Where did July go? The month whizzed by. Between my Refugee Tales walk and my seaside creative writing day, I squeezed in a visit to the ancient university town of Oxford, a trip to Southwark in London to prepare for a guided history walk, and (somewhere in the middle) worked on editorial revisions to The Riviera Mystery.
Now I’m ready for a bit of beach time. In August, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than at home in Deal, maybe with a picnic lunch, a beach umbrella and a good book.
Read on for Oxford adventures, more on my history walk, and some special summer reading deals, promotions and recommendations.
An Oxford Adventure
Oxford, one of the two ancient universities in the UK, is a fascinating and beautiful place to visit.
Many of the colleges – established from about the twelfth century – back onto the River Thames, which meanders through the city. The Bodleian Library (centre photo) was founded in 1602 and holds an estimated 13 million printed items! When I visited it was hosting an excellent exhibition about how works of literature have been edited over the centuries. This was comforting, as I was wrestling with re-writing the end of my novel in progress.
I also took a trip to the Pitt Rivers ethnographic museum, a treasure trove of artefacts from all over the world. I was especially taken with the Japanese masks from Noh theatre, which were rather spooky en masse.
Like Venice, Oxford attracts a host of tourists. However, as I was house-sitting for a friend just outside the city centre, I was able to escape the crowds with walks along the riverside and visits to the local park, where I enjoyed my morning coffee in the neighbourhood cafe.
Playhouses, pubs and Winchester Geese
My first series of novels featured walking tour guide and literary researcher Helen Oddfellow, who got into all sorts of perilous adventures while digging up mysteries from the past.
I’m stepping back into Helen’s shoes for a while, by leading a walk around London’s historical Southwark district, in a charity event for the Refugee Tales project on August 10.
In a fine example of life imitating art, I’ll be recreating the tour that Helen took in the first book in the series, Unlawful Things. We’ll be visiting inns dating to the 12th century, the site of playhouses from the 15th century, a burial ground for London’s ‘outcast dead’ and the old palace of the Bishops of Winchester.
Books, books, books!
There’s nothing like lazing around in the garden or on the beach with a good book. A significant part of my travel luggage allowance used to be taken up with books, but (although I still love reading in print) I now fill up my e-reader instead, making my suitcase a bit easier to lug around.
If you’re off on vacation, here are a few offers, recommendations and promotions to make sure you don’t run out of reading material.
Firstly, The Soho Jazz Murders is reduced in price this month, both in the US, Canada and the UK. It’ll be just $1.99/£1.99, so if you’ve read Blackmail In Bloomsbury and are wondering what happens to Marjorie next, now’s the time to find out.
If you’re up to date with Marjorie’s adventures, The Riviera Mystery is due out next month. In the meantime, why not try one of these summery mysteries, both by authors I met at the Self Publishing Show?
Murder At Millar’s Hotel is the first in the Lady Ellen Investigates mysteries from Kelly Mason. Set in a British seaside town, it features the death of a satisfyingly unpleasant villain, and the unravelling of which of his many enemies got to him first.
Murder on the Côte d’Azur, by Colette Clark, features glamour, a little romance, a fiendish mystery involving a poisoned cocktail, and all the French Riviera locations I’ve been writing about for The Riviera Mystery.
Finally, I’ve been re-reading one of my favourite Agatha Christie novels, Evil Under The Sun. It’s set in a glamorous hotel on the south coast of England, supposedly based on Burgh Island in Devon, a favourite retreat of the author. When Hercule Poirot arrives at a hotel, can murder be far behind?
