As a writer of fiction, I have sometimes received comments from people about the validity of what I do. There are many out there who view fiction as nothing more than light entertainment. In many cases, I probably agree with them; often fiction is just light entertainment, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t think the people who’ve spoken to me think it’s necessarily wrong either, just that a novel is perhaps not as important as great works of history or biographies on important world figures. When I wrote the Verindon trilogy I only wrote them […]

In all three books I’ve released so far I’ve had a dedication page. The one in The Heir is my favourite. I dedicated it to the five friends who encouraged me to try and get it published after they’d read it back when it was just a first (or second!) draft. Without them, I might not be writing this blog right now. The Crown I dedicated to two people I used to work with who had encouraged me to start writing down my stories back in the nineties. The Reign was dedicated to my father and my husband; not unusual […]

This week has been a stressful one for me. Why? Because of that thing every author dreads – a plot problem. This is hardly the first time I’ve had a plot problem in one of my novels but this one proved to be incredibly tricky, mainly because it was in the manuscript for my soon-to-be-released novel, Once Confronted. Scheduled for release in October this year, my publisher returned the manuscript to me last Monday and told me I needed to have the changes back by early this week. It’s always hard when working to that kind of deadline, especially with […]