Oh, dear. Can anything else go wrong?

 I wasn't going to say much about my current situation, but waking up to such devastating news this morning I am moved to Reveal All. Please note, this is not a pleas for sympathy, simply a statement of fact. Recently, I received a third cancer diagnosis and Last week I began a fairly unpleasant cycle of chemo. Much worse than the last lot I had three years ago. So it is affecting my ability to do my job, and I now feel much worse than I did before I started it. My youngest son is now marooned in the land of the damned - but at least he's with his lovely wife - and the eldest son is currently filling the position of carer, which is unfortunately far more onerous than we originally thought. Daughter one is providing taxi service and support, and daughter the younger comes down from London when she can. Brightest spot so far is that the new cat has settled in, and although she will never replace my beloved Gloria and Godiva, she's doing a pretty good job.

And added to the shit show we have woken up to across the pond, our own politics and politicians are about as much use as the traditional chocolate teapot. (Apologies for the cliché) Horizon scandal, anyone? Honestly, makes you wonder what the point is, doesn't it?

Anyway, on a brighter note (ha bloody ha) I have almost finished Libby 27, called by me Murder and The Magician's Nephew. If my head will work properly, publishers will have it this week and it will come out next April. Meanwhile, Murder and The Crooked Horse bursts into the world tomorrow, and I am indebted to Paul Parker for reminding me that I hadn't written a blog for ages!

I have a great desire this morning to emulate a certain Fotherington Thomas. I feel it is the only way set the world to rights. "Hello, birds, hello sky..."

Book Clubs, Pubs, Podcasts and Entertainment

 I have a problem with Book Clubs. I saw a post on a Facebook group this morning, complaining that the writer "had to" read a monster of a book for her next book club meeting and she was struggling to read the current book of her choice before she had to cope with the book club choice. Now that doesn't seem like a pleasurable use of one's spare time to me. In the past - a long time ago when I did such things - I gave talks to book clubs. Sometimes it was because one of my books had been their "choice of the month", and it was fairly obvious on every occasion that there was a good percentage of the members who hadn't cared for it. That's fine - not everyone likes my version of the traditional murder mystery, or "Cosy with Edge" as a fellow writer puts it. But I could never get my head round the idea of being forced to read a certain book whether you liked it or not. I was never much into Booker Prize winners or media puffed "must reads" either. Reading is surely a form of pleasurable entertainment. I don't want to be forced to read something, in the same way that I don't read very sad or very violent books. 

But maybe the book club is simply a way for people to get together, to combat loneliness. After all, like it or not, there is a rather particular demographic associated with book clubs, and many of those people are lonely. There are other ways to combat loneliness, of course. People join all sorts of clubs according to their particular pursuits and hobbies, as I did when I joined my local theatre. Yes, an actual theatre, not a theatre club, or a group of players, but a theatre. It's still going, but sadly, I've more-or-less outgrown my usefulness as a writer, actor and director. And, as time goes by, I no longer have a group of friends with whom I meet up for a drink at the local. And that brings me to another point...

Pubs. Pubs are under particular threat in our current climate. It all started when supermarkets began selling alcohol - back in the dark ages, I know - and suddenly people could drink at home, possibly watching that new-fangled television thing. And gradually, over the years the idea of popping down the local for a drink, being sure you would meet, if not friends, acquaintances has become almost a niche pursuit. And then there was the pandemic. And pubs - and all forms of hospitality - suffered an almost fatal blow. And now, the government are trying to impose further price rises when most of our pubs are still struggling to get back on their feet. Most have diversified, hence the rise of the gastro-pub, and almost all pubs, as far as I know host quizzes and music nights. But still pubs are closing at an alarming rate. Incidentally, I wrote a book about it...Murder by Christmas.

So that's another area that is frequently closed to the - er - more mature single woman. I say "woman" deliberately, as the more mature single man still seems able, if so inclined, to pop in for a drink. Women of my generation have still not quite adapted.

Entertainment, too, has suffered at the hands of governments and the pandemic. I don't intend to go into the intricacies of the entertainment business as it tends to be complex and could be boring... But people don't go to events so much any more. Even the all powerful music festivals have suffered over the last few years. And theatres aren't as full. Nor are cinemas. And yes - we now have the big box in the corner showing us everything we could possibly want. So - we sit and watch it, with a glass of wine, or beer or a nice scotch and soda. So there we are. No need to go out.

