to the arrival of Queen Victoria and her chum Alfred Lord Tennyson, who turned the island into a fashionable holiday hot-spot in the late 19th century, fishing, farming and boatbuilding were the mainstays of the local economy. Today the island is probably best known for the annual music festival and Cowes Week sailing regatta. It’s a mix of typical British seaside resorts, lush, rolling downs and stunning coastal cliff formations.

I grew up in Southampton, and as a child we had regular days out and took family vacations on the island. Even though it was just a few miles from home, that ferry ride made all the difference. As a schoolgirl I undertook a healthy hike around the island staying in youth hostels. A few years later I went back and spent an unhealthy week partying with a group of girl friends in a holiday park.

But when I reached my twenties, my tastes changed. The island and its vintage accommodation options had lost its allure. Boating lakes, crazy golf courses and end of the pier style entertainment weren’t enough to keep me amused. I craved exotic Mediterranean food and cheap, duty free booze. I needed guaranteed sunshine, beaches where I could relax without the backdrop of slot machines and amusement arcades. The Isle of Wight slipped off my radar and there it stayed for many years.

It was only when me and Mr T returned to the UK as empty-nesters three years ago that we vowed to explore what was our own doorstep with the same vigour we’d adopted when living abroad. When you move somewhere new, especially overseas, you tend to research the “must sees”, ticking off a whole host of historical monuments and natural wonders. We realised we’d never been to Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s holiday home, so we took a trip over to the island, had a fantastic day out, and thought we ought to return to see a bit more…

Several day trips later we booked a short break with our grown-up kids on the island. While on a blustery winter walk along the boarded up esplanade at Shanklin, the idea for a story hit me. It was a very vague idea, but when I combined it with another half-baked plot already brewing, I realised I had the potential to create not just one novel, but a whole series of island based mysteries. Sub-titled “Eliza Kane Investigates” after my whisky swigging, golfing heroine, the series is meant to be fun, and entertaining, and just a little eclectic – a bit like the island it’s set on.

Us local mainlanders always used to joke that a visit to the island meant turning your watch back 40 years. Now that I’m older and a lot wiser, I can see the charm of life at a gentler pace. The appeal for island life has grown, and while Ryde and Sandown still retain that old-fashioned kiss-me-quick ambience, the bijou former fishing village of Seaview is sophisticated and very much sought after amongst jet-set second-home owners.

The Isle of Wight has become one of my favourite places – I love it so much that me and Mr T will be walking the full 70 miles of its coastline for our 2021 holiday.  If you want to know how we get on, I’ll be posting up pictures on Facebook and Instagram and there will be more about our hike, and the book, in the coming weeks. Meanwhile I’ll leave you with this stunning view of Tennyson Down and the Needles.

Day Trippers

Posted on | by Rosie Travers | 2 Comments on Day Trippers

The happy staycation continues. Me and Mr T have trekked and cycled miles over the last month.  As well as exploring the New Forest – the edge of the national park is just a 15 minute walk from our doorstep, we’ve also made made three separate day trips to the Isle of Wight – rapidly becoming my new favourite place.

As a writer I’m often asked where do I find my inspiration. The answer is simple – it finds me. My first two books were all set in fictional locations in Hampshire. When it comes to research I’m fairly lazy. Setting my books in places I know well is one less thing to worry about. Over the last few weeks of exploration I have had a deluge of new ideas. Yes I know I said all things bookish were going to take a bit of a back seat, but try as I might to buckle it in, that writerly instinct remains unrestrained.

Take this for example.  “That’s a rusty old boat” Mr T remarked on our recent trek along the River Medina from Cowes to Newport.

Well yes, my inner writer replied, that is a rusty old boat but how did it end up dying in the salt marshes? What’s its backstory?  My imagination conjures up visions of the travellers who might have passed along its gangplanks, slept in its cabins, danced on its decks (later googling revealed an extensive career as leisure cruiser, ferry, hotel and disco). It was love at first sight – this boat or my own reincarnation of it and its occupants, are perfect story material.

