The Country Village Allotment by Cathy Lake

 

A heartwarming and uplifting summer story for fans of Heidi Swain and Phillipa Ashley, by the author of The Country Village Christmas Show, The Country Village Summer Fete and The Country Village Winter Wedding.

At eighty-two years old Zelda Grey is tired. Tired of how much slower she is physically and mentally. Tired of technology. Tired of being alone since her beloved cat, Flint, died just before Christmas. And tired of life. The only thing that brings Zelda joy these days is her allotment in the gorgeous village of Little Bramble, where she has lived her whole life, and her three cranky goats.

Widow Mia Holmes always loved visiting Little Bramble Allotment with her husband, Gideon. But since his death she can't motivate herself. Despite putting on a brave face for her three sons and four grandchildren, she's reached breaking point, and isn't sure she can carry on.

And history teacher Liz Carter thought she had it all. The perfect job, perfect boyfriend in Rhodri and the perfect wedding to plan. Until she found Rhodri in bed with the neighbour. Holed up in her sister's box room she wonders how it all went so wrong. As she wallows in her misery, her sister takes her in hand and drags her to Little Bramble Allotment and suddenly she discovers the wonders of planting, growing and getting her hands dirty.

In an increasingly lonely world, these three women strike up an unlikely friendship and find that community, female friendship and the wonders of nature can truly be powerful healers.

Review

This is a typical feel-good story where the characters face different challenges but come together to find peace and healing.

I really enjoyed this novel; it helped immensely that the narrator was Julie Teal, who has a particularly soothing voice, which made listening to this book an absolute pleasure. The story itself is about three women, all in different stages of life, and all suffering from loss and looking for a way to go forward with their lives. When the three women become friends, their lives take on new meaning, and all three of them begin to live again.

The restorative power of friendship has been wonderfully depicted, and this is a story that leaves you with a feel-good feeling once you have finished, not to say there isn't a lot of drama before we get to that lovely conclusion, because there certainly is!

The character development is wonderfully depicted, and these characters are very relatable. I have to say I am fondest of Zelda, who has perhaps the most heartbreaking story of all of them.

I really enjoyed this novel, and I will certainly be reading more books from this author.

I loaned this novel from Borrow Box.

Scents of Lavender: Queer Love Through the Ages – In Verse by D. C. Wilkinson

Scents of Lavender:

Queer Love Through the Ages – In Verse

By D. C. Wilkinson

Publication Date: June 1st, 2025

Publisher: DCW Press

Pages: 108

Genre: Poetry / Historical Fiction / LGBT+ Romance

Timeless and unwavering, love flows through a universal melody that echoes in every corner of the globe. Transcending borders and cultures, it sows the seeds of memories that sprout and blossom in Scents of Lavender, a collection of 25 illustrated poems that breathe life into evocative scenes where queer love proudly re-emerges from the depths of history, uncovering deep and everlasting bonds.

Each poem invites the reader to explore the narrator’s deeply personal and intimate perspective through pantheistic eyes. Written in the first person, every verse unfolds as both a reflection and a manifestation of a single universal mind and soul, drawing the reader into a shared understanding that love –in all its forms– is boundless, eternal, and permeates the cosmos.

Excerpt

My wives were my court,

my confidants,

pillars of my strength,

living embodiments

of our collective heritage reborn,

the sanctum of my realm.

From Kangela’s Daughter

Trailer with Excerpts:

https://dcwilkinson.substack.com/p/scents-of-lavender-bea

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link

D. C. Wilkinson

D. C. Wilkinson is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lifelong voyager of inner and outer realms. His literary work centers on his passion for historical tales, portal fantasies, and dreams and visions often weaved into narratives that highlight LGBTQ+ experiences.

He began his career in the Midwest as a student of Language Arts before relocating to the East Coast in his early twenties. A graduate of Columbia University and former New York City public school teacher, he now calls Connecticut his home, where he resides with his spouse and their beloved beagle.

Author Links:

Website • Instagram • Twitter / X • Facebook • Pinterest • TikTok

Amazon Author Page • LinkedIn • Goodreads

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Thursday, 17 July 2025 Book Review - 5 STARS - A Scottish Shield Maiden (Scotlanders - Mythic Clans) by Heide Middlebrook

 A Scottish Shield Maiden
(Scotlanders - Mythic Clans)
By Heide Middlebrook

Publication Date: 23rd July 2025

Publisher: Passion Leaf Press

Page Length: 355

Genre: Historical Romance

A Northman will risk it all to protect a captured Scottish maiden whose clan bloodlines from ancient mythic kings unleashes a power in her grasp unlike any other.....

Trapped: Lady Catriona MacLaenden is by her stepfather’s cruel demands as she yearns to learn the skills belonging to a warrior. The chief forces Catriona to hunt using her “instinct in senses”, a strength unleashed from her clan’s mythical origins. When harnessed after she presses her palm onto solid terrains, her power finds weight signatures tracking those unseen in the distance.

