Blog Archives
Social Expectations
The Tuba of the Somme follows three unforgettable Yorkshire women navigating a world shaped by war, class divisions, rigid social expectations, and men who frequently make life more difficult than necessary. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The world as it is today, because so little has changed in the last hundred years – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
What inspired you to explore love and companionship through relationships that challenge the social expectations of their time?
The relationship between Mary and Rose, which challenges the social expectations of their time, still challenges the social ‘norms’ in many countries today. Even in societies considered progressive and free. It was important to me to show their relationship, and the constraints placed upon it, in a way which many people would recognise from their experiences today.
What role does satire play in your examination of human vanity, hypocrisy, and the contradictions of social respectability?
A very important role. These days, real life often goes beyond satire, and each year brings us examples of powerful and ‘important’ people bending the world to their will, doing things which a few years ago would have been unthinkable. The use of satire in this novel serves to remind us that what used to be beyond credible belief can very quickly become a lived existence for many if those in power go unchallenged.
When readers finish The Tuba of the Somme, what is the most important message you hope stays with them about war, love, human folly, and the courage to live according to one’s own desires?
That it is always possible to live life on your own terms if you are prepared to accept the consequences of your choices. We lived then, and live now, in a world where men make the rules, but it is possible to live by your own rules, and noone has to follow rules that go against what’s right.
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Marvel as three formidable Yorkshire women navigate a man’s world of violence and war, while dealing with both their own men and the lethal, mysterious, treacherous tuba.
It’s the early 20th Century. Edith’s husband comes home from war, bringing his experiences in the trenches with him, and before long Edith has an unwanted suitor parked in her parlour. Rose and Mary find each other after years apart, but Mary is married and working-class, and Rose is a middle-class widow. Life would be simpler if men would just leave them alone, but life is never that straightforward.
Especially when there’s a psychopathic brass tuba on the loose, intent on mischief, mayhem and murder. The tuba had a moment of glory on the first day of the Somme, but it can’t leave things be now. Which means, sooner or later, peace-loving Edith, Rose and Mary are going to have to do something about it.
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
60 Seconds To Earth’s Wrath by Joy B. Wren
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Silver Book Award
Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.
Award Recipients
F F F by Al X. Griz
Pixie by Nightdancer Slater
Ada, Old and New: A Brother-Sister Tale by Madeleine Van Hecke
A Child’s Guillotine by Daniel Klein
The Restoration of Man-A Journey to Healing, Identity and God-Anchored Masculinity by Eli Brackenbury
The STEWARD Blueprint: A Compass for a Purposeful Life by Andy Tseng
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Some Patterns Transcend Time
The Enigma, A Triquetra Chronicle follows a woman who, after a reunion in Scotland, awakens a connection to the past, linking her life to a young woman trapped by society’s expectations in 1911 England. What first drew you to the themes of reincarnation, soul connections, and the possibility that memories or relationships can transcend time?
It’s something I’ve always been drawn to from other stories I’ve seen growing up to going through my own spiritual awakening and learning about all the possibilities.
How do Sophia and Josephine’s different circumstances reveal similarities in their struggles with love, identity, and personal freedom?
Some patterns transcend time and keep coming back as lessons until they are learned…usually the hard way.
How does the novel examine the difference between a powerful romantic attraction and a relationship that genuinely supports personal growth?
I hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but I suppose that it is part of the larger lesson of learning to love self and one’s own needs so they are the foundation for growth and not stemming from someone else.
As readers continue through The Triquetra Chronicles, what larger questions about love, identity, memory, and the connections between lifetimes do you hope they will continue exploring?
My hope is that they are open to the possibilities and if they resonate, take the time to explore what that means for themselves.
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Sophia is in Scotland, finally at peace, no longer haunted by the dream that consumed her in The Harbinger. But when her soul sisters arrive and a Friday the 13th, and Summer Solstice draw near…something stirs beneath the surface of their reunion.
In 1911 England, Josephine Findley is a guest in a house that feels more like a cage. Counting the days until her freedom, she finds an unexpected connection; one that history, propriety, and forces beyond her control are determined to sever.
Two women. Two centuries. A truth threading between them that will not stay forgotten.
The Enigma, A Triquetra Chronicle, is the second book in The Triquetra Chronicles. For readers who have already begun the journey with The Harbinger, and for those who are finding the series for the first time. Each book introduces a new past timeline while continuing the present-day journey of Sophia and her circle.
