Allrighters' website

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Tuesday 5 August 2014

Changes to web site

Twelve months have passed since the Allrighters' web site was set up. Various updates and changes are currently being made to the site including new header pictures and changes in colour schemes. A peacock has returned to the garden in the Norfolk house where the Allrighters do most of their fantasy work. Our peacock is now pictured on a new front start up page to the web site which should appear when you visit www.allrighters.co.uk or the other international feeds co.nz and com. We are getting used to the cries of the peacock in the same way the chiming of the grandfather clock repaired by Henry last year.

As previously advised Mick Rooney of TIPM has agreed to the Allrighters making a regular monthly post. Three posts have been made so far. The links for the posts are here.

http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2014/08/writing-and-reading-for-pleasure-part.html


http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2014/06/writing-and-reading-for-pleasure-part-1.html

http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2014/07/writing-and-reading-for-pleasure-part-2.html

These are being made under the Writing and Reading for Pleasure heading as this is beginning to reflect more of what the Allrighters' are now doing. After completion of their 1,000,000 draft words in January 2014 effort has been concentrated on editing and restructuring against a target of one 18,000 word small book a week from the end of May 2014. This Writing and Reading for Pleasure blog has been set up and this will be the one used for most of the Allrighters' new posts. If you receive posts from this and other Allrighters' blogs you will receive an e mail soon asking if you want to receive updates from this new site.

May we wish you a good summer of writing and reading

Alexander and the Allrighters and Ywnwab!

Lies Told in Silence - M K Tod


I read and enjoyed Unravelled Mary Tod's first book published in July 2013.

Mary has just published her second book. Lies Told in Silence telling and enlarging on the early part of the story in Unravelled. 

http://awriterofhistory.com/2014/07/28/lies-told-in-silence-release-day/

I have posted the following review on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.co.

Cover 3/5 - Nicely presented cover that will stand out on a bookseller's table. As I like my covers to relate to the content I perhaps would have put a figure of Helene, the main character, in the foreground with Edward in uniform in the background.

Contents

I have followed the progress of Mary's writing and publishing since early last year. Although Unravelled was not a book I would normally read I found it an enjoyable and interesting read in August 2013. Unravelled portrayed the uncertainties of war very well and the technical background kept me interested.

Before I started to read Lies Told in Silence I was aware the book developed the story in Unravelled from Helene's perspective set against a technical background of the conflict over Vimy Ridge and life in France during WW1. I compliment Mary on a skilful and successful dovetailing together of the two books written from different viewpoints of a common background.

Just before I started reading the book I saw a documentary about the Vimy ridge battle so I had some vivid pictures to trigger my imagination of scenes in the book.

The first chapters provide plenty of slow burning hooks to keep the reader turning the pages. The structure of the two books is very different and this is welcome given much of the emotional plot is common to both. Unravelled started and ended with two hills of intensity with a valley in between. Lies told in silence smoulders away rising to a heart breaking climax which left me lost for words - a rare occurrence.

I have a preference for reading non fiction books on war. However, none would have captured the picture painted by Mary of day to day life for a French family living with the front line and fighting in the first world war on the horizon. I read somewhere about a soldier's lot in a static war being 10% extreme stress and excitement and 90% day to day life preparing for the next defence or attack. Much of the warfare in the book is within the family and again Mary has captured Helene becoming a woman within a troubled family very well with three generations struggling with passion and the social values of the time. One is carried back to a world with primitive communications.

My comments on the book against my six "e" tests are as follows.

Engrossing and interesting - Plenty of slow burning hooks early on to keep the pages turning. I find reading books on Kindle difficult and easy to stop reading so reaching the end over three bedtime sessions gives credit to the book.

Enjoyment - an immediate post completion feeling of heartbreak after a storm leading to warm feelings of a satisfactory ending.

Entertainment - my laughter and chuckles were subdued by sadness of war and loss.

Emotional - a high quota here especially in the last quarter of the book.

Educational - Less so than the background in Unravelled

Ease of reading - Mary's writing flowed well and being more chronological with fewer flashbacks than Unravelled presented less of a challenge in ordering the story

Overall I felt the book could have been biographical, despite Mary's disclaimer, and was touch and go whether the outcome could have been very different.

I am left with an unanswered question about whether the two books should be read in order or not. Certainly I found it helped me having forgotten most of the detail revealed in Unravelled. On balance buy both and read Unravelled first. I will read both books again someday as I have warm feelings about both and a need to make sure I have not missed anything important.

Reading the book this month is also hugely significant given the start of WW1 on 4 August 1914

Alexander of Allrighters and Ywnwab!