Fate takes hold when Catriona is discovered by Northman spy, Lord Rorik Kolbeck, who sees the makings of a possible shield maiden shadowed within her. Lord Kolbeck seeks to strike an accord in exchange for a bold escape – Catriona’s sister’s happiness for his lost brother being found.

A chance taken will lead her into the battles for The Kingdom of Norway, whose lands have been ravaged in a hundred-year war by kings fighting for the throne.

Dare she trust a Northman whose ancestors once hunted her own? The battle will not only lie with swords and training needed to survive the war-torn kingdom, but the sparks she feels in a betrayal toward her clan’s ancestry when her passions begin to rise for the Northern warrior, whose bold and protective ways may steal her heart.

Scotlanders - Mythic Clans is a series of standalone books each featuring a protective swoon-worthy hero, a strong bold heroine, rich historical settings, daring adventures, spice, and an epic happily ever after!

 A Scottish Shield Maiden takes the readers back in time, where political marriages were not only demanded but expected. Lady Catriona MacLaenden is trapped, for despite her rank and her desire to marry and to learn the art of warfare, her step-father demands she stay with him, for Catriona has a special skill; she can sense the movements of animals and people on the earth, just by touching it. But how Lady Catriona longs for freedom. When Lord Rorik Kolbeck comes to the castle to marry Catriona's step-sister, Catriona does all she can to help her sister escape the marriage, but in doing so, she ends up marrying Lord Rorik instead and promises to help him find his missing brother. 

And then the fun begins!

This is a beautifully captivating story that not only has strong and exceptionally likeable main characters, but there are also enemies  aplenty. Add in the romance and the battles, as well as the magic, makes this book a really gripping read.

This is certainly a feel-good read, and I just loved the suspense and the story itself, for it is so well written that the hours simply flew by as I read it (I did read it in one sitting, what else was there to do on a Sunday?)!

There are some sensual scenes in this story, but the story is more about the main characters falling in love while everything stands against them, whether that be the past or the present. 

I really did enjoy this novel, and I recommend it to fans who enjoy wonderfully written historical romance.

This novel is available on Amazon

Heide Middlebrook

Heide Middlebrook writes historical romance novels and stories as an independent author. History captured her interest as a young girl after touring historical sites, then as a teenager a love for romance reading took root. Earning her career diploma in freelance writing led her to pen magazine articles, but it was an overwhelming desire to weave a love story occurring during a historical event that inspired her to pursue her dream of becoming a novelist. Why the romance genre? Those happily ever afters!

Many of her novels are set atop of the Scottish Highlands because of her fascination about the fierce spirit of the people found within Scotland’s history coupled with her Scottish heritage.

She currently resides in south Florida with a herd of four legged friends, including one very opinionated cat.

When not creating stories, she loves to connect with fellow writers in the literary community and continues to hone her craft by attending writing conferences. Her recent activities include the 2024 Historical Novel Society virtual conference in England, along with the 2024 Writing Workshops of Boston, Tampa, Texas, and the February 8th and 9th, 2025 History Quill virtual convention.

In 2024 she established her imprint Passion Leaf Press.

She is a proud member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, the Historical Novel Society, and the Romance Writers of America.

Connect with Heide:

Website

Facebook

Book Review - 5 STARS - The Trials of Arthur Whitty by Tim Walker

The Trials of Arthur Whitty
 By Tim Walker 

This novella is the story of plain old Arthur Whitty, a man whose dreams are never dull and whose vivid imagination and sense of humour carries him through a series of sometimes challenging situations. Arthur has retired to a pair of slippers and jigsaw table in a quiet cul-de-sac in Berkshire, England. He walks his dog, Max, and lets his mind wander to a series of dreams in which he is more daring, skilful and adventurous that his real-life humdrum self. He is an irritant to his orderly wife, Emilia, and has succumbed to irksome cancer treatment following a run-in with skin cancer.

Once a date has been set for corrective surgery, Arthur sets his mind on organising a real-life adventure – a bucket list trip to Machu Picchu in Peru where he finds peace and a calming of the spirit. Arthur’s bullish nature carries him through a series of situations but there is little the retired couple can do about the onset of dementia. But Arthur is well supported by Emilia and their daughter, Holly, as the family rally round to make his declining years as comfortable as possible. And there’s always escape to his secret world of risk, responsibility and danger.

The author has drawn on personal experience and observations of elderly men in a support group he helps run for Men’s Matters charity in Windsor, Berkshire. Half of all royalties from the sales of this book will be donated to Men’s Matters, who support older men by encouraging social interaction and connecting them to health and wellbeing support services.

