BookShop: Court of Contempt

BookShop: Court of Contempt



Buy my book 'Court of Contempt', the first instalment of the 'Family Division' series, directly from my publisher, Bookbaby.



MJ xx

Bookbaby Bookshop

Hello there,

Just an ickle post to inform you that you can now buy my book 'Court of Contempt' directly from the publishers. For UK readers, this may be the most cost-effective way of doing it due to the favourable exchange rate.

http://my.bookbaby.com/book/court-of-contempt

Have fun - and please do come and see me over at Wordpress

Cheers,

MJ xx

I am now over on Wordpress….. still not making any sense whatsoever, but at least I haven't died

http://mjmcgheeauthor.wordpress.com


I am now operating from here. Much easier I'm afraid and I've decided to settle there in my new home. I've transferred everything from here to there (get me?!) so you won't have missed a thing. Sorry the quality of post hasn't improved with the move….

See you o'er there,

MJ xx

I AM HERE NOW!! As you were…. (no more shout capitals!)

I am here now!! As you were xx

Maybe tomorrow I'll wanna settle down, until tomorrow….

Hello peoples!

Decided to give Wordpress a whirl. Apparently they are the Daddy of the Blogging World, so we'll see. In the meantime, get this into your You Are Ell:

http://mjmcgheeauthor.wordpress.com

Go for it - you know you want to!! Just consider it akin to a move from mainland France to Corsica…. Or from the United States of America to Alaska. I'm still there, just a bit geographically detached.

The beauty of Wordpress is that you can see all of my many, many, many social media platforms in one place courtesy of a widget. And for those of you who are old enough to remember the John Smiths Bitter commercials with Jack Dee:

'A widget, she's got a widget, a little widget, a widget she has got!'

TTFN

MJ xx

Second book, Selby, Sisal, Sex, Sex and Sex

Hello there.

May the sixth be with you. Story of my life, too late.

Exciting news today as I met with the artiste par excellence, the one and only Hollie Hyde, the creator of the stockinged legs and high Louboutin shoes that is the 'Court of Contempt' cover. An outrageously talented artiste, she is also quite the wordsmith, taking the project very seriously and making sure colours, words and scale are all congruent. Her sketches are sublime. Her inspiration for the second cover is second-to-none. The cover is going to be something special, and I hope the barristers amongst you will appreciate the attention to fine detail.

Meanwhile, I have to confess that I have been a bit disillusioned with the name 'Court of Deception'. As some of you will know, I was ricocheting between that and the 'Court of Protection' under the umbrella title 'Family Division' series. Miss Hyde can take the credit, but the image she sketched does rather lend itself to a racier title. After a shot of strong caffeine and a jolly good brainstorm, the new title jumped out at us. Fanfare - ta da ta da daaaaaah…...

'JUSTICE PERVERTED'

I think it's a stunning title, so appropriate for the raunchy content I told you about and in keeping with the cover! Now I can't wait to publish it! That involves writing, of course. Hmmm, better get back to it then.

Another gorgeous day chez McGhee, and a trip down to the seaside beckoned. A big high five to the jobs worth traffic warden who appeared staring in at me through my windscreen, nearly triggering a coronary, and telling me I had to move on unless I bought a ticket. Alas, she was clearly running on GMT, as the payment time expired 30 minutes previously. Aw bless. I resisted the urge to flip the bird! She was just subjected to a smug but nonetheless deathly stare all the way back to her space ship!

And finally…..

Mark Selby won the World Championship Snooker title at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield last night,  beating Ronnie O'Sullivan 18-14. Told ya! Felicitations Selbers - give us a kiss xx

MJ xx

p.s. R.I.P.  M.J.O. xx

Baltacha, bluebells and butterflies on a Bank Holiday….

Morning,

So very sad to hear of the death of Elena Baltacha, the British No.1, who succumbed to liver cancer yesterday. She suffered from a chronic liver condition from the age of 19, but she did not let it stop her achieving amazing goals in the British tennis world. A wonderful ambassador for the sport. A true champion in both tennis and life. I'll be seeing you in the locker room soon, Bally. xx

Am looking forward to writing with World Championship snooker in the background. The sound of clunking snooker balls is surprisingly therapeutic. Anyway, as promised, more photos. A beautiful butterfly captured on my travels yesterday:

I have no idea what type of butterfly this is. I am not David Attenborough. Or David Bellamy. I wonder what has happened to the latter? He used to emerge through massive foliage sporting a permanently gurning expression scaring the life out of a very young me! Anyway, you don't need to be Messrs Attenborough or Bellamy to appreciate bluebells in the woods:

