Introducing Shiraz Jones, the heroine of a new mystery series

 I very rarely write posts about books and bookish things here. I have a different blog on Wordpress devoted to reviews, but it's for memoirs only. However, as an exception this week, this is an interim post to introduce you all to the unusual and wonderful world of Shiraz Jones, trainee marine rescue skipper and accidental sleuth.  

To give some background, Shiraz is the main character in a series of what is known as 'cosy mysteries'. Essentially, they are crime fiction novels with a lighthearted tone and no gory stuff (which is why I like them). Cosy mysteries often have an element of romance to them, but it usually amounts to not a great deal and definitely nothing explicit. In fact, they are easy, relaxing reads that give the reader a chance to puzzle out a crime (usually a murder) without getting too dark and sinister. In many ways, they are the successors to Agatha Christie and I am quite a fan of the genre.

Okay, back to Shiraz and her partners in solving crime. The author of this series is also a fellow memoir writing friend of mine, Simon Michael Prior. You can find all his books on his Amazon Author Page here.  When I heard he was planning on branching out into cosy mystery fiction, I jumped at the chance to read early drafts of the books, and, to date, I've now read three of them. The good news is that they are really good: different, fun, well-written and with great characters you know you're going to get to know and enjoy for several books to come.

The first book – A Murderous Clamour at Redcliff Manor – sets the scene and introduces us to all the main protagonists who help Shiraz, a former high society socialite, to solve the mystery of how a young woman ends up at the foot of the cliffs in Redcliff-on-Sea. What makes the series special is that Simon draws on his personal experience as a marine rescue skipper to have Shiraz and her friend, Emily, as trainees in the town's sea rescue service, and this feature of the books adds both a unique setting and material for plenty of future books. As I said in my own review of A Murderous Clamour at Redcliff Manor, as long as Simon keeps writing them, I'll keep reading them. 

So without further ado, here's the cover, blurb and Simon's author information for the first book:

When Shiraz Jones joins Redcliff Marine Rescue, she doesn’t expect murder and mystery in the water.

London socialite Shiraz seeks refuge from her empty city existence and her husband's infidelity in the quaint English resort of Redcliff-upon-Sea. But the job of saving lives at sea is nothing like her carefree childhood beach holidays.

And when her first outing with the marine rescue volunteers ends in tragedy, she's plunged into an ocean of secrets and lies. Now Shiraz must charm her way into Redcliff Manor and crash a seemingly innocent tea party.

Because one of the guests drinking the Earl Grey and eating the home-made fruit cake is a killer, and they’re about to kill again.

Simon Michael Prior experiences constant adventures, hazards and exciting situations as a marine rescue skipper and a commander of rescue operations.

Although Simon is absolutely nothing like Murph, Redcliff Marine Rescue’s burly, grumpy coxswain, many of the scenes in his stories are inspired by events he encounters during his duties.

Simon has also lived on two boats and sunk one of them; sold houses, street signs, Indian food and paper bags for a living; visited almost fifty countries and lived in three; qualified as a scuba diving instructor; nearly killed himself learning to wakeboard and built his own house without the benefit of an instruction manual.

He now lives in it by the sea with his wife and twin daughters, where he spends his time regurgitating his experiences on paper before he has so many more that he forgets them.

If you're interested, you can buy the ebook of A Murderous Clamour at Redcliff Manor for 99p/c from Amazon by following this universal link. It's also available in paperback. 

I'd recommend the Shiraz Jones books to anyone who enjoys a good cosy mystery. This series is unlike any you've every read before!

It's a heatwave

Summer has arrived at last, we hope. This last week has seen temperatures of 30C for three consecutive days here in our borderland corner of the Netherlands, and before that it was rising for a few days. I don't know why it is but this always happens when Koos goes away. He's been wanting  to take a photo trip for some time, so when he suggested a foray into France last weekend, I encouraged him to go because there were some jobs I wanted to do at the Crumbly Cottage that would be much easier if I were alone. One of these was to re-paint and put new carpet treads on the stairs; the other was to renovate the kitchen floor.

