Written on the Wind - part two

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This week in my North Yorks moors serial, Annie is baffled by beautiful Luke and reacquaints herself with Celtic trees.

I love the illustration for part two: the way it waterfalls down the side of the page and pools in the bottom corner.

What Annie doesn't ever get to have - in print anyway - is one of my favourite things from Whitby: Botham's gingerbread loaf. Firm, dry but soft, melts in the mouth and intensely gingery. Exactly how gingerbread always used to be. Much consumption went into the writing of this serial.

13th March issue should be on sale Wed 7th or Thurs 8th this week.

Penny Plain - final part

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The final part of Penny Plain is now out. All the loose ends get identified and tidied away neatly, just as they should.

I'm going to miss seeing the illustrations each week

A Wonderful Coincidence

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The story behind Part Three of this year's Penny Plain Mysteries is one of those  serendipitous coincidences that we are told never to use in our writing, because no one would believe it. But this one DID happen, so I did use it - albeit in a fictitious manner.

Earlier this year, when I was writing the second series of Penny Plain, I received an email through my website from Betty, now living in Canada, to say that she always had People's Friend sent to her from the UK and had thoroughly enjoyed the first Penny Plain story.

Betty in 'them thar' days

She went on to say that she had particularly liked the unusual jigsaw-code-breaking strand, and mentioned that back in the 1950s she had worked on aircraft crash data, trying to establish the weak points in the new aeroplanes then being developed.

At which point I leapt off my chair shouting "Yes, yes, yes!" and "FABULOUS!" and "I don't believe it!" Because - as I immediately emailed back to her - I was at that very moment writing the new series of Penny Plain which included a mysteriously crashed plane from the 1950s!

We have since kept up a regular email correspondance, and I was so grateful for the easiest research ever, that I wrote Betty - in very fictionalised form - into this week's episode.

Whetted your appetite? Good - go buy it.

Penny Plain - episode two

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The second part of The Penny Plain Mysteries is out today. This episode centres on the rather worrying goings on at Fellside Farm. I love the way the illustrator has captured a typical Lake District farm with the hills in the background.


And the ice cream? What does that have to do with the story? You'll never know unless you buy the issue.

Penny Plain rides again!

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Where is the year going? I delivered the second Penny Plain Mysteries serial back in the spring and thought of the November publication date as months away. Which it was, of course. So I forgot about it and got on with other projects.

So imagine my surprise when I opened up the first page of this week's People's Friend to find this! (Several other people in my aisle of the supermarket were likewise surprised. One lady rushed over thinking I was having a minor heart attack.)

It's the first time I'd seen the illustration and I love the way the artist (Ruth Blair) has got the characters just right.

It's another four part serial involving - oh, let me see - 1950s aircraft, the Women's Institute... and ice cream. And an overarching mystery and a few other bits and pieces as well.

You'll have to buy it to find out. Just like the lady in the supermarket.
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Final part of An Ordinary Gift

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The issue of Woman's Weekly containing the final part of An Ordinary Gift is now on sale!

Ely museum

In this episode Clare visits Ely museum (housed in the 13th century gaol),

learns about 16th century witchcraft ...




and finally understands her 'ordinary gift'.
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Ely serial - part three

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Part Three of An Ordinary Gift is now in bookshops and supermarkets. I've really loved writing my 'Ely' serial and getting the atmosphere of this island town into the story (no, really, it honestly was an island until the Fens were drained in the 17th Century - hence the name, "Isle of Eels") .

Amongst the things Clare comes across in this week's episode are a plaque to the Wisbech Martyrs

and a cannon presented to the people of Ely by Queen Victoria. [Note: very nice of her, but Clare and I can't help wondering what QV thought the people of Ely would do with it!]






Oh, and a priest hole with old, old, memories...

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An Ordinary Gift - part two

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Part Two of An Ordinary Gift is out now!

In this episode, Clare visits Ely cathedral, meets some choristers and looks out of her window at a garden.

None of which is as it sounds.

Except for the cathedral.
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An Ordinary Gift

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It's out! The first episode of my four-part serial for Woman's Weekly is in the shops this week.

It is called An Ordinary Gift, it is set in lovely Ely in Cambridgeshire and it is a slightly spooky paranormal mystery.

The main character is Clare Somerset, an ancient-music archivist, who arrives in Ely to start a new job and a new passage in her life. As far as she knows, she has never visited Ely before, but almost from the first moment she starts to experience near-memories...

I set the serial in Ely because it is local to where I live and is one of my favourite towns. Here I am taking tea in Topping&Company Booksellers with a view of the Cathedral filling the upper windows. Anyone who has ever visited Toppings and been entranced by the interior will notice a certain similarity to Clare's new workplace!

Enjoy.
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National Short Story Week

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This week is National Short Story Week here in the UK. All flavours of short stories are being celebrated, from literary to flash, but I'm just going to talk about the ones close to my heart.

Yes, that's right... the truly terrific ... WOMEN'S MAGAZINE SHORT STORIES.

Womag short stories probably have the largest readership of any in the genre, yet they get the least press. They are carefully crafted, they have no wasted words, they are perfect to pick-you-up, to make you laugh, to make you think and sometimes to make you cry. They fulfil a need, in these busy days, for a tiny escape from the daily round.

Back in the early days of the Romantic Novelists' Association, women's magazine fiction editors were larger than life and lions in their field. [There is a whole chapter on the importance of the magazines in Fabulous at Fifty, well worth buying.] Writers of short fiction were lauded (as indeed they should be, she says with no ulterior motive, dear me, no). And yet the market for magazine fiction is now shrinking to make space for paying adverts and celebrity interviews.

Fortunately, some of our best known magazines are still buying good quality stories and still delivering them week after week for a ridiculously low price to a huge section of the buying public.

God bless 'em.

Psst... and on Wednesday this week (24th November) the inestimable People's Friend is publishing the first episode of my serial The Penny Plain Mysteries. Put it on your shopping list for the next four weeks.
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