Author: Miriam Drori

Author, editor, attempter of this thing called life. Social anxiety warrior. Re-Connections, a collection of short stories, published with Ocelot Press, 15/10/2025.

Books Social anxiety

Positive Passion

Following on from the news that my book, Social Anxiety Revealed will be published by Crooked Cat later this year, hence giving a big boost to my passion: raising awareness of social anxiety, I looked up quotes about passion and found these:

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.

~Oprah Winfrey

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

~Benjamin Franklin

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

~Jean-Paul Sartre

It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.

~T. S. Eliot

Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.

~Jon Bon Jovi

I started posting one a day on Facebook. In fact I was ready to post the last one when tragedy struck in Manchester, UK, making me think again. Whatever you want to do, be passionate? I think the perpetrator of that horrendous crime was passionate, but he was passionate about the wrong thing. Considering the beliefs he held, I think it would have been better if he hadn’t been passionate about them.

So instead of posting that last quote, I wrote one of my own:

Your passion should stimulate you to help fellow humans – not harm them.

I added: “Over the last few days, I’ve been posting quotes about passion. This one is mine, inspired by Manchester and similar atrocities, perpetrated by people with the wrong sort of passion.”

Promote Positive Passion

Tags Benjamin Franklin, Crooked Cat, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jon Bon Jovi, Manchester, Oprah Winfrey, passion, T. S. Eliot

Books

The Allure of Secrets

I’m delighted to be visited today by Katharine Johnson, author of Lies, Mistakes and Misunderstandings, and now of The Silence. She’s going to talk about her fascination with secrets, so, over to her.

KatyJohnson I know publishers and bookshops like books that have clearly defined genres. It makes them easier to market and display which in turn makes them easier to sell. The trouble is not all readers are as easy to categorise. I’m sure there are people who only buy romance or historical novels or detective stories but I’m not one of these. I like books from lots of different genres. You’re as likely to find me reading a family saga as a thriller and some of my favourite books don’t fall into any genre that I can identify. But I suppose if I had to find a common thread to the novels I love it would be secrets. I’m drawn to stories where things are not as they first appear, and where a long-held secret is threatened with exposure and the effect it has on people when it is revealed.

Secrets I hadn’t really noticed that this was the case until someone recently pointed it out. My favourite book about a long-held secret is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. To me secrets are what make people interesting. We all have them to some extent but I’m curious about how people deal with having a big secret in their life, how they feel about it and to what lengths they will go to hide it. Perhaps it’s because I’m so bad at keeping secrets myself – I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I’d make a terrible spy – that I’m fascinated by people who can do so successfully for years.

I suppose the first person you need to convince is yourself. George Orwell said in 1984 “If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.”

In my novel The Silence which is being published on 8th June the main character Abby has a secret that goes back 25 years to a summer she spent in Tuscany as a teenager. Now in her thirties, she loves her job and is happily married with two lovely little girls – but she knows that if her secret gets out her perfect life will implode.

She has driven the details of what happened during her last day at the villa to the very back of her mind and has done this so successfully that she has almost convinced herself it never happened. How else could she have got on with her life, got a degree, got a job, married – all the things normal people do? But when human remains are discovered at the villa she realises her secret is no longer safe.

The other thing about having a secret is that you can only be sure of keeping it if you are the only person to know about it. But Abby wasn’t the only person at the villa that day and now someone else wants the truth to be told.

Special Offer

The Silence will be published on June 8th in eBook and paperback versions and is available on this link Amazon – The Silence.

Grab the eBook at the special pre-order price of 99p (after publication it goes up to £1.99).

Message me (or email katy@espressomedia.net) with proof of order and you will be entered into a goodybag prize draw which includes prosecco and chocolates, an Amazon gift card and a signed paperback of my first novel Lies, Mistakes and Misunderstandings.

Come to the Party

I’m having an online book launch for The Silence on 8th-9th June. There will be fun and games, information about the book, visiting authors and prizes to be won. Please come along! Click on this link for more details: The Silence launch Party.

About the Author

Katharine Johnson is a journalist with a passion for old houses and all things Italian (except tiramisu). She grew up in Bristol and has lived in Italy. She currently lives in Berkshire with her husband, three children and madcap spaniel.

Tags Crooked Cat, Katharine Johnson, secrets

Holidays The writing process

Sounds Like a Riddle

I think this was the first riddle I ever heard of the type I’m thinking of:

Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man’s father is my father’s son.

Something David (other half) said recently reminded me of that. We were walking through the village of Aldbury at the start of a circular walk in the Chilterns. He said:

I know this place, but I’ve never been here.

The riddle was soon solved. The village was the setting for an episode of The Avengers, a weird crime series from the 1960s. The stories in this series couldn’t possibly have happened in real life, and that’s the charm of it. I’m not totally hooked, but I think I get it.

We looked up Aldbury, of course, and immediately discovered the episode in question: Murdersville, in which all the village residents are involved in regular murders. For this episode, the village was renamed Little Storping in the Swuff and The Greyhound Inn became The Happy Ploughman. This might make me think differently about ploughman’s lunches!

We watched the episode after returning home. As I said: weird. But well done, David, for recognising the village!

***

The latest meeting of my writing group involved homemade Sachertorte. Obviously, I had to take photos. Sachertorte… Vienna… The Women Friends: Selina.

