Bromsgrove mourns.

I haven't written a post about the tragic death of a Bromsgrove teenager for a specific reason.

Like much of Bromsgrove, I knew the boy personally. Not as the teenager he eventually became, but as a younger child, when he was friends with my eldest son.

As children sometimes do, they eventually went their own ways - but I still saw him at school assemblies and ceremonies.

Whilst I'm aware that my grief at his passing cannot possibly compare to those who knew him better, nor even touch the mountain of overwhelming loss and devastation felt by his parents and sister, it has been a hard thing to come to terms with.

I have found myself in tears over the past two weeks, in turn hoping and praying that he would be found safe and well, before sinking into despair that he wouldn't.

And even as a writer, I'm aware that my words don't do justice to the grief of this whole community, who rooted for his safe return even, against overwhelming odds.

We are parents too - most of us facing the need to let our own children truly stretch their wings for the first time.

And it's terrifying.

I look at my own 18 year old and I remember with horror the risks I took, when I too thought that I was invincible.

You teens who are reading this, please, please, please look after yourselves. The world is a dangerous place and whilst we want you to have fun and explore, inside we are terrified.

We can't bring this beautiful young man back - but I hope we can prevent future tragedies.

Shine bright Tom Jones. You are a guiding light. x

Review Time

Here's another review. I have to say that I wish she'd put what she liked first and what she didn't, last, but there it is...


**** Split Decision by Carmen Capuano ****
3* review from Nicole @ EBR

Although I read through Split Decision by Carmen Capuano fairly quickly, I still found that it was quite a difficult book to sit down and review, because although there were many interesting points to this story, it was also a complicated and confusing one until everything came together at the end.

I will say that it deals with a very sensitive topic and I felt that not enough was discussed or expounded upon in regards to the aftermath and the emotional ramifications of that traumatic event for the character. Until all these events and moments come together and you have that clarification on what is going on, the story was a little monotonous in the first few chapters as we establish the friendship between the two girls and the "sliding doors" moment when her fate was decided with her decisions.

I was unsure at times of who the book's main demographic would be, what the target audience was. The characters are so young but the incidents and issues are very much of a mature nature, at times it read like a cautionary YA novel for teenagers, but other times it felt more developed and grown up. The other problem I experienced was the setting. I wasn't sure where this story takes place as the dialogue switches between American and British colloquialisms, there are American characters, Greek characters and I'm assuming English? I like to have everything around me fully established, whether it be the geographical setting, or the characters heritage.
Now that the negative is out of the way I will say that once the story gained momentum and we were thrown into the drama and chaos of that one night, I really started to like the story. Happening in real time almost, it became thrilling, dangerous, heartbreaking and gained the depth and entertainment factor that the story sorely lacked in the beginning.

I really enjoyed the male characters in Split Decision, we have two very different people, with two very different outlooks in life, two men completely dissimilar in moral values and I liked how the bad was highlighted and distinguished from the good and sweet. The dialogue too seemed to become something 'more',

'But most of all what I see is the indifference people show to each other." He raised his beer to his lips and took a long swallow. I waited for him to continue but he didn't seem inclined to.
"You can't save the world." It was a lame response and I knew it but there was nothing else I could say.

"No I can't save the world. But I can save those I care about." His eyes blazed with passion. There was a hidden depth to his words that I wasn't ready to probe.'

Over all it was a good read, it's just getting past those first few chapters inside a giggly teenage girls overly dramatic head that might prove difficult for some but trust me when you do read on it will be worth it. The story picks up speed and added drama and the characters seem to develop over the ensuing chapters too.
*********************************************************************************************
How was Natalie to know that the decision she was about to
make between two potential dates, would forever be a pivotal point in her life? That it would mark the time where childhood innocence ended?
How could she even imagine that the wrong decision would send her life spiralling into the stuff of nightmares from where she might not come out alive?
Life takes a cruel twist of fate when Natalie, a completely average [almost] 16 year old, is forced to make a split-second decision... a decision that will change her future and forever alter her perception of trust, love and the realities of life.
Buy link---->
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Split-Decision-Carme…/…/ref=sr_1_2…

Benidorm revisited...

In light of the fact that I have just booked a holiday to Spain, I thought I'd remind you of what happened the last time I was there.

So make a drink then settle yourself down for a read...

I have just returned from a holiday in Spain. Am I calmer after the break, more relaxed, less wound like a coiled spring? Probably not. For the truth is that the moment you are home, yes, literally that moment, it becomes clear how much you have to do just to get back on track with everyday life. All the lounging about and dipping into sun-dappled pools is nothing more than a memory and even that seems distant.

Add to this the fact that there were elements of pure fiasco during the holiday and I have to wonder if all the frantic organising was even worth it.

It certainly started with an adventure. I had pre-booked [and pre-paid] airport parking as that seemed like a sensible thing to do. But as I approached Birmingham Airport it became clear that Car Park 7 had no road signs leading to it, unlike numbers 1-6.

Not owning a sat. nav. anymore, [if you want the ludicrous story of how that was lost, you will have to go back to a blog post from about a year ago] I resorted to reading the directions I had printed out. Let’s just say I drove around the same island five times, each time taking a different exit, only to return defeated.

By this time my blood pressure was up, the kids in the back were starting to ask when the plane took off and would we be on it, and I was still none the wiser.

The time was fast approaching 5am when we were due to check in for our flight, and everywhere seemed deserted. There was no one around to even ask where I should have been heading.

In desperation, I pulled in to Car Park 1 and pressed the button on the intercom for assistance. I explained that I was lost and needed help to find Car Park 7. Unfortunately the disembodied voice didn’t seem to know where that was either! There followed an interminably long wait whilst he consulted a map and finally delivered the sage advice that I should, “Go back to the roundabout and pick up the signs for number 7.”

Defeated, I had to reverse the car out of the one-way system, invoking incredulous stares from the other motorists and head back to the same island I had already been around five times!

Since most of them led to other car parks, I chose the one route which didn’t and followed it for some time in the hope that it would be right. Guess what? I still didn’t find the car park I needed. I returned to the original roundabout. The time was 5:30am and I was in a cold sweat.

This time I pulled into car Park 5 and up to the intercom barrier. I pressed the button and waited. “Look I’m lost. I have paid for Car Park 7 but I can’t find it. I have been around and around… and if you don’t help me I am going to miss my flight and …”

I was cut off by a bored voice. “Oh, it’s you again. Didn’t you find it then?” Now don’t ask me why it never occurred to me that it would be the same man from Car Park 1, but it didn’t. Then to have him state the blatantly obvious was almost too much for me. I felt steam coming out of my ears. Very slowly, one vertebrae at a time, I felt myself turn towards the little camera that regarded me so intrusively. Behind my eyes I saw an image of how I must appear to him and I sharpened my gaze.

Before I could say anything I heard him clear his throat and say anxiously, “Wait there. I will get a supervisor to direct you.”

Wait there? Where did he think I was going to go? Round and round the roundabout on a pleasure jaunt, whirling suitcases and children from the car window in wild abandonment, in the hope that some of them would land close to the terminal and might actually make it to the plane?

Finally a supervisor arrived. It took only a short conversation for him to see that by now directions were going to be lost on me. He opened up the barrier and let me park, for which I will be eternally grateful.

By the time we got to the duty free shops, all my previous cares had been forgotten. Almost. Gleefully, my ten year old daughter and I sampled the perfumes and the make-up, drawing on our hands thick lines of every colour available.

Now lots of cosmetics claim to be waterproof… but few actually are. In the toilets, I lathered up my hands and worked at the smears of green and blue and red, rubbing and scraping at my skin. The make-up refused to dissolve and wash away but it did move, smearing itself over both hands, so that it looked like I had been bare-knuckle boxing with Mike Tyson. Again and again I washed my hands, each time more frantically than before, cursing under my breath so that I must have looked more than a little like a modern-day Lady Macbeth. All that was needed was for me to shriek, “Out, damned spot!” and I might even have got an Oscar.

So as usual we ended up making a frenzied dash for the plane, with me trying in vain to hide my monstrous looking hands from everyone. I took solace in the family pack of chocolate raisins I had bought for the journey, doling them out for myself and the children.

It was a turbulent flight, particularly noticeable when on one jolt, I dropped several of the sweets and they clattered softly to the floor. Embarrassed, I tried to pick them up and dispose of them – no mean feat when the seating space seems to have been modelled on the dimensions of mankind from the 1950s, when men were trim and women had waists, but I got most of them up.

