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Showing posts from 2016

More catch up and an MA in Creative Writing

Sorry I've ignored the blog for so long. As you all saw in my last post, we've been battling with Den's cancer. Three weeks ago he finished a course of radiotherapy, and since then it's been a bit up and down. He has started eating solids again, which is a good thing, but unfortunately he still has days when he can't keep anything down. We see the doctor again next week (on my birthday of all days), to discuss further options, including chemotherapy. But at the moment we're taking the view that he's still here, he's still functioning fairly well, so we're not ready to give up just yet. We know he can't be cured, but we can work on keeping him here for as long as possible. It's a bit 'one step forward/two steps back' around here, but we keep on going and are trying our best to carry on as normal (whatever normal is). With this in mind, I've signed up to do an MA in Creative Writing with the Open University, which starts in Oc

A difficult catch up post

It seems that my joy at sorting out my own health was to be short lived. I had only just been declared fit when we learned that my husband, Den, has Oesophageal Cancer. He'd had problems swallowing for some time, but refused to go to the doctors until I was sorted out. You can imagine how guilty I feel at the moment, though I've been assured that these things don't happen overnight and it's something he'd have had for a long time before symptoms appeared. We've known about it for a week or two, and I have mentioned it on Facebook, but things have moved so fast, I haven't had a chance to share the news here. I now feel it's time to share it with those of you who perhaps aren't on FB. Den has to have more tests, as they now fear the cancer has spread to his lymph nodes. I Googled that, and wished I hadn't... As you can imagine, it's a very difficult time for us and it isn't over yet. Den is a fighter. Fifteen years ago, he survived an

The Secret of Lakeham Abbey Out Now!

<br /> I am delighted to announce that The Secret of Lakeham Abbey  is now published and available to buy.  You can order it from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Smashwords using the widgets above. There is also be a launch party on Facebook, where I promise to bring Chocolate flavoured prizes, but you'll have to work for them as I have some dastardly questions planned! I will also be appearing on some blogs, and into June, so watch this space for news.   1948 When Percy Sullivan’s family take over Lakeham Abbey for the summer, it was a chance to get away from battered post-war London and be cossetted by the capable and pretty housekeeper, Anne Pargeter. They soon learn that the Abbey conceals a dark secret; one that someone was willing to kill to hide. When Anne is convicted of murder and sentenced to execution, Percy is determined to do all he

On The Mend and (gingerly) Raring to Go

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Some of you may know that I've had a bit of a problem with my tummy for quite a few years. There was a lump above my belly button that just kept getting bigger and bigger. Of course, my first thought was cancer. Isn't that the way we all think? It wasn't. I was first told it was a divaricated rectus muscle, and that it was not hospital policy to operate on them as they weren't life threatening.  It wasn't exactly life-enhancing either! But I couldn't argue, as it was the policy. I know I'm a big girl anyway, but it made me feel a bit freakish having this lump sticking out. Especially in the last couple of years when it got bigger still. The only positive was that I always got a seat on the tube as people assumed I was pregnant. I didn't disabuse them on the notion and was always rather flattered that they thought I was still young enough.  Luckily Fashionworld do a nice line in tents so I stocked up on those... It didn't only look awful. It was u

Short Stories and Going Back To My Roots

To those who have only known me in latter years, it probably seems that I’m all about the pocket novels. This is not entirely untrue. I’ve been writing them since 2008, when I penned The Secret of Helena’s Bay and tentatively sent it to Maggie Swinburne (nee Seed) at My Weekly Pocket Novels. I now have over 20 under my belt (not all published by DC Thomson, but all published by Ulverscroft in Large Print), and I have to say it’s my first love. However, I started off writing short stories (actually I started writing fanfiction, but that’s for another day and is not about original work), and had some success in women’s magazines, with over 60 stories published. That took some time though, and I remember receiving 9 rejections in one day from one magazine. Ouch. I did okay, but never as well as my more talented story writing friends. I know I did much better when I was in the fantastic Story a Fortnight Group and learned so much from those talented friends. You can see our joi

In Praise of the Happy Ending

I like a nuanced ending to stories as much as the next person. I’m an intelligent woman so I know that there isn’t always a ‘somewhere over the rainbow’. Neither in real life nor in fiction. Yet nowhere are happy endings more vilified than in romantic fiction. A fellow romance writer recently linked to a review of her novel, which, quite apart from suggesting my colleague was ‘frittering’ away her talents writing romance (talk about damning with faint praise!), also dismissed happy endings in romance, as ‘boring as hell’ (I won’t link to the review as I suspect there’s some subtle trolling going on). As many other romance writers pointed out, no one complains when Poirot gets the killer the end of an Agatha Christie novel. Okay, someone is dead, and others have probably died too. But for the purposes of the sleuth having solved the riddle, it is, to all intents and purposes, a happy ending. The bad guy/girl is punished and the worthy get their reward (usually the fortune

New Releases on Amazon Kindle - Big Girls Don't Cry (Bobbie Blandford 3) and Eye of the Storm

I'm delighted to announce two new releases on Amazon Kindle today. <br /> Big Girls Don't Cry is the 3rd instalment of my Bobbie Blandford series, telling the tale of a 60s policewoman. The novel was published as Big Boys Don't Cry by My Weekly Pocket Novel, but I've decided to go with my original title for the Kindle Version. Loosely inspired by the Great Train Robbery, Big Girls Don't Cry sees Bobbie face a criminal gang and prejudice in 1960s Derbyshire. <br /> Eye of The Storm is set in Egypt, and inspired by the Saturday Matinees I used to love as a child (and also a little by Indiana Jones!). Nadine Middleton joins Countess Chlomsky (who has appeared in two previous novels as Mrs Oakengate) as a companion, but she has other fish to fry. She intends to find the mythical Eye of the Storm, a jewel that will clear her father's name. But she first has to deal with Lancaster Smith, a sexy archaeologist w

The Case of the Ex in Romantic Fiction

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A writer friend sent me a message the other day, asking my advice on how to dispense with her heroine’s absent husband. Should she kill him or just send him off to another country? It set me thinking of the tricky business of dispensing with the ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse in romantic fiction. Jane Austen and Barbara Cartland had it much easier as their heroines were always unmarried maidens who usually fell in love with the first truly handsome man they met so didn’t have to be written out of a bad relationship. There might be a false love interest, such as Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, but there was no romantic relationship to speak of. It’s an unwritten rule that where there is an ex involved, either for the hero or heroine, it must be the ex’s fault that the relationship ended. In the past it was also required that the dead spouse of a heroine/hero had to be less perfect than the new lover, though thankfully that’s not the case anymore. One thing I love about Kate W