About the Author
Can Edie rediscover her artistic mojo and become a ‘Watercolour Wonder’?
Edie Brinkley went from rising star on the London art scene to hiding out at her gran’s cottage in the little village of Padcock after a series of unfortunate circumstances leave her almost too panicky to pick up a paintbrush.
When celebrity artist Ninian Chambers rocks up in the village to film Watercolour Wonders, a new TV art competition, Edie is horrified – especially as he played no small part in her decision to leave London.
But, with the support of the Padcock community, and one very special fellow contestant, could Ninian’s show ultimately offer a fresh start for Edie and her art career? Or will Annabel the sixties’ style stealer, along with make-up artist Tallulah and her ‘Caravan of Hell’, sabotage her summer of new beginnings?
Part of the Padcock Village series but can be read as a standalone story.
About the book
Edie’s Summer of New Beginnings is published by Ruby Fiction and available now.
Buying link: Edie’s Summer of New Beginnings
I loved Christmas of New Beginnings and at the time I read it I said I hoped there would be more books set in Padcock village. So I was delighted to see that Kirsty Ferry has indeed written a second book based there. Although it’s the second book in a series, it’s completely standalone as it features different characters.
My Thoughts
You can find out more about Kirsty and her work at http://www.rosethornpress.co.uk, catch her on her Facebook AuthorPage, follow her on Twitter @kirsty_ferry or pop by her blog at http://www.rosethornramblings.wordpress.com.
It was fun reading about the competition and there were some really humorous moments, lots of misunderstandings and a fair bit of attempted sabotage. Edie’s fellow competitor was a lovely, gentle character Howard who she really bonded with but Annabel (I won’t tell you what Edie calls her!) was a character you love to hate. There was certainly no love lost between them.
Kirsty is from the North East of England and won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition in 2009 with the ghostly tale ‘Enchantment’.
Kirsty’s first timeslip novel ‘The Memory of Snow’, commended in the Northern Writers’ Awards, is set on Hadrian’s Wall, with the vampire tale ‘Refuge’ set on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. She has also put together a collection of short stories, a non-fiction collection of articles and writes Gothic Fiction under the pen name Cathryn Ramsay.
Kirsty has had articles and short stories published in Your Cat, Peoples Friend, Ghost Voices, The Weekly News and It’s Fate, and her short stories appear in several anthologies. She was a judge in the Paws ‘n’ Claws ‘Wild and Free’ Children’s Story competition in 2011, 2013 and 2014, and graduated from Northumbria University in December 2016, having achieved a Masters with Distinction in Creative Writing.
Unknown to her, her friends entered her into an art competition being filmed in the village in an attempt to encourage her to start painting again. She is horrified to find that the celebrity judge is a fellow artist who she has previously had several very awkward encounters with. I did think she had been rather unfair to Ninian and never really gave him a chance to explain. So the atmosphere between them in rather frosty to say the least!
We get to know more about Edie and why she is in the quiet, rural village of Padcock. She had been a successful artist, even having work exhibited in the Tate Modern so it was perhaps a bit strange that she had turned her back on all that.
Her timeslip novel, ‘Some Veil Did Fall’, a paranormal romance set in Whitby, was published by Choc Lit in Autumn 2014. This was followed by another Choc Lit timeslip, ‘The Girl in the Painting’ in February 2016. ‘The Girl in the Photograph’, published in March 2017, completes the Rossetti Mysteries series. The experience of signing ‘Some Veil Did Fall’ in a quirky bookshop in the midst of Goth Weekend in Whitby, dressed as a recently undead person was one of the highlights of her writing career so far!
This book focusses on Edie who we met in Christmas of New Beginnings. She is an artist who helps run the local craft shop and tearoom with her friend Cerys. It was great to read about Cerys and ‘Lovely Sam’ again, who were the main characters in the first book.
Edie’s Summer of New Beginnings is an amusing, romantic and heart-warming read. It has some wonderful characters and with some slightly madcap scenes throughout the book, it’s a book that is sure to leave you smiling. Another delightful rom-com from Kirsty Ferry.