It was only when I uncontorted myself that I discovered the people across the aisle were watching me in fascination. It seemed they thought I was so panicked about the turbulence that I had adopted the safety ‘brace’ position.

Safely ensconced in my seat once more, I hoped that I had finished providing them with free entertainment. But I’m afraid the show was not yet over. It was only when I stood up to go to the toilet that I realised not all of the chocolate treats had fallen to the floor. Some had slipped onto my seat, becoming effectively squashed and melted under me.

Do you have any idea what a few squashed chocolate buttons and raisins look like when congealed to the seat of your jeans? Mortified, I blazed a trail to the toilets, cheeks crimson and with the sound of my children’s guffaws still ringing in my ears. I may never live that memory down.

I had booked a hotel in Benidorm because of the dates we needed to have and the price I was happy to pay, added to the fact that I wanted a hotel which was close to the beach and which offered nightly entertainment. Now at this point are you all shaking your heads? I thought so.

And to be honest Benidorm was everything people say it is. But it is also beautiful, with long sandy beaches where the sea is both warm and crystal clear and fish swim unafraid around your toes.

Cloistered within the walls of our hotel by night, there was none of the anti-social behaviour that might have been acted out on the streets and many clubs and bars of the town, but there was still that flavoursome sense of excitement, that in the warm air, scented with exotic flowers and coconut suntan lotion, anything might happen…

I even managed to convince myself that I could look as enticing as Halle Berry famously coming out of the sea in one of the James Bond movies, so I tried it. Hair slicked back by the tide, bikini rucked up to cover my most wobbliest of bits, I emerged, white and short limbed from the foamy waves.

The film score which was playing in my head, stuttered and died as I caught my big toe on a rock concealed under the water. Pain shot up my foot and I stumbled, feet flailing under the water, trying to find purchase and finding only the rock. Again. I went down like a lead balloon, hair straggling over my face and inhaling a great lungful of salt water.

But this holiday also provided a number of firsts for me. I had never taken the children abroad on my own before and it was a bitter-sweet experience. I sat alone watching the nightly entertainment, my teenage son off messaging his friends on Facebook and my daughter playing with new friends, and although the shows were on the whole very good, I felt I cut a rather pathetic figure, there on my own. This was highlighted during one of the acts, when a comedian picked on me as being clearly alone in a swarm of huge family groups and asked what my name was, where I was from and whether I was married or not.

Reluctantly giving the answers, I was dismayed to be asked more; how old was I and did I have children? Giving the answers as I did, starkly and without embellishment, I almost felt like I was on a game show dating site:- ‘And now here’s Carmen, all the way from the Midlands, give her a cheer! Carmen is single, 48 and has three children!’

So when the Adele tribute singer came on, perhaps you will forgive me for shedding a quiet, surreptitious tear at my aloneness.

In general though, the entertainment was really good and my thanks go out to JJ Jones who was the Neil Diamond Tribute and to Andy, the Rod Stewart tribute, who were both photographed with my newest novel, Split Decision. [See earlier posts]

In particular I must mention the fact that JJ Jones donates all proceeds from the sale of his CDs to a charity in remembrance of his daughter.

But my most enduring memories of this holiday? Well apart from the looks of purest joy on the faces of my children, it would have to be sitting on the balcony with the strains of Spanish music played on an acoustic guitar, filtering up from below. The music seemed to play with the noise of the passing traffic like a cat with a mouse, sometimes feigning passivity, at other times being assertive, taking control and bending the other noise to its will.

Spain is the land of my grandfather, the origin of my name and so perhaps it is a part of me in a way that I almost can’t define. Looking at my children, I now think it may well be a part of them too.

Still happening...

This is a post I wrote some time ago. Unfortunately the situation remains unchanged.

Too much far too soon.

I read something in the Huffington Post the other day which reflected exactly how I felt.

Apparently a father of a young daughter, who just also happened to be a Reverend, wrote an open letter to a well-known underwear brand, asking that they reconsider their plans to produce and sell lacy, slogan emblazoned underwear to young(ish) children.

Now I use the word children here both carefully and well considered.

