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A Happy Halloween Gothtail (cocktail!)

You may remember our delicious Scottish-themed cocktail: Caledon , which we shared on Christmas Eve in 2024. This remains one of our most popular blog posts, so we thought we would share another one for you on this All Hallow's Eve! With that in mind, I am pleased to introduce you to: The Raighvan Park , inspired by Judith Crow's novella, The Folly at Raighvan Park, which you can find here . Here are your step by step instructions for creating this gothic beverage (have we just invented the gothtail ?!) It's deliciously dark, as you might expect, with a hint of the upper-class style of the novella. You will need: 1. Port  2. Patron Xo Cafe (you could use any other coffee liqueur) 3. Soda water with lime 4. Ginger ale 5. Pepsi Max 6. Liquorice Time to put them all together... 1. Pour one shot of coffee liqueur into a large wine glass. 2. Add one shot of port. Remember, a gothic gentleman loves his port! 3. Now onto the non-alcoholic additions... include two shots of soda wat...

#HistFicThursdays - What We Love in a Film, Do We Hate in a Book?

 Last night we went to the cinema to watch The Sheep Detectives. It was a great, fun film packed with all the rollercoaster emotions you want from any movie. Interestingly, despite the fact the film was perhaps aged at a younger audience, everyone at the screening was quite a bit older. We made a comment later that, despite the fact the film is a PG rating, there was no way any of my nieces would be able to handle it.

But the most appealing thing about the film was just how appealing it was! It was a murder mystery, of course, but it also bordered on drama, comedy, and romance. It certainly catered for all ages, with some of the references and topics which would be completely lost on young children. And it was not afraid to deal with some pretty brutal topics.

In many respects, we expect these genre-collisions in films - we applaud them and celebrate them as crafty and creative. It's a shame, I think, that many books which portray a similar mixed approach at often overlooked as difficult to categorise and therefore tend to find no home at all. Writing as I do, about the fine line between facts and truths within history, this is a topic I feel acutely.

So (genuine question, fellow writers!), why are we more willing to celebrate films which cross genres when we struggle to accept the same thing in written fiction?

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