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#HistFicThursdays - The Angel of Grasmere: From Dunkirk to Grasmere - Book Review

Today's #HistFicThursdays blog comes from Judith, who is reviewing Tom Palmer 's fabulous book, Angel of Grasmere . Read on, to see what she thought... Picture from Tom's website, here: https://tompalmer.co.uk/angel-of-grasmere/ The Angel of Grasmere: From Dunkirk to Grasmere is a middle-grade novel by Tom Palmer. I came to read this book in a surprising sort of way. Having just taken up a post as an English teacher at the local High School, I was informed that each class has a session in the library every three weeks. The kind but terrifyingly organised librarian told me that my third-years had missed their last library session, so she had kindly slotted on into my first week with them. This was an absolute godsend as, last thing on a Thursday, it was lovely for me and the rest of the class to just sit with a book. It being November, there was a Book Week Scotland display up in the library, full of books which involved the theme of Hope. One of them, The Angel of Grasm...

#HistFicThursdays - And now for something completely different... COMPETITIONS!

Today's blog is a heads-up on an Historical Fiction competition which is being run by Globe Soup.
If you want more details, head over to their website here.

At Crowvus, our competition season is in full swing: entries for our Ghost Story Competition have been coming in for the past couple of months and the deadline is 30 September. We’re looking forward to reading the stories which always form a key part of our autumn reading.

If you’re looking for inspiration, look no further than Those Experiences, which is available as a free eBook from our website. This should give you a good idea of the kind of stories the Crowvus team find particularly chilling and, as we make up most (but not all!) of the judging team, that’s a pretty good place to start!

This week, another competition was announced which is of particular interest to historical fiction writers: the Globe Soup Historical Fiction Challenge. It doesn’t give you much time to write your stories but, with six great historical periods, it will certainly give you a good platform from which to launch a story!

The time periods are:

1.        The Black Death
2.        The Vietnam War
3.        The Roman Empire
4.        The California Gold Rush
5.        The Renaissance
6.        The British Colonial Period in India

And, as with other Globe Soup Challenges, you are assigned a time period blind. I knew the exact one I did not want (The Vietnam War) so opted for the mysterious Ticket 2, and got the one I wanted most!

So, there you go… two great competitions to end your summer with.

I look forward to reading your spooky stories! 

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