Sugar and Spice at the Pumpkin Corner Cafe by Laura Briggs - #guestpost #blogtour

I am delighted to be welcoming Laura Briggs to the blog today, who is going to talk about her book, Sugar and Spice at the Pumpkin Corner Café. Before I hand over to Laura, I just want to give you a little information about the book.

The Blurb

Professional pastry chef Blaire Reese is blindsided when her beloved Aunt Rachel dies, leaving her the Sugar and Spice Pastry Cafe in Willow Grove. Returning to her hometown, Blaire discovers her beloved family business is in trouble, and—to make things worse—its most-cherished recipe is missing.

Her first love and former summer crush, Evan Hadley, is also back in town, having traded a corporate career to help manage his family’s Heath Acre Farm, famous for its autumn Hay Daze corn maze. Grown up – and with rugged good looks – he’s only charming when he wants to be. Like when he's not tangling with someone over business matters, the way he is with Blaire after she cancels a large order for organic pumpkins.

Her sunshine is disappearing under his grumpy storm clouds, until he accidentally learns the truth about her situation. Now, he offers to help save her aunt's legacy and her family’s pastry cafe. As they work together in secret, the ingredients for a very different recipe develop— one simmering with romance—but an unexpected turn of events melts their growing attraction into a mess.

Will Blaire save the beloved cafe and find the lost recipe that means so much to the pastry café’s customers? And can she save this last chance at love with the first boy she ever kissed?

Sugar and Spice at the Pumpkin Corner Café invites readers to dive into its cozy autumn escape this fall—for fans of grumpy x sunshine, small town romance, Gilmore Girls, pumpkin lattes, sugar and spice and everything else that's nice about this magical season!

This is the perfect new cozy-up-with-a-pumpkin-spice-latte read that’s meant for fans of Laurie Gilmore and Rebecca Raisin!

Welcome to the blog Laura.

Thanks so much to Left on the Shelf for this chance to share with all their readers about my new small town romance read Sugar and Spice at the Pumpkin Corner Café!

It seems like everyone is looking for their next favorite magical cozy autumn read these days. Books that make you want to snuggle up with a blanket and a cinnamon (or pumpkin!) spice latte are everywhere you look on social media, and frankly why not? We all love the escapist settings and seasonal charm that make you feel like you’ve been sucked into an episode of Gilmore Girls, where Luke’s diner has an endless supply of pancakes and coffee and the town square is always festooned in soft glowing lights and seasonal charm. 

I definitely set out to capture a bit of that atmosphere for Sugar and Spice at the Pumpkin Corner Café, where I got to explore my love for all things autumn as my heroine Blaire inherits her aunt’s adorable café in the town of Willow Grove. Of course, there are complications—including a missing family heirloom recipe that could make or break Blaire’s chances of keeping the beloved café afloat as customers begin to notice the absence of her aunt’s cherished signature dessert from the daily specials. Meanwhile, her childhood sweetheart Evan is also back in town, and the sparks fly when Blaire has to cancel an order of organic pumpkins from his family’s farm on short notice (grumpy x sunshine anyone?). Past misunderstandings and present conflicts threaten to keep them apart, but working together to find the missing key to duplicating Aunt Rachel’s beloved pumpkin pastries could find common ground in ways neither expected—and unlock feelings both of them assumed had been left in the long ago past. 

If you’re thinking it sounds like something straight out of a Hallmark movie, well, you might be on to something, because I definitely did some TV binge watching as writing background for this one—in fact, you can see my Top Inspirations for writing Blaire and Evan’s story if you check out my latest Instagram reel at https://www.instagram.com/paperdollwrites/. A few might surprise you…others definitely won’t… but it’ll give you a feel for the kind of atmosphere the pages will whisk you off to if you choose to pick up a copy yourself. You can find it available in Kindle and Paperback via Amazon and eBook format from other major retailers. So, if you are missing your favorite pumpkin spice latte right now, or just need a feel-good escape to somewhere cozy and comforting, I hope you’ll make Sugar and Spice at the Pumpkin Corner Café your next reading adventure!

Thank you so much for being my guest today. I cannot wait to read the book.

