Walking for walking’s sake
Is the modern Western world of technology and ever-faster transport making us forget the joy of walking – just walking, for the joy of it?
Is the modern Western world of technology and ever-faster transport making us forget the joy of walking – just walking, for the joy of it?
I have bookshelves bursting with books at home – with old, well-thumbed titles whose authors are long-departed, and with smart, new books whose authors are
I take researching the settings of my novels seriously (why not, when it allows me to travel to amazing places!), and by far my favourite
From the blurb: Discover beautiful South Africa in this sweet, heart-warming Cinderella story about a blogger, a billionaire, and one chance meeting. When it comes
Once upon a time, a man named Jeff Bezos decided to jump aboard the Internet business boom. He looked for a product he could sell
In both of my novels published to date, my heroines are very much women standing alone in the world. This is in part due to
I set a large part of my novel The Echoes of Love in Tuscany, Italy, because it’s a region I know well and love
In my novel The Echoes of Love the hero, Paolo, explains: ‘I spend a lot of time reading about beautiful things and like to surround
From the blurb: In the idyllic seaside town of St Carys, Sophie is putting the past firmly behind her. When Josh arrives in St Carys
Venice comes alive this weekend for the FestadelRedentore – the Festival of the Redeemer. It takes places on the third weekend of July, and has
Summer’s here! Wherever you are in the world, I hope you’re enjoying the sunshine. I’m certainly taking every opportunity to write outside in my garden,
Ask me my most favourite books, and a classic English romance will always appear near the top of the list: Wuthering Heights. The agony and
I’ve always loved this song: The tune is haunting, and the main lyric ‘Where have all the cowboys gone?’ strikes a chord about how society
Did you know that when author F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 he believed himself a failure? That long years of alcoholism saw a heart
No doubt you’ve heard of Carl Jung (1875–1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who was the father of analytical psychology. Yung wrote prolifically, and his writings have been
The following extract is from my novel The Echoes of Love: It was two o’clock in the morning. The Ferrari sped through the night towards
From the blurb: Monica Mann has made it her life’s work to save lives. After an earthquake and tsunami hit the shores of Jamaica, she
A love poem a day for the woman you adore – what can be more romantic? This was the gift of Italian writer Petrarca: 366
I love Italian food – eating it, but most of all cooking it. To get me in the mood while writing my Italian-set The Echoes
This was the question posed by Mslexia writing magazine in its most recent reader survey. Author Terry Pratchett famously wrote: ‘There’s no such thing as
Dear Margaret, We regret to inform you that your husband is missing in action… Dear Mother, Finally, I can write the words: Born this morning,
When I’m writing a novel, I like to immerse myself so far as is possible in the culture and time in which the story is
In this season’s issue of The Author, Tobia Jones shares an interesting article entitled ‘Italy: Real and Imagined’, in which he explains that ‘[a]nyone who
Visitors and residents of Scotland are to be envied by book lovers worldwide: a creative collaboration there has come up with a fantastic application for
From the blurb: Texas playboy, Ty Vincent, heir to the Vincent Oil fortune needs a short-term wife to convince his grandfather and the Board of
It’s 1980, and you’re reading a novel set in a futuristic world that is astonishingly different to the world as you know it. For one
One of the finest examples of architecture in Venice is the Palazzo Barbaro, two adjoined palaces in San Marco, Venice, on the Grand Canal, near
Recently, I visited a luminarium built by the visionary Architects of Air: an enormous inflatable sculpture one can enter to, as the makers put it,
I write fiction for adults, but that doesn’t for a moment mean I don’t appreciate children’s fiction as well. Classic children’s books: Take me back
Are you familiar with TED? It defines itself as ‘a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks’. Its mission
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