Catch up with Tottie Limejuice now aka L M Krier

 

Books by Tottie Limejuice and L M Krier 

Retired journalist, copywriter and copy editor Lesley Tither writes under various pen-names: Tottie Limejuice for travel memoirs and humour, L M Krier for crime fiction and L M Kay for children's fiction.

It's been a long time since I wrote anything on this blog! Not since I started the website tottielimejuice.com in fact. But I thought it was high time I brought you up to speed with all that's been happening to me in the couple of years or so since I last posted on here.

Travel memoirs by Tottie Limejuice

I think back then we were just at the point of the first book in what was always intended to be the Sell the Pig travel memoirs trilogy.  Since then, due to my appalling maths, there are now five little pigs, in order: Sell the Pig, Is That Billinge Lump?, Mother Was It Worth It?, Biff the Useless Mention, and Angling Bumateurs.
For French speakers, book one, Sell the Pig, is also now available in French, as Maman, Vends le Cochon.

Travel memoirs about France written by Lesley Tither writing as Tottie Limejuice

 

Crime fiction by L M Krier

Since the first days of Sell the Pig, I've reinvented myself as a crime thriller writer, L M Krier, author of the DI Ted Darling of British detective/police procedurals set in Stockport, Greater Manchester. There are currently seven books in the series. All the titles are from songs and are, in order: Baby's Got Blue Eyes, Two Little Boys, When I'm Old and Grey, Shut Up and Drive, Only the Lonely, Wild Thing, and Walk On By.

Book 8 in the DI Ted Darling series is scheduled for release in early September 2017, with another in the series planned for the New Year 2018.

Crime fiction, the DI Ted Darling series, written by Lesley Tither as L M Krier

Children's Fiction by L M Kay

I've also branched out into children's fiction with a crime twist. I actually wrote the basic idea for a story many years ago when I lived in Lincolnshire. The story is loosely based on the city of Lincoln. It's been sitting on a very old floppy disc for years, then I eventually dug it out and reworked it. Add in some utterly stunning illustrations by Andrew Campbell-Howes and so was born The Dog with the Golden Eyes.  It's available for Kindle and in paperback and it's well worth the paperback price of £4.99 just to see those amazing pictures full size.

Children's fiction with a crime twist, illustrated by Andrew Campbell-Howes, written by Lesley Tither writing as L M Kay

Humour as Tottie Limejuice

For every book I produce, I work closely behind the scenes with a wonderful team of betareaders who go over everything I write to make sure it is up to standard. One of them, Kate Pill, in Australia, writes such hilarious side notes that I am often sitting crying laughing at my desk here in central France. The exchanges of humour between us get very silly and often lavatorial, but I thought it might be fun to collate them into a short book.

Almost every book emerging at the time seemed to start with 'The Girl' after the success of The Girl on the Train (not a favourite of mine). So just for fun I decided to call the little collection No Girl on this Train.

When I first wrote Sell the Pig, I belonged to an author site called Authonomy where I met a fellow author, Jill Pennington. I loved her book, The Diary of a Single Parent Abroad and we quickly became good friends and kindred spirits via internet.  

Doris, as she is affectionately known, decided this wasn't enough and that we should meet up in the flesh. Not only that but we should write a joint book about our mad adventure. Which we duly did, under the title of Take Three Birds.

Planned  future books

As mentioned earlier, Ted Darling hasn't finished with me yet. There will definitely be more in the series and Book 9 has already started insinuating its way into my brain.

In the face of a lot of pressure from readers, I have now started the dreaded prequel to the Sell the Pig series, even though I dislike the term. And because Doris and I had such fun producing Take Three Birds, I've decided to go and visit her in Italy, travelling by train all the way and writing a short and hopefully humorous piece about the great adventure.

Jill runs a glamping site (glamorous camping) in the Italian Apennines. Via her Facebook site I've been following the incredible saga of how she has constructed a Hobbit House from scratch so I've booked a dog sitter and reserved my train tickets and will be visiting in September. Of course, there will need to be a book about that adventure too.

All of which should keep me out of mischief during the cold winter months.

Author Lesley Tither, alias Tottie Limejuice, L M Krier and L M Kay, enjoying a walk in the French sunshine with her two rescued border colliers, Rosie and Fleur.

Change of location for Tottie's Book Blog

Just to let everyone know, who may be following this blog, that I will in future be blogging from the new website for the Sell the Pig series of books, http://tottielimejuice.com/. It will hopefully be an easier place to interact, so do drop in, say hello and remember to click to follow the blog, so you will be automatically reminded of any updates.

Thanks, and see you soon!

Tottie

Do you love memoirs? You are not alone!

What do writers do when they are not writing? Mostly hang out together talking about books!

I've recently joined a Facebook group called We Love Memoirs. It was started up by New York Times best-selling author Victoria Twead of Ant Press, publishers of Sell the Pig Sequel 'Is That Billinge Lump'.

If you're interested in memoirs, books, reading, authors, chatting, making new friends or whatever, it's a great group to join. It's very relaxed - it must be, as for some reason they have made me a moderator. I'm sure it's a huge honour - if only I knew what I was supposed to do!

Now that 'Lump' is out, he and 'Pig' are displaying lots of sibling rivalry and taking it in turns to beat each other in the rankings. As I write this, 'Pig' is No 1 in its category on Amazon, with baby brother 'Lump' at No 2.

I shall be doing a book signing for both at my favourite French watering hole, Bar Le St Thomas on September 15th, when there is a lamb roast there.

Meanwhile, to recover from all the hard work of publishing 'Lump', I am off down to the Cantal tomorrow  for a couple of days, with a friend, staying in a little chalet near a lake at Le Lac des Estives, which is up on the high plateau where the cattle graze for the summer.

We're staying in the same funky yellow chalet I had last time I was there in July. 

So don't forget to drop in to the We Love Memoirs group on Facebook. I look forward to seeing you there!

Book bloggers of the world unite!

If you're thinking of writing and self-publishing a book, be under no illusions. Writing it is the easy part. All the self marketing you need to do if you actually want to sell any copies is the real grunt.

Thankfully for writers, estate agents and various others, there are not yet any rules on either Facebook or Twitter that prevent you from shamelessly promoting your wares. But take care - people will soon jump all over you and say you're overdoing it.

It's actually ironic as often the ones who do are those who are guilty of tweeting each and every bodily function (if only I was kidding!), or sharing their particular passion with you in minute detail. Honestly, if I was remotely interested in snooker I would watch it myself. Therefore there is absolutely no need to describe to me each and every frame, or whatever they're called.

So huge heartfelt thanks to Sandra, of the book blog SS Book Fanatics, who has kindly given some room on her site for a mention of Sell the Pig. It's a blog by a book fanatic, for book fanatics.

Thanks to all of you who have bought and read Sell the Pig - I'm pleased to report sales are creeping up slowly and steadily. Got some lovely reviews too on the Amazon sites. The UK site currently has 26 x 5-star reviews and one 3-star. Bit light on the .com site  and the .fr site so please, particularly if you bought through either of those, do leave even just a few words to say whether or not you liked it.

Please be brutally frank. If you didn't like it, say so and say why, as I'm already churning round sequel ideas in what passes for my brain so any and all feedback is hugely helpful. What would you like to read more of in Book Two? What didn't interest you at all?

Come on guys, it's not often you get to collaborate with a book, so give me your feedback and I'll do my very best to do it justice.