Book Details

ISBN:  979 8278149262

Publisher:  Independently published

Formats:  e-book and paperback

No. of Pages:  276 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

 Laura Briggs is the author of several feel-good romance reads, including the Top 100 Amazon UK seller 'A Wedding in Cornwall'. She has a fondness for vintage style dresses (especially ones with polka dots), and reads everything from Jane Austen to modern day mysteries. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, caring for her pets, gardening, and seeing the occasional movie or play.

You can also find Laura at:

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Celebrations at the Beach Hotel by Francesca Capaldi - #blogtour #author #guestpost

I am absolutely delighted to be welcoming author, Francesca Capaldi, onto the blog today. Francesca's latest book, Celebrations at the Beach Hotel is publishing in the UK today. Here she will be talking about changing times for men and women, and I can't wait to hear what she says.

The Blurb

Sisters Alice and Annie have always been close but will a man come between them?

Annie and Alice love their life working at the Beach Hotel together and each is thrilled to have finally found a sweetheart. Yet the path of true love never did run smooth, and they soon find themselves facing conflict and strife. Could love come between them and the bond they share?

Meanwhile, as men start to come home from the war, the women have to work out how to keep their jobs, although they are delighted to be back with their beaus. Soon, wedding bells ring out in Littlehampton.

Will everything be made right in time for Christmas?

Welcome to the blog Francesca. Over to you.

Let me introduce you to characters Annie and Alice Twine, two sisters in their early twenties who work in the scullery at the Beach Hotel in Littlehampton during World War 1. They’re looking forward to all the men coming home from the war, but two men in particular.

Once the war was over, the men who’d been fighting didn’t return immediately but did so over the next few months. This is reflected in Annie and Alice’s story. Although the sisters remained working in the scullery during the war, quite a few of the women at the hotel had taken over the men’s jobs as porters and waiters, and even as manager in Helen Bygrove’s case. This would have been the case all over the country in factories, offices and on the land. 

This was a period when women must have started to feel a real sense of freedom, doing jobs normally reserved for men.  While I’m sure most women would have been missing their fathers, husbands etc, there must have been some sense of relief for them, now they could make their own decisions.

In Celebrations, the men at the hotel return in dribs and drabs, and it’s not until March that the two men Annie and Alice like get back to the hotel. Lorcan and Jasper were in a battalion whose part in the battles had ended in October 1918, but they were required to stay another five months for a clear up and salvage mission, which is what their battalion did in real life. Other men at the hotel came home after them, having been sent to the Russian/Finnish border where trouble had been breaking out.

A lot of men, although relieved to return, must have wondered what they were coming home to. They were now years behind the cultural fashions. Music had changed, as had dancing. The women would have looked very different in their shorter, straighter, less fussy outfits, more practical for the jobs they’d now taken on.

Women’s football, already around for a long time, had really taken off during the war, due to the Football Association stopping men’s matches after the 1914/15 season. After this time, more men went to war and were conscripted in 1916. In the Beach Hotel books, Gertie Green is a keen football player and joins a team. This encourages derision from some of the men when they return, especially as the media at the time declared it an unhealthy pastime for women. The men’s football league resumed in August 1919. Worried by its popularity, the FA finally banned the women’s league in 1921, so women were no longer allowed to play on their grounds, instead having to go to parks. The ban wasn’t lifted until 1969.*

When the men return to the hotel in Celebrations, there is naturally some resentment against the women who took on their jobs, especially as some retain them, like Gertie as head porter (or portress, as they would have been called). In reality, not many women did keep these jobs. A minor character, Amanda Lovelock, is sacked by the police and returns to work at the hotel, and it was the case that many women were dismissed from the police force after the war.

Overall, women who had gained freedoms during World War 1, lost them. However, proving their worth at this time went a long way to them gaining something important – the right to vote, if, for now it was only for women over 30 who owned property.

Let me finish with some words from the usually stern housekeeper, Mrs Leggett, who surprises the female staff in a discussion with the men by siding with the women…

‘I agree with Miss Green and Miss Twine, and the rest of the women who would like to see women’s football continue. If the war proved anything, it is that women are equal to men in skills, even if they are still not equal in law.’

‘But they have the vote now,’ Stanley persisted.

‘How many women around this table are able to vote yet? Hands up,’ said the housekeeper. ‘There you are: none… And I, for one, hope that the women’s football goes from strength to strength.’

‘Thanks, Mrs Leggett,’ said Gertie, looking genuinely touched.

Annie gave Mrs Leggett a big smile, to show she approved of the housekeeper’s words, and Mrs Leggett smiled back.