For the woman who knows the past isn’t finished with her.
For readers of The Distant Hours, A Discovery of Witches, and The Memory Painter.
The Tuba of the Somme
The Tuba of the Somme is a wonderfully peculiar, darkly funny, and surprisingly moving novel about war, love, grief, and the human appetite for making a terrible mess of things. Set primarily in Yorkshire during and after the First World War, the story brings together a collection of memorable characters whose lives are connected by family, heartbreak, buried desires, and a brass instrument with a distinctly unpleasant personality. That instrument, a tuba capable of walking, talking, and behaving outrageously, is one of the book’s most inventive creations. Its presence brings an element of the fantastical to a world otherwise grounded in the harsh realities of early twentieth-century Britain. From the opening scenes, when a funeral takes an extraordinary turn, it’s clear that this is a story with a wicked sense of humour and a keen understanding of human nature. What follows is an unpredictable journey through the lives of people trying to find happiness in a world that seems determined to make it difficult.
I really loved the characters, particularly the women who carry so much of its emotional weight. Mary, Rose, and Edith are wonderfully drawn, each possessing her own particular combination of stubbornness, vulnerability, courage, and contradiction. Rose is especially fascinating. Beautiful, manipulative, frequently outrageous, and capable of considerable cruelty, she’s also capable of a fierce and enduring love. Mary, with her insistence on propriety and her unmistakable Yorkshire voice, provides a compelling counterpoint. Edith brings her own practical intelligence and determination to the story, frequently demonstrating more common sense than the men who consider themselves her superiors. Their relationships give the novel much of its warmth and complexity, while the shifting perspectives allow readers to see how differently people remember and interpret the same events. There’s genuine affection in the way these characters are written, even when their behaviour is appalling. The dialogue is particularly enjoyable, full of personality, regional character, and the sort of blunt observations that can make you laugh out loud.
The First World War provides the novel with its darkest material, and the scenes involving the soldiers are among its most affecting. The author captures the camaraderie, nervous optimism, confusion, and appalling vulnerability of ordinary men caught up in events beyond their control. There’s a sharp awareness of the distance between patriotic speeches and the actual experience of warfare, along with a biting distrust of authority and the comfortable people who send others off to fight. The humour here can be savage, sometimes arriving at moments when laughter feels almost inappropriate, but it serves a purpose. It exposes the ridiculousness of human vanity and the terrible consequences of unquestioning obedience. The book also explores the lasting psychological damage of war, particularly through characters struggling to live with experiences that refuse to stay in the past. Running alongside these concerns are questions about class, women’s independence, sexual identity, religion, and the enormous difference between public respectability and private happiness.
It’s a historical novel, a love story, a fierce antiwar satire, and a piece of gloriously unruly magical realism, all delivered with a distinctive voice and a mischievous disregard for polite convention. The living tuba is both a source of outrageous comedy and a wonderfully unsettling embodiment of the violence, pride, and aggression that continue to haunt the characters long after the guns have fallen silent. Yet there’s considerable tenderness beneath the profanity and mayhem. The novel understands how deeply people need companionship, how long regret can endure, and how difficult it can be to escape the expectations of others. It’s a story with genuine emotional depth, memorable characters, and plenty to say about the world we create for ourselves. The Tuba of the Somme turns the absurdity of war into unforgettable fiction, proving that sometimes the loudest voice in a story about humanity belongs to an instrument with none.
Pages: 159 | ASIN : B0GZVSGPBC
I Aim For Entertainment
Love in a Hurry follows a woman desperate to find love and start a family and a Catholic priest questioning his vocation and wanting an heir, who meet in a support group and form an unconventional romance. What inspired the unusual premise behind Love in a Hurry?
As a young adult, an attractive priest visiting the parish came to Sunday lunch at the family home. He revealed he’d been pressured into the priesthood by his family; it was expected in Ireland. This meant he was destined never to have children, yet he’d have to baptise all the parish babies. I felt so sad for him and wanted to write a story where a pressured Irish Catholic priest escapes the Church to find his own path. The fate of priest I’d met? No idea. But I do think about him and wonder if he was ever happy following not his calling, but his family’s.