My current writing project is a cosy mystery series – so cosy in fact if there was a sub-genre of snuggly crime, this would be it. I know I should stick to mainstream but I just can’t. I have this inner urge to rebel against market forces – there have to be readers out there who want something that little bit different.  

My series is set on the Isle of Wight, not because of our recent excursions, but because the original whiff of an idea emerged while we were on a mini-break there a couple of Christmases ago.   

It’s probably fair to say I have now completely fallen in love with the island (obsessed Mr T might say as he drags me away from checking out house prices on Right Move). Traditional family friendly old-fashioned kiss-me-quick resorts rub shoulders with exclusive up-market hidden retreats. Inland quaint chocolate box picture postcard villages dot the largely rural landscape, while the coast boasts craggy cliffs, chalk stacks, swathes of golden sand and intimate pebble bays. Alongside the tourist industry there’s a rich maritime heritage and a history of pioneering aviation. Dinosaurs once strolled across the Downs, as did Queen Victoria and Alfred Lord Tennyson. There’s the annual big-name music festival, world famous yacht racing, and a top security prison.  For a small place there’s lots going on, providing a wealth of ideas.

I’ve already been told by people in the know that the market is now awash with cosy crimes, but I also recently received one of the nicest rejections from a literary agent ever. I’m not giving up yet. A floating hotel cum disco fits perfectly into my snuggly mystery series. Already my mind is racing ahead to the next book. What dastardly deed once happened on board that has remained hidden until my amateur sleuth stumbles across the story. My heroine is a nosey-parker with a professional career crisis who pokes into the past and unearths mysteries from the island’s 20th century history. In fact she’s a bit like me although I don’t drink whisky or play golf – her Unique Selling Points, and yes I know to be more commercially viable she ought to run a tea shop or be titled aristocracy…

And before anyone thinks I’m working for the Isle of Wight tourist board, trust me, I’m not, this is a post demonstrating the wonders of spontaneous INSPIRATION.  Take this picture captured on a recent walk. This is Calshot, just a few miles from our house, a disused, half-demolished power station. If I wrote thrillers, or more serious crimes, something dark and dystopian, this eerie ghost on the landscape would undoubtedly feature. (Incidentally it still could, because the site is currently being used to store wind turbine blades which are shipped across the Solent from the factory that makes them on the Isle of Wight…)

I’ll stop now. Unbelievably, it now two whole years since I became a published author. The Theatre of Dreams was officially launched on 1 August 2018. The path since has not been easy – maintaining momentum and enthusiasm for a two year old book in a flooded market is tough. In recent weeks I’ve received some lovely new reviews from readers which has been a huge boost, so thank you!  

If you haven’t downloaded a copy – what are you waiting for? Comedy, drama, mystery and romance all for less than a price of takeaway coffee. And there’s no mention of the Isle of Wight – although no wait a minute…

The Theatre of Dreams is available on Amazon for just 99p https://www.amazon.co.uk/Theatre-Dreams-Rosie-Travers-ebook/dp/B084C5753Y/

Out & About

Posted on | by Rosie Travers | Leave a Comment on Out & About

Lockdown is all but over and we have entered a new era, not just globally but in our own cosy corner of the world. Mr T has officially retired, but as he has been working from home since March, it’s not such the huge lifestyle adjustment it could have been. We’d always promised ourselves that once he retired we’d ‘get out more’ and with grand plans for foreign travel curtailed for the foreseeable future,  a ‘staycation’ is the obvious answer.

Walking, like gardening, and knitting, and any form of exercise is good for the soul (although I see that even poor old Joe Wicks was finding his daily schedules too much and has given up – you really can have too much of a good thing and my leg is nearly better, thank you.)

