The Land Girl – Allie Burns | Blog Tour — July 20, 2018

The Land Girl – Allie Burns | Blog Tour

Synopsis – War changes everything… Emily has always lived a life of privilege. That is until the drums of World War One came beating. Her family may be dramatically affected but it also offers her the freedom that she craves. Away from the tight control of her mother she grabs every opportunity that the war is giving to women like her, including love.

Working as a land girl Emily finds a new lease of life but when the war is over, and life returns to normal, she has to learn what to give up and what she must fight for.

Will life ever be the same again?

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My thoughts – I really enjoyed this book, probably more than I expected I would. I’m not a huge historical fiction reader, as so many stories are set in a world so foreign and unimaginable for me that I struggle to get into the, and the writing styles are so different. However, this one, was so different. It had a really good world building, and the descriptions were so real. With every word I read I was able to build up this picture of what was happening so clearly.

I really connected with the characters. I felt for Emily while reading the book, she had to endure so many struggles, but this was the reality for so many young women during WW1. I can’t comment too much upon historical accuracy, as I’m no expert in this area of history, but it felt very real and well researched when I was reading it.

I felt that the character building was really good too. There wasn’t much telling us about their personalities, but you built up this picture from the dialogues and how they acted around each other. A technique teachers love to talk about – show me, don’t tell me. There was a lot of characters in the book, and I know that it was necessary and is real life, but at times it was a little confusing as there were so many of them.

They went through so much heartache, and at times I felt that this pain was brushed off a little at times, maybe this was because it wasn’t a continuous flow of time, and instead jumped around going from different months, but this did work at times.

I enjoyed reading the letters from one of the characters to Emily, but I would have liked to have seen Emily’s replies to these letters, as this would have formed a better dialogue between the two characters,and would have helped up to understand Emily better and get tot familiarise ourselves wit their relationship.

I’m considering going looking for other books Allie has written and reading those as well, as this was such a beautifully written book, that had a good flow to it and an even better story line.

About the author:

Allie lives in Kent with her family and two tortoises. When she’s not writing for business or penning her women’s historical fiction, Allie enjoys swimming and yoga. She has an MA in Professional Writing from Falmouth University and The Lido Girls is her debut novel. She is currently working on a second interwar years novel, which is due for publication in the summer of 2018.

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My route to writerdom – Jo Cotterill and giveaway!! | Ya Shot tour — March 15, 2018

My route to writerdom – Jo Cotterill and giveaway!! | Ya Shot tour

Giveaway at the end of the post!!!

(Note, that’s ‘writerdom’ not ‘writerdoom’ which is something else entirely…!)

I didn’t always want to be a writer. When I was a child, I wanted to be an illustrator. Unfortunately I was only interested in drawing flowers and unicorns which, let’s face it, is rather limiting as a professional career.

I was very busy as a young person: I learned lots of musical instruments and three types of dance, and I took part in lots of drama productions. I also set up music groups and wrote pieces for them. I vaguely thought that I might be a musician. However, when I was thirteen, I saw a film that changed my life.

Labyrinth was full of fairies and music and goblins and quests and magic – and I wanted all of those things. I decided straight away that there was my answer to my future career: acting! That way I could live in an imaginary world all the time!

I studied Performing Arts at university (where my music and dance background also came in handy) and then went on to work for five years in touring productions. (That’s me on the left, dressed as a giant rat…)

But the acting life is a tough one without much security, and after a while, I decided I’d had enough. In the breaks between acting jobs, I’d started writing stories for children, taking a correspondence course to help me develop. It made me more interested in working with children, so I signed up to be a Learning Support Assistant at a big London comprehensive. At the weekends, I ran singing and drama workshops for children, and sometimes for adults with learning difficulties who attended a day centre.

After two years as a LSA, I decided to be a proper teacher and for the next five years I taught English GCSE at a school in Oxford. I had started to be published too, so on my days off I wrote and wrote and wrote. In 2009, I handed in my notice and became a full-time writer. Eleven years later, I’ve just published my 35th book.

The funny thing is though that all my previous jobs have had an effect on my current career. Thanks to my acting experience, I have no fear of stages, large audiences or microphones. Thanks to teaching, I’ll happily talk to kids of all ages (yes, even the dreaded stony-faced Year 9!). My music background enabled me to dabble in an author band First Draft, which performed very successfully at several festivals. And having worked with young people and adults with learning difficulties, I’m adaptable and not easily flustered.

Oh yes – and thanks to my early interest in drawing, I have now perfected my very own unicorn! If I ever make a mistake whilst signing a book, you’re likely to get an Apology Unicorn of your own!

Sometimes I wonder what I’ll do next. All my jobs have been quite different but somehow they all join up into one bonkers and enjoyable life! Lucky me!

Enter to win A Library of Lemons and A storm of Strawberries! The giveaway will run for 2 weeks and the winner will be contacted shortly after it has finished!

See my twitter for the link to the giveaway, as it doesn’t work on my blog — https://twitter.com/rebeccareads1