By the laws of this country and most other progressive ones, minors are considered to be 'children' until at least the age of sixteen if not much older. This means that certain things, acts and products are prohibited to them. And this is done with good reason.

I know we all love our children and want them to be happy, stylish and feel that they fit in with their peers...but let's get real here. Do you really think that emblazoning a pair of lacy, racy thong pants with the slogan "feeling lucky?" is the way to do it? Or allowing our teens to be wearing such things?

No! The sentiments exposed there are both too jocular by nature with a semi-sophisticated self-deprecation and at once too mocking to emulate the true way that teens feel about the very idea of sexual attraction.

Think back to your own early teens if you will. Were you really so sure of your own attractiveness that you could wear these pants with no self-effacement, no modesty? If you are truthful, I think you will agree with me that the answer is no.

These slogans are made up by [and any teens reading this, I want you to take note] fat, balding old men who sit behind desks dreaming lasciviously of young girls. Be in no doubt about that.

Girls, these pants are not grown up, they are not sexy...they were designed by dirty old men who dream of you wearing them. Please, please do not buy them! And mothers and fathers out there - please help your children to see what is happening. We still live in a world where men like Garry Glitter and Jimmy Saville are reviled - do not let that ever change. This type of underwear is designed to pander to that very element of society...to take innocence and corrupt it as early as possible!

For all our sakes, get this mini-porn lingerie back where it belongs, on the cutting room floor.

Back by Popular Demand : Too Much far Too Soon

I am reposting this post below which I wrote a few years ago. This is done by popular demand. Mothers, vote with your feet and your purse strings...

I read something in the Huffington Post the other day which reflected exactly how I felt.
...

Apparently a father of a young daughter, who just also happened to be a Reverend, wrote an open letter to a well-known underwear brand, asking that they reconsider their plans to produce and sell lacy, slogan emblazoned underwear to young(ish) children.
Now I use the word children here both carefully and well considered.

By the laws of this country and most other progressive ones, minors are considered to be 'children' until at least the age of sixteen if not much older. This means that certain things, acts and products are prohibited to them. And this is done with good reason.

Now I know we all love our children and want them to be happy, stylish and feel that they fit in with their peers...but let's get real here...

Do you really think that emblazoning a pair of lacy, racy thong pants with the slogan "feeling lucky?" is the way to do it? Or allowing our teens to be wearing such things?

No! The sentiments exposed there are both too jocular by nature with a semi-sophisticated self-deprication and at once too mocking to emulate the true way that teens feel about the very idea of sexual attraction.

Think back to your own early teens if you will. Were you really so sure of your own attractiveness that you could wear these pants with no self-effacement, no modesty? If you are truthful, I think you will agree with me that the answer is no.

These slogans are made up by [and any teens reading this, I want you to take note] fat, balding old men who sit behind desks dreaming lasciviously of young girls.

Be in no doubt about that.

And girls, these pants are not grown up, they are not sexy...they were designed by dirty old men who dream of you wearing them. Please, please do not buy them!

Mothers and fathers out there - please help your children to see what is happening. We still live in a world where men like Garry Glitter and Jimmy Saville are reviled - do not let that ever change.

This type of underwear is designed to pander to that very element of society...to take innocence and corrupt it as early as possible!
For all our sakes, get this mini-porn lingerie back where it belongs, on the cutting room floor.

You can now find me on Wattpad, listed as carmencapuanoauthor.

Happy Reading!

Today I heard back from another of my readers. She raved about The Owners and openly admitted that when she had first heard about it, she had thought that it would not be her "sort of thing".

But upon reading Volume I, she had become fully captivated by the story, the characters and the situations they found themselves in, so much so that she was desperate to get her hands on a copy of Volume II.

Wonderful as this story was to my ears it was also rather familiar. So many people have said the more or less exact same thing to me. Indeed the appeal of the story has been likened to that of the Harry Potter books where people of all walks of life and ages have become entranced by the story.

And the question that arises from this is : why if the book is so good, am I not seeing the meteoric rise of the novels that the esteemed Ms Rowling did? Is it luck? Am I missing some vital link in the chain? Have I not yet encountered the right people in my journey? I have no idea.

So dear reader if you have any words of wisdom on how to get more publicity for this clearly great series...pass 'em on to me.

I remain ready and waiting for all your sage advice.

Carmen.