Tags Aldbury, Avengers, Klimt, Murdersville, Sachertorte, The Women Friends, Vienna

Everyday life Holidays Israel

Back Home

Hello, lovely readers. I hope you’ve been happily occupied while I was away.

Yes, I’m back from a delightful nine-day trip to the UK, my almost-home. We visited friends and family, attended the book launch of The May Queen by fellow Crooked Cat author, Helen Irene Young, at Waterstones in Richmond, and did lots of walking.

TheMayQueenLaunch — The May Queen is a great story. I know – I edited it.

I also attended a meeting of Crooked Cat authors. Although we’re all in regular contact online, it’s always good to meet up for an informal chat.

I returned yesterday morning to two special annual days and something that, I believe, is unique to Israel. Today is Remembrance Day: ‘Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism’. Yesterday evening and this morning, the nation stood still to mourn, and ceremonies are being held throughout the day. And tomorrow, starting this evening, is Independence Day and a day for rejoicing. Tonight, we’ll stand on our balcony and watch the fireworks that mark the beginning of Independence Day.

IsabellaPlantation1 — At Isabella Plantation with notebook and pen, naturally.

UPDATE (2 May): Here’s a photo from last night’s fireworks.

Tags Crooked Cat, Fireworks, Helen Irene Young, The May Queen

Books

For People who Don’t Read Books

Post author By Miriam Drori
Post date Apr 16, 2017
No Comments on For People who Don’t Read Books

Yes, this post is for people who don’t read books.

NoBooks

I might have tried to persuade you to start reading. But I don’t need to, because someone has done it for me. Thank you, Al Kennedy! Have a listen; it lasts for just ten minutes.

And when you’ve heard it and your mind has been changed, hop over to Amazon, where all Crooked Cat books are free or on sale (99p/99c) until tomorrow night, including:

The Women Friends: Selina, the first of a series of novellas based on Gustav Klimt’s famous masterpiece: The Women Friends.

Neither Here Nor There, a romance with a difference, set in Jerusalem.

I won’t mention this sale again on this blog – I promise!

Tags Al Kennedy, BBC Radio 4, book, Crooked Cat, Neither Here Nor There, novel, The Women Friends: Selina

Books Holidays

Sale Time

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has bought Neither Here Nor There during this weekend’s Crooked Cat sale.

A reminder that The Women Friends: Selina is also on sale (99p/99c) until Monday.

In other news, I wish could write the other posts I planned about Ethiopia, but I’m busy editing two books and writing another. And I have a short trip planned. More about that on my return.

Happy holidays to all!

RedSeaCrossingSelfie — Originally posted on Facebook by Gedaliah Gurfein

Tags Crooked Cat, Neither Here Nor There, The Women Friends: Selina

Books Reviews

The Planter’s Daughter

I’ve just finished reading an amazing book. Books that I mention on this blog are all special, but this one is extra special and I’m shouting about it from every rooftop I can find.

Here’s my review:

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I was in Liverpool, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland – not now, but nearly two hundred years ago. Actually, I’ve only been to one of those places and what I saw in no way prepared me for what I read in this book. The descriptions are so vivid, the scenes so real that I felt I was there with the characters, through all their hopes and suffering.

I’ve never read a historical story that has held my attention as this one did. Most historical fiction has sections that are less interesting, that I have to struggle through to move on to more appealing parts. But this novel captivated me throughout.

I’ve read Jo Carroll’s travel memoirs, but never realised she was capable of this. I salute her and sincerely hope she’s planning more novels like this one.

Blurb

It’s 1848. And Sara, aged fourteen, must leave her family in the stinking potato fields of Ireland to seek a better life with her wealthy aunt in Liverpool. But her uncle has different ideas.

Will she find solace among the dockers? She finds love, but becomes embroiled in the unrest of the Irish men and women who live in squalor in the Liverpool slums. Yet her efforts to help them only enrage her uncle further.

Her escape takes her to the other side of the world. But there is no comfort in the dusty outback of Australia nor the gold fields of New Zealand. For she has left behind something more precious to her than life itself.

Tags Australia, historical fiction, Ireland, Jo Carroll, Liverpool, New Zealand, potato famine

Holidays

Birds, Baboons and Other Animals in Ethiopia

Post author By Miriam Drori
Post date Mar 17, 2017
4 Comments on Birds, Baboons and Other Animals in Ethiopia

This is one of several posts about my recent trip to Ethiopia. The others, so far, are:

The Black Country | Anecdotes | Transport | Religion | Danger

The post on transport was updated recently.

I haven’t looked up statistics about animals in Ethiopia, but there are, without doubt, more than I’ve seen in any other country. Cows, goats, buffaloes. You see them on the roads. The driver gives a hoot and the animals inch away until there’s just enough room for the jeep to get past.

Camels and donkeys carry salt – for internal use only, we were told.

We spotted a baboon

and a monkey

and a dik-dik.

We saw vervet monkeys.

That’s right – blue.

But most of all, I remember the birds. Our guide and driver for part of the tour (Milli) was very knowledgeable about birds and knew all the names. He’d spot them while driving and stop for us to take photos. When said bird was on my side of the jeep, I’d let the window down and sit back for hubby to lean on me while photographing. The results were definitely worth the slight discomfort.

Tags animals, baboons, birds, buffaloes, camels, cows, donkeys, Ethiopia, goats, monkeys