Friday, 3 July 2020

New Release Spotlight & Exclusive Extract: Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds 2 by Nick Albert



Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds 2 – Still living the dream in rural Ireland by Nick Albert


 An exclusive extract from Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds 2, written by bestselling author Nick Albert and published by Ant Press.

Although Nick and Lesley Albert moved to Ireland on a whim, their desire for a better life in the countryside was a long-held dream. Unforeseen events and a leap of faith forced that dream into reality, but getting to Ireland was only the beginning of their story.
Now foreigners in a foreign land, they set about making new friends, learning the culture and expanding their collection of chickens and unruly dogs. But their dream home was in desperate need of renovation, a mammoth task they attacked with the aid of a DIY manual, dwindling funds and incompetent enthusiasm. With defunct diggers, collapsing ladders, and shocking electrics, what could possibly go wrong?

In this scene, Nick is trying to get the renovations underway, but quirky Irish ways are making things complicated.

Given we were about to begin a major renovation project, whilst working with a limited budget, I thought it would be prudent to find a good supplier. I did some research, but came up empty handed. Aside from a few firms in Dublin, the internet claimed that there were no builders merchants in Counties Clare, Galway, or Limerick. The Golden Pages business directory listed most firms by name, rather than by business type and the familiar British retail chains had not reached the west of Ireland. If you didn’t know the business name, you were stuffed. I had spotted a lorry delivering to a new build development, but when I asked the driver how I could go about ordering my building supplies, he told me their business was strictly ‘Trade Only’.
Our saviour lay behind the door of a nondescript shop in a local village. It was the same place where Paul had bought a hydraulic pipe. As well as selling pots, pans, batteries, clocks, shoes, sports equipment, and wheelbarrows, they were also a builder’s merchant and tractor repair shop. Even though I was not a ‘proper builder’, the nice young girl behind the work-wearied counter was happy to take my order and even promised me free delivery for the duration of the renovations. It felt good to put some money into the local area. However, when the first lorry load of building materials arrived, the driver had not been given an invoice and refused to take a cash payment.
“I’m sorry,” he shrugged. “I don’t have anything to do with invoices.”
“But this lot’s worth several hundred euro!” I exclaimed. “You haven’t even got a delivery note.”
“No, I’ve got a delivery note,” he replied, showing me some writing on the palm of his hand, “but you’ll have to see the shop about payment.”
“Right!” I replied. “I’ll get my car.”
“I shouldn’t bother,” he said, putting a calming hand on my shoulder. “They’re shut for the day. Anyway, I’m sure there’s no rush. Just pop in next time you’re passing.”
And he was right.
Even though we had never before met, it transpired the girl in the hardware store had automatically opened an account and extended us a substantial line of credit. Although Lesley and I were gradually learning the Irish ways, we had brought one unbreakable rule into our new lives – no credit, ever again. The young girl in the hardware store seemed a little baffled when I settled our invoice with cash and then insisted on paying for all of our future purchases before delivery, but she accepted anyway. Perhaps she was getting used to our strange British ways.
A few days later, a similar thing happened. Lesley arrived home from a shopping trip to Ennis and immediately crossed the lawn to where I was laying concrete blocks for the pump house walls. Earlier I had given up trying to master the bricklayer’s trowel in favour of wearing bright yellow washing-up gloves and applying the mortar by hand.
Lesley watched me for a while, before she spoke. “Interesting technique.” She smiled encouragingly.
“It works,” I replied. “Perhaps I should patent it.”
Unimpressed, she humphed quietly and then changed the subject.
“I’ve been thinking,” my wife said brightly.
A cold shiver went down my spine, ran across the floor and hid in the corner quivering. I sensed she wanted to tell me something and I could see no obvious means of escape.
“Go on then, what have you been thinking?”
“Rugs!” she said triumphantly.
“Oh jolly well done!” I teased. “What are we having for dinner?”
She ignored my caustic wit. “I think we need rugs, for the sitting room floor.”
“We do?” I asked, picturing the constant snow of woodworm dust and dead spiders that coated the floor daily. “Won’t they just get dirty?”
She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically, “Not for now! For afterwards – when the work is finished.”
Sensing at least a temporary reprieve, I relaxed. “Oh. You mean for later. Well that’s alright then.”
She spoke quietly, whilst carefully inspecting a fingernail. “Only we need them now – because they were on sale.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “Were on sale? What did you buy?”
“I didn’t buy anything, yet. I was at a shop in Ennis and they had these Persian rugs. They’re beautiful and they were practically giving them away.”
“Okay, fine,” I conceded. “The next time we’re in Ennis, we can go and have a look.”
“No need!” she said jubilantly. “They’re in the car. All six of them.”
“SIX?” I squealed.
Lesley nodded and smiled.
“But you said you didn’t buy them,” I whined.
“I didn’t.”
“I suppose they just gave them to you?” I suggested mockingly. “Without asking you for a deposit or anything?”
“Actually they did,” she said with a big smile. “Come and see.”
It was true. Lesley had arrived home with several thousand euros’ worth of fine Persian rugs in the back of her car. The staff in the shop were so keen for her to buy, they had insisted she take them home – just to try them for size.
“It’s incredible,” she exclaimed. “They didn’t ask for any deposit, or credit card details or identification. They didn’t even bother to take a note of my name.”
“Good grief!” I exclaimed. “The level of trust here is just wonderful.”
“I think it’s nice,” Lesley sighed.
I agreed. It was nice, and further evidence of how delightfully innocent and crime free County Clare was. Overall, it seemed that our lessons in ‘Learning to be Irish’ were going rather well.