And this is what often contributes to the problem of loneliness. And we compensate by listening to the radio for a familiar voice and company. And more and more, we listen to Podcasts.  So, I've decided that I shall contribute to this growing market. No, I'm not going to do a True Crime podcast, or even interview other crime writers. What I'm going to do is creat a sort of Radio Playhouse. My son Leo created a drama comedy podcast - if you want to listen it's here: The Dump - and at the time I hoped there would be more, so I thought I might ask various actors I know to help me. First, my two daughters and the other son, all of whom have trodden the boards in their time. Leo is now rather out of reach living in America, but no doubt I'll drag him in eventually. But there are other more mature actors who no longer climb stairs to get to the stage, nor are they able to move quite as freely as was their wont. So this is my next project. In between deadlines, of course. And I hope it will also bring me people with whom I can socialise. And even go down the pub with. Just like I used to.

Me, my parents and my almost brother, Bernard

 

This was written seven years ago, but I feel it bears repeating. Not about writing, although it has informed my attitude to life, and Libby Sarjeant's. See what you think.

With all the media attention on the fiftieth anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, I am moved to write my own post about the subject, or, as my parents would have said, put in my two-pennorth. And speaking of my parents, I was an only child. We lived in a large flat in London, in a divided Victorian house. On the ground floor beneath us was another single child family. Bernard was older than I was, but we got on probably better than a brother and sister would have done, even when he took me to the zoo and lost me. 

As we both grew up it became obvious that Bernard was gay, although I had no idea what that was at the time. However, I was very well aware of it by the time his current boyfriend, a Sicilian, told me. My parents must have been aware of it, too – we were like one big family – but there was never a hint of disapproval. In fact, there was an occasion when a neighbour who had been trying to persuade my father to join the Masons (and failing) came to him with the story that Bernard had been arrested for cottaging. He was full of moral outrage and certain my father would join in his condemnation and, incidentally, keep me out of harm’s way. My father gave him the telling off of his life and never spoke to him again. Believe it or not, this was AFTER the Act, but the arrests and entrapment were actually increasing. My dad must have been even more remarkable than I thought.

By the time I met my husband-to-be, the Act had been in force for a few years, but acceptance was a long way off. A friend who was first trombone in the orchestra at the Coliseum used to get me tickets and got me two for a new production of Verdi’s Masked Ball. He told us to meet him in the interval and he’d take us for a drink. Brian had never met him before, but happily followed him to a little door at the side of the theatre, and upstairs to a drinking club. Within seconds, he realised it was a GAY drinking club. I’ve never seen anyone so uncomfortable in my life, especially when someone tried to chat him up. You can imagine his reaction to Bernard. 

But over the next couple of years I “educated” him, and Bernard was one of the ushers at our wedding. He had always been part of my parents’ wide circle of friends, and was a born entertainer.But one of the things I was stunned by was the fact that even into the seventies both drugs and electrical therapy were being employed to “cure” gay men. I knew it happened earlier, and even today in the States there are doctors who profess to be able to do it, but here in the seventies? 

I was born to incredibly tolerant and open minded parents. My early jobs, model, air stewardess, nightclub DJ, brought me into contact with a wide variety of people, and being gay seemed normal to me and always has. But I still see intolerance and discomfort around the LGBT community and it appals me. It saddens me that we have to HAVE a separate community – why not just people? We’ve got a long way to go.

Below: a picture of my terrific Dad. Ever wondered where we all got the

performing gene from? (As well as Brian, the kids' dad, of course!)

Life Imitates Libby

 Over the past few years I have written about the plight of the homeless in this country many times in the Libby Sarjeant books, and one in particular, Murder In Autumn, dealt with the problem of the holiday lets industry. For industry is what it is. I was not allowed to name any particular organisation, and I shall not do so here, but I focussed in that book on the individuals and families forced to leave their homes by landlords turning their properties into holiday lets. This is a problem in my home town, and the figures from a recently undertaken poll revealed that holiday lets were numbered in the hundreds while properties for long term rent were in single figures. This is scandalous. This has now, over the last few months had an impact on my own family. Two of my adult children have been told to leave their homes - one in London, one here in Whitstable. My daughter in London has, after a nail-biting search, found somewhere to live, but my son, who has lived in his home and been a model tenant for 11 years, has not. We desperately need legislation to stop this wholesale wrecking of people's lives - they're trying to do it in Brighton - I just hope it will spread to the rest of the country. Meanwhile, if anyone knows of a flat/hovel/beach hut in Whitstable that ISN'T a holiday let and will be available from October, we would be very glad to hear about it. (And see how careful I've been to name no names!)