Miranda is a character from the second book of my series, Love in the Cupboard, my first sweet Catholic priest romance. With Miranda as the heroine in Love in a Hurry I felt that a Catholic priest would be the best fit for a virgin mother’s love interest— and the funniest.
How did Miranda’s childhood in care shape the adult woman we meet at the beginning of the novel, and why was it important for her desire for another child to be connected to a larger longing for love, security, and family?
Being passed from one care placement to the next, one foster family to the next, Miranda’s life has been filled with insecurity. It isn’t much better now, because her home is tied to her job as a live-in carer. Although her son’s daddies are supportive, she wants someone for herself to have her second child with because she has never been loved and has never been part of a family. She does not want her son to grow up as a lonely, only child who becomes a lonely adult.
She longs for motherly love from the crotchety woman she cares for, and dearly wishes to be invited to stay as a substitute daughter instead of constantly being at risk of losing her home at the whim of her employer. Although one of the daddies might provide her with a second child, she does not want to be a single mother to two children. She wants a husband, the love of a committed man who will be there for her and her hoped-for children in a way that no one else ever has.
What interested you about writing a priest who is questioning whether his vocation reflects his own desires or his family’s expectations, and what does Kieran have to discover about himself before he can genuinely build a new life with someone else?
Even popes in the Catholic Church used to be allowed to marry, although rules varied around intimacy until 1139 AD, when the Catholic Church prohibited any marriage for future priests, even celibate ones—who often still managed to procreate. The Church was concerned about losing wealth to inheritance. However, today, if a married Protestant priest wishes to convert to Catholicism and become a Catholic priest, he is allowed. So there are some married converted Catholic priests with children. I think a life of celibacy and loneliness, without the companionship and love of a partner, is harsh and unfair—and too many men, and too many women, have been pressured into the priesthood, and into becoming nuns, by their families’ expectations.
Kieran has long felt lonely and sad, and the emptiness in his heart is amplified when he finds out that his brother had stood up to their mother in a way that had given her no choice other than to accept the situation. Kieran reevaluates his life. He now knows that, if he has any chance of true happiness, as his brother has secretly been enjoying for years, he must break free of continuing along the path his mother had chosen for him. He discovers that he has the strength to defy the Bishop, and his mother’s memory, by leaving the Church and starting afresh somewhere else—he just has to find a wife.
What do you enjoy about using awkwardness, misunderstandings, and physical comedy within a romance?
I aim for entertainment as well as plenty of heart, and I love characters who don’t fit into the expected norm, giving rise to behaviours and situations that can be quite a surprise and are typical of farce—a big part of British humour, past and present.
I love the unexpected when I watch or read a comedy, even better if it is a romantic comedy. The journey that takes us to the end of a framework heading towards a happy ever after can be enormous fun. Awkwardness, misunderstandings and physical comedy can add to that fun.
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Will they need a miracle to make it work?
Father Kieran Quinn is in crisis. His brother does not want children, so there won’t be anyone to inherit the long-standing family business—unless Kieran defies the Church by seeking marital bliss. Then he meets Miranda with a child in her arms, looking like a Madonna. But isn’t she taken?
Miranda Morton’s time is running out. She yearns to have a baby conceived naturally by a man who loves her, yet she’s never even been kissed! When she meets Kieran, he talks of returning to Ireland, but her life is bound in Bristol, where she’s a live-in help for arthritic Judith, her snappish, flame-breathing dragon of an employer.
Judith Gold generally can’t stand Catholics, especially priests. She must make her best-personal-assistant-ever see sense over this Kieran nonsense, before Miranda’s life echoes her own tragic past. But how?
The clock is ticking. Can Kieran and Miranda find happiness together before it’s too late?
Tropes:Catholic priest romance
Forbidden love
Cinnamon roll
Virgin
Single parent
Found family
Grumpy/Sunshine
Love in a Hurry: Rom-com-women’s fiction fusion, set in Bristol, UK. A story within a story, one tragic, the other guaranteeing a happy ever after.
Heat level: mild – sometimes described as ‘fade to black’ – and comedic.
Language: mild.
LOVE IN A HURRY is a TRAGI-COMEDY, the FOURTH standalone book in the LOVE & MISHAPS QUIRKY ROMANTIC COMEDY series. Witty dialogue, laugh-out-loud and heartbreaking moments, farcical situations and a multi-story interwoven plot. MARI JANE LAW’S brilliant, emotional, romantic comedy will tug on your heartstrings! Buy your copy today.
