Romancing September Across the World – Day 13 – Margaret Cullingford

Good morning everyone! I want to welcome you to the 2nd part of Day 13 of the 3rd Annual Romancing September Across the World Blog Tour. If you haven’t checked out Rosie’s post from earlier, then go by https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/ and get caught up.

Now on to today’s featured author, Here’s the question I asked:

What has been the biggest inspiration for your writing?

The short answer is the stimulation and enjoyment of reading all sorts of books.

Before I learnt to read, my youngest aunt loved to read to me, except when I asked to hear more of The Water Babies. Aunt Ede preferred fairy tales or any Beatrix Potter. I loved those too but I wanted to know what happened to Tom.  All her life Aunt read only romance so what she probably hated most in The Water Babies was the ending:

“And of course Tom married Ellie!”  My dear child, what a silly notion!

I still have the self-same copy of The Water Babies Aunt read from. I’ve loved books forever, couldn’t wait to learn to read. I spent hours curled in a cavernous armchair, like most of my generation, immersed in Enid Blyton, Richmal Compton, the classics – Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Three Musketeers. I thought, one day I would like to write a book, even tried to write Secret Seven-type stories. Finally, after an exceptionally long interval, I wrote two books in fact.

What sort of book(s)? Dark romance, Lizzie Lamb says.  Monica, in my first published novel says, “I don’t want to get married.  Not ever.  I want to live”. Looking back, may be The Water Babies has a lot to answer for.

Here’s a little bit about today’s author:

Margaret Cullingford, Mags to her friends, lives in Leicestershire, England with her forbearing husband and a temperamental tortoiseshell cat. Having made a timely escape from the rumpus of a university department, Mags realized a long-term ambition to write fiction, and in the process discovered, to her delight, she could create uproar she was able to control.

Mags published her debut novel Last Bite of the Cherry in 2012. Twins of a Gazelle is her second, published this year. Both have a similar theme. Clever woman, emotionally naïve, initially makes disastrous choice of man before meeting ‘The One’, not the conventional Girl-Meets-Boy love stories, but about love nevertheless. She is half-way through writing her as yet untitled third novel which veers towards mystery and suspense, a direction she found unable to resist.

Mags Cullingford, along with June Kearns, Lizzie Lamb and Adrienne Vaughan, is a member of the New Romantics Press an indie publishing collaboration.

Website – http://www.magscullingford.com

Facebook – https://facebook.com/MagsCullingfordwriter

https://facebook.com/magscullingford

Twitter –    https://twitter.com/CullingfordMags

Website – http://www.newromanticspress.com

Todays featured book is “Twins of a Gazelle”. If you haven’t checked out the her book, then here’s a little about it and where to find it.

 Book Description

Fifteen months married to Adam Burgess, Calista Blake suspects she has chosen the wrong man.   She looks forward to their holiday on the Greek island of Ithaca, hoping its magic will banish her disenchantment. On Ithaca Calista is spellbound by P.J. Wood – ‘I take photographs. Tell stories . . . True ones. . . . Where-ever there’s trouble.’  – Her previous anxieties seem mild compared with the cauldron of trouble she falls into, the consequences of meeting P.J. Wood.

Available from Amazon – eBook and paperback

http://tinyurl.com/qj2hzlf

http://tinyurl.com/ojmm8z5

I hope you enjoyed it! Keep watching for more great authors all month and don’t forget to go by Rosie’s post at https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/… Let’s make it another awesome tour for 2015!