*You can read more about women’s football and the impact of World War 1 on it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zjxywty )

Thank you for being my guest on the blog today.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1804368497

Publisher:  Hera

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  384 (paperback)

Series:  Book 6 in the Beach Hotel series

Purchase Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Francesca Capaldi has enjoyed writing since she was a child, largely influenced by a Welsh mother who was good at improvised storytelling and an Italian father who loved history. She is the author of historical sagas, short stories and pocket novels. 

The first novel in the Beach Hotel series, A New Start at the Beach Hotel, won the Romantic Saga Award at the Romantic Novelists' Association Awards in 2024. The first novel in the Wartime in the Valleys series, Heartbreak in the Valleys, was shortlisted for the Historical Romantic Award in the RoNAs in 2021. 

Francesca was born and brought up on the Sussex coast, went to London to do a history degree, but has lived for many years in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando Calrission.

You can also find Francesca at:

Author Website

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Author Guest Post - Helene Harrison - #author #guestpost

It is my great pleasure to welcome author, Helene Harrison, to the blog today. Helene is going to be talking to us about why she thinks we are still so fascinated with Anne Boleyn.

If you missed my review of her latest book, The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception, you can find it here.

Welcome Helene.

Why are we still so fascinated with Anne Boleyn?

Firstly, thank you so much for having me on your blog, Annie! My third and most recent book is called The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception so today I thought I’d offer some of my thoughts on why we are so fascinated with Anne Boleyn. None of the others of Henry VIII’s six wives get so much attention, or so many books written about them. Even books which cover all six wives, the majority is Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn with the other four wives condensed into the last third or quarter of the book. 

The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception by Helene Harrison [2025].

So, what about Anne Boleyn makes us so enthralled by her story? Well one thing is the sheer drama of her rise and fall. The fact that Henry VIII annulled his first marriage to Katherine of Aragon and broke with the Roman Catholic Church in order to marry Anne, means that she was a very controversial person by the time of her coronation on 1 June 1533. But less than three years later when she was arrested for multiple adulteries, incest with her brother, and treason, her reputation disintegrated further. Anne Boleyn basically became taboo on her execution.

However, her life and reputation have been both rehabilitated and attacked over the nearly 500 years since her death. For me, in choosing to write this book on Anne Boleyn, I consciously decided that I didn’t want to write a traditional biography, but more of a study of how her image and reputation have been tackled over 500 years. The fact that we have Anne recurring through 500 years gives a sense of how much her story means to people – we don’t have the same interest in the other wives, or even in other consorts or regnant monarchs from across time!

Today, we have popular culture. The popularity of the likes of Philippa Gregory, or Showtime’s The Tudors, or Wolf Hall, or SIX The Musical, brings Anne Boleyn and Tudor history to new audiences. We are spoiled in the modern age with television, film, theatre, and a glut of historical novels. Anne Boleyn is a prime candidate for featuring because of the drama of both her rise and fall, as well as her position as the mother of Elizabeth I, often considered to be England’s first successful queen regnant, paving the way for later ruling queens like Victoria and Elizabeth II.  

Anne Boleyn, mid-16th century, at Hever Castle and Gardens, Kent, England.

The lack of concrete knowledge about Anne Boleyn is also intriguing. Once people start digging into her life, they want facts but that often isn’t possible. We don’t know when Anne was born, what she really looked like, whether she really did hold Henry VIII at arm’s length for seven years, or how many pregnancies she underwent during her marriage. The portraits and images we have of her are all from after her death, aside from a crude sketch from her coronation banquet which doesn’t show any features, and a portrait medal from 1534 which has been damaged. The most popular images we think of are later creations. Not knowing her year of birth (estimates vary from 1501 to 1507 generally) means that we don’t know her age at significant events. The state of her relationship with the king is something that intrigues everyone who looks at her life, specifically Henry VIII’s involvement in her downfall.

What we find so alluring about Anne Boleyn is that she is a bit of an enigma, surrounded by drama, and ripe for modern entertainment drama. But we need to remember that Anne was a real person, who really was beheaded on the orders of her husband, a mother who lost at least two children, and spent years serving a queen, only to replace her on the throne. We will never be able to know or understand what she was feeling because times have changed hugely. We need to be careful not to put 21st century thoughts and feelings onto a 16th century woman. Anne Boleyn will no doubt continue to fascinate, and I hope that my book, The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception, will give some insight into how some of the myths about Anne came to be, and why I don’t think interpretations of Anne will ever stop – we just need to dig down into what we actually do know and strip away the layers of myth and perception to try and get closer to the real Anne Boleyn.

