I make no secret of the fact that I absolutely adore Kate Griffin’s Kitty Peck novels and I was looking forward to the last in the series, Kitty Peck and the Parliament of Shadows, with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The novels are so dark that there was a very good chance Kitty would …
Category Archives: Author Life
The King’s Jaunt
My current work-in-progress is set in Edinburgh in 1822, during the historic royal visit of King George IV, which happily has necessitated a couple of research trips to one of my favourite cities. A combination of circumstances brought the king to Scotland, not least a stand off between his current (and apparently last) mistress, Lady …
Pizza (not so) Express!
When I was a nipper (we’re going back quite a bit here – so far that the internal combustion engine had just been invented) pizza was an exotic ‘foreign’ dish. There were no ready-made pizzas available in the supermarket, though you could buy frozen versions from McCain, which came in a stack of six, each …
What I’ve Been Reading – A Kate Atkinson Special!
In eager anticipation of Kate Atkinson’s long awaited new Jackson Brodie book, I’ve been binge-reading her backlist and as a result, she has now firmly established herself as my favourite author ever. Behind the Scenes at the Museum is her first book, and the first of hers that I encountered (this is about my fifth …
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What I’ve Been Reading – Fiction
I’m still trawling my bookshelves to unearth old favourites long overdue a re-read, and Possession by A S Byatt certainly falls into that category. I think the copy I have at the moment is the third one I’ve bought, but I reckon I’ve read the book half a dozen times if not more. This is …
Paris – On Foot and on the Page
The opening scene of my 50th book, A Wife Worth Investing In, is set in Paris where Phoebe, a wannabe chef, meets Owen, the man who (unbeknownst to either of them) she will marry two years later. Their paths cross in the Procope Café, which is a real place in St Germain on the Left …
Oh Sister, Where Art Thou?
Wannabe writers are forever being advised to “write about what you know, write from experience”. As the eldest of four very confident and opinionated sisters (and three brothers too), it’s therefore not altogether surprising that I’ve written a lot of sisters into my books. Looking back over the last ten years and fifty books (50!!!!) …
What I’ve Been Reading
I sampled several new-to-me authors towards the end of last year, with very little success. I don’t know if I chose badly or if it was my mood, but I abandoned quite a few books, which is most unlike me, and flicked through to the end of a few more. So this year I have …
