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My latest blog posts

My latest blog posts

Venice Preserv’d

Ah, Venice: setting of my latest novel, The Echoes of Love. Going to Venice and experiencing its beautiful architecture and inspiring culture? Wonderful – but out of reach for many due to the constraints of distance and expense. Going to Venice and experiencing first-hand its history, its days as the

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In her own words: Venetia

Last week, I ran an ‘in his own words’ feature on Paolo, the hero of my novel The Echoes of Love, to see how he reveals aspects of his character in his speech. Today, I’m turning to the heroine, Venetia Aston-Montagu. ‘I am not someone to indulge in a casual

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Italian recipe: The ultimate authentic tagliatelle Bolognese

You’ll notice I don’t entitle this blog post ‘Italian recipe: The ultimate authentic spaghetti Bolognese’. Strange, you may think – surely the world-famous and popular dish is a meat-and-tomato sauce served with spaghetti? Indeed, that is how many Italian restaurants the world over serve the dish, and yet for Bolognese

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A passion for renovation

I’m commonly asked in interviews, ‘If you weren’t a writer, what would you do?’ The answer is: restoring old buildings. For many years, restoration was my passion. I ran a business buying, restoring and selling on cottages, and both of my homes were large-scale restoration projects; they are unrecognisable now

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In his own words: Paolo Barone

After I published my first novel, Burning Embers, I ran interviews on my blog with the main characters, Coral and Rafe. For The Echoes of Love, I thought I’d try something a little different with ‘in their own words’ features, exploring how my characters reveal major facets of their inner

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Book review: Pelican Point by Donna Kauffman

From the blurb: Blueberry Cove, Maine, is as small-town as small towns get. More than a little quirky, it has sheltered generations of families. But there’s always room for a new face… Fixing things has always been Alex McFarland’s greatest gift and keenest pleasure. But with her own life thoroughly

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My latest blog posts

The adult imagination shaped by children’s stories

Recently, I read with interest a personal essay entitled ‘You can never go back: on loving children’s books as an adult’ published on the LitHub website. Writer Anya Jaremko-Greenwold laments that adults turn away from children’s literature in favour of reading books deemed good for them, when ‘the books we loved

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Guaranteed sunshine in every novel…

I have returned from France to my home in Ireland, and the views of rich-green lawns and spun-gold leaves and skeletal branches reaching up to dreamy clouds are beautiful. And yet, I must confess, I miss the sunshine. ‘Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the

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Phantom islands and lost cities: fact or fiction?

Recently, I was reflecting on a trip I took to the Greek island of Santorini, whose culture, history and mythology helped to inspire my new novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, which will be published in January. Santorini is a volcanic island, and thousands of years ago it was the site of the Minoan eruption,

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