Local authors

Beneath Cornish Skies

By Kate Ryder

Beneath Cornish Skies is shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Novel Awards 2022 in the Fantasy Romantic Novel category. Started in 1960, the awards are highly respected in the UK publishing industry and previous winners include Philippa Gregory, Joanna Trollope and Rosamunde Pilcher. The awards are unique in that they are judged entirely by readers, without input from any industry professionals.

‘Beneath Cornish Skies’ is a beautiful and well written, magical story about Cassandra Shaw, a 28-year-old woman who finds herself at a crossroads...To outsiders, her life looks perfect – a beautiful house in the country with a handsome and very successful partner who showers her with expensive gifts and doesn’t expect her to do a day’s work. But the reality is very different. Does she stay and continue to live a lonely and ‘safe’, rich life with her controlling and egotistical, cheating partner of ten years, or does she take the chance and leave it all behind and start a new, fresh life working as a ‘superhuman’ assistant for the Kinsman family at Foxcombe Manor in North Cornwall? Ultimately, the decision she makes will change the course of her life forever!Kate Ryder’s storytelling is so polished and elegant, and a plotline with a magical element to it that is sublime. I was completely drawn into this wonderful story from the very beginning and found it extremely hard to put down. I absolutely loved seeing our heroine morph from a shy and terribly insecure person into a beautiful, confident woman with a warrior spirit and a gypsy soul. I also loved the way the author incorporated the history of the area, the ever-present spirits in the Cornish landscape and the ghostly residents of Foxcombe Manor into her storyline, making for a very interesting and intriguing read. This is such a beautiful, uplifting story about second chances, taking risks and the ultimate prize... finding true love. I am so pleased I discovered this terrific, spirit-raising and totally immersive story about self-discovery, with shades of ghostliness and the supernatural. I recommend you read it too. You won’t regret it! (Review by RomanceBookTalk - Amazon Top 500 Reviewer)

The metaphorical tambourine

Brian Freeland is a remarkable man; now in his eighties, he looks like, and acts with the energy of, someone thirty years younger and has had a very interesting life. His theatre career started in 1959 directly after National Service. He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sadler’s Wells, London Festival Ballet, National Theatre, Scottish Opera and Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, starting as a technician, and moving into directing and producing. He has also visited forty-three countries including two circumnavigations of the globe, three residencies in the Middle East and eight tours of the Indian subcontinent.

His books recount his experiences and his search for meaning in his life - the metaphorical tambourine. In his book, Searching for my Tambourine, he gives a very personal account of his theatre life and the many famous people he worked with, including Sir Peter Hall, Dame Beryl Gray, Peter O’Toole and Dame Sybil Thorndyke, to name but a few. What makes the book so interesting are the deeply personal reminiscences of the many actors he met, all searching for their tambourines. Four years of Brian’s retirement were spent in west-central France close to the River Charente, which led to his book Meanderings: a River and a Life. This charts his time house-sitting near the Charente and his early life in England, first as a schoolboy, then during RAF National Service before his first job as trainee theatre manager at The London Palladium, recreating the atmosphere of the 1950s. He ends this book as the river reaches the sea, comparing that with his life and how his talks and writing have given him a sense of purpose.

His books are available to buy at www.brianfreeland.co.uk and he will be available to sign copies on 10 May at a Tavistock Heritage Trust talk on Women of the Raj, and in November, for a talk on George Bernard Shaw. Like his hugely entertaining and revealing books these talks should not be missed. (Review by Dr Ann Pulsford)