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To Everything There is a Season …

And here it is again, our Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness. Our time of sodden paths and leaf-strewn parks and a determined putting away of the flip flops and sliders and a seeking out of boots that need heeling and a glove that has apparently lost its partner over the summer. And we embrace it. Living in the northern hemisphere seasons are so part of our DNA that personally, I would be bereft without them. That’s not to say I don’t moan and complain about the unreliability of so many of our English versions. For me, summers should be...

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COINCIDENCE PLAYING ITS HAND …

My fourth novel, The Odyssey of Lily Page, began life in 2020 immediately after I had finished Miller Street SW22, ahead of its publication in early 2021. Yes, I write slowly. The rest of living, getting, spending etc so often get in the way and even after the last sentence is finished, numerous re-writes, edits, proof reads and re-reading of proofs extends the whole process of producing a book. In May, the manuscript was, however, duly delivered to my publishers, to await the various stages of further preparation before an eventual publication date in late November 2023. So all was...

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So What If …?

At what age are we when we start wondering, What if …? At which particular stage of life have we reached when we begin to consider, in a musing, abstruse kind of way, Supposing I had taken that job. Or supposing I’d accepted that invitation to that particular party Or supposing I’d not noticed that particular person looking at me in that particular way …. Doors that opened to us might not have opened, but remained closed and consequently our future lives could have been so very different. That broken relationship – supposing it had succeeded? That rash invitation –...

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Let’s Start At The Very Beginning …

Which is, exactly, where? For the past weeks of July and August, I have been reading. And writing. And staring at spectacular sunsets and casting my eyes over the valley of a Cretan village. And marveling at mountains, their limestone shifting from pink to grey as the reliable sun rises every morning. It’s surprising that I managed to read and write as much as I did with such natural distractions. But I did. Initially, I read and read for the background of my next novel and made copious notes. Then, eventually, I had to concede that I could not read...

The Legacy of Mr Jarvis book cover

The Legacy of Mr Jarvis is nominated as a finalist in the Page Turner Awards!

I am delighted to announce that my novel, THE LEGACY OF MR JARVIS, has been nominated as a finalist in the Page Turner Awards – an annual competition for authors – in the Women’s Fiction genre. Published in 2019, this was my second novel with a dual timeline and a first-person narration. It’s gratifying to find that it is enjoying success four years after publication!

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VOICES FROM AFAR …

Knee-deep in research, obsessed and fascinated by everything I can source about the Home Front in WW2 and other matters relating to my new novel, I know it is time to start writing it. After all, only a smidgen of what I am reading about will eventually find its way into the book. There is nothing worse than reading a novel that screams out to the reader I did all this research and I am determined to prove it to you on each and every page! It will require a selective process of providing sufficient detail to convey the tone...

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Where Do Your Ideas Come From…??

This is the question that is unfailingly asked by potential customers every time I go to a book or craft fair to sell my novels. It’s also the question that is always asked at the end of a talk that I might give about writing and publishing. But where do you get your ideas from? By now, I should have a coherent answer ready to offer. But each and every time the question is put, I find myself fumbling around and giving what no doubt sounds like an inadequate response. Because the truth is that the source of ideas can...

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Here We Go Again …!

There’s a vacuum when a novel is finished, manuscript dispatched to publisher, synopsis, book blurb and AI (advanced information that goes out to bookshops et al) all written. It’s a kind of empty nest feeling – and I’ve been experiencing that restlessness when there is no clear reason to sit down in front of the computer screen each morning to pick up characters and help them on their way to a resolution of sorts. And for the first time since I started writing novels, I have not fully formed the ideas for my next – which will be my fifth....

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When is a blurb a blurb …and such matters

Every author will tell you – I imagine – that the worst part of writing a novel is not actually writing it. Or researching it. Or editing it. Oh no. All these are delights. Frustrating, time-consuming, near blood-letting events – but nevertheless overwhelmingly satisfying. And – yes, well …delightful. It’s once the novel is finished that the really hard task starts. Because you have to write a blurb. And a premise. And a synopsis. And come up with key selling points. Prepare pertinent sentences suitable for a press relief In other words, you have to simmer down well over 100,000...

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From Sheep Bells to …

Some weeks, the days disappear so swiftly that it’s hard to remember anything that has happened on them or in them. They simply seem to have be swallowed up by the mechanical and practical business of living. Then there are other times. Which is where the sheep bells come in. The past four mornings I have woken up and for a fleeting few seconds have had to focus on exactly where I am. On Thursday morning, early, the sun was streaming into my room in our Cretan house and the sheep in the village land next to us (they only...