Truly inspiring and so beautiful to admire. You cannot recapture their beauty on film. They proliferate year-on-year. The contrast of the dark woodland only serves to make them appear even more vibrant. Speaking of vibrancy, another delightful sight is a field of rapeseed oil:

I assure you I was not driving at the time whilst taking these images! I can remember seeing these yellow fields on a trip to Haddo House in Aberdeenshire when I was eleven and staring at them in wonderment, mistaking them for a genetically-modified form of buttercup. They have captivated me every year since. I certainly wouldn't advise walking through a field of them, which I did whilst under the influence of alcohol as a nineteen year old, ruining my old stonewashed Levi's 501!

Anyway, more writing achieved today, with even more ideas springing into my head for future novels. More will be revealed at some point. I need to focus on the task in hand and do the best job on this series first.

Hope you are all enjoying a fabulous Bank Holiday.

MJ xx

p.s. At the time of posting: Selby is 12-11 ahead in the final! Go Selby!

Don't be a follower - be a leader! xx

Montpellier, Trinh Duc, Selby, Snooker and what a load of horse chestnuts…..

Morning people on this gloriously sunny Sunday! It's a peach! It's a damn cold wind though, so I have donned the thermals again before going on a brisk walk on the Downs.

Meanwhile, it's the time of the week for a bit of a sporting round-up. Well, sports that I'm interested in. Some readers have asked me about Darya's interest in Montpellier… Why Montpellier, for heaven's sake? Well, why not? They have finished second in the French Top 14 this season with a stunning 44-10 victory over the array of stars at Racing-Metro Paris. May I remind you that amongst Racing's glittering ranks are Irish first-choice fly-half Jonny Sexton, Welsh international centre Jamie Roberts and the fantastic French hooker Dimitri Szarzewski.

In the book, I mention the impish fly-half Francois Trinh-Duc. He also happens to be the captain of the team. Here he is:

There we are. An 'impish' kind of face, as described in the book. Very cute. He also scored a try yesterday. He's been capped numerous times for Les Bleus since his debut in 2007. Yes, yes yes… what? This isn't the photo you wanted? What? You want nudity? Certainly not! Not on this blog. Never mind what goes on in my book. Book and blog are not one and the same and no, life should not follow art….. oh if you insist, just to get you off my back!!

Satisfied? On a Sunday as well?! You should all be ashamed of yourselves, and shame on me for succumbing to such pressure!! I'm sure you can appreciate Darya's 'appreciation' of Montpellier rugby now…. Anyway, she'll be packing her Lulu Guinness case and clearing off to France for the semi-finals no doubt, with her Montpellier scarf neatly folded in amongst her Passionata lingerie, chanting 'Ici, ici, C'est Mont-Pel-Lier!'

Writing has been somewhat interrupted by all the sporting events going on this weekend. I watched Perpignan (aka USAP) slide out of the Top 14 with Biarritz. Two big guns with three titles between them in the last nine years. Oh the times, they are a changing…. Brett and Felix would be gutted at their beloved Everton succumbing to the irresistible Pellegrini's Manchester City 2-3 at Goodison Park. Manchester United's fortunes at Old Trafford don't seem to have completely reversed as they lost 0-1 to Sunderland. And I am trying to write whilst cheering for Mark Selby in the final of the World Snooker Championships at Sheffield. He has such a cheeky smile and the tightest buns I have seen on a snooker player bending over a long stretch of green baize in a long time…. and here he is….

Anyway, I have bored you enough with my sport. I also have another obsession that is growing at the moment. Horse chestnut trees. They are everywhere. I was out last night and found a lovely horse chestnut tree by the sea. I found another this afternoon on my travels. They are like white lupins in the sky. Candles at the end of their branches. Absolutely gorgeous, and incredibly early due to the incredibly mild winter we had. 

Aren't they magnificent? I also have photos of my other seasonal obsessions: butterflies, bluebells and rapeseed oil fields. But I think you have been treated to enough for one posting. I must get back to this writing….. and snooker….. 

A demain readers,

MJ xx

p.s. Delighted to welcome my first visitors from Darya's Motherland - Russia! Looking forward to taking my story to St. Petersburg….. 

Morris Dancing My Way Round The Maypole

Hello!