Thank you for being my guest on the blog today. That was so interesting and I thought your book was fascinating.

More About the Author

Helene Harrison studied at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, achieving both a BA and MA in History before going on to complete an MSc in Library Management. Her passion for Tudor history started when studying for A Levels and completing a module on Tudor rebellions. Her master’s dissertation focused on portrayals of Anne Boleyn through the centuries, from contemporary letters to modern TV and film adaptations. Now she writes two blogs, one Tudor history and one book-related, and works in the university library of her alma mater. In her spare time, she loves visiting royal palaces and snuggling up with a book or embroidery project. Her books are ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ (2023), ‘Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block’ (2024) and ‘The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception’ (2025), all published by Pen and Sword.

Purchase Links to Helene's Publications

‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ (2023)

Bookshop.org   Pen & Sword

 ‘Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block’ (2024) 

Bookshop.org     Pen & Sword

 ‘The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception’ (2025)

Bookshop.org    Pen & Sword

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Lord Frederick's Return by Catherine Kullman - #guestpost #blogtour

Today I am delighted to welcome author, Catherine Kullman, onto the blog. Catherine is the author of the The Duchess of Gracechurch Trilogy series. In fact, I reviewed her book, The Husband Criteria, and you can find my review here.

Lord Frederick's Return is recently published and Catherine is going to tell us about how she went about her research for her book.

But first, a little about the book...

The Blurb

An older hero, an enigmatic heroine and a delightfully outspoken four-year-old. Throw scandal into the mix for a gripping and tender Regency love story

August 1816. Lord Frederick Danlow returns to England after spending 18 years in India. He plans to make a home for himself and his motherless, four-year-old daughter, Ruperta. Unsure where to start, he accepts an invitation to stay at Ponsonby Place, home of Colonel Jack Ponsonby who made his fortune in India, and his daughter Susannah, the mistress of the household.

Soon Frederick finds himself in need of a governess—and a wife? The more time he spends with Susannah, the more his admiration of her deepens. Is she the woman with whom he will share his life?

He is resolved to court her, but then his younger brother Henry engulfs his family in an appalling scandal that could prevent any lady from agreeing to a connection with it. Now Frederick must support his family during this ordeal.

But what of Susannah? What will she say when she hears of the scandal? Should he, dare he offer her his heart and his hand?

Welcome to the blog Catherine. We are really looking forward to hearing from you.

Research for my Novel

Lord Frederick’s Return is my ninth Regency novel. I have been writing for over ten years and in that time have built up a considerable research library, the nucleus of which had been formed over a lifetime of reading. My interest in the period began when, a teenager, I first read Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen in addition to the great romantic poets and essayists we studied at school. My library now covers everything to do with the Regency, from great matters of state and war to the trivia of everyday life—what people ate, the clothes they wore, their pleasures and pastimes as well as their struggles not only to survive but to lead meaningful lives. Apart from the physical library of about one thousand books, I also have a very extensive data base where I record the treasures and trifles of the internet. As a result, I can now step into the Regency world as easily as stepping outside my own front door.

There is always a trigger for a new book: a what if or what next? In this case, it was two books, White Mughals by William Dalrymple and The Memoirs of a Georgian Rake by William Hickey. Together they cover mid-eighteenth century to early nineteenth century when the East India Company ruled in India. This was before the great social changes brought about by the advent of steam ships that almost halved the duration of the voyage between Great Britain and India, and before the transfer of power to the British Crown in 1858. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the voyage even more, leading to the ‘Fishing Fleets’ of the Raj, when unmarried girls and women went to India hoping to find a husband but, prior to this, the British presence was predominantly male and it was usual for gentlemen to set up Indian women as mistresses or bibis. Some men stayed in India, others left their mistresses and any children they might have had together behind them, and still others either sent or brought their ‘Anglo-Indian’ children back to England with them. What was it like for these fathers and daughters or sons, I wondered. 

This is where my special research began. Hickey’s detailed accounts of his various voyages were invaluable, as was Dalrymple’s focus on the family life of the eponymous White Mughals. As usual, the internet yielded up many treasures. One little nugget was the fact that the great East India men could not venture alone up the Thames to their final anchorage. They must anchor in the Downs off Deal in Kent and wait for the Company’s cutter to bring the pilot. I was able make use of this to allow Lord Frederick to send a letter with the cutter.

Intelligent and inquisitive travellers find not only their minds broadened but their palates stimulated. Spices were very important in the trade between India and Britain. In 1810, the Hindoostanee Coffee House was opened in London, the first Indian restaurant in Britain. The Epicure’s Almanac,  a guidebook published in 1815, refers to several taverns and chophouses near East India House where the gentlemen belonging to the house  ‘have a good dinner together’. By 1829, Meg Dodds in Chapter III (Scotch and Other National Dishes), of her Cooks’ and Housewives’ Manual refers to curry-powder and gives recipes, among others, for Le bon Diable, (devilled fowl) as prepared at Pondicherry, and Indian Burdwan. I felt I could safely enliven the colonel’s table with chutneys and crisply fried pastries.

Over the years, I have found that the websites of British institutions are a fount of information about their histories, and their archivists, librarians, research officers etc. are always willing to answer any questions. For this book, I needed details of procedures in the Old Bailey and found the following websites most useful:

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/about/the-old-bailey

https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/The_Old_Bailey_Criminal_Trial 

https://democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s197443/Report%20to%20GP%20-%20Knocking%20In%20FINAL.pdf

For travel from London to Danlow Castle in Northumberland, I followed the route as set out in Cary’s Itinerary which gives the distances between the stages and posting inns, helped by a copy of Pratt’s High Test Map of the Great North Road. It is surprising how many of the old Posting Inns have survived and their websites can help you visualise your characters turning in. Apart from that, I drew on my accumulated knowledge of the period and my vivid imagination.

Wow, that is an impressive library that you have at home Catherine. Thank you so much for being on the blog today. Reading how you do your research is so interesting.

Book Details

ISBN:  979 8899657405

Publisher:  Willow Books

Formats:  e-book, hardback and paperback

No. of Pages:  269 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Catherine Kullmann was born and educated in Dublin. Following a three-year courtship conducted mostly by letter, she moved to Germany where she lived for twenty-five years before returning to Ireland. She has worked in the Irish and New Zealand public services and in the private sector. Widowed, she has three adult sons and two grandchildren.

Catherine has always been interested in the extended Regency period, a time when the foundations of our modern world were laid. She loves writing and is particularly interested in what happens after the first happy end—how life goes on for the protagonists and sometimes catches up with them. Her books are set against a background of the offstage, Napoleonic wars and consider in particular the situation of women trapped in a patriarchal society.

She is the author of The Murmur of Masks, Perception & Illusion, A Suggestion of Scandal, The Duke’s Regret, The Potential for Love, A Comfortable Alliance and Lady Loring’s Dilemma. 

Catherine also blogs about historical facts and trivia related to this era. You can find out more about her books and read her blog (My Scrap Album) at her website. 

You can contact her via her Facebook page or on Twitter.

You can also find Catherine at:

Author Website

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(media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

The Other Boy by Heidi Field - #guestpost #authorpost #blogtour

I am absolutely thrilled to have author, Heidi Field on the blog today. Heidi is going to be talking about her book, The Other Boy which was published in June of this year. Before I hand over to Heidi, let me tell you a little about the book.

The Blurb

The Other Boy is a pulse-pounding psychological thriller with shocking twists that will keep you turning pages late into the night.When the worst comes calling…

Scott and Blair Bagby are a happy, successful English couple living in the suburbs with their teenage son and Great Dane. Life seems good, until one beautiful spring morning when a detective inspector knocks on their door asking if their son is home, unleashing an unspeakable horror that blows apart the life they thought they had.

Police have discovered bodies buried deep in the Peasedale forest and the inspector suspects one is Jamie, the final victim of a brutal and prolific serial killer. But Jamie’s death is unlike all the others, starting with his emergency phone call that leads to a macabre burial ground near a dilapidated hunting shack and creates shocking suspicions.

With bone deep grief threatening to destroy their marriage and their sanity, Scott and Blair set out to investigate Jamie’s death, a journey that not only upends their perceptions of who they are, but torturously reveals they may not have known Jamie at all…

Heidi, welcome to the blog.

