If you’re looking for a heart-warming, moving, feel-good and inspirational film, this is one for you. I first became aware of the film having read the book on which it is based – We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee. (I much prefer to have read the book before seeing
From the blurb: Allie Blue’s dream of buying the old Smithington mansion and turning it into a bed and breakfast is stomped by a mystery real estate developer with a fancy pen and loaded checkbook. With no bed and breakfast, Allie resorts to one small fib which lands her a
Breakfast table under the olive trees; a fine start to a Mediterranean day.
Romeo and Juliet were but teenagers when they fell in love, so cementing one of the best loved and most famous romances of all time. But can lasting love bloom without experience and knowledge? In any novel, the protagonist grows. The entire point of the story is to take the
The kiss. The very pinnacle of romance. The word conjures music in my mind. The love theme to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet; Des’ree’s ‘Kissing You’. Faith Hill’s ‘This Kiss’. Nat King Cole’s ‘Moonlight Kisses’. Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Prelude to a Kiss’. Sixpence None the Richer’s ‘Kiss Me’: Kiss me beneath
Today I’m delighted to feature an interview with the wonderfully talented jazz singer, Peter Borthwick. I was one of the lucky few to attain a ticket for the launch of his new album, ‘This Moment’, and the performances were exquisite. I’ve been humming ‘Cuban Peter’ for weeks now… This month,
From the blurb: A secret love that will haunt a family for ever England 1918. Lady Helen believes her parents when they say she will never find a better husband than Richard, but when he returns to the Front, she begins to wonder just who it is she has married.
The gazebo in the grounds of my French home. I have spent wonderful evenings dreaming up my stories there.
The adjective, as an element of language, are frequently vilified by writers: “[I was taught] to distrust adjectives as I would later learn to distrust certain people in certain situations.” – Ernest Hemingway “[Whoever writes in English] is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective.”
The end of the month is fast approaching, and with it the fun of carving pumpkins. I love to pick pumpkins in varying sizes to create a family of pumpkin heads – choosing the biggest available is always fun! But before you begin scooping out all the innards, have you
… so wrote American writer and thinker Henry David Thoreau. The imagery of fire is prevalent in cultures as a symbol of desire and love. Songs, dance, theatre, paintings, poetry, literature – in all art forms, we think of passion in terms of a fire within. Think of the following,
I could not resist buying this book, for its setting: 1920s Europe, predominantly; its set of characters, including seminal American writers; and its intriguing perspective on Hemingway’s first marriage and rise to fame. From the blurb: Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a shy twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up
Luscious purple bougainvillea on the front of my house. The colours in France are so vivid; it’s one of my favourite things about living there.
Each month I run a giveaway competition for my readers. In October’s competition, I’m giving away: 1 copy of Burning Embers plus a £25 (US$40) gift voucher 1 copy of Burning Embers plus wonderful Jazz singer Peter Borthwick‘s debut CD ‘This Moment’ To enter, simply get in touch with me and
I was schooled by French nuns at a convent school, and therefore was given a good grounding in French literature. I loved it – so much so that I took a degree in the subject as a young woman. One of my favourite writers of those revered in France is
I recently read a book about the writers of the Jazz Age (see my forthcoming review of The Paris Wife, which tells the story of Ernest Hemingway’s wife in the 1920s). It struck me how different writing was then compared to now: Time: Of course, there have been writers through
For many countries, Christmas is but a distant memory (have you taken down your decorations by now? I expect so). But not for the Spanish, for whom today, 6th January, is the most important day in the Christmas festivities. While researching my romantic series Andalucian Nights, I read a lot
From the blurb: Elizabeth Bennet never imagined her own parents would force her to marry a virtual stranger. But when Mrs. Bennet accuses Fitzwