Volume #1: A Year of Stories from an English Village
Coombesford is a typical English village nestled between the Haldon Hills and Dartmoor in the county of Devon. Meet the residents of the village and find out how they spend their time – when not committing or solving murders.
***
***
Review
Last year the author wrote a cosy mystery about this small village called Coombesford, the first in a series.
Now it’s great to be invited to travel there again in order to get to know the villagers a bit better. This is a collection of 12 stories, one for every month of the year. The book is not for nothing called Coombesford Calendar of course. 😊
The first story took me a bit by surprise. I did not see that coming and I loved it. Each time I started a new story I was hoping the author would follow the same pattern. And… she did. Woohooo!!!
‘Isn’t that a bit boring?’, I hear you ask. Big no. It was great. You will just have to read the book too in order to understand what I mean.
I realised I was beginning to think along the same lines, my smile growing bigger and bigger as the story progressed.
Every story was a hit making this book a very enjoyable read. 5 stars
Thank you, Elizabeth Ducie
***
About the author
I was born and brought up in Birmingham. As a teenager, I won a holiday to France, Spain and Portugal for writing essays and poetry in a newspaper competition. Despite this promising start in the literary world, I took scientific qualifications and spent more than thirty years as a manufacturing consultant, technical writer and small business owner, publishing a number of pharmaceutical text books and editing a technical journal along the way. I returned to creative writing in 2006 and since then, I have written short stories and poetry for competitions — and have had a few wins, several honourable mentions and some short-listing. I am also published in several anthologies.
Under the Chudleigh Phoenix Publications imprint, I have published two solo collections of short stories and co-authored another two. I also write and lecture on business skills for writers running their own small business. My debut novel, Gorgito’s Ice Rink, which was published in 2014, was Runner Up in Writing Magazine’s 2015 Self-Published Book of the Year Awards. In August 2018, it received a Chill With A Book Award. My second novel, Counterfeit!, was published in 2016. It is the first in a series of thrillers set in the sometimes murky world of international pharmaceuticals. It came third in the Literature Works 2015 First Page Writing Prize. The second in the series, Deception!, came out in September 2017. The final part, Corruption! came a year later.
Having left Birmingham to study in London, I lived for more than twenty years in Wilmington, Kent. In 2007, I moved to the South West of England, where I live with my husband, Michael, in a converted granary sited picturesquely on the banks of, and occasionally within the path of, a small stream. In 2012, I closed down my technical consultancy in order to concentrate full-time on my writing. In 2012 I graduated from Exeter University with an MA in Creative Writing
I am the editor of the Chudleigh Phoenix Community Magazine, a monthly online newsletter and for five years, I ran the Chudleigh Phoenix Annual Short Story Competition. I am a member of the Chudleigh Writers’ Circle and was one of the organisers of the annual Chudleigh Literary Festival which ran from 2011 to 2019. I am also a member of Exeter Writers and was Director of the Exeter Literary Festival for 2020 and 2021. I spend far too much time on Facebook and Twitter, but have met some wonderful members of the writing community as a result.
When I am not writing, I am a keen reader and singer. I also enjoy live theatre of any kind, share with my husband a love of fine dining, and am a real sucker for the kind of country house hotel where you can kick off your shoes and curl up with a book in front of a log fire.
I would like you to believe I am also a keen walker, enjoying the beauties of Dartmoor and the South Devon coastline—but, as a writer, I’m good at making things up.
***
Author Links
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Elizabeth-Ducie-Author-312553422131146/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElizabethDucie
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/educie/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth_ducie_author/
***
***
Book Link
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09XBRBXTP/
B for Bookreview 