Libby Sarjeant Rides Again!

 Morning, chaps. Just to let you know that the revised contract is in and confirmed, and Murder and The Crooked Horse will be out in October (I think) and two more (woohoo!) next year - April and October. Have had discussion with the Main Man at Headline, and we have been thinking about the difficulty of hooking people into a series that has been going (he reminded me) mearly 20 years. Wow. So all ideas for promo would be gratefully received, and anything you can do on my behalf would be even MORE gratefully received! We are also discussing something else, about which I shall inform you in due course. If it comes off. And no - not more Alexandrians - at least, not yet! I should have put this in a blog post or newsletter, I suppose, so I might do that, and apologies if you have to read it twice! And once again, thank you all so much for being such a terrific support. (I shall wear it always. Sorry, Late husband joke.) Cheers!

Singers, Songs and Family

 You can tell my eyes are better, can't you? Here I am again, with more news from Cookman Corner, whether you want it or not.

Yesterday the Eldest Child, Louise, took me with her to her gig. This was a slightly unusual one, as it was part lecture, entitled "Ladies of Swing", at the Jazz Centre UK, in front of an audience of very serious jazz nerds - er - fanatics. You may or may not know, that Lou is a professional singer whose area of choice and expertise is the Big Band and Swing eras.  Louise Cookman Here she is doing her thing in front of the Ronnie Scott's Big Band.

This was a much more restrained affair, with Lou singing songs recorded by the band singers of the late 30s and early forties, with only her mates, Colin and Sam, respectively on piano and bass, as accompaniment. And I'd almost forgotten what an absolutely beautiful voice she has. And she can do restrained. She doesn't often do restrained.

On the way there, I was treated to Lou Warming up. She has various exercises recorded on her phone which she can play through the sound system in the car. This was a revelation to me, as I know very little about her as a singing coach, and I assume (I haven't asked) she uses these in her lessons. I know her sister Phillipa, also a professional singer and teacher, uses something similar because I've heard her on zoom lessons with pupils, but I've never enquired further into her arcane practices, either. Phiily trained at the Royal Academy of Music  - so there's a pretty good voice there, too!

This is Philly in the singer/guitarist mode on tour with The Sound of Springsteen. She has a website for her teaching called The Singing Guitarist - take a look!

You'll have read about second eldest child Miles in last week's post, and his expertise in creating a downstairs shower room and loo - and flash new office. This is him in his real job with the Miles Cookman Band

Lou and I went to see him in a rare solo gig this week, and, of course, he was terrific.

The other family related item this week was youngest child Leo's fifth wedding anniversary with his lovely wife Carrie, and the first they have been able to spend together. To celebrate, he released a song in her honour, and he would love you to listen.  When I get To See You The words say it all - well, they would, wouldn't they?

As a little family adjunct to all this, Lou's gig yesterday was attended by my cousin Penny and her husband John, which was lovely, as we haven't seen one another for a very long time. Of course we went for a drink afterwards, and plans were made for a further meeting with even more members of the family. All in all, a pretty nice day. And today, some of us are celebrating the late Old Man by having lunch in a pub. Very appropriate.

The Saga of Libby and Lesley

 Well, Hello! Did you wonder where I was? NO? Oh, all right... I'll tell you anyway.

While waiting several weeks for my edits on Libby Sarjeant Book 27, aka Murder and The Crooked Horse, I had re-published my famous (!) Alexandrians trilogy. The Alexandrians Lovely covers are courtesy of the talented Rhoda Baxter.

 

Just after I'd managed this, with a lot of help from friends, I developed a severe eye infection. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I lost the sight in my good eye (the other one's already - er - crap) and spent a good deal of time going backwards and forwards, courtesy of daughters Lousie and Phillipa, to the Urgent Eye Treatment Centre at the William Harvey hospital in Ashford, who were brilliant. Anyway, four days after this happened, the edits and the offer of a new contract came in. Timing, eh?

Meanwhile, son Miles had been creating a new shower room and loo downstairs in my little house and was about to move on to the refurbishment of the office. This entailed me sorting through every bit of paper that had accumulated over the 25 years I have lived here. I'm surprised I could actually move in the place! As you can imagine, with compromised eyesight, this was no easy task. I had also had to ask my publishers to wait for both the edits and signature on the contract.

However, there is a happy ending. By last weekend, my eyesight was just about up to the task of the edits, which I completed in a record three days - I may have missed a few things... - and Miles had got the office almost finished. So am now sitting at my new desk, at my beloved old Big Mac, just about ready to finalise Murder and The Crooked Horse and to make a start on Libby Sarjeant Book 27! Yes - publishers Headline have seen fir to ask for two more Libby books, which will take us up to 28 full length stories and 3 novellas. She's been very patient, but oh, how I've missed her. Yes, I know, I'm a sad old bat who lives through my imaginary characters.

So that's where we are at the moment. I wish I could show you a picture of the new cover, but it hasn't appeared yet. I can tell you that Book 27, which I have given the working title of Murder and the Magician's Nephew, is due to be delivered by the end of October, so I have to get my writing muscles primed. Good job it isn't my back, which is killing me - all that heaving boxes and piles of paper around, not to mention the bending, isn't good for a woman of my advanced age. Oh, and if anyone wants a fairly cheerful musician who can create shower rooms and offices, I'll give you his number.

Bye for now,

Lesley

Thoughts on Libby Sarjeant and the "Cosy" genre

 

Well, folks, it’s almost the end of March, and I am awaiting the edits on Murder at The Crooked Horse, due to reach your shelves/Kindle/laptop someyime in June. No cover or release date as yet, but we live in hope.

While awaiting the edits and wondering if my publishers will want another Libby book – it’s all right, I think they do – I thought up an idea for a new series and re-published my three Alexandrians. This necessitated researching the so-called “cosy” genre on Amazon and all its myriad sub-genres, and I made myself thoroughly depressed. There are thousands! Every day when I set off on my quest new ones appeared. It’s quite astonishing.

Libby Sarjeant first came into being in the last World One Day Novel Cup in 1997. I was a finalist, with a brief version of what eventually became Murder in Steeple Martin eight years later. Around the same time, the agent Carole Blake, who subsequently became a good friend, introduced me to the books of Ann Granger and told me I should try writing something along the same lines. There were other writing in a similar genre, Hazel Holt, Mollie Hardwicke, M C Beaton, Natasha Cooper and Simon Brett, to name a distinguished few. Yet others were writing what are now referred to as police procedurals, but were in the same traditional vein. This was the company I joined when Hazel Cushion asked me to write a full length version of the Libby story and the series was born. 

I soon became aware of the flourishing market in the United Stated, where they invented the term “Cozy”. Hazel and I even looked at trying to break into that market, and redesign my covers to fit in with its definitely “cosy” style. However, Libby was building up quite a following, and after a few years was actually topping Amazon charts., so we just carried on doing things the way we had. And then the market in this country began to expand. Some of it was due to the rise of self publishing, and some of it due to publishers recognising the growing trend. There began to be definite tropes (incidentally, another word I hate, along with cosy) – female inheriting house/cafe/bookshop in quirky country village or cute seaside town, female divorcee relocating to same, femal retiree relocating to same – get the picture? And yes, Libby Sarjeant fitted in there. She had relocated after a divorce to a pleasant village, and vary soon, her co-protagonist, Fran, inherited a cottage in a cute seaside town. But now there were hundreds of them.

One wonders why, when Richard Osman wrote his first Thursday Murder Club novel, he and everyone else thought he was doing something so different. No – he was simply reinventing the wheel. It was celebrity culture that made the book the runaway hit that it was. I had hoped it might give those of us who had been doing it for years a boost, but all it did in fact, was to provide fertile ground for the proliferation of look-alikes.

Now, all this might sound like sour grapes, and to an extent, it is. Of curse it is. But Libby Sarjeant is still out there, bless her, and still providing my daily bread, but for how long will she be able to hold her own? She frequently steps outside the confort of the cosy straitjacket and confronts rather nastier crimes and social injustices – in fact, a recent Amazon review asked her to stop doing it – so her particular brand of nosiness might become unacceptable. And what of the new series?

The idea came to me when I realised how prevlent had become the sun, sea and sand location for mysteries, particularly on television. A Writer’s Summer School, I thought, where the tutor solves mysteries. Ah, said one of my clever writer friends, but what about the local police involvement? You’d have to find out all about that. Oh, right. Well, then, set it in this country, at a holiday destination. No, someone else pointed out. It’s been done. And so it went on. Every time I thought up a new twist, it was already out there. So, despondent, I put Anastasia Fox on the back burner. 