If you like sweet Catholic priest romances, read the double award-winning Love in the Cupboard first as Love in a Hurry is a standalone sequel.
Love & Pollination, Book 1 in the Love & Mishaps series, was shortlisted for Choc Lit’s 2019 Search for a Star competition.
‘…a delightful romantic comedy that seamlessly blends humor and heart.’ Reader review
Love in the Cupboard, Book 2 in the Love & Mishaps series, won a silver medal in the Readers’ Favourite International Book Awards 2023: Fiction – Humor/Comedy and a bronze medal in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2023: Fiction (adult).
‘Great fun. Laughter, as they say, is the best medicine. Just what the doctor ordered!.’ Reader review
Their Shared Determination
Patrol Officer Hudson follows a concerned woman searching for her missing brother, and her only clue leads her to an infuriating patrol officer who, while trying to keep her safe, is also keeping secrets from her. What inspired the setup of your story?
I do ride-alongs with my Sheriff’s office and assist in their new officer role-playing scenarios. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to volunteer with our sheriff’s office during the National Police Bloodhound Association (NPBA) Certification Program. Hiding from those bloodhounds, combined with my experience as a retired high school teacher, inspired me to put a troubled teen at the center of the story.
How does the search for Pike force Hudson and Verie to build trust faster than they otherwise might, and what did you want their disagreements about honesty, protection, and independence to reveal about each character?
Hudson cares about Pike and Verie’s family. Although Verie had never met Hudson, she knew from her mother that he was someone she could trust, and Pike’s note telling her to find Hudson reinforced that trust. At the same time, I wanted Verie to remain suspicious of him because he was still a stranger to her. She had been cheated on in a previous relationship, so trusting a man didn’t come easily.
Hudson is all about protecting and serving his community, and that includes Verie, even when she doesn’t necessarily want his protection. Their disagreements allowed me to show Hudson’s protective nature while also showing Verie’s independence and determination. Hudson believes withholding information is sometimes necessary to keep people safe, while Verie believes she deserves to know the truth, especially when it involves her brother. Searching for Pike forces them to work through those differences and learn to trust each other much faster than they normally would.
What role does family loyalty play in both the romance and the suspense storyline?
Family is extremely important to both Hudson and Verie. Verie’s loyalty to Pike is what drives the suspense. She refuses to give up on her brother, even when searching for him puts her in danger. Hudson already cares about Pike and wants to protect him, but he is first and foremost an officer of the law. He can’t ignore what Pike has gotten himself involved in simply because he cares about him and his family.
That same loyalty also brings Hudson and Verie closer together. As Hudson becomes more invested in keeping Pike safe, he also becomes protective of Verie and the rest of her family. Verie begins to see that his involvement isn’t just about doing his job—he genuinely cares about what happens to them. Their shared determination to bring Pike home safely helps build the trust between them and ultimately strengthens their relationship.
What is the next book in the Haven Island PD: Protecting Paradise series that you are working on, and when will it be available?
The next book in the Haven Island PD: Protecting Paradise series is Diver Sawyer. I’m also writing my clean romantic comedies under my other pen name, NL DiDeo, so I’m splitting my writing time between the two series. Diver Sawyer is currently planned for release in April or May 2027.
Together they must find her brother before it’s too late.
Verie
My brother’s missing. His medicine sat untouched on his desk, and the only clue he left behind was a note scribbled on a crumpled math assignment.
Find Hudson. Need help.
So I do.
Officer Hudson Shaw is bossy, infuriating, and far too handsome for his own good. He promises to help me, but every answer leads to more questions—and he’s keeping secrets.
I.don’t. like. liars.
Hudson
Verie thinks I’m hiding the truth.
If she knew everything, her life could be in danger.
Her brother is tangled up in something worse than either of us imagined. Every move he makes pushes him deeper into the crosshairs.
I’ll do whatever it takes to bring Pike home.
If I fail, I won’t just lose the case—I’ll lose Verie, too.
Patrol Officer Hudson is a first-person, dual POV small-town romantic suspense featuring a protective hero, forced proximity, slow-burn chemistry with serious heat, and family loyalty. HEA guaranteed.
