Month: March 2025

Recurring themes in fiction

~ Jennifer Barraclough ~ Leave a comment

Many fiction writers include similar characters, settings, plot lines and underlying themes in different books even if they are not part of a series. This may be deliberate, if they have already found a successful formula and want to give readers more of the same. At other times it happens less consciously, and reflects personal experience or psychology.

In my last post I wrote about entering my eligible novels, through Draft2Digital, into Apple’s trial of digitally narrated audiobooks. Cardamine was first to be published in this format, and Carmen’s Roses is now available too. These two books were originally written several years apart, and until I listened to the previews of their first chapters I hadn’t quite realised that they both begin with an Englishwoman taking a holiday in New Zealand. Not surprising really, because such holidays were a significant part of my own life before I moved permanently to Auckland. Cardamine and Carmen’s Roses are quite dissimilar otherwise although their plots both involve a missing woman. This is the case in some of my other writing too although I don’t know why. I also realise that several of my novels feature unpleasant male doctors. These characters are not based on any one real individual, but are informed by various interactions I have had during my own medical career and as a patient myself. 

Cardamine, Carmen’s Roses and some of my other books can be found at https://books2read.com/jenniferbarraclough.    

The audiobook of Cardamine

~ Jennifer Barraclough ~ 1 Comment

I’m pleased to announce that my novel Cardamine: a New Zealand mystery is now available from Apple’s Audiobook Store.

Producing an audiobook in the traditional way, with the text read by live actors, is so expensive and time-consuming that I have never considered doing it. But I was recently invited through Draft2Digital to submit some of my fiction books for inclusion in Apple’s trial of using digital voices. It was free for me to take part, so I decided to accept.

Cardamine is set in New Zealand in the summer of 2019. Kate, on the last day of her backpacking holiday, loses her bag in a vineyard and misses her flight home to England. An eccentric elderly man comes to her rescue and invites her to stay on as his paid companion in his country home. The man’s wife is away, said to be back in her home country, but Kate comes to suspect that her absence has a more sinister explanation… 

My digital voice, called Amberley, has a British accent appropriate for the character of Kate. She’s not very good at pronouncing Māori place names, but otherwise I think she does a good job of telling the story. I am interested to see that Apple has set the price at twice that of the e-book, even though it was presumably very cheap to produce, and it will be interesting to see if anyone buys it.  

This book and some of my others others can be found at https://books2read.com/jenniferbarraclough

A day without wine …

~ Jennifer Barraclough ~ Leave a comment

Some years ago, a local Italian restaurant displayed a placard reading “A day without wine is a day without sunshine”. That message would probably attract disappproval nowadays, when there are so many warnings about alcohol-related damage to health. While the risks and benefits of drinking continue to be disputed I continue to have a glass of wine with dinner on most evenings, though I intend to give it up for Lent.

Image from Unsplash

In 2022 the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a statement in The Lancet to the effect that no level of alcohol consumption is safe, primarily because even small amounts can promote cancer growth. However many published studies have reported that light to moderate drinkers have lower mortality than teetotallers, and a reduced incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia. The research methods have sometimes been criticised and the evidence is conflicting. Perhaps it is too difficult to generalise because the effects of drinking vary so much between populations, and between individuals, depending on genetic makeup and lifestyle factors.

Heavy drinking is obviously harmful and people who are pregnant, have a history of alcoholism or of certain medical conditions are advised not to drink at all. But for those of us with no contraindications, any risks of light-to-moderate intake (up to 14 units a week) must be weighed against the benefits of pleasure, relaxation and sociability as well as possible cardiovascular protection. And the Mediterranean diet, widely recommended as a healthy eating pattern associated with longevity, includes red wine with meals.

After Easter I will go back to drinking wine, though not too much of it. As I get older I agree with the saying that one glass is medicine but two are poison. 

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On a different topic – nine of my ebooks are currently FREE in this year’s Smashwords sale. They are listed on the site https://books2read.com/jenniferbarraclough. Please note the promotion will end on March 8th, and only applies to the Smashwords versions – from other retailers they are still full price.