One of my favourite places on earth is the Alhambra, the amalgamation of fabulous Arabesque palaces and a fortress complex built by the Moors on a steep wooded hill during the mid-14th century in Granada, Spain. It’s straight out of the Arabian Nights, and is startling for its beauty and
Follow my blog with Bloglovin An interesting new trend is emerging in publishing news – releases from Amazon sharing reader and reading data. Take, for example, its news release on the most highlighted passages in Montlake Romance titles (Montlake is its romance imprint). Amazon shared the 14 passages that readers most
Follow my blog with Bloglovin With just weeks to go until the publication of my new novel, Indiscretion, I’m delighted to be able to start sharing something of the background and themes of to the book. Today, I’d like to introduce this poem, by Thomas Hardy: I am the
Follow my blog with Bloglovin Happy Valentine’s Day. Today I’m delighted to be able to share with you the cover for my new novel, Indiscretion, which will publish in April. I think this is my favourite cover yet – what do you think?
Follow my blog with Bloglovin Quick Reads is a UK-based initiative that aims to encourage adult engagement with reading. It commissions big-name authors to write shorts – little books that are quick and easy to read, so that the one in six adults in the country who struggle with reading
Moonlight – an element of nature about which poets have waxed lyrical for centuries. For Charles Baudelaire, the moon was sad: ‘Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow’. For Robert Graves, it was unkind: ‘The cruel Moon hangs out of reach/Up above the shadowy beech’. For Emily Bronte, it made
The publishing world has been abuzz this week with the news of the discovery of a second novel by Harper Lee more than 50 years since the publication of her first. To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the most powerful, memorable books I read in my childhood, and I’m
Stieg Larsson, sadly, never lived to see his novels, the Millennium series, become the worldwide sensation of the past decade. Indeed, he had not even attempted to publish them; he wrote them for his own pleasure in the evenings after work. After this death, the manuscripts were discovered, and subsequently
In my novel The Echoes of Love, the protagonist, Venetia, is somewhat lost – torn between heart and head: her interest in the man she has recently met, Paolo, and her long-term independence and avoidance of romantic entanglements. She is walking home from work one evening along the CalledelParadiso, amost
From the blurb: When beautiful Kate Mayhew is hired as chaperone to Burke Traherne’s headstrong daughter Isabel, the Marquis finds himself in an impossible predicament. Torn between the knowledge that she is exactly what Isabel needs but also, for him, the worst possible temptation, he finds himself in constant proximity
In my novel The Echoes of Love Paolo and Venetia take some time out to get to know each other on the island of Sardinia. There, they attend a very special ceremony in Castelsardo, in the northwest of the island, which is a key part of the town’s cultural identity.
Thriller author James Patterson has long been a vocal advocate of aggressive, creative, attention-grabbing marketing in the publishing industry. He’s famously said: ‘Publishers are sitting around saying: “Woe is me.”… Get in attack mode.’ (Source: The Guardian). Although Patterson has a publisher, he’s always seen marketing as a personal responsibility
Earlier this week, I posted an article about author James Patterson’s latest publicity stunt: an exploding book. No doubt that book will have his name prominently displayed on it. As for the vast majority of creative – artists, writers, musicians – the name is as big a part of the
It’s a most rewarding activity which I think most published authors would admit to indulging in: looking for your book on the shelves of bookstores wherever you go. This week, with the help of some friends who commute around London, I’ve book-spotted The Echoes of Love in three locations, Heathrow,
When I think of Venice, setting for my novel The Echoes of Love, I always think of two things: art and water. Venice has long been an important focus in the art world, especially during the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque; it even boasted its own unique style known as the Venetian School, whose major
I make it my business to know about the publishing industry, and to keep abreast of news and opinion pieces in the book sections of newspapers and in magazines dedicated to the theme. Of course, much has changed and is changing in this sector, and so people have much to
There’s a new word being bandied about online and in writing magazines: Abibliophobia. The definition is ‘a fear of running out of reading material’. The word is being treated as something of a joke – a humorous witticism. But I think there is a lot of truth in it! For the
In my novel The Echoes of Love – set in Venice, Tuscany and Sardinia – the lovers, Venetia and Paolo, share several meals out together, from fine dining in a celebrated restaurant to authentic cuisine in a rustic local eatery, and on the menu are all kinds of delicious Italian
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is a game changer. So when he does something new, people sit up and take notice. How interesting, then, for we who are immersed in publishing, that his new initiative is in our camp: he just launched The Year of Books Community on Facebook to fulfil
Have you noticed that my debut novel, Burning Embers, has a new cover? The design is to match The Echoes of Love, and I’m delighted with it because it pulls together so many elements of the book. First, the model. She’s just as I picture Coral, the heroine of the
You curl up with a good book, and sip a steaming mochaccino. You watch a romance movie with a friend, and share a bowl of popcorn. You have a romantic meal with a lover, and end with a melt-in-the-middle chocolate pudding. You unwrap your partner’s gifts from under the tree,
Are you feeling the January blues? Is winter chilling you? Well, for less than the price of a coffee you can escape to both Venice and Kenya this month with my novels The Echoes of Love and Burning Embers! The ebooks are available now on Amazon.
