Tag Archives: romance

Black Cat and Lavender presents ‘Wuthering Heights’

Many years ago, we launched Loony Literature to get people reading more. It worked well for a while until life’s turmoil took over. However, this important mission has never left us and so here we are back again, with an idea that inspires and excites us. It’s our pleasure to introduce you to Black Cat and Lavender, we are publishing a mixture of old voices and new voices to keep the joy of reading alive. In the first instance, we are offering a range of our favourite classic gothic novels and historical texts. Later, we will be adding new, exciting, innovative voices to our list.

Below is the front and back cover of the hardcover collector’s edition of Wuthering Heights. You can buy a copy here.

Of course, the first book on the list had to be Wuthering Heights. It is our all-time favourite. This book has been with me since I was fourteen or fifteen years old and still moves me emotionally to this day. There is an e book, a paperback and a hardback collector’s edition. Each one has its own unique cover, they are all illustrated and have many extras in them, including an essay letter that we have written for you, dear reader, which discusses how writing Wuthering Heights may have helped Emily Bronte overcome her deepest fears.

Below is the front and back cover of the paperback edition. You can buy a copy here.

Below is the cover of the ebook. You can buy a copy here.

For seven days only, you can receive a free PDF copy. Please email us at blackcatandlavender@gmail

If, you wish to leave a review, we would be most grateful.

Although it had been coming on slowly for years, in 2021, my darling mother’s dementia became much worse. For some reason, seeing someone who positively devoured books, no longer be able to read even a paragraph and enjoy it, blocked my own writing. In August 2024, my mother passed away and I only told certain people that she’d gone. It was too difficult to say it to the world. I wanted to mark it in a certain way that would echo her character. So Black Cat and Lavender’s version of ‘Wuthering Heights’ is dedicated to my darling mother, Joyce.

For the launch, initially, there is a podcast. The first episode discusses ‘Is Wuthering Heights a love story?’ You can listen here.

There will be many more discussions on both podcast and video for you to enjoy as we go along and, of course, books. Thank you for reading this. It is appreciated greatly.

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Filed under About Loony Literature, Creative Writing, Literary Criticism, Podcasts, Reading

Writing – Make your romance specific

Fancy writing a romance but all you keep coming up with is boy works in office and meets girl? You could try the following exercise to make your romance specific. Take a famous couple from history and write about them. The best way to do this is to research them first so that you know who they are, how they met and what happened to them.

punch-and-judy

You have to fill in the details

If at this point, you think that you would just be writing a piece of history, what you have to remember is that with most peoples’ relationships we only have the bare bones of it no matter how famous they were. This means that when important things happened between them, you have to imagine what went on and fill in the details.

Mary Shelley

For instance, you could write about Mary Shelley and her husband, Percy. Mary is the mother of science fiction because she wrote ‘Frankenstein’ and Shelley is one of our most loved poets. He was also a member of the aristocracy. When we read about their courtship and their life together, it is far more interesting than many novels. Even though we have lots of information on them and their travels we have to fill in what happened when they were alone together and that is where the fiction writer’s imagination comes to life. We have to become Mary when she met Percy and ran away with him. In other words, you can take your own personal feelings and fuse it with historical fact to reach authenticity with your writing.

Happy Writing.

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Filed under Creative Writing, Inspiration and Us