Nick and Lesley's desire for a better life in the countryside was a long-held dream. Unforeseen events and a leap of faith forced that dream into reality, but moving to rural Ireland was only the beginning of their story.
Foreigners in a foreign land, they set about making new friends, learning the culture and expanding their collection of chickens and unruly dogs. But their dream home was in desperate need of renovation, a mammoth task they attacked with the aid of a DIY manual, dwindling funds and incompetent enthusiasm. With defunct diggers, collapsing ladders, and shocking electrics, what could possibly go wrong?
Will their new life live up to expectations, or will the Irish weather, dangerous roads, and a cruel twist of fate turn this dream into a nightmare?

Amazon UK
Amazon USA


Nick Albert was born in England and raised in a Royal Air Force family. After leaving College he worked in retail management for several years before moving into financial services where he quickly progressed through the ranks to become a training consultant. As a very passionate and reasonably talented sportsman, Nick had always wanted to use his training skills towards creating a parallel career, so in the mid 1980's he qualified and began coaching sport professionally. After a health scare in 2003 and in search of a simpler life, he and his wife Lesley, cashed in their investments, sold their home and bought a rundown farmhouse in the rural west of Ireland - a country they had never before even visited. With little money or experience and armed only with a do-it-yourself manual, they set about renovating their new home, where they now live happily alongside a flock of chickens, two ducks and several unruly, but delightful dogs.
In 2017 Nick was signed to Ant Press to write a series of humorous memoirs about his life in rural Ireland. Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds (book one) was published in September 2017 and soon became an Amazon bestseller. Book two in the series was published on 1st June 2018 and book 3 in August 2019. Book four is due out in 2020.
Nick is also the author of the twisty thriller, Wrecking Crew, the first in a series of books featuring reluctant hero Eric Stone.



Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,
Location: Sundebru, Norway