The Other Boy is my first published novel and writing it has been the most wonderful rollercoaster of hard work, steep learning curves and dogged determination.

I first started writing shortly after giving birth to my first child, a baby who slept during the day and not at night. I was suffering from post-natal depression and my marriage was crumbling under the pressure. Hormone fuelled and in need of an escape, I began to write. The world was awash with Harry Potter, so my first attempt at writing was an epic YA fantasy, more Game of Thrones than Harry Potter. I then wrote a time-slip romance and a handful of children’s picture books. I had no idea if what I was producing was any good, I just loved writing.

I divorced and was a single mum for a few years before creating a blended family with my current partner and having a second child. We were raising five children, and I was working as a massage therapist. Life was busy! Writing took a back seat for fifteen years. When I emerged from the fog of a young family, with more time for me, I took a master’s degree in creative writing at Winchester University, and my writing adventure truly began. 

I loved writing thrillers, my characters were often dark, damaged, unpredictable and driven by an inner darkness, although, outwardly they were also ordinary, relatable people who had been pushed beyond their limits and were clawing their way to sanity, freedom and salvation.

The idea for The Other Boy came after watching a documentary about Dean Corll, the Candyman serial killer, who raped, tortured and murdered over twenty teenage boys and young men. I didn’t want to write about a serial killer, or his victims, and I didn’t want to write about the families of the victims either, those stories are out there. I wanted to write a different story, one that was in the shadows of the gruesome crimes someone like Dean Corll committed, a story about the parents of the boys who assisted the killer, the killer’s accomplices. 

I had four teenagers, one more child still to face those tricky years, and I asked myself how I would feel if my child made a choice that I could never have imagined, a terrifying choice. The Other Boy has become the first in a series of four novels, The Other Mother, The Other Killer and The Other Brother all explore the lives of other characters from the first novel, they all have unexpected twists, and each one will make you question what you know about everyone involved. 

What you think is going to happen, doesn’t, what you hope will happen, won’t, and what you learn about the characters along the way may not be the whole story. Sometimes, it is the people closest to us who have the darkest of secrets, or maybe we just choose to ignore the signs because the truth is too frightening to face.

Thank you so much for joining me today. 

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1966593737

Publisher:  Tule Publishing Group

Formats:  e-book and paperback

No. of Pages:  366 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the children that have yet to fly the nest. In her early forties Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University. She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers. Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Boy is her first novel.

You can also find Heidi at:

Author Website

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Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel by Francesca Capaldi- #blogtour #guestpost

 I am so pleased to have the author, Francesca Capaldi as my guest on the blog today. Francesca is going to be talking about the setting of her book, Littlehampton in West Sussex, in particular what it was like in the 1910's when her book, Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel, is set.

First, let me tell you more about the book. Also, following Franesca's post there will me lots more details about the book.

The Blurb

Can true love win the day?

Hetty Affleck is working as a maid at the prestigious Beach Hotel in Littlehampton. Her beau, Lorcan, is away at war and has recently stopped replying to her letters but she is determined to keep her spirits up. When she meets wealthy shipbuilder's son Victor Perryman, they pass the time of day and they both feel a connection but she can’t allow herself to think anything more of it - not only does she have Lorcan to think of, but she and Victor are divided by wealth and class.

Yet they meet again and Hetty is charmed and intrigued by Victor and his openness towards her. It becomes harder to ignore the attachment growing between them.

When Lorcan comes back on leave, Hetty is forced to face her true feelings. Who does she really love, and can that love conquer everything in its path?

***

Welcome to the blog Francesca. It's over to you...

The Beach Hotel series is set on the Sussex coast, in Littlehampton, the place where I was brought up. One of the things I’ve been amazed about when doing research for the books is how extensive the seaside entertainments were back in the 1910s. I suppose it was a time before TV, or even ‘wireless’, let along computers and all the distractions they have to offer today.

When my character, Hetty Affleck, went for a walk by the sea, she would have seen the beaches and promenades filled with all sorts of amusements and stalls, many of which we don’t see anywhere nowadays. 

