In this quaint idyllic village lurked the watchers, perched in their places of safety looking out into the bleakness of the day. Their eyes pierced the depths of my soul, clawing and drawing my safety from within. I had just moved to this leafy village in the depths of the Buckinghamshire countryside, from the chaos of the big smoke. I thought I had escaped those Curtain Twitchers; those beings of solitude entrapped and entrapping like thieves of your sanity. To the visitors who were just passing through this village, everything was blissful and most delightful; all curtains perfectly still and no sign of this eerie presence or its destructively dark drawing fear.

So begins the debut novel The Curtain Twitchers of Oakley Place by Deborah M Hodgetts, a writer more used to poetry, and published on both sides of the Atlantic. The novel follows the main character, Barney Lumsden, as he moves from the chaos of day-to-day living in London, to what he hopes is a much quieter pace of life, in a village called Oakley Place, set in the heart of Buckinghamshire. Unfortunately, Barney’s hope for a peaceful existence are dashed when he finds himself enmeshed in a web of intrigue and confusion when a travelling circus and funfair arrive in the village.

Oakley Place was a pleasant enough place but as you may expect there was quite an eclectic mix of individuals living here. It was a cross between those born and bred here and, as we were known, the interlopers. In certain places in the village I had sensed that there was a love-hate divide between the two categories of villagers. Generally, the main of the village folk were the salt of the earth and just as you would expect. However, as predictable as you may assume, you also had to contend with a minority of the high and mighty or the downright lost in the gene pool.

From personal experience, the shift from writing poetry and taking on the mighty challenges of constructing mystery novels are daunting. In her first foray into this difficult genre, Deborah shows literary promise, her descriptions and use of prose allow images to spring from the pages, especially when describing locations. It is clear to see from her particular writing style that Deborah’s foundation has been in poetry, and she uses this to her advantage.

Through the passage of time his essence had merged with the earth‚ and like the roots of a mighty oak‚ it had spread across the whole village. It travelled through deep veins within the earth – leaching out like a poison, which filtered into the very rivers, streams and air. It polluted the lifeblood of Oakley Place.

At times the story follows a hectic trail involving a wide variety of colourful characters at a fast pace, to this end the reader will need to be on their toes at all times.

Life is just full of infinite possibilities, but LOVE always holds the key.

Mel Woodend’s fourth poetry collection is inspired by nature and the limitless rainbow of colours found within. It’s an interesting and refreshing theme for a collection of work. Emotions and colours are often linked, and this beautiful collection of deeply rich poems encompasses what we feel when we see natural colours all around us. Reading them has been a pure joy.

Comprised of four sections, reflecting the elements; air, earth, fire and water, Mel takes the reader on a journey through their five senses. The language used is evocative and beautiful throughout. A line describing a rainbow in ‘After the Rain’ stayed with me long after I first read it:

Nature’s apology for bleak downpour

a gift from the sun as it

shines brightly once more.

Beauty travelling miles

Included in the collection are two blackout poems, sometimes referred to as ‘found poetry’ or used as writing exercises, when the writer takes an article and discovers something new within it. ‘Pink Moon’ is a perfect example of when this style works well.

‘Autumn Leaves’ is both desperately beautiful and sad at the same time. Imagery and grief come flooding through through this poem, and the lines:

Autumn leaves litter an angry sky

and

October death scattered all around

were powerfully effective, and haunted my own imagination and memories.

A favourite of mine from this collection was ‘The Snow Carpet’. A delightful poem about the joy that crisp white snow can bring out in people:

Sparkling with a thousand tiny diamonds entwined in its fibres

The snow carpet invites sledgers and skiers to its smooth surface

And children shouting and playing and throwing snowballs…

Another line which struck me as simple, yet perfect was from ‘Kitchen Colours’:

I smell the warmth of home

in my Mother’s kitchen.

And describing her Mother’s cooking:

Loving hands carefully stirring a saucepan of something delicious.

Mel is an extremely talented writer who has developed a marvellous collection of work. The poems are full and deep, covering a range of topics, but keeping the theme of natural colours and emotion to the forefront. It’s a wonderful read. I urge you to go and get a copy of it, and add it to your book shelf.

Mel’s Website

‘It was in the summer of the millennium year that I began to write from the heart. For almost twenty years, I had written of profit and capital…but until that fateful year, I had now known what it was to bow my head to the calling of life contract and karma…I watched, incapable of acting to prevent it. I had nowhere to go then, but into the printed word. From that August onward, I poured the substance of my energy onto the page’.