Arthur Whitty is a brave adventurer, spy, rally driver, vampire hunter and all-around great guy. Well, he got the great guy part right! Reaching retirement, Arthur struggles to adapt to being at home all the time, as does his wife to a certain extent. He now spends his days with his wife, dog and occasionally his daughter, and of course an abundance of jigsaw puzzles! But, in his other life, his imaginative life, he can be anything he wants to be. However, after all those years of work, his retirement has come with challenges as his health rapidly declines. After surviving cancer, he is determined to have one last adventure and he chooses to go alone to Machu Picchu in Peru, where somehow he still manages to get himself in trouble - but at least he has ticked it off his bucket list.

Arthur is a really likeable character, he is funny, witty, and utterly endearing. But as dementia robs him of his memories he struggles to hold onto who he is.

This novel is very moving, especially as Arthur is just so likeable. I will certainly be checking out more books by this author in the future.

This novel is available on Amazon

Tim Walker

Tim Walker is an independent author living near Windsor in the UK. Born in Hong Kong in the Sixties, he grew up in Liverpool where he began his working life as a trainee reporter on a local newspaper. He went on to attain an honours degree in Communication Studies in South Wales before moving to London where he worked in the newspaper publishing industry for ten years.

In the mid-90s he opted to spend a couple of years doing voluntary work in Zambia through VSO, running an educational book publishing development programme. After this, he set up his own marketing and publishing business in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, then managed a mineral exploration company before returning to the UK in 2009.

His creative writing journey began in earnest in 2014, as a therapeutic activity whilst recovering from cancer treatment. In addition to short stories, he researched and wrote a five-book historical fiction series, A Light in the Dark Ages. The series connects the end of Roman Britain to the story of Arthur in an imaginative narrative. It starts with Abandoned, then Ambrosius: Last of the Romans; Uther’s Destiny; Arthur Dux Bellorum and Arthur Rex Brittonum, the last two books charting the life of an imagined historical King Arthur.

More recently, he has written a dual timeline historical novel set at Hadrian’s Wall, Guardians at the Wall. His two books of short stories, Thames Valley Tales and London Tales combine contemporary and historical themes and are now available as audiobooks. Somewhere along the way, he co-authored a three-book children’s series with his daughter, Cathy, The Adventures of Charly Holmes.

Thank you for reading The Trials of Arthur Whitty. Please leave a star rating and review on Amazon and/or Goodreads so others can benefit from your experience.

Tim’s Amazon author page www.author.to/TimWalkerWrites  

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/678710.Tim_Walker 

Tim’s website: www.timwalker1666.wixsite.com/website

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/TimWalkerWrites 

Instagram: www.instagram.com/timwalker1666 

X (Twitter): www.twitter.com/timwalker1666 

TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@timwalker804 

BlueSky: www.bsky.app/profile/timwalker1666.bsky.social  

I am excited to be hosting the blog tour for A Prodigy in Auschwitz: Simon (A Holocaust Story, Book #1) by Fred Raymond Goldman #AProdigyInAuschwitz #FredRaymondGoldman #HistoricalFiction #WWII #Auschwitz #BlogTour

A Prodigy in Auschwitz: Simon 
(A Holocaust Story, Book #1)
By Fred Raymond Goldman

Publication Date: April 29th, 2025
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 368

Genre: Historical Fiction / World War II Fiction

When Nazi Germany troops enter Krakow, Poland on September 2, 1939, fourteen-year-old Simon Baron learns two truths that have been hidden from him.

One, the people who have raised him are not his biological parents. Two, his birth mother was Jewish. In the eyes of the Germans, although he has been raised Catholic, this makes Simon Jewish. Simon's dreams of becoming a concert violinist and composer are dashed when his school is forced to expel him, and he is no longer eligible to represent it at its annual Poland Independence Day Concert. There, he had hoped to draw the attention of representatives of a prestigious contest who might have helped him fulfill his dreams.

Simon vows to never forgive his birth father for abandoning him, an act resulting in unspeakable tragedies for his family and in his being forced to live the indignities of the ghetto and the horrors of Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps.

Throughout his ordeals, Simon wavers between his intense anger toward his birth father and his dreams of being reunited with him. Through his relationships with Rabbi Rosenschtein and the rabbi's daughter, Rachel, Simon comes to appreciate his Jewish heritage and find purpose in his life. Driven by devotion to family and friends and his passion for music, Simon holds on to hope. But can he survive the atrocities of the Nazi regime?

How do you reconcile a decision you made in the past when the world erupts in war, threatening the life of someone you love and believe you were protecting?

Excerpt

Simon braced himself for what was coming. 

The rector cleared his throat, stood, and walked back and forth before them with his hands behind his back. His voice seemed apologetic when he stopped and said, “The Nazis are insisting we expel our Jewish students. The ones who came here told me they are forcing all other conservatories and universities throughout Poland to do the same. If we don’t conform, they’ll close the school.”

