It's Friday - What Can Possibly Go Wrong?
A weekly newsletter from Jodi Taylor
This week we have:
An update from Jodi about Raising the Dead - a St Mary’s Halloween short story (available to paid subscribers now and free to all on Halloween)
Bookshop Day is on Saturday, 11th October. Tell us about your favourite bookshop for a chance to win an exclusive Jodi Taylor book bag.
A David Sands Writing Competition entry: Sunny Days in the Orchard by Helen L. Brady
This Week in History: Deeds, Not Words: The Founding of the Women’s Social and Political Union
The St Mary’s Short Stories Christmas Reading Challenge - enjoy an extract read by Jodi Taylor from When A Child is Born
October - Book of the Month: Out of Time
There’s plenty to read this week and you can see everything new on the blog too. CLICK HERE for the blog.
Raising the Dead is a new St. Mary’s Halloween short story - it’s now live for paid subscribers and will be free for everyone on Halloween.
I completely failed to take this story seriously. This was definitely a Let’s send them all to Mars and see what happens moment. Basically, I was bored. There were lots of things I should be doing – finishing off A Family Affair. Preparing for the Murder Mystery event. And the launch of Out of Time at Battersea Power Station bookshop – and I wasn’t doing any of it. I was playing around with this instead. Because who doesn’t love a bit of Gothic Horror St Mary’s style?
This is a stand-alone story. After the events of The Good, the Bad and the History but before the Christmas story, Murder at Martingale Manor. And definitely before the even more Unfortunate Events I have planned for St Mary’s 15 – Well, That Could Have Gone Better.
Happy reading!
Love Jodi x
Use the Leave A Comment button to tell us about your favourite book shop. Where is it, and what makes it special? Share your love and support your local book shop. We will share your recommendations on a regular basis. If your book shop is featured in the newsletter, you’ll win an exclusive Jodi Taylor book bag.
Sunny Days in the Orchard - A David Sands Competition story by Helen L Brady
Sunny days weren’t the time for ghost stories. They were for firesides, and flickering candles in the dark, for shadows in the hallways and dark nights at All Hallow’s Eve. So why under bright, midday sunshine in their orchard full of leafy trees and beginning-to-ripen apples… did she have that chill down her spine, that creepy feeling she was being watched?
She paused and looked around her – she couldn’t see anybody. Perhaps it was her imagination? She’d snuck out from the house with her set work only half done because it was so hot and stuffy inside; she wanted to feel the soft breeze on her face and look up into the sky. She loved looking up at green leaves against the blue, and it was almost cloudless at the moment, just a few trailing puffs of white, so tenuous you’d have trouble imagining dream shapes into the slowly drifting wisps.
This Week in History: Deeds, Not Words: The Founding of the Women’s Social and Political Union
On 10th October 1903, in a modest home in Manchester, a small group of women gathered under the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst. What they created that evening, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), would go on to change the course of British democracy. Their cause was female suffrage, and their motto, soon to echo across Britain, was uncompromising: “Deeds, not words.”
By the early 20th century, the issue of women’s suffrage in Britain had been debated for decades. Petitions, campaigns, and parliamentary bills had been presented as early as the 1860s, yet progress remained frustratingly slow. The leading suffrage organisation of the time, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), led by Millicent Fawcett, adhered to constitutional methods including lobbying, public meetings, and appeals to reason.
But for Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, patience was running out. They believed that decades of polite requests had been met with indifference by a political system dominated by men. It was time, they argued, for something different: a bold, militant campaign that could not be ignored.
The St Mary’s Short Stories Christmas Reading Challenge
Who’s up for joining in the St Mary’s Christmas Reading Challenge? You simply need to read the 11 St Mary’s Christmas stories and leave a comment below each story as you finish them. We will feature one story a week up to Christmas.
This week’s book is When A Child Is Born
Enjoy an extract read by Jodi Taylor
CLICK HERE to join the reading challenge.
Author Interview with Mike Turner
October - Book of the Month: Out of Time
It’s a little bit further than local from me, but one of my favourite bookshops is the Waterstones in Gower Street in London. They have a huge selection of nonfiction, Loeb classical library hardbacks available. It’s in a beautiful building, and just down from the British Museum(those sneaky people….) and the staff are always lovely.
In regards to bookshop day. My favourite bookshop is Pulp Fiction in Brisbane Australia. They are an independent bookshop. They are the only bookshop in this city that carry Jodi Taylor books and have me on standing order for the new St Mary’s and Time Police books.