Thursday, 2 July 2020

New Release Spotlight & Author Guest Post: A Sunset in Sydney by Sandy Barker




‘It Just Takes One Yes’ by Sandy Barker
As a pre-teen, I started sneaking my mum’s Mills & Boon novels from her bedside table. By my teen years, she was handing over Jackie Collins and Shirley Conran, and I was devouring Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High books, feeding a four-books-a-week reading habit.
My love of books, and particularly romance novels, was ingrained by the time I reached adulthood, and I have read widely across the genre for years, occasionally delving into writing, but not producing anything long-form or concrete until I had an epiphany in early 2013.
I was visiting my sister in London, and on her bookshelf was Lindsey Kelk’s I Heart New York. I consumed it in half-a-day, then picked up the next and the next in the series. Three days later, I’d read all five (there are now eight), and as I finished I Heart London, I knew. I wanted to write romantic fiction―specifically, travel romances.
On paper, ‘travel romance novelist’ was a perfect fit for me. I was an avid traveller and had been blogging about it for years. I was also a hopeful romantic, a lifelong romance reader, an English major, and a Drama and English teacher, so I knew about style, structure, grammar, characterisation, dialogue, and genre.
All I had to do was get to work.
My first foray into writing travel romance caught the attention of an agent here in Australia, but when I sent him the full manuscript, he replied with ‘this isn’t your first novel, it’s your fifth’. Apparently, I had too many characters, timelines, and plotlines, and I heeded his advice to ‘go away and write a single, linear narrative’.
Inspired by my real-life ‘meet cute’―meeting my partner, Ben, on a pier in Santorini, just as we were about to embark on a sailing trip around the Greek Islands―I started writing, diverging from real life by introducing a second love interest to the story, the silver fox.
On completion, I went back to the agent and he signed me, shopping my story, which he called, ‘Eat, Sail, Love’, to all the Australian publishers. But as excited as he was to introduce them to a fresh new voice in Australian romantic fiction, no one wanted my particular take on contemporary romantic comedy. My agent had reached the end of his contact list and we parted ways amicably.
Dejected, I wondered if I would ever find my publishing home, or if my manuscript was destined to sit gathering dust. It was only after we returned from another sailing trip in Greece, that I seriously considered self-publishing. Re-energised, I edited my manuscript, paid for cover art and a copy edit, and self-published at the end of 2017. My book baby was out there in the world!
And the timing was perfect. In early 2018, Ben and I embarked on a one-year international sabbatical, which gave me ample time to write the follow ups to my first book. We started the year in Bali, then moved to the US, the UK and Portugal.
When we were in the UK, I came across UKRomChat on Twitter and joined a passionate community of romance authors. It was while engaging with that community that I started considering British publishing houses.
While I self-published book two in the series and wrote book three, I queried UK publishers. After each rejection, I honed my synopses and query letters and reminded myself that I only needed one ‘yes’.
But before I knew it, I was home in Melbourne and back to ‘real life’, hunting an apartment and a job. Could I be happy returning to my profession in adult education and being a part-time novelist who self-published one or two books a year?
Despondency kicked in when I realised that I would never achieve my goal―my dream―of becoming a fulltime novelist.
Not long after, I received an email from an imprint of HarperCollins in the UK. It was my one yes. With that offer on the table, I reached out to my agent of choice, Lina Langlee, and after reading my debut, she agreed to represent me.
That all happened in early 2019, and by the end of this year, I will have four books published by One More Chapter. Book five is well underway, and I already have ideas for books six and seven and … I still work fulltime, but my dream is within reach―all because of that one yes.
A Sunset in Sydney

How far would you go in the name of love?
Sarah Parsons has a choice ahead of her. After the trip of a lifetime she’s somehow returned home with TWO handsome men wanting to whisk her away into the sunset.
Pulled in two directions across the globe, it’s making life trickier than it sounds. Her gorgeous American, Josh, wants to meet Sarah in Hawaii for a holiday to remember. Meanwhile silver fox, James, plans to wine and dine her in London.
It’s a lot to handle for this Aussie girl, who had totally sworn off men!
Join Sarah after her adventure in One Summer in Santorini, for the heart-warming and uplifting third novel in The Holiday Romance series.




Sandy Barker is an Australian writer, traveller and hopeful romantic with a lengthy bucket list and a cheeky sense of humour. She’s also an avid reader, a film buff, a wine lover and a coffee snob.
Many of Sandy’s travel adventures have found homes in her writing, including her debut novel, a contemporary romance set in Greece, which was inspired by her true-life love story.



Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: ,
Location: Sundebru, Norway
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)