FREE book: The Apple Picker's Daughter (a novel of childhood)

The Apple Picker's Daughter is FREE for today and tomorrow at Amazon - so don't forget to download your copy!

Born in the 1960s on a UK apple farm, Clare Rivers is a girl out of time, living in a family and a world that makes little sense to her. Determined to carve out her place somehow, and with her deep love of her father to see her through, Clare begins a unique journey to discover the reasons for her own existence. If she can. However, accompanied by the oddities of family, school and the strange lyrical life of the apples, can Clare really find a place within herself to call home? 

This novel will appeal to lovers of rural life, recent history and a child's quirky but clear-sighted view of the adult world.

Happy reading!

Anne Brooke Books
The Origami Nun (Children's fiction)
The Gathandrian Fantasy Trilogy

A legendary romance and an unexpected shower

Book News:

Literary romance short story, Dido's Tale, is now published by Bluewood Publishing and you can find it at Amazon UK - for only 90p! - Amazon US and All Romance Ebooks. I hope you enjoy the read. Of course you can also have this story and indeed all my other Kindle books signed at Kindlegraph for free - so there's an offer you Kindle buyers can't refuse ...

Meanwhile, erotic gay short story For One Night Only gained a very thoughtful and pleasing review at Goodreads (thank you, JJ) and also a 4-star review at Goodreads (many thanks, Kris).

And fantasy novel The Gifting was showcased this week at Reading & Writing Daily by Fred Bubbers - so thank you for that, Fred. Here's another small section of the book:

... but Johan swallows the laughter out of respect for the place they are in.

This week's meditation poems are:




Meditation 561
When the shouting
is done
and the battles
are dust

the one truth
that remains
is to know
whom you trust.




Meditation 562
The place where sins
are forgiven
is quieter
than a feather
and wider
than the sea.

In these travels
through my life
I stumble on it
rarely
but still it calls
to me.




Meditation 563
Today behind the words
lacing this holy page
there is nothing

but silence and the sense
that God might just
have departed

before I even thought
to arrive.


Life News:

As the rain falls, still our living room ceiling leaks, sigh. I've had to put towels and buckets down this morning as it was so heavy but it's stopped now, thank goodness. In true recycling glory, I've poured the water from the bucket onto the garden so I feel I've at least put the rain where it was originally intended to go. Never mind though, only 1 week to go and we're moving so I'm hoping for a more reliable roof in sunny Elstead, hey ho.

This afternoon, the flat cleaner has come round to quote for the post-rental clean organised by the agents. What a very nice woman. If money allows, I might try to see if she'll come to Elstead now and again. Goodness, how very Surrey I am these days - my northern grandmother would turn in her urn to hear me. Though then again, I'd probably be fairly startled to hear her also.

Tonight, K and I are off to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford to see The Woman in White so we're looking forward to an evening of thrills and spills. Other excitements of the week are that I've finally, after three painful weeks of trying, persuaded BT to allow me to pay my new bill by direct debit once we're in Elstead. Lordy, but it was terribly complicated. They sent me a survey asking how they'd performed, so I told them. In no uncertain terms. At least today, the woman on the phone - once I'd spent ten minutes pressing all possible buttons in order to get through to a real ruddy person - was very nice and seemed to know something, hurrah.  However, even she couldn't tell me what my new phone number - of the three different ones they've so far provided us with - was actually going to be until they connect it. So it must be almost as much of a mystery to them as it is to me, hey ho.

And - at last! - the first of the glorious English apples are in the shops for the season, double hurrahs and put out the bunting. Well done to Waitrose for choosing such a classy crop too, English apples of course (says she, speaking as an apple farmer's daughter) being the only ones worth eating at all ...

Anne Brooke
The Thoughtful Corner

On the market ...

Life news:

Our flat is finally on the market (hurrah!) and can be found in all its Victorian glory at RightMove. All reasonable offers considered, naturally. Everyone does seem to love (or hate!) our zebra rug, but hey that zebra was one class act. Even had its own seat on the train when K brought it all the way back from north London some years ago ...

We've also been continuing to view properties and have a list of 3 so far that we'd like to view again if they're still available by the time we find our own buyer: one in Godalming in a location to die for, gloriously spacious rooms and with a garden you'd have to bring a telescope to see the end of; one in Normandy which was really lovely (apart from the bitchy owner who did rather put me off, what a cow ...) and had a glorious set of coloured tiles in the pleasingly large kitchen; and one in Elstead (my favoured village) with so much in the not-very-large-but-very-cleverly-arranged garden that you'd definitely have to take tours round it. Next week I'm viewing another house in Elstead during the week, and then I hope to set up two Normandy bungalow viewings for K and me next Saturday. Really it's all go.

We've also been filling in a mound of paperwork for the fast-start conveyancing service, and will send it off to the solicitors after we've seen the mortgage specialist next Saturday morning. I suspect they're going to have fun with our leasing arrangements. Apparently the estate agents have already had a great deal of fun with them as part of our lease forbids anyone in the house to set up a brothel or a pub, and it's the first time the agents have come across that one! I suspect it stems from the time when there was a brothel down our road a few decades ago and eventually they pulled the whole house down. Though one assumes not when there was someone still in it.

