Welcome Jan Hurst-Nicholson

Strictly Sagas welcomes Jan Hurst-Nicholson, author of the epic family saga, The Breadwinners

Jan Hurst-Nicholson has been writing for about 25 years. Her articles, humorous articles and short stories have appeared in South African and overseas magazines and these were compiled into a book: Something to Read on the Plane a bit of light literature, short stories & other fun stuff.

Her first children’s book was  Leon Chameleon PI and the case of the missing canary eggs published by Gecko Books, and was one of Bookchat’s 1993 South African Books of the Year. This was followed by  Leon Chameleon PI and the case of the kidnapped mouse   (both now available as e-books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble) ‘Leon Chameleon PI and the case of the bottled bat’ is awaiting publication. These are humorous, animal, detective stories set in a nature reserve.

‘Bheki and the Magic Light,’ which tells of a rural child’s fascination with a torch, was published by Penguin SA.

‘Jake,’ was published by Cambridge University Press.

Born in the UK, Jan emigrated from Liverpool to South Africa in the 1970s.  Her experiences moving to a new continent were the inspiration for her humorous novel, But Can You Drink The Water?, which was a semi-finalist (top 50 out of 5000) in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

This is now available on Amazon as a Kindle digital book and has sold over 17 000 copies.

Jan worked in the R&D department of a large bakery for several years, and this gave her the idea for  The Breadwinners  a family saga spanning 50 years and set in Durban. This is now available on Amazon as a Kindle digital book.

Jan has also written a YA novel, Mystery at Ocean Drive  which was a runner-up in the 2010 Citizen/Pan MacMillan YA novel award, and is now available as a Kindle digital book.

Jan’s writing also appears in Edge Words (20 stories from the Cheshire Prize for Literature 2006) published by University of Chester, Chicken Soup for the Caregiver's Soul and Chicken Soup for the Soul 101 best stories On Being a Parent; Summer Shorts and My Funny Major Medical .

Jan is a member of the South African Writers’ Circle, and of SpeakOut, an organization that teaches public speaking (for when she becomes a famous writer!)

She lives in Durban with two dogs that are forever on the wrong side of the door, one elderly cat, and the occasional visiting troop of boisterous vervet monkeys.

THE BREADWINNERS

A spurned lover marries for money and ignites a family feud lasting for three generations.

It is New Year’s Eve 1924 and the fiery and volatile Charles McGill is devastated when the woman he loves announces her engagement to Lucas Connelly, his friend and co-worker. 

When Charles delivers the New Year stollen bread to the home of Manfred Richter, his daughter, Hilde mistakes Charles for a party guest and offers the handsome and seemingly unattached male a glass of spiced punch. Charles is soon drowning his sorrows in drink and later seduces Hilde. When she finds she is pregnant her father offers to set up the penniless Charles with his own bakery if he will marry her. Charles readily agrees and, unknown to Hilde, the two men draw up a contract. It is the beginning of a battle for supremacy between Charles, Lucas, and Miles Davenport, their former employer.

As the bakeries grow and prosper, acrimony begins within the families, pitting brother against brother, and Charles becomes increasingly dissatisfied, realising that success means nothing if he cannot have the woman he loves.

The story covers a period of sixty years and leads us through the successes and failures of the three families as they survive the great depression, the war years and the isolation of South Africa.

THE BREADWINNERS is an epic family saga that explores the adage, ‘from clogs to clogs in three generations’. Based on the baking industry where the author worked for several years, it gives revealing insights into the growth of Durban and the baking industry. It will appeal to readers who enjoy historical fiction set in exotic locations, and those who read authors such as Barbara Taylor Bradford, Catherine Gaskin and Belva Plain.