April | 2017 | Green Writing Room

Many of you will know that I am a Japanese maple addict.In spring when the new leaves start emerging I practically swoon with delight. It is also a very anxious time and the young leaves are prone to frost damage. In the UK we had hot, T-shirt weather in mid March, followed by drought and then sharp frosts in the last week.Apart from the older maples above, there are maples that have grown as seedlings aro kaze (the bronzy one above). They take years to grow and many die young. This one is two years old and has become one of my husband’s new interest in bonsais. This one is, I think, three years old, and is also joining the bonsai collection.The purple one below is also three years old. They are all seedlings from the same maple! And this one is at least four years old. I thought I had lost it. The young leaves are so fine and vulnerable that they have no strength to withstand bad weather until they fill out. This will be stunning when there are more layers in a couple of years time.Here are two of this year’s crop and they only appeared a week or so ago. Finally, one of our oldest small maples had become so pot-bound that I carved it in a pie chart pattern and filled the open sections with fresh ericacious compost. Sadly, although I could protect the smaller maples, the heavy frosts of the last week have damaged some leaves on all the established maples, so they will look a little moth-eaten this year. They will still be beautiful.

New note: Thanks to Uma Shankar’s comment below, I looked up the meaning of the name Matsukaze and am charmed to discover that it means “wind blowing through pine trees”. Thank you, Uma.

Uh?

I published a novel, Border Line, in December 2014. I had a party, a stall at the village Christmas Fair, a book-signing at the local farm shop café, I went to the main book shops in my city, plus a few smaller shops in nearby towns. The local paper and the city paper wrote about me and my third novel. I sold plenty of copies at these events and a respectable number (for me) of print and eBooks on Amazon.

eBook cover

And that was more or less it. To be honest, when I have finished writing a novel, I am ready to put it behind me. No book of the imagination ever reaches the original vision, so the fun is in building a new vision and having another crack at it. So, I didn’t blog, tweet or go on facebook with requests to buy Border Line (and I am not going to do so now). I got on with the next project.

This was the important task of getting my non-fiction book about Far East POWs published. This was a very different task – completed last year and published by Pen & Sword – though the research and the follow-up work goes on.

Yet now, as I return to the writing fiction at last, the old questions about what works and what doesn’t in my writing are hovering over me again. Add into this mix some interesting posts from other bloggers about positive and negative reviews, especially how useful negative reviews (see Tara Sparling’s post) are to readers.

So we come to my idea. I would like to give away (UK or Europe only) six copies of Border Line in return for critical reviews on Amazon or Goodreads – and I mean critical – I DO NOT MIND if this results in two-star reviews (or more or less). I am a perpetual student, knowing what does and doesn’t work, are both equally useful.

I already know, for instance, that the ending of Border Line splits readers. So I am looking for personal views, what you loved or hated, what niggled or irritated you. Why you would or wouldn’t recommend this book to other readers. One line would be good, five to ten would be even better, write an essay if you feel like it.

If you are interested and want more information about the book go to the Border Line page of my website hilarycustancegreen.com

If you would like one of these free copies email me threadgoldpressAtgmailDotcom