Stephanie Cage - Writer

Last week I posted the first chapter of Jason's story.  Since the story was inspired by Dickens' A Christmas Carol , and I'm posting it in a serialised form, I'll introduce this week's instalment with a summary of the previous chapter in my best attempt at a Dickensian style. Chapter One: In which the tyrannical Jason Jackson-Jones finds himself losing both a Personal Assistant and an Engineering Manager, and is reliant upon the dubious skills of his pretty receptionist to replace them. And now for Chapter Two... Gaby was reading the paper when the call came.  She hardly hesitated before agreeing.  This company, Triple J Auto Parts, sounded like a challenge, and Gaby was never one to shrink from a challenge.  In a few minutes, she'd put on her trusty black suit, popped the essentials in her leather shoulder satchel, squeezed her feet into the high-heeled pumps she reserved for 'first impressions' moments, and headed out of the door. It didn'...

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney My rating: 5 of 5 stars I picked up ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ for no better reason than that I’d just read Maggie Stiefvater’s superb shifter novel, Shiver, and had wolves on the brain. I’d vaguely heard of it some years back when it won the Costa Book of the Year Award, but I had no idea what to expect. If I’d even bothered to read the blurb I might never have tried it – I’m not always a huge fan of historical fiction and the first line of the blurb is ‘1867, Canada’ – so it’s a good thing I grabbed a copy on impulse on the way out of the shop and didn’t look properly. Though neither the setting nor the style is what I would have chosen, they both drew me in immediately. The wild, frozen north is the perfect setting for an inexplicable murder, and the lawlessness of the environment paves the way for one of the most dramatic murder investigation stories I have ever read. The dead man, Jammet, owned a bone tablet, marked with mysterious car...

A while ago I introduced one of my favourite characters to the world on my friend Angela's blog , and a lot of people have asked me when they'll get to read more about him.  Since I can't imagine Jason's genre-defying novel ever getting picked up by a traditional publisher, I thought it might be fun to give him some space on my blog instead.  So here's the first chapter of Jason's story, 'The Crash'.   Pop back next week for the next instalment, or follow my blog to make sure you don't miss one.  The clocks had just changed but Jason Jackson-Jones hadn't bothered to switch his watch or alarm clock.  Consequently, he arrived at work an hour early, as he would continue to do for another week or more.  An extra hour in the workday never hurt anyone.  As he sat down at his desk opposite the dark window, he simultaneously turned on his computer and switched his phone off divert.  The two movements, one with each hand, were made with the smoothn...

The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was quite a departure for Stephenie Meyer - a thriller / romantic suspense novel in the vein of Nora Roberts' The Witness, but a bit darker, more intense, and more technical. She's certainly done her research, and her literary writing background shows in a few wonderfully lyrical and thoughtful speeches, but the driving force behind this book is the relentlessly cruel and complex plot that drives the heroine (she of many identities, including Alex and The Chemist) into the arms of her unlikely but wonderful hero. Unputdownable. View all my reviews

In some previous years I’ve blogged at the end of the year about my favourite books of the year .  Last year, for various reasons, I didn’t quite get around to it, so instead I sat down at the start of 2017 to think about what I’d read (and watched and listened to) in 2016 that I thought would continue to interest and inspire me in the coming year.  My first inspiring choice is Mimi Thebo.  Mimi was one of my tutors on the MA course at Bath Spa University.  I’ve written before about the haiku exercise she gave us as part of the Exploration and Experiment module of the course, and since leaving Bath I’ve followed her career with interest.  She’s a perfect example of what she teaches: her oeuvre includes adult novels ( Welcome to Eudora recalls such beautiful American authors as Fannie Flagg, Patricia Gaffney and Barbara Kingsolver), children’s stories (Walker Books) and everything in between.  Dreaming the Bear , released in 2016, may possibly be m...

I wonder how often those words have been uttered over the course of the 13 years that Strictly Come Dancing has been aired? The celebrities who speak them are usually referring to the intense roller-coaster ride of a single series, but those of us who have been fans from the start have travelled a much longer and more rambling route. When the show started in May 2004 I was an English graduate, ballroom dance lover and aspiring writer in my late twenties, living near London and working in market research.  Over the years, my Strictly journey and my writing journey have become intricately entwined, thanks to an idea I had as soon as I heard that there was going to be a competitive dancing show on TV again for the first time since Come Dancing hung up its dancing shoes.   I’d noticed at university that the dancing world was something of a hotbed of gossip and romance, and thought it would be fun to combine a dancing show with something more relationship-focused – think ‘Str...

This tiny story was inspired by an exercise set at Doncaster Writers' Group.  The story had to include a man, a young girl, a mother, a bench, an ice cream, a bank and a coat. The image is supplied by Pixabay and the protagonists' names may bear a certain resemblance to minor characters in a popular kids' story involving wizards. But hey, didn't TS Eliot say that all good writing is borrowing?  Or something like that?   James stepped off the bus and frowned at the view.  Outside the bank, there was no cash machine or security screen.  The staff were all dressed in olde-worlde clothes.  He dropped onto the bus stop bench and looked around. A girl walked past eating an ice-cream.  She was wrapped in a short, mint-green trenchcoat.  He'd seen one like it before, tattered and moth-eaten at the back of his mother's wardrobe when he and his sister had cleared her house out for her move into the home. "Lily," he called, not really believing himself...