Amongst the various forms of creative writing to choose from, one form can be invariably tough, as it crosses into the potentially dangerous waters of ‘this is what I think’; used primarily in internet blogs, autobiographies and ‘self-help’ books. The upside of this can be that we gain personal insights into the internal ‘machinery’ of the author, however, the downside can be that the writer comes across as someone insisting/demanding that we listen to their words, accompanied by a sense of superiority and egotistical arrogance.

Luckily, for all readers of fine words, the author Michael Forester is a superbly gifted writer; employing a precise set of joyous communicative skills – in his 2017 book Forest Rain – Spiritual Learnings For A New Age – as he seeks to relay some complex and detailed ideas towards his readers.

For Michael, this is a departure from his fictional work, such as Dragonsong & The Goblin Child and Other Stories (both released in 2016) but he traverses any potential ‘minefields’ attached to this writing genre with ease, relaying personal thoughts and philosophical foundations without any edge of pushiness or demand. As such, the reader never feels pressured into any form of ‘conversion’ and is kept at a safe, observational distance.

Michael’s writing style is simplistically beautiful – a combination of life writing chapters, separated by heartfelt poems that add texture and depth to his prose. Often emotionally charged and highly personal, again it is Michael’s polished skill as a writer that allows us into his world for a ‘peek’, yet never do we feel as if we are nosing. For example, from a chapter entitled ‘Lessons From The Death of a Marriage’:

‘We did not see it at first. It came as to a tree in canker. The discolouration of our love took time to become visible, for the branches to lose their sap and harden…those around us, then and now, tell us that our union wore that autumnal look for years…we, ourselves, were the last to see it, for neither of us would acknowledge the impending death of love. So tightly had the cords been wound, that to cease to love, to cease to be together, was inconceivable to either of us.’

Forest Rain is riddled with excellent writing, beautifully communicated and luxuriously gift-wrapped for our senses. Again, as with the above quotation, it would be easy to overburden, or inflict the reader with a sense of personal intrusion, but Michael keeps us just at arm’s-length throughout the 148 pages of this book, as he relays a combination of monologues pertaining to his life events & thoughts, alongside a varied example of exquisite and pertinent poetry; some longer pieces and others only a few lines in totality, such as ‘Flying Fish’:

And we are but flying fish

breaking the surface for a moment

to bask in the reflected glory

of a transient elevation.

In many ways, this resembles an autobiography, yet the reader is taken on a far deeper journey, as if the author is inviting us deeper into his own personal world, opening up doors that few writers would dare to reveal to their literary audience. Again, the key is balance…too much insight and we may feel that we are intruding into Michael’s personal world. Too little insight and we may feel that the project has been both pointless and unnecessary. Because the nature of the topics covered by Michael hold such fascinating human interest, we remain keen to hear his voice.

Of course, it is also vitally important with this genre that we like Michael; else we are covering 148 pages of words without remotely caring about the source. If he gets on a ‘soap box’, do we hang in there? If he comes over as selfish and overbearing, where’s the motivation not to put the book down and turn the television on? Thankfully, Michael comes across as a lovely, warm, genuine man and not just because of his chosen words that he places down upon paper. This is not a sales job…we are not being asked to buy into anything, merely to listen and attempt to understand his personal journey through life and the lessons he has learned from his journey, both positive and negative, so that we may gain understanding and growth.

As such, we start page one as a stranger and become a trusted friend long before the final line is done. This is not a book saying ‘Listen to me!’…it’s two people chatting about life in front of a pub log fire, safe and secure in the knowledge that we are in the finest company and all is well with the world…able to broach any subject, such as dealing with oncoming deafness, how angry humans can be, the mysteries of love, and even the impending death of a father suffering with Parkinson’s Disease.

‘I know that soon you will go gently. It has never been your way to rage and you will not rage now at the dying of the light…then, when the rituals are done, when they have fussed over your shell to their hearts’ content, when they have cried their tears…then it is you and I that shall rise from the table and take our leave. We shall walk within the forest. For we never did. We shall stand in the storms together. For we never did…We shall each hold the heart of the other. For we never did. We shall, each of us, see the soul of the other. For we never did. And once, just once, we shall each of us say unto the other, ‘I love you’. For we never did.’

This book is an absolute gem and I feel honoured to have read it. I sincerely wish that I’d written it.

Get your copy of Forest Rain 🙂