Along a promenade, you might see stilt walkers, acrobats, wrestlers, fire eaters, conjurers, escapologists and ventriloquists. In Bognor (it wasn’t Bognor Regis until 1929) there was a chap in a clown’s costume called Frank Bale, who used to sport a banjo or guitar and had an entourage made up of a talking cockatoo, a monkey and a performing dog. In Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel, I’ve made him into ‘Bertie Fisher’, whose antics are enjoyed by Hetty when she encounters him on the prom.

A popular entertainment back then was puppets. For some reason, puppet masters often seemed to be called ‘Professor’ something. One of the most common puppet shows was, of course, Punch and Judy. And despite the rather iffy premise of the storyline, this is one of the few old beach entertainments that is still going strong in some places. 

On the beach in Littlehampton, there used to be donkey rides, whilst on the common there were carriages pulled by goats.

Something I’d never heard of before researching the era was sand artists. They’d show up on beaches with combs, knives, sticks and brushes and produce masterpieces in damp sand. There was one in Eastbourne called Ted Child. Later on in the Beach Hotel series, I will have one turning up to portray Chichester Cathedral. Sadly, any works of art would have been washed away by the next high tide.

Music played a large part in the entertainments. One might see a hurdy gurdy man with a monkey, a blind accordionist or a one-armed fiddler. There were one-man bands, spoon players, unaccompanied singers and harmonium players. In Littlehampton, a band often performed on the bandstand situated on the large grass common, not far from the Beach Hotel.

Littlehampton had three Pierrot troupes, though the best known was probably that run by Harry Joseph (rather like Nathaniel Janus, in my books). The Pierrots were dressed like clowns, in pantaloons and loose white silk blouses with black pompoms. On their heads would sit conical hats. They often played on a makeshift stage under the east wall of the Beach Hotel, with a harmonium on wheels and a banjo. The audiences would sit on rows upon rows of deckchairs to watch them. They’d perform popular and humorous songs, sketches, pantomimes, revues and burlesques.  

During the Great War and afterwards, the popularity of the Pierrots slowly waned. The clown costumes were replaced by blazers, white trousers and yachting caps for men, and evening dress for the women. They tended only to perform songs, though there was quite a variety of genres, from comic to operatic. In the Beach Hotel books, my Pierrots become Nathaniel Janus’s Entertainers. 

Harry Joseph also ran the Kursaal, which opened in 1912 as a Pierrot theatre and fun palace. It plays a part in the Beach Hotel books, and is where Hetty is standing when the river explodes. In 1916, it became the Casino Theatre, as ‘Kursaal’ was considered too Germanic. One of the entertainments that went on there, according to a signboard in an old photograph, was vaudeville, something more popular in the United States at that time.

Next to the Kursaal / Casino Theatre was the Windmill Tea Rooms. These, along with the windmill were sadly demolished in the early 1930s to make way for a Butlin’s funfair, which was still there when I was a child. 

All of these entertainments would have been easily accessible to the staff at the Beach Hotel during their time off, along with the hotel guests. These days, very few of these lively entertainments exist anywhere at beach resorts, and I can’t help feeling that we’re the poorer for it. 

Thank you so much Francesca for being my guest on Left on the Shelf. The book looks just like my cup of tea and I would love to read it. Coincidentally, I was in Chichester and Bognor Regis just a few days ago. I could really picture your descriptions of the area during the time that you have described.

About the Author

Francesca has enjoyed writing since she was a child. Born in Worthing and brought up in Littlehampton in Sussex, she was largely influenced by a Welsh mother who loved to tell improvised stories. A history graduate and qualified teacher, she decided to turn her writing hobby into something more in 2006, when she joined a writing class.

​Writing as both Francesca Capaldi and Francesca Burgess, she has had many short stories published in magazines in the UK and abroad, along with several pocket novels published by DC Thomson.

 Her Welsh World War 1 sagas were inspired by the discovery of the war record of her great grandfather, a miner in South Wales. Heartbreak in the Valleys was a finalist in the Historical Romance category of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Awards (RoNAs) in 2021. Her latest series, The Beach Hotel, is set in her own childhood town, where her Italian father had a café on the riverside. The first in that series, A New Start at the Beach Hotel, won the Romantic Saga Award in the RoNAs in 2024.

​Francesca is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. She currently lives on the North Downs in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando Calrission. 

You can also find Francesca at:

https://www.francesca-capaldi.com/

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Book Details

ISBN:  978 1804368466

Publisher:  Canelo Hera

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  368 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Blackwell's

(media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)

(all opinions are my own)

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