Simon’s chest tightened. He slowly shook his head in disbelief. A slight noise rose from his throat. He fought an impulse to leap from his chair and swipe his arm across the rector’s desk, letting the items scatter across the floor. To control himself, he squeezed his hands more tightly onto the arms of his chair. He looked at Professor Kaminski again for support. There was a look of helplessness on her face, a look of sympathy for what he must be feeling. He had grown to respect and love her dearly. The thought of losing her as his teacher devastated him.

His father raised his voice. “So, what are you saying? You’re expelling Simon?”

“It’s most unfortunate, but the Germans have tied our hands. I’m afraid the answer is yes.”

“When will this expulsion take place?” 

The rector looked down and lowered his voice. “Immediately, I’m afraid.” 

Simon’s face reddened. “Does this mean I can’t represent the school at the Independence Day Concert?” 

The rector stroked his forearm. “I’m sorry, son. I have no choice.” The rector turned to Simon’s parents. In a gentle tone, he said, “I want to repeat, Mr. and Mrs. Baron, we have the highest regard for Simon. It distresses us to have to take this action.” No one responded. The meeting ended with everyone looking dejected and unable to find the right words to say. 

Professor Kaminski and Simon walked quietly to his classrooms to collect his belongings. Other students passed Simon and nodded. Simon’s eyes averted theirs. When Simon finished, Professor Kaminski walked him to his parents. On the way she stopped, faced him, and placed her hands on his shoulders. “You’re a fine violinist, Simon,” she said. “You must never forget that. This war will be over one day, and you will resume your studies here, I hope. In the meantime, hold your head high, and keep practicing and composing. I’ll want to hear your compositions when we meet again.” They hugged each other. Simon bit his lip to hold back his tears.

Simon and his parents walked out the front door of the school with their shoulders slumped and their heads down. His father attempted to put his arm around Simon’s shoulder. Simon brushed it away and walked home ahead of his parents.

Once home, Simon retreated to his room and slammed the door. He threw his backpack on the floor and fell into his bed, stomach first. He hid his face in his pillow and cried.

This novel is available on the following bookstores: Universal Buy Link

Fred Raymond Goldman

Fred Raymond Goldman graduated from Western Maryland College in Westminster, MD (now named McDaniel College) in June 1962 with a BA in psychology. Two years later, in 1964, he earned an MSW degree from the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Most of Fred's career was spent in Jewish Communal Service. He served as the administrator of Northwest Drug Alert, a methadone maintenance program at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. In this role, he also acted as a community resource, guiding individuals struggling with addiction toward Jewish services that supported abstinence, counseling, and job placement. Following that, Fred was hired as the Assistant to the Director of Jewish Family Services in Baltimore.

His final professional role was with Har Sinai Congregation, a Jewish Reform Synagogue in Baltimore, where he served as Executive Director for 23 years, retiring in October 2005.

In retirement, Fred pursued his love of hiking with The Maryland Hiking Club and spent time volunteering at The Irvine Nature Center. There, he led schoolchildren on nature hikes and assisted in the center’s nature store.

Writing had always been a passion for Fred, dating back to childhood, but it wasn't until retirement that he began to take it seriously. He started writing children's books and became a member of the Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Association.

Among the titles he wrote are: Vera and the Blue Bear Go to the Zoo, Never Bite an Elephant (And Other Bits of Wisdom), The Day the School Bus Drivers Went on Strike, If You Count, and The Day the School Devices Went on Strike.

Though none of these books has been published, Fred remains hopeful that if the CONCERTO books gain recognition, opportunities for the earlier works may follow.

Fred’s journey of writing the CONCERTO companion books began when he saw a note on a local library bulletin board about a new writer's group led by a local author. He joined and, along with nine other participants, learned the fundamentals of writing: staying in the protagonist’s point of view, building narrative tension, developing distinctive and flawed characters, and the process of writing and rewriting.

Over the course of more than four years, Fred dedicated time to writing, researching, rewriting, and submitting the manuscript. What began as a single book titled The Auschwitz Concerto was eventually split into two volumes and self-published. For a time, the manuscript was also titled The Box.

The encouragement from the group’s teacher and fellow members played a key role in shaping the novels, and Fred hopes his feedback was equally helpful to others in the group.

In the 'Author’s Notes' of the CONCERTO books, Fred outlines the goals behind sharing these stories. Prior to writing them, he had only a general understanding of the Holocaust—knowing that nine million lives were lost and that it was a horrific chapter in history. Through the writing process, he gained deeper insights into both historical events and human suffering, fostering a greater sensitivity to contemporary issues. He firmly believes that what affects one group can quickly impact everyone, and that such awareness is critical today.

Author Links:

Author's Page on Publisher's Website 

Amazon Author Page