A couple of years back Mr T received a copy of the AA Guide to 50 Walks in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in his Christmas stocking, a book which due it’s scant attention to detail and somewhat ambiguous directions, should really be entitled 50 Ways to Get Lost in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Last week we picked a gloomy day to complete the six mile trek along the River Itchen and back from St Cross to Winchester. It’s a walk we’ve done several times before and are pretty familiar with.  I could tell Mr T was still in work mode; while I paused to ‘smell the roses’  ie take numerous pics of flora and fauna, Mr T forged ahead as if he had to be somewhere by a certain time. Perhaps it was the lure of a pasty pit-stop in Winchester.

Winchester is wonderful, one of those select genteel British cities which is too posh for its own good, the sort of place where it’s perfectly normal to overhear a woman pointing out a medieval building in the cathedral grounds to her companion with a loud “and that’s where Titus went to prep school.”  I also realised Mr T hadn’t quite disengaged when he announced he’d spotted a dumper truck contravening all health and safety regulations by reversing for length and at speed on a construction site. I hadn’t even noticed the dumper truck, let alone that it was going backwards. Too busy looking at those bumble bees…

This week, we tackled new territory, part of Hampshire we’d never been before. Hampshire is a huge country and I’m only familiar with my native coastal region. Inland there are vast areas of unspoilt countryside, rolling fields, and chocolate box hamlets. We headed for Rockbourne, close to the Wiltshire border. Rockbourne is famous for its Roman villa, but as we discovered when we took the small detour as suggested in the guide book, the villa is currently closed. Undeterred we back-tracked and continued the planned circular five mile hike, and after scrambling up steep banks and clambering over numerous stiles, we arrived at the dreaded, yet inevitable, field of cows.  I have a thing about cows. I know it’s illogical but ever since I read of two Austrian women walkers who were trampled to death in an Alpine meadow, I’ve seen cows in a different light. If you don’t believe me, Google it. Don’t be fooled by those big brown eyes and that seemingly docile manner. On average four people a year in the UK are killed by cows, and I know from past experiences, if these evil creatures not waiting for you at the entrance to their field, they’ll be lurking at the other end, huddled around the exit stile. 

The cow pats were still steaming. I knew they were there somewhere. The guidebook said follow the path parallel to the edge of the field to reach a stile leading to a track and a wood. What did it mean by parallel? Was that straight on, then why not say straight on?  It must mean around the edge, so we skirted the edge of the field with no sign of those sly bovines, seeking our escape route. We saw the wood, but no stile so we climbed over a five bar gate instead only to realise we were now heading off through someone’s back garden…

Yes we had gone wrong. However, I felt totally vindicated when we found an alternative route to the path we should have been on because we’d outwitted those cows. There they were, in their field, waiting for us at the designated exit, but thanks to the map reading error, we were already safely on the right side of the fence.

After two and a half hours we returned to Rockbourne unscathed.

I have no news to report on the writing/publishing front, only that I received my feedback from the virtual RNA conference from industry professionals. Two contrasting opinions on my work, one which made me feel I should give up now, the second quite the opposite. So I’m sitting on things for a bit. Checking Amazon stats and putting yourself out there in front of agents and publishers is not good for mental well-being. My social media feeds are full of other authors plugging their books, or authors telling me how great they’re doing. I’m tired of living in my author bubble. I want to escape to the real world. Both daughters have now been able to visit and daughter number 2 (because she was born second, not because she’s second favourite) is training to be a clinical psychologist so you always have to watch what you say. We had a little chat about my writing. I realise I have to concentrate on the doing the things I enjoy.  

Taking the positive feedback on board, I am going to finish writing my mystery series. I can’t get away from the fact I love writing. I’ve also picked up on a sequel to the Theatre of Dreams I started a while back and which is now coming on nicely, with the aim of self-publishing a novella in the autumn.  But I want to do things at my pace. I’m also going to buy some wool to knit another jumper, and there will also be a lot more visits to the countryside observing the butterflies and the bees. After all we’ve still got another forty walks to complete.  I may be gone for some time.