Still (just about!) in September, this month's Writer Wednesday is another foray into non-fiction, with a book about Baltic resistance against the Nazis and Soviets, by Dan Kaszeta. What is it? As the book's subtitle says, it describes what was going on in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, from the end of WWI, when all three states became independent countries after a period of rule by Tsarist Russia, to the middle of the 1950s, when all three were incorporated into the USSR and armed resistance functionally ended.

Alt: Dolly Parton wearing a hot pink suit and a necklace of stars. "No matter what you do this year, you're going to be you, and I'm going to be proud of you."

Just squeezing into September, this month's Friday Fiction once more takes a trip to the park, where Lucas isn't at all keen on returning for another year of school, but discovering that there's more to being a naturalist than just liking ducks might sweeten the deal! Read Back to School Happy reading! 🙂

Welcome to the final Kartiyan Music Monday post where I'm going to round up some of the other things that I've listened to while working on this book. Badala Zamana - ZohraUK readers will probably recognise this as the music from the roller-skating tortoise advert for one of our train companies (yes, this does make it the third advert-related track on here!).

As mentioned in my monthly update, I've been working on the cover for Code Name: Speedwell and I'm happy to say that I can now reveal both the cover and a synopsis. Once more designed by Sabrina from Enchanted Ink and I absolutely love it for its simplicity and the vintage feel, which is absolutely perfect for a book set in two time periods...

Welcome to the penultimate Music Monday for Kartiyan and the second (!) piece of music I was introduced to via car commercial: Gunshot by Lykke Li. Lykke Li is a Swedish pop star, actress and model who's been active since 2007. Gunshot comes from her third album, I Never Learn, released in 2014, and was used in a commercial for Peugeot.

Well, after July's chaos came August's calm - not quite an actual life of leisure, because I've been working pretty hard, but it has been very good. So, the big news is that Kartiyan is now out in the wild and you can buy it here! It's also available via bookshop.org, if you want to buy eBooks and support your local independent book sellers.

Welcome to this week's Music Monday and a trip back to the mid 80s synth-pop scene by way of a car commercial (yes, really!) for Propaganda's track p:Machinery. Propaganda are a German synth-pop group who formed in 1982 in Dusseldorf. They've been through a number of iterations since, via splits, reformations and new line ups, to the point that there are now two rival versions of the group, one under the original name and one under the name xPropaganda.