So on Wednesday morning, off Koos went to Maubeuge with gentle promptings from me to take all necessary precautions against the heat. Once he'd disappeared around the bend, I set to work. I'd already prepped the stairs and removed the old, worn carpet. The handrails were also done, so now I just needed to paint the steps and replace the carpeting. The bigger job was scrubbing, scraping and sanding the kitchen floor's old pine planks. It's just as well it was too hot to work outside on Vereeniging, but I have to admit the heat nearly floored me (sorry) inside the cottage as well. I did it, though, and in between, Zoe and I had some lovely early morning walks. Here she is up close and in context (for Rebecca, of course).

And don't you love these gorgeous wildflowers the farmer has planted in a strip along the side of his field. This is a relatively new practice to help encourage nature's pollinators. Isn't it lovely?

Anyway, here are the stairs 'finished and klaar' (ready) as we used to say in South Africa. I am really pleased to have done this at last. I still have to do the uprights, but those I can paint one step at a time..

And this was the kitchen floor after scrubbing and sanding. Phew! I wasn't sure I'd ever get it looking good or the colour even, but I used some teak-coloured stain to cover the really worn areas and then applied a finishing lacquer specially made for wooden floors. It's water-based, so it dried very quickly in the heat but will need treating gently for a week until it's hardened fully. I'm quite pleased with the finished result... for now, anyway!

Before

After

That's another two projects ticked off the list, then. There are still several more to be done, so watch this space in the months to come. As you can see life's never dull in this part of our world; there's always something that needs doing in an old crumbly cottage. For now, have a great week ahead, allemaal, and I'll look forward to catching up with you all. Here are a couple more photos from our lovely home.

Much ado about nothing much

There's not a lot of news to share this week, unfortunately. Our lives have, as usual, been dominated by such mundane topics as the inclement weather, which hasn't been very helpful in our plans to prepare for faring. Despite it being warmer and sunnier, it has rained for at least some part of every day in the last two weeks, which makes painting impossible, however dry the rest of the time has been – more than a little frustrating. In fact, last night we thought we were going to get a humdinger of a weather event. The sky was as threatening as I've ever seen it and all the forecasters promised a severe thunderstorm. In the end, there was a flash and a bang, accompanied by a brief, not particularly heavy shower, and that was it. Definitely a big anti-climax – not that I'm sorry. I'm no fan of dramatic, extreme conditions.

What I don't understand is that we keep being told that each month this year has been the hottest on record. I mean, I just don't get it. I honestly think those doing the recording must be in some secret, protected weather bubble, because no one I know believes it. Most of northern Europe has had below average temperatures the whole of this year. Spring was cold, chronically wet and late in coming and the number of real summer days I can count since the beginning of June would barely fill one hand, let alone two. I've been wearing cardigans and a fleece almost every day.

Anyway, whatever the pundits say, I haven't been able to paint the back deck on the Hennie H until this week and even now, I'm having to do it in small sections. Maintenance is merciless and water is the worst weatherer you could imagine. If I could find some way of covering up both barges during the winter, I'd do it. Wouldn't if be great if I could wrap them both in cling film the way the airports wrap our luggage? I'd love that although I'm not sure how our harbour masters would feel about it. A plastic vacuum-packed barge that looks like a huge caterpillar cocoon wouldn't quite fit the image of a historic harbour, would it?

Moaning aside, we still hope to leave in a couple of weeks; there are just a few appointments to get out of the way first and then we can set off on a very slow and gentle meander south.

In the meantime, there's always plenty to do (apart from painting boats, that is), and I'm busy writing the story of Vereeniging's journey to her current mooring. There've also been lots of sporting events, village festivals and final work commitments going on in the background, so life is never dull.

And of course, there's always Zoe, whose little face full of expectations keeps me active. Koos took the first two photos of her below (for Rebecca), and I snapped the other when my daughter and I were out for a walk.

 

Zoe and her best pal, Lucy, looking at my daughter in the hopes
of a treat

These last pictures are a couple you may have already seen elsewhere on social media, but I know some of my friends here are not on Facebook or Twitter, so I hope you like them. 

View from the crumbly cottage as a bout of rain was approaching

Reflections on our nearby creek on one remarkably still day.
It's almost unheard of to have no wind in Zeeland

So that's it allemaal. As the title says, much ado about nothing much, but we're slowly getting there. Enjoy the rest of your week and I'll be back again soon.