June 2025 - you can find Malachi & the Sick Dragon on Kindle Unlimited

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    • ballardsbookshelf
    • About Fiona Ballard
    • My Writing & Services
    • Book Orders - Contact Me
    • Reviews
    • Authors Alcove Interview
    • Out & About
    • QR Code
    • Radio Victory Interview
  • ballardsbookshelf
  • About Fiona Ballard
  • My Writing & Services
  • Book Orders - Contact Me
  • Reviews
  • Authors Alcove Interview
  • Out & About
  • QR Code
  • Radio Victory Interview

Welcome to ballardsbookshelf's Writing Portfolio

I am a versatile writer with experience in crafting compelling content for various industries. Whether you need blog posts, articles, website copy, or social media content, I can help you create content that engages your audience and drives results. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for storytelling, I am dedicated to delivering high-quality writing that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations.

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I specialize in creating content that resonates with your target audience and helps you achieve your business goals. From research and ideation to writing and editing, I offer a range of services to meet your content needs.

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Book Reviews

'Malachi & the Sick Dragon - Review by Poonam Roshogi


Book: Malachi and the Sick Dragon

Author: Fiona Ballard

Review: Malachi and the Sick Dragon is a fun and sweet story for kids. Malachi is a ten-year-old boy who is bored during his school holidays. He doesn’t want to do homework, and he’s tired of his mum telling him to clean his room. He plays games online with friends, but he’s still not happy. Then something strange catches his eye—a shape on the roof of the garden shed.

When he looks closer, he sees it’s a sick dragon. Instead of being scared, Malachi decides to help it. He brings the dragon pink medicine, a hot water bottle, and even some pepperoni pizza to make it feel better. It’s funny and cute to see how he treats the dragon like a friend who just needs some care.

The story is easy to read and full of imagination. Kids will enjoy the idea of finding a dragon in their backyard and helping it like Malachi does. The book shows how kindness and creativity can turn a boring day into something special. A great read for children who enjoy simple, fun stories with a bit of magic.

Rating: 5/5

★ Book Is Available On Amazon or direct from Fiona Ballard


'Inscription' Review by Pete Adams

A multi-faceted family saga over 60 years

There can be no other way to describe this book other than a family saga, complete with tragedy and powerful injustices; ‘but that were the times’, is no excuse. There were times when my stomach was in knots but this book is not one I could put down.
The blurb talks about an inscription on a ring May 1966 and August 1966. The dates are significant but only as an anchor and reveal to the story. In the 1960’s in a small Northern England community, what people think of you is important, although the freedom of the sixties is causing the powerful influence of the church to fray at the edges. Propriety is something that parents hold dear, and the Priests, it is not just their powerbase that is threatened, and their substantial income. I like to think of it as moral blackmail; there is an expected standard of behavior and stray outside those unwritten laws, woe betide you.
A 15 year old girl is pregnant; shock horror, but under a façade of caring, a priest has the answers and the parents of Beatrice Gardiner grasp the lifeline. The priest arranges for Bea to be closeted away as a governess to two children to an aristocratic French family; a good earner for the church.
When the baby is due, the priest has arranged for a birth home (imagine the Irish Magdalene homes and you should get the picture); another earner for the Church, the State paying fees, and then selling the newborn off for adoption.
Ballard writes the narrative as a combination of backstory and stages in history leaping back and forwards. It is the life of siblings and the effects that Beatrice’s ‘condition’ has on the whole family that is the core. It is well written and I was captivated mostly by the emotional trauma, more so than the complex familial narrative, which in itself earns high merit.
This is why I say it is multi-faceted, because a reader can latch onto many strands of the story and I venture to say, this may be influenced by the readers age. I experienced the 60’s and saw this battle of what is what and what it is not to be. It is the maelstrom of feeling that Beatrice feels and the helplessness of those nearby whose desire might be to step in and help, but that pesky old propriety and how you will be judged by your neighbours prevents good sense, and love, to prevail.
And the story, as complex as you could imagine, is just about how parents and the institutions of the time damage the offspring, and then it repeats itself. Cover ups, untruths, hiding behind a façade, veiled threats, and that is the whole tragic story.
I cried a number of times in this gut wrenching story, mainly I suppose, because I knew my own facet. A wonderful read and well worth 5 stars.

Taking The Bandage Reviews

Top reviews from United Kingdom

Stephen Sheppard 5.0 out of 5 stars 'Gentle, evocative and beautifully written'

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 2024. This gentle, evocative and thoroughly engaging little book never reveals whether it's pure fiction or a fictionalised memoire. It works either way though. I thoroughly enjoyed it although the last section seemed to hurry to an end a little too quickl

ChrisR 5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2021. Easy going book to read. Interesting storyline and look forward to its follow up. Read it in two days. Excellent.

4 out of 5 stars - Gentle read Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 January 2023 This was a pleasant, gentle read - with lots of details of foregone times. I read it while recovering from Covid and it was good to be able to drop in to the separate stories a bit at a time. The details of Malaysia and France were particularly fascinating.

The Wedding Dress - Review by Onia Fox

Five stars - a lovely collection of four short stories in one slim volume. From the coming of age The Wedding Dress to the zany Pink Goggles. This is a lovely collection full of character and interest - and not just a little angst!

Review for Inscription April 2024

I found Inscription a book hard to put down. A story of a mother's and son's traumatic separation at birth and the consequential effect this had on the family. A book well worth reading. 

Jacky Haskell

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Narration

Are you a narrator? Do you have. voice suitable for narrating children's stories?

I'm looking for a narrator for my book Malachi & the Sick Dragon. Please contact me if interested.

heyshott1958@gmail.com