A very happy New Year to all our visitors. May 2023 bring you health, wealth and happiness and, for the authors among us, booming sales.
As we said in our Christmas blog, the hive is on holiday until next weekend. But we don’t want to leave you with nothing, so we’re repeating the Christmas and New Year serial that Sophie wrote a year or two back.
The first episode is below. The link to subsequent episodes is at the end of each. It’s like binging on box sets of Downton or Bridgerton. Feel free to read all the episodes at a sitting. You know you want to!
CHRISTMAS MYSTERY SERIAL by Sophie Weston: EPISODE 1
There was fog over the rooftops when Liv looked out from her bedroom window for the last time. She kind of loved this view of her bit of London. Like Mary Poppins and her sweep, she saw Victorian chimneys, with a distant church tower and, even further away, a block of Edwardian apartments. Continue reading →
For me, there is nothing more disappointing than settling down with a book, enjoying the story and investing in the plot and characters. You read to the last page… And then it leaves you flat.
I have to confess to a vested interest here – a book I read recently which turned out to be one of a series. Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say.
No, only the cliff-hanger ending left so many loose ends in the main romance and the plot that I felt thoroughly let down. I also felt I was being hustled into buying the next.
I didn’t.
Having invested quite heavily in the story so far, I wasn’t prepared to have it happen again.
Today the Libertà hive are in celebratory mood, springing towards summer by relaunching our collection of novellas, Beach Hut Surprise.
In spring, says the poet, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. (Actually it was Tennyson in Locksley Hall, written when he was twenty-five and presumably knew what he was talking about. At least in the Young Man Department anyway.)
This spring, after a grim year of Covid 19 and at least three lockdowns, most of us, even the least romantic, are starting to think of Getting Out A Bit. It gives us hope. Continue reading →
CHRISTMAS MYSTERY by Sophie Weston: EPISODE 12 Conclusion Missed the start? Click here to read from episode 1
The nurse lived a good way out and insisted on taking them in for a drink to celebrate the New Year. As it turned out, this included a substantial ham sandwich which Patrick snarfed down like a starving wolf.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Busy day. First chance to eat.”
The nurse beamed and waved them off with a care package of goodies from the meal she was preparing to see in the New Year.
In the car on the way back, Liv relaxed, even when Patrick said, “Why didn’t you tell me to drive you to the Food Bank?”
She was surprised. “You were completely immersed in your research. I didn’t want to break your concentration.”
CHRISTMAS MYSTERY by Sophie Weston: EPISODE 12 Part 1 Missed the start? Click here to read from episode 1
The nurse was instantly alert. “Does he want to hurt you?”
“I don’t know,” said Liv. “And I don’t know why he’s following me. I don’t even know who he is.”
Except that the daring, athletic cyclist was definitely not Francis. That was a relief in one way. But only a small way. She could feel the hamster wheel of panic start up again. She breathed carefully.
I can deal with this. I CAN DEAL WITH THIS.
But she felt as if her bones had turned to netting and her stomach cramped.
The nurse stayed cool and stuck to the important stuff. “He’s followed you before?” Continue reading →
CHRISTMAS MYSTERY by Sophie Weston: EPISODE 11 Missed the start? Click here to read from episode 1
“No,” said Liv.
She went on saying it while Patrick Fell delivered a lecture from the podium on why this was absolutely the best—no, the only—solution. In the end, she was so cold that she said in desperation, “Can we discuss this in your car? I’m freezing.”
He harrumphed a bit, but agreed, though he made her put her mask on and opened all the car windows. “If this takes too long, I shall have to lower the top,” he warned her. “With current virus restrictions, it behoves people like us to be responsible.”
Liv swung round to look at him in disbelief. “Who the hell says behoves in the twenty-first century?”
“It’s a nice economical word and it says what I mean. Now, your place or mine?” Continue reading →
CHRISTMAS MYSTERY by Sophie Weston: EPISODE 10 Missed the start? Click here to read from episode 1
Liv tried to sleep that night. She really tried. But her head was buzzing with half-formed ideas, questions, splinters of memory that she couldn’t get rid of.
At 2.13 a.m., she got up and made tea. She huddled into the rented couch in the rented room and remembered the big, uncomfortable chairs in Francis’s beloved drawing room That Night.
Even the professional florist’s arrangement had been too big. Come to think of it, Liv had never ordered it. Francis must have sent it specially. Set dressing for a supposedly impromptu celebration after the board meeting at Temple Blake Rossignol. Continue reading →
CHRISTMAS MYSTERY by Sophie Weston: EPISODE 8 Missed the start? Click here to read from episode 1
Mr Christoferou had been as good as his word. Liv had to ring the bell at the guest house. When he opened the door to her, he said at once, “I get your luggage.”
“I don’t want to leave yet,” she said, alarmed.
“No, no. Not until next week. I know. We locked all your things away while you were out, as I said.”
“Er, thank you.”
He brought them to her room, in a businesslike stackable container. As soon as he’d gone, she opened her laptop and searched the old email in-box for Patrick Fell’s message with his mobile number. There were nearly two hundred messages waiting. Continue reading →
CHRISTMAS MYSTERY by Sophie Weston: EPISODE 7 Missed the start? Click here to read from episode 1
Liv was silent as they walked back. Patrick Fell didn’t seem to notice. He talked all the time, but it was more like thinking aloud than conversation. She caught phrases: borrow a car, sequence of events, intruders, enemy. But he neither asked nor seemed to expect her to respond.
The entrance of the multi-storey car park held a tall Christmas tree, hung with multi-coloured lights that blinked on and off. Liv thought it looked gallant but forlorn among the discarded shopping trolleys. Patrick ignored it and the sign to the lifts. He took the stairs, still talking.
Liv followed, her thoughts tumbling over each other. Could she trust him? Rosa trusted him but Rosa wasn’t being followed by persons unknown. Did she know him really well? Better than Liv did, anyway?
Above all, why did he take this case? They hadn’t discussed payment. OK, Liv had been anxious, off-balance, not thinking straight. But surely Patrick should have told her his terms of business? Wasn’t that the first thing that a bona fide private detective would have done? Now she thought about it, it felt all wrong. Continue reading →