Sunday, May 28, 2017

#poweredByindie Day four of free download Up Up and Away

So it's the fourth day of the free download of Up Up and Away. Few know this book started off with the working title of Standby For Take-off. Tomorrow will be the last day to get it for free on Amazon. A humorous, sometimes wry look from the inside of Celtic Airways, a thriving Irish airline. Romantic too depending how you feel about an air hostess madly in love with a four gold striper, married pilot. Don't miss it. Sequel coming online soon.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

#poweredByindie - Today's the day free download of Up Up and Away



Today you can download for free Up Up and Away on Amazon.  Offer lasts until Monday, another five days to go. Get it, read it and enjoy this tale of an Irish airline and the pilots and air hostesses, their loves, lives, thrills and spills of flying and romancing.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Free Download from Amazon 'Up Up and Away'

So here goes. Kicking off Amazon promotion on my first airline novel Up Up and Away on Thursday 25th May with five days of freebies. Set in the 1960's it will give you an idea of what it was to work for an Irish airline in those years.  Quote from fellow air hostess on reading it. 'I don't remember it being so much fun back then'  In retrospect we did have a lot of fun. Read
for free and tell me if you agree.  Maybe write a review. Enjoy!

Monday, May 15, 2017

Maya Angelou a remarkable Black woman, her autobiography a must read.

When I saw a documentary made by the BBC I was filled with admiration for Maya Angelou and immediately wanted to read more about this remarkable Black woman. I started with her autobiography 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings' As it happened, I had the book already on my shelves having picked it up in Oxfam, along with two others, some years ago. What a treat was in store. 

From the start her resilience impressed me, her originality, her style and most of all her big heart and her determination to succeed in a world where to be Black was to be already judged and found wanting. Nothing fazed her despite the hardship of being abandoned by her separated parents at the age of three and sent to Arkansas by train with her four year old brother, Bailey, to live with her paternal grandmother. She remembered their name tags attached to their wrists and the train tickets pinned to the inside pocket of her brother's jacket. 

Touching are her memories of that poverty stricken childhood and her fast held belief that inside she was really a blonde, pink-cheeked little white girl and it was only a matter of time before this would be revealed to all about her. She was an avid reader with an inquiring mind and high grades soon passing out the other school children. She grew to love poetry and to write it. She was fortunate to have a stalwart, principled grandmother who brought Bailey and herself up strictly but with an abiding love and understanding and taught them how to hold up their heads and be proud of who they were. There was a school teacher in the town of Stamps who saw Maya's potential and befriended her, particularly in the traumatic years following her rape at the age of seven by her mother's lover when brought home to live in St. Louis with her mother. 

After this terrible experience Maya didn't speak for five years. Her kindly insightful teacher persuaded her to believe that until she spoke poetry aloud and let it sound on her tongue and pass her lips she would not move forward in her life. Fortunately, Maya triumphed over the poverty and prejudice of her existence and in her lifetime wrote two collections of prose and many books of poetry most evocative is entitled 'And Still I Rise.'. which summed up her valiant courageous spirit. Famous her historic poem 'On The Pulse Of Morning' written for President Clinton's inauguration. She had a life-time appointment as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University of North Carolina. Not a woman who will ever by forgotten nor her wonderful prose and poetry.

#poweredByindie Another week to go.

Another week to go before my first airline novel Up Up and Away is available for free downloading on Amazon. Just awaiting confirmation that Thursday 25th May is the kick-off date. Anyone interested has five days to get it for free! Set in the 1960's against the glamorous background of an Irish airline when overnights and sun holidays were a big part part of being aircrew, it gives a humorous, sometimes wry, look at the loves and jealousies of the hostess section and the tensions on the other side of the cockpit door


Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Two weeks to go then free download Up Up and Away.

Just to let you know the moment is coming when my first airline novel will be available for downloading for free. Will confirm the date later. This is the cover for eBooks edition. When the paperback was coming out the publisher gathered together 'bits and pieces' of uniform. Grey jackets and flat airline hats. From where I don't know but even before I had signed a contract -  I had already read and rejected three - he staged a photo shoot with models and one four gold striper captain and, in spite of myself, I was excited.

When it came to the present eBook edition I gave the designer a line about the air hostesses and pilots having 'their heads and hearts in the clouds,' and viewing the result one amused friend remarked, 'Yeah, this lot look like they are ready to party once they land.' So they are too. It's a fun read, a  sometimes wry look at an Irish airline, the loves and lives of pilots and air hostesses. Take time and enjoy!