Did you see the recent news story about a real-life Hogwarts, the school at which the Harry Potter series is set? Czocha Castle in Poland was transformed into a ‘College of Wizardy’ modelled on the school in JK Rowling’s books. One hundred and ninety fans from around the world came
From the blurb: In 1873, Amelia Penrose and her twin brother James are abandoned as babies in a trunk outside a Liverpool orphanage. Amelia grows up longing for security and, at eighteen years of ages, she marries American sailor, Miles Carter. They exchange England for Seattle, and are soon making
Every writer, surely, has some experience of losing a price of writing. The computer crashes or the coffee spills on the notebook, and the words are gone for ever. It’s utterly devastating, because those lost words were so precious and loved (even if you intended to rewrite them), and because
A very happy Christmas to you! The radio station I listen to while pottering around at home waited until the 1 December this year before digging into its Christmas archives, but since then I have heard plenty of seasonal tunes. But only one makes me stop what I’m doing and
I live for part of the year on the south coast of France, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. One of my favourite elements of life in France is the cuisine. In the morning I go to the town for fresh ingredients from the charcuterie and boulangerie and market, and then
Although some staunch defenders of print books remain, many of us have accepted the ereader as an appreciated item in our technology collection. Personally, I still read a lot on paper, but I find the ereader useful for reading on the go. I have several hundred books in the archive,
Christmas is a wonderful time of year, of course, but a busy one, and if you’re an avid reader like me, you can end up feeling a little bereft come the New Year: what happened to the time to yourself you dreamt of when you would curl up and get
Recently, Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, took to Twitter to answer a fan’s question: ‘Is there a difference between a romance novel and a love story?’ In stating her case that her own novels are absolutely not romance novels (as, to her frustration, they are often categorised), Diana
To date, I have published six novels: three standalones and a trilogy. The trilogy follows three generations of families, but essentially each novel can stand alone as one, cohesive love story. Increasingly, I’m finding that readers me ask whether I’ll write a sequel to a novel they’ve enjoyed. ‘Why oh
I have always been interested in mythology. The Greek myths, which inspired my new book Aphrodite’s Tears, were written thousands of years ago by wise men who helped to shape our modern thinking, and many of those stories have withstood the test of time and are relevant today. I am
A maze of dry, meandering paths led them across the island. On either side crumbling stone temples, toppled columns and the remains of statues told a story of the once-great sacred island. Damian and Oriel were greeted by something new at every bend. Whether it was a view of the
A story reported widely in the British press last week caught my eye: ‘Crime pays,’ read the headline in the Telegraph; ‘thrillers and detective novels now outsell all other fiction.’ According to data by Nielsen BookScan shared at the London Book Fair, sales of crime and thriller novels in the
‘Tell me about this house. It seems enormous, a real labyrinth…’ So says Oriel, the heroine of my new novel Aphrodite’s Tears, with regard to the big house on the island of Helios where her new boss lives. Nods to Greek mythology are interwoven throughout Aphrodite’s Tears, and of course
For my latest novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, I took inspiration from the classic stories of Greek mythology. I grew up with these stories, told to me by my governess and my parents, and one of my oldest and most treasured possessions is a children’s compendium of myths based on the epic
Recently, the editors at Bookish.com published an article compiling favourite romance novel heroines as chosen by romance authors (http://www.bookish.com/articles/favorite-romance-heroines/). The heroines in the list were from modern-era novels, with one notable exception: Elizabeth Bennet of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. When I consider my favourite characters in romance, I invariably find
In my new novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, the heroine Oriel is struggling to maintain a professional distance from her new employer, Damian, with whom, years ago, she shared a single night of passion: ‘Rules were made to be broken.’ Damian smiled with his lips but his eyes, so astoundingly silver, had
In my new novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, the heroine Oriel has come to stay on the small Greek island of Helios in order to carry out archaeological work. The island is out of step with the modern era and steeped in ancient traditions, and the people are not used to newcomers.
