RoNA Giveaways!

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I'm still excited about An Ordinary Gift being shortlisted for the 2017 RoNAs, and even more so when I look at the other terrific books on the various shortlists. So much so that a group of us have got together to offer free extracts.

If you go to Rhoda Baxter's web page, you will find brief details of a number of shortlisted books across the different categories. Click on the links and those nice people at Instafreebie will deliver the extracts to your inbox. Hopefully, you will find some new favourite authors to enjoy.

So, thank you to Rhoda and to everyone else... Happy reading!
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Shortlisted!

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Lovely news today - AN ORDINARY GIFT has been shortlisted for the inaugural Paranormal/Speculative Romance RoNA award.

This is the book set in Ely, featuring ghostly singing boys in the attic - amongst other unexplained occurrences.

It was originally a serial in Woman's Weekly, then I rewrote it and added extra threads to reinvent it as a short novel.

It is also out in Large Print this month, so do order it from your local library if you prefer the feel of a physical book as opposed to reading on a Kindle.

The RoNA winners will be announced on March 13th. The full set of shortlists are here.

I have LOTS of friends on the lists, so it promises to be a smashing evening.
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An Ordinary Gift

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Delighted to announce the arrival on Amazon Kindle of

AN ORDINARY GIFT

This 37K short(ish) romantic timeslip is set in Ely, a beautiful ancient cathedral town in the Cambridgeshire fens.

Clare Somerset moves there to start a new life. She doesn't expect to connect with an extraordinary life from the past.

The early music collection Clare takes a job in was inspired by the interior of the very splendid Toppings of Ely. Almoner's Place itself doesn't exist, but I've placed it behind and parallel to the High Street.

More photos coming in a future post.

(Link to buy the book on the sidebar)

Busy, busy, busy

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Biba platform shoes, 1970s, V&A Museum

Sorry for no blog posts recently (!) but I have goodish reasons!

Since the RNA Conference - which went very nicely, thank you, and at which I was shortlisted for the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy for Different Rules, I've actually been writing.

(Writing, of course, does go on, even when we are busy doing other things. That absent look in a writer's eye? They don't mean to be impolite. They are writing.)

Anyway, Different Rules is resting, pending comments and suggestions, so I started on an idea I had for a Woman's Weekly serial. Only Dancing has such a complicated structure that I discovered it was easier to write the whole thing rather than explain it to my editor. This is really not how you write a serial. Fortunately it worked, she liked it, and it will appear in the magazine early next year.

But...

But...

But I really like this story and I wanted it longer.

So I've doubled it in size and I still like it, but contractual obligations mean I can't publish it until next year, so this one has been set aside to rest as well. (Only Dancing is what the shoes in the photo are illustrating, by the way, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait to find out why.)

Which leaves the problem of what I'm going to put out THIS year.

So I have dusted off my very first serial, An Ordinary Gift. I still like this one too, but oh, it is crying out to be expanded.

Going in...

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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