And so we return to Libby. She currently has a publisher and a very loyal band of readers, but in today’s compeitive, not to say cut-throat, market, where her ratings on Amazon fall far below many of her competitors, how long will she survive? Promotion and marketing are key, and many of the newer independent publishers do this extremely well, whereas only if you are a “top” author with a more established house do you get posters on railway stations and ads in national media. I now belong to one of these traditional publishers, having been sold, along with all the other Accent Press authors, without consultation. None of us are “top” authors.

My profession, along with that of most other ‘Creatives”, is a precarious one. Those of us who actually mange to make our living doing what we (mostly) love, are extremely lucky. Many of us have to have second jobs – “proper” jobs, as some would call them. All my four children do – the girls both teach singing as well as doing it, my eldest son does small building jobs (currently my downstairs shower room) and my youngest works in media tech. As I said, I’m one of the lucky ones. And Libby Sarjeant and I thank our readers from the bottom of our hearts. We’ll carry on, regardless.

Libby Sarjeant Mysteries

March - all change in the Cookman household

 Well here we are in March, and the renovation of the tatty extension has begun. The downstairs of the house looks like a bombsite, but I comfort myself that all will be well when it's finished. And I won't have to go up and down the stairs at least half a dozen times a day, nor risk life and limb climbing into the shower-over-the-bath. Too much information? OK.

The other big - no, HUGE - new is that finally, after five years, my son Leo has received his visa to go and live with his wife in the States. I admire him and the lovely Carrie enormously for their steadfast love and determination.

This is them just after their wedding in 2019, with Leo's first book. He leaves on the 18th of the month.

So, after several years, I shall once more be alone in my little house. I leave you all to imagine how I'm going to feel...

On the work front, I'm still waiting for the edits to come through on Murder at The Crooked Horse, also waiting to see if the publishers want another Libby Sarjeant.

Meanwhile, I have had an idea for a new series, and then depressed myself by looking at the plethora of books and series in my genre - far more than there were when Libby first appeared. I shall bide my time.

And finally, the Edwardian trilogy, The Alexandrians, is currently undergoing a rejuvenation, and all three will soon be up on Amazon. Here are the lovely covers, designed by the talented Jeevani Charika: jeevani charika, who also writes terrific books and helps idiot writers like me with tech stuff.

I'll post the links when they're all finished.

There we are then. Slightly better header for the blog - which I finally did by myself - and all the news from Cookman Corner. See you next month - or whenever I have more earth shattering events to report.

Bye for now.

February - books and buildings

 Well, we got rid of January. And the big news at Cookman Corner is that Libby Sarjeant number 26 is finished and has been sent to the publishers. It will no doubt come winging back shortly with umpteen pages of corrections and suggestions, but meanwhile, the heat is off. I have provisionally given it the title "Murder at The Crooked Horse" and I'm going to stick to my guns abut that.

In other news, I have the rights to my three Edwardian mysteries returned, as my publishers weren't doing anything with them. I have asked a couple of independent publishers if they'd like them, but apparently, "Edwardian" doesn't play well with "Cosy" crime readers. So far, everyone I've spoken to says they'd love to see more in this genre, so current thinking is I shall self publish. Which is a hell of a lot of work. Do let me know what you think.

And on to buildings. I am finally going to have a downstairs loo installed. This will also entail complete refurbishment of my rather tatty extension, project managed and largely executed by Miles Cookman. I wanted to insert a link to his Other Job here, but there isn't one, and Miles Cookman, musician, isn't really appropriate. He is, however, highly competent in the execution of small buildings. No, not pulling them down. Putting them up. Available for all your building/landscaping requirements in the Whitstable area. 

This also means the office and utility room will have to be cleared out. This has not been done in almost 25 years, so you can imagine what a horrendous job this will be. However, once it's all done life will be an awful lot easier and the production of further books assured.

Also this month I am doing An Event. Faversham Literary Festival asked me to join in and bring a friend, so this is the result: lesley-cookman-and-linda-regan

And finally, because it's February and people have a tendency to get romantic around the 14th, I shall remind you that once upon a time someone called Rosina Lesley wrote these two books. (She wrote more, but they are languishing in the bottom drawer of the computer.)

A Will To Love  Running Away

I'm actually thinking of asking for the rights to these, too. I really don't like these covers.

Anyway, that's all for now. There will be a much nicer header for this blog soon. When I can persuade one of the talented Cookman Family to make it for me...

See you in March.