FEBRUARY 2008

The first week in March sees the publication of  “The Village Green Affair”. It deals with the controversy about an old charter from the early fourteenth century which gave permission for a market to be held on the Village Green every Thursday from 8.30 am to 1pm. But not everyone is in favour of the idea, however, they find that legally it may go ahead even though it has not been held since the Black Death devastated the area in the mid fourteenth century. The villagers stage a protest, including Grandmama Charter-Plackett in defence of her son who owns the Village Store, but to no avail.

The novel is the thirteenth in the series (the fourteenth novel is currently being written) and is filled with the hugely popular characters fans of the series are acquainted with and also Titus Bellamy the stranger who sets up the market, but he falls in lo. . . . . . . Read it! You’ll enjoy.

Last October I spoke at the opening of a big new Library in Leeds where a good crowd enjoyed my talk, and where a copy of The History of Turnham Malpas was given to everyone. Read it yet? It will be published with the paper back edition of The Village Green Affair in the Autumn.

The fifth novel in the Barleybridge series “One Hot Country Summer” came out in hardback and paper back last year and was very popular. The sixth in the series should be out within the year. Title, as yet not finalised, but for devotees this is where Kate Howard meets her future husband. I know you will be pleased for her.

Dates for your diary:

• Literary Lunch in Chelmsford May 9th organised by Waterstones.
  
• A visit to Leamington Spa,  April/May.  Plans still to be finalised.

I love writing these books and I love meeting my fans, I go upstairs to my study virtually every day and immerse myself in the current novel, enjoying every minute. One fan i know has red all my books and has now begun reading them all over again. Wonderful!
Rebecca Shaw.

FEBRUARY 2006

A Happy New Year, bit late but nevertheless well meant. 2006 appears to be a good year for me. It began with two invitations in the post on the same morning to cocktail parties in London! One I had to refuse due to a prior engagement but the other one which I was free to accept was to an author party hosted by Orion at The Great Gallery in Manchester Square in a fortnight's time, which will be a lovely occasion, so very pleasant to meet other authors and the staff as well as see the exhibition currently taking place.So that made a good beginning to 2006.

We have also managed to book a house to accommodate all our family, sixteen of us, to go on holiday together in the summer. Quite a task to find a house large enough but we have and will be able to visit York and the Yorkshire coast while we are there. We are so looking forward to it, as it's not often we all get together at the same time. So they will be converging from Scotland, London, and Devon plus Jack and I from Dorset. This will include six grandchildren aged from fifteen down to four. We should have a busy time!

Bookwise my new Turnham Malpas novel will be out in April in hardback. It is called A Village Feud. It is also coming out in CD at the same time. You can read or listen to a sneak preview on my website by clicking here. There is great deal of controversy amongst the villagers in this book and a heartrending time seeing Beth and Alex through the trauma of recovering from their dreadful exeriences while missing in the African bush. Peter comes home too and it is he who resolves the childrens' anxieties and helps te village to recover from their problems.

The next Barleybridge novel One Hot Country Summer will be out in 2007. Remember Kate who went off to Veterinary College? She comes back in this novel to gain experience in veterinary work as part of her college course. Aware that Scott Spencer the Australian vet is still working at the Practice and is now married to Zoe, Kate is convinced that she will not be affected by him as she was in A Country Affair. But she finds herself as much in love with him as she ever was. You will read about wealthy Benny and Laura who have taken up farming, but despite their money still have a lot to learn, and about the new farm vet Virginia Havelock who causes upsets with clients and staff with her brusque manner. Better not tell you about Valentine and his lovers, nor about.....

think it's best you read it!

So now I've begun on another Turnham Malpas novel and that's about. . . . . .Early days, I'll let you know more in my next newsletter.

Best wishes to all my readers who send me such lovely letters and emails. Thank you, Rebecca Shaw.