Also yesterday, I helped out with the open day at the university at the last minute (in between house viewings) as there was a gap we couldn't fill and I didn't want to leave one person on her own. Loads of questions about finances, naturally, but it's all very fluid at the moment so we're really not quite sure how the new system will all work out, or even if it will. Loads of people there too as they want to start next year before the fees are raised, so it was busy busy busy.

This morning, we graced the doors of church - the poor vicar's not very well at all, so Jenny took the service and has apparently told the Archdeacon (giving him no room for contradiction) that the vicar needs time off, and she and the other priest will handle everything until December. Good for her - it takes a woman to sort things out when the men are faffing around, you know! And double good for her as Archdeacons can be tricky, as we all know from the recent TV series, Rev. K and I were also deeply bamboozled by the fact that someone called him Kevin during the peace and the server gave him the wine with the words: The blood of Christ, Peter ... I reckon Kevin is my No 2 husband and Peter is my No 3 husband - lordy, no wonder we need a larger house. Really, it's an utter mystery why K, Kevin and Peter haven't ever bumped into each other in the 17 years we've lived here. Thank goodness for lofts ...

After that we've had a lovely house-free time at Wisley where the peculiarly named Europom event has been taking place to celebrate autumn this weekend. Yes, I thought it was Europorn too when I first read it but actually it's do to with apples. As an apple farmer's daughter, I had to attend of course. And how lovely it is to see the Laxton apple on sale - the last time I saw a Laxton was thirty years ago, so it certainly brought back old memories. I also appeared to be the only woman in the apple-tasting queue who knew how to pronounce Pearmain - no, no, people! It's not Pear-man, it's per-MAIN ...

Book News:

Much to my delight, A Dangerous Man is now available at All Romance Ebooks, though someone hates it so much they've allocated it a one-star rating which somehow always cheers me. I have to say it's a literary rather than a romance novel, so I suspect it's not what that particular Cross Reader was expecting.

Meanwhile, I have posted about what's coming up this week at Vulpes Libris Reviews, a week which is packed full of endings, orgasms and secrets, so well worth keeping an eye on each day's review in the run-up to All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (as I prefer to call the season ...).

Today's meditation poem is:


Meditation 448
Only a quiet room
and the faint echo
of weeping elsewhere

accompany this wild hope
that from death
something more will appear.


The Sunday haiku is:

The shadowed garden
whispers its secrets to me.
From next door: laughter.


Anne Brooke

Of beetles and bemusement

Book News:

I've sent the final edits for Tommy's Blind Date back to the publisher, so am now waiting for the galley proofs to come back for a look through. At the same time, I'm continuing the edits of The Prayer Seeker's Journal so will be adding no more to that blog as it stands. I will also be taking it down at the weekend, I think.

Meanwhile, my review of Ned Beauman's novel, Boxer, Beetle, is now up at Vulpes Libris. It's a brilliant and bizarre book let down by a bumblingly bad blurb. Which is a shame, but I hope you enjoyed the alliteration in my last sentence anyway. I certainly did.

Here's this week's meditation poetry:


Meditation 405
Spices, jewels,
gold and the beginnings
of wisdom

warm the air
and bring forth truth
from the heart tonight.


Meditation 406
If I had
all the money
in the world

I probably wouldn’t buy
weapons, spices,
horses or mules

but for wisdom’s taste
and song
there’s no true accounting.

Life News:

I've started a new gardening blog, called The Bemused Gardener, which will explain the joys and horrors faced by Lord K and myself, beginner gardeners extraordinaire. Or potentially so at least. Nope, we've no real idea what we're doing either, but that's never stopped us before, hey ho. It's probably a consolation prize for myself for ending the prayer blog (see above), as I am after all a glutton for punishment.

While I'm on the subject of nature's bounty, it's glorious to see that the first of the English apples are in the shops at last, hurrah! How the smell of them takes me right back to my father's apple farm in rural Essex and that enormous cold-store. Astonishingly, it's Tesco who's won the battle to bring the firstfruits in this time, as usually it's Waitrose, so well done, Mr Tesco. They're great stuff too - Discoveries and they smell like heaven, just like an apple should.

I'm also feeling much better, health-wise, and actually like a real person, rather than simply a huge and sniffly nose on legs. Hmm, nice image, eh. That said, the doctor has just rung up today to check that I do want the referral to the Guildford specialist, and yes I do, as per the other consultant, so at least that's going forward now, hurrah.

I must also say how much Lord K and I have enjoyed the lamentably few episodes of Sherlock which have graced our TV screens for the last three Sundays. Bliss - more please, and soon. I particularly loved the portrayal of Moriarty, but Lord K says that's because I simply can't resist a depiction of male psychotic lunacy contained by intellectual strength. My response was only to agree, and it's precisely why I married him in the first place. He muttered something in turn about me being the female version of that (which is no doubt why we're so well suited), but I fear I am in fact far worse: the lovely Ruth G (formerly of the University chaplaincy but now moved on to bigger and better things) told me only yesterday that she did realise I wasn't actually the Anti-christ, but if I chose to be she thought I'm make a really really good job of it. My, how we laughed, slightly hysterically I admit, but we did laugh. Good to know I may at last have found my ideal career path after all these years - I wonder what the vicar will say ...

Anne Brooke
The Bemused Gardener