It's May Bank Holiday, which gives numerous English men in villages up and down the country an excuse to don silly trousers, leap around, wave tissues, clash sticks. It's called Morris Dancing. It's akin to the 'hopscotch' game we used to play as children, only we did it far more stylishly! Apparently they also wear bells around their ankles. In any other civilisation, they'd all probably be arrested….  Here's a group of enthusiastic exponents doing their thang….

Errr yes. Well, before you move on to the next blog, I have to tell you that the ending of 'Court of Deception' is going to be very, very explosive. I don't think you, as a reader, will see it coming, although some people have fed back to me on incidents that occurred in the first book and I've said… 'aaah yeeeeaaah', trying to cover the fact I have completely forgotten about it! It's amazing what happens once you abandon your piece of creativity and move onto the next one. Although with a trilogy, you need to occasionally flip back to previous volumes to ensure continuity. I mean, it wouldn't do for Darya to be waking up next to… Lucy, would it?!!


So it's back to the grindstone. The artiste is onto the second illustration to adorn the cover. Printed copies of the first volume will be available soon, and signed in my own fair hand. I wonder if it will be done in pink nail varnish?

Happy holiday weekend. Please please please keep buying. Tell your friends, enemies, husbands, mistresses, page boys and matrons!

MJ xx

p.s. I'm delighted to note my German posse of followers is incrementally growing…. I'm very pro-European you know….

How do you cope with the violent death of a teacher you loved?

Afternoon peoples!

Ca va bien? Some readers have asked me about the relevance of the hot French guy Darya meets in the New Forest and subsequently at the rugby the following day. Well…. it's a jolly good reason to keep reading and find out if he makes another appearance.

Just taking a break right now from ploughing through the second one. I have 4 proofreaders and 1 editor on standby for when it is ready. I am meeting with the illustrious illustrator tomorrow. As you can see, yesterday afternoon was spent by the sea on another glorious day. Alas, like life, the good stuff doesn't stick around for long enough, and it's back to the grim weather. 1st May. How depressing. Last night I went out and was too tired to put anything else up except my weekly 'plog' - just in case you'd forgotten that there is a book out there….

Right, it's May Bank Holiday this weekend, and I'm on lockdown for the next two weeks whilst I set about the second instalment. I have French rugby intervening this weekend, with the conclusion of the Top 14. We will then know who is going to be in the semi-finals and who are the 'barragistes'. Montpellier, Darya's favourite, currently lie second behind Jonny Wilkinson's Toulon. If they can win at home against Racing Metro Paris, they will be guaranteed a semi-final spot at home, the glorious Stade Yves du Manoir. So, apart from the odd occasional blogette when I shall simply be coming up for air just to let you know I am still alive, this will be the last substantive blog until the release of the second book. Yeah right. I say that now, but the chances are you'll still be treated (or subjected) to daily updates of the writing process.

The killing of Ann Maguire on Monday, the Spanish teacher at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds by one of her pupils reminds me of an incident from my childhood involving another teacher, who we all knew and revered. I hope there are sufficient counselling services available for the children who witnessed the tragedy on Monday. They will need it. This incident will have a profound affect on the rest of their lives. It will be something they revisit time and time again. Could they have prevented it? What if Mrs Maguire hadn't gone into school that day? Could they have assisted? I cannot imagine how traumatic it must have been for those witnessing the events, but I can empathise in some small measure what it is like to lose a wonderful teacher in violent circumstances. I had no counselling support after the tragic death of Sr. Ogilvie in 1988, and it impacted upon the rest of my childhood.

Sister Josephine Ogilvie was a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart, an internationally-renowned teaching order of nuns. She taught in Armagh, Craiglockhart in Edinburgh and at Kilgraston in Perthshire before settling in Aberdeen in 1983. She taught at primary school level before she was appointed a religious education adviser for the Diocese of Aberdeen. In that capacity, she travelled throughout the diocese, visiting primary schools and engaging with the pupils. She was a delightful, kind woman who never saw fit to lose her temper or raise her voice, even though she was once titled the 'Mistress of Discipline ' in Armagh.

On Friday 6th May 1988, she was working in her office, now called the Pastoral Centre, which was situated in an ante-room adjacent to St. Mary's R.C. Cathedral. The office shared a lobby with the apartment of another nun from another order, Sr. Mary MacDonald, who happened to be the Diocesan Social Worker and who was not present at the time. That day around 3pm, Mark Reynolds, who had previously engaged with Sr. Mary with long-standing drug and alcohol abuse issues, visited the cathedral with tragic consequences for Sr. Ogilvie. No one quite knows what happened, suffice to say that it is thought that he swore at Sr. Ogilvie, she told him off and he, in his own words, 'lost it'. The priest who also worked in the Pastoral Centre then tried to enter the office but the door was shut on him from the other side. The man was then seen running out of a fire exit, over a wall, and onto Union Street, the main shopping street in Aberdeen. He was seen clutching some of his own and Sr. Ogilvie's clothes. He was covered in blood.

Sr. Ogilvie was dead. She was 59 years old which, for anyone who has been taught by nuns in their life will know, is an exceptionally young age for them to pass away. I think one is still going from the convent right now at 104.  Anyway, the injuries she sustained were horrific and numerous. Sixty separate injuries in total. According to the coroner, her body was in a similar state to those involved in a serious road traffic accident. Fortuitously, she died early on in the attack from a heart attack as a result of a fractured larynx.

The following morning, my Dad, who is, at times, as subtle as a sledgehammer, announced that a nun had been murdered at the cathedral whilst reading the local paper. As a young child with a curiosity that only developed to an insatiable level when I got older (to the level of downright nosiness), I glanced at the front page as I was sitting beside him in the living room. It was the first moment in my life that I just stopped dead and went numb. It was a grainy photograph, but I distinctly recognised the face smiling back at me. I'd only seen it the previous week when she was leaning over my school desk having a good chat with me. Well I couldn't believe it.  I walked around in a state of shock for the next few months. To say it impacted rather negatively upon my childhood is an understatement. I had an audition for the now defunct Children's Theatre at the Arts Centre the night before the funeral. I can remember putting in such a mediocre performance because I was thinking about the next day that I didn't get in,  and I never had the confidence to try theatre again, which is a great shame. It was one of the very few things I enjoyed and appeared to be good at. Even my mother commented that I 'played to the gallery', although this was meant as a criticism.

It marked the beginning of my personal detachment from my catholic religion. How on earth could a God allow something like this to happen to someone so lovely and defile a Cathedral I had attended throughout my childhood? And, if that had to happen, why did he have to pick a lovely nun for such a violent end?

The funeral was held on the following Thursday, coincidentally Ascension Thursday that year. The Cathedral was packed as over 1000 mourners attended. I was very small at the time,  and it was a most emotional experience as it was my very first funeral, but I can remember that I had never seen the Cathedral so full of nuns. They were everywhere. For me that was concerning, as I'd very much enjoyed a hate-hate relationship with the Brides of Christ up to that point. It would be different now, as they no longer wear the full habit, which is even scarier as I wouldn't be able to identify them!

It's nearly 26 years since Sr. Ogilvie died. Last year, on 6th May 2013,  I attended her grave in Aberdeen with a small aubretia plant, which I planted at her head, marking the 25th anniversary of her death. I believe her assailant's parents, who were staunch catholics and completely destroyed by the murder, used to leave flowers at her grave. I think even Sr. Ogilvie's rosary was given to his mother as a symbol of reconciliation. I stood there in the rare Aberdeen spring sunshine, listening to the traffic passing on the Great Southern Road, which runs directly next to the community plot where she is buried. The trees had overgrown behind the plot now, and the bluebells were thriving up the bank leading up to the road. The old Aberdeen-Ballater disused railway line that was used transporting monarchs to Balmoral up until 1966 runs alongside the wall to the left as she continued to lie there with 13 or 14 other nuns, who presumably died natural deaths. The most startling thing was that I realised I had changed so much since the first time I stood on that spot in 1988. I felt so different. So surreal. Almost detached from the drama of her death. Looking at the simple cross that dominated the graves, with the roll call of names of nuns passed, I felt I had come to terms with what had happened. She was no longer there. I wondered what on earth she would have thought if she could have seen me now. Lawyer, soon-to-be writer. I know for a fact she would have disapproved greatly of the content of my novel. But I imagine she would have read it nonetheless, as she was a part of the process of my upbringing, and addressed me in a very gentle tone starting with the words, 'Now, about that book you wrote….'

The fact that I still think of her from time to time is a credit to her memory and her ability to engage with young people in such a positive and charismatic way. I hope the pupils of Corpus Christi eventually remember Mrs. Maguire in such a way, instead of her violent demise. Sr. Ogilvie's death did have a positive impact upon me in some ways though. Much was made of her assailant's drug habit, with much detail in the press as to the cocktail of narcotics he was taking prior to her death. As a result, I never indulged in drugs. In my youthful naivety, I thought drugs would make me go around murdering nice nuns.

Anyway, this has been such a morbid update, and I need to get back to work!

Laters,

MJ xx