DECEMBER 2005

Hi! Well, we’ve moved! From the busy village of Harefield to the quiet seclusion a village outside Dorchester, with a view over the fields and scarcely any traffic. It has taken a long while to get the house exactly as we like it, but we are just about there, and now the garden is being sorted out which includes lots of heavy digging to get rid of the bindweed, the weeds and the roots of heaven knows what. We waited until the summer flowering season was over as we didn’t want to dig up a valuable camelia and find out too late what a catastrophe we’d caused!

The village has not even a shop of any kind simply a Church and a pub where there is a “village lunch” the first Saturday of the month which helps to spread the local gossip. Everyone is so friendly, and we are thoroughly enjoying getting to know them all, a chance encounter on the way to the post box can bring an untold number of stories into the open, which as a novelist is all grist to the mill.

Currently I am working on a Barleybridge novel, the title of which has not yet been decided. ‘A Village Feud’ is in production and should be out next April. The first three of the Barleybridge series have been bought by an American publisher and ‘A Country Affair’ will come out there in May 2006. Great news.

Watch out for the WHO quiz on this web site, coming soon, so prepare to brush up on your knowledge of Turnham Malpas affairs!

Will write again soon. Rebecca Shaw.

AUGUST 2004

This month I have finished the manuscript of Whispers in the Village, the next instalment in the Turnham Malpas series. I have so enjoyed writing it I was reluctant to reach the end. In this novel the Women’s Institute organise some fund raising events to send money out to a church in Africa to which Peter and Caroline and the children have gone for twelve months. The villagers are devastated when they leave, but life soon sparks up when everyone hears of the outrageous money making schemes which the WI have organised to raise money for Peter’s church in Africa.

I’ve had a short story called Love Letters published in My Weekly magazine to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary celebrations of D-Day. Never had short stories published before, nor have I written many, so it was exciting to be asked to write them. You can read it on the website in the ABOUT REBECCA section.

I recently met a real live vicar called Peter Harris. He was reading my book Village Dilemma so he got his own personal book signing:

“To the real Peter Harris,
Best wishes.
Rebecca Shaw”

I gave a talk recently to a church group. It was a very friendly easy meeting in a member’s house and the informality was a pleasure. I also spoke at another meeting which was less formal but none the less interesting. Lovely to meet one’s dedicated readers also those who are new to my books.

I've been out and about in the West Country attending book signings, and library events. It was a very busy few days but it is such a pleasure meeting fans and talking to bookshop staff about my books.

So, having finished a Village manuscript I have new ideas brewing for another novel. I keep intending to have a long gap between books to catch up with our daily life but somehow I get taken over by a new idea and before I know it I’m writing again and loving it.

Country Passions, the next instalment in the Barleybridge series is out now in hardback. Also just published is the paperback of Intrigue in the Village. Happy reading!

MARCH 2004

This month I am working hard to finish my new novel VILLAGE WHISPERS. It is about Turnham Malpas during a year when Peter and Caroline have gone to Africa with the twins for Peter to work as a missionary at a small church and for Caroline to set up a medical clinic in the same small township. In the Rectory there is a locum rector, named Anna Sanderson. The villagers find it hard to accept her as they are so distressed about losing Peter for a whole year. But people's spirits are raised when the Women's Institute committee vote to start up an Africa Fund to raise money to send to Peter's very poor Church. They organise. . . .well maybe you'd better read the book because… let's say if Peter had been there they'd never have dared to think up such audacious schemes.

March also means speaking at a Literary dinner in the Guild Hall in Coventry (25th March) along with two other authors, 200 guests expected, and also speaking at a much smaller meeting of the Ruislip Afternoon Group and judging the creative writing classes in a Girl Guides county-wide celebration of the Arts.

For me these varied activities are so stimulating. Starving alone in a garret is no good for a contemporary novelist! One has to be out there savouring the world and observing the human beings who inhabit it.

The daffodils in my garden are beginning to flower and the ducks on the canal are all starting their early spring activities, which frequently means tapping their beaks on our windows hoping to get in to nest!

My next book to be published is COUNTRY PASSIONS, in the Barleybridge series. The book itself will be published in July but for those of you who can't wait, click here for an exclusive extract.