Wednesday 25 October 2017

About the new book.



Well, now you've seen the cover, maybe I'd better tell you about the new book. It's a Christmas book - the title kind of gives it away. I've never done one of those before. I'm not usually very big on Christmas, but it sort of happened. Books are like that. It's an e-book novella. Actually it's quite long for a novella - 60,000+ words so you'll be getting your 99p worth.

And you are going to buy it, aren't you? Pretty please? It's on pre-order at the moment from all the usual e-book retailers and publication day is 5th December.

But what is is about?

It's a romantic suspense, so not your usual feel good Christmas romance. Parts of it are very romantic and I hope you'll enjoy reading it, but be prepared for kidnapping, attempted murder ... all that festive stuff. A book for people who like something a bit different with their Christmas romance. The Christmas part is set in the Brecon Beacons, in a freak snow storm, although the book has a whole year time line and goes on to the following Christmas. The cover is gorgeous, thanks to the talent of the lovely Berni Stephens, who did wonders with my request for a hut. Watch that hut, it is significant.

It all starts when best selling author Andrew Vitruvius agrees to be kidnapped live on TV, for charity. And would-be author Lori France gets an unexpected visit from her sister.

Neither of them is going to get the Christmas they were expecting ...

Tuesday 17 October 2017

What Happens at Christmas

Deep in edits for the Christmas romantic suspense, so no proper post this week, but I can show you my lovely cover.



Wednesday 11 October 2017

Locations for Summer in San Remo - sort of ...

I like to do a short location tour for a book - just to give readers an idea of the look of places that appear. You can see the links for the ones for Never Coming Home and Out of Sight Out of Mind at the top of the page.

I haven't done one yet for Summer in San Remo, because I like to take my own pics and sadly health issues have stopped me from travelling abroad recently, so I don't have any up to date photos of the gorgeous locations I used from the Italian and French Rivieras. I had to rely on vivid recollections of some glorious holidays and a lot of Internet browsing. And that was such a lot of fun, and brought back some wonderful sunny memories. And a visit to the Riviera is top of the list as soon as I can get on the move again. When there will definitely be pictures.

I was thinking about this the other day, while drooling over holiday brochures. One of my secret addictions. There is a lot of drooling goes on, I can tell you. But you don't want to know about that.

Summer in San Remo is not set entirely on the Riviera though. The book opens in Bath. And Bath I have photos of, even if it is another country. So, here is a mini tour of  Cassie and Jake's home town. Imagine it has one of those signs that they hang outside bits of museums that are temporarily unavailable 'Gallery under re-construction' or similar. And I promise pictures of sunshine as soon as possible.

The Christmas Novella - have I told you the title? It's What Happens at Christmas - is set in London and in the Brecon Beacons, around Abergavenny, so I should be able to manage pictures of that.

And in the meantime - here is a taste of Bath.


This is at the side of the Abbey.
Poultney Bridge, which has shops all along it

Walcot Street, which is where Cassie's fictional office for her concierge business is located 

One of the side streets, which gives a good idea of the style
 of the buildings and the colour of the stone.
This has nothing to do with the story,
but it's such a posh pillar box I couldn't resist including it. 

So that's a few shots of Bath. The start of the Summer in San Remo tour.
To be continued ...



Wednesday 4 October 2017

It's beginning to look a lot like ...

... yes, Christmas. It's only just October, and the clocks haven't even gone back yet, but the twitter verse is awash with Christmas books. There's going to be a lot of fab reading sloshing about out there, people!

And I'm bobbing about squeaking 'And me! And me!' The Christmas novella - actually it's more small book, as it's over 60,000 words, now has a title - What Happens at Christmas. And I've had a glimpse at a few possible covers, so it is getting exciting. Until the edits arrive, of course.

spooky, not gory
But in the meantime it is still only the beginning of October and I'm currently knee deep in the thesis for the PhD. I haven't gone back to any of the uncompleted manuscripts yet, but I am kicking around an idea that is set at Halloween - so it's very seasonal. Doing some research on Halloween and spooky stuff is fun, excellent displacement activity and a change from writing about air raid shelters. And don't get me started on how the university computer system seems to have eaten one of my draft chapters. I'm looking at supernatural rather than paranormal, stuff that may or may not go bump in the night, and the usual mayhem.

Well actually, no. My body count has been going down lately. Only two in the overgrown novella - well, it is Christmas - and so far this one only has three. I must be getting mellow in my old age. The two works in suspended animation are much gorier though, and I will get back to them.

At present I'm thinking spine tingling, rather than blood thirsty. I'm still getting to know the hero and heroine - he's called Lucas and is rather gorgeous and very mysterious. She's on a quest to find out about a possible inheritance - at the moment she's called Darcy, but I'm not sure that's right for her. There's a big house, set in a slightly spooky village - in Wales, of course - and a dog, and a secondary romance and two different sets of very nasty villains and a lot of scarecrows and tarot cards, hence the research.

If it looks like becoming more than a diversion from the air raid shelters, I'll let you know.