It’s now less than a month until Once Confronted is officially released and things are starting to get busy. It’s back to the rounds of bookstore visits and signings. It all starts next weekend. I’ll be at A Lot of Books in Ipswich on Saturday 17th September from 10.00 am to 2.00 pm for my first bookstore signing this time around. A Lot of Books have been very supportive of me over the years, and have hosted signings for all my books. I wasn’t sure they’d remember who I was when I contacted them, as it’s been two years since […]

During the week, the book trailer for Once Confronted was completed. Here it is, in case you missed it: Making trailers for books is still a relatively new thing and I don’t think a lot of authors do them. So far, all my books have had trailers, with The Heir having two, bringing the total of the trailers I’ve got for my books to five. They’re fun to make, although they take a lot of effort. Just finding a basic idea for the trailer can be tricky, and then you’ve got to work out content, sequence and music, all the […]

It was a mammoth effort but we did it. The cover of Once Confronted has been finalised. Hooray! I’d like to thank all those people who voted on the two different cover options that my publisher put up on her Facebook page. You can see the post here. For a while, both covers were neck and neck, before the second cover pulled away and won with more votes. It was great to see so many people involved in the process and it was a big help. I preferred the other cover and was unsure about the second, mainly because I […]

Once Confronted should be released on 1st October 2016. I’m hoping to have a cover to show you soon. 🙂 Now I have an official release date, I’m already starting to think about the book launch. They can be a lot of fun but also a lot of work to organise, especially when looking for something to keep the attendees entertained. At my previous three book launches I’ve had jigsaw puzzles of a page in the novel or put up pictures of actors who I think could play the leading roles, not to mention asking people to write down what […]

Last week I talked about fonts and how they can often make or break the cover of a book. But there are a lot of elements to a cover, and the font is only one of them. I think the most contentious point I’ve seen relates to the cover image. Should the author try and find a photo (or have one taken) that shows the characters in the book? For some, this might seem a no-brainer. However, I’ve encountered numerous readers who detest images of characters on the covers of books. The ones I’ve spoken to believe it prevents them […]

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 […]

My husband turns forty this week, and in the midst of all the preparations for his birthday party, I’ve been reflecting on different milestones and moments of achievement in my life. I passed the forty milestone a few years ago (I won’t say how many!) and we celebrated fifteen years of marriage last year. Our son will be ten this year, so that will require another celebration, as he enters double digits. These are some recent milestones in my personal life. There have also been milestones and achievements in my writing career. Having The Heir accepted for publication was one […]