One of the most fundamental choices a novelist faces before setting pen to paper is whether to narrate the book in the first or third person. Here is a paragraph from my latest novel, Aphrodite’s Tears: Could she really do this job? She wanted it so badly. Her own Roman
I love going to the theatre. When I sit in my seat, listening to the orchestra tune up, looking around at all the grandeur of the auditorium, my stomach flutters with anticipation of the spectacle to come. But while the seat is invariably upholstered in soft red velvet and is
A recent news headline in The Bookseller caught my eye: ‘Bookshops staffed with robots to open in Beijing’. With a heavy heart, I clicked the article and read about the 20 bookstores being opened by China’s largest bookselling franchise, Xinhua. Each will be open twenty-four hours, and accessible, via facial
In my new novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, set in the 1970s, the heroine Oriel is an archaeologist who has been hired to work on a subsea exploration around the small, private Ionian island of Helios. An ancient wreck has been found off the coast, calcified and half buried in the sand,
‘Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.’ So said author Emilie Buchwald. Recently, though, it was reported in the press that just half of preschool children in the UK are read to daily. A survey commissioned by Nielsen Book Research found that the number of parents reading
I find inspiration for my writing from all kinds of sources. For Burning Embers, I was inspired by the poetry of French poet Leconte de Lisle; for The Echoes of Love, an experience in the Piazza San Marco, Venice, sparked the idea of a city with two faces; for my
Confession: I have not one, or two, or even three copies of Jane Eyre. I have nine. Why collect different editions of the same book? For several reasons…
In a modern love story, is there room for a damsel in distress? From where did this trope originate and why has it so endured? Is it okay, in fact, to be in distress and in need of rescue sometimes?
Classic literature endures for a good reason: it’s powerful and beautiful writing. But in our modern era, the language of these books can make for challenging reading. So should we translate classic literature into modern English?
‘Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold — / Come change — and human fate! / Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound, / Can ne’er be desolate.’ The seasons are changing… but we can find hope and comfort in poetry.
My grandmother was a well-known feminist who taught me that women can do anything. Naturally, then, the heroines of my novels are strong, independent and bold…
Love novels? Love food? Then you’ll love literary cookbooks! These collections of recipes inspired by works of fiction offer you a chance to not only imagine fictional words but get a real taste of them…
‘Maybe you could become my muse … what d’you say?’ So says the hero of my latest novel, Concerto, to the heroine. Umberto is a pianist composer set for superstardom; Catriona is his young and naïve neighbour who dreams of being an opera singer. The idea of being a muse… well, who wouldn’t be flattered? But does it mean living in the shadow of genius?
‘A girl should be two things,’ said Coco Chanel: ‘classy and fabulous.’ Certainly, this is the ethos I have in mind when I write the heroines of my novels. One of my favourite aspects of characterisation is to consider the heroine’s style, and I must confess I am a big fan of dressing them to impress!
Subscribe to my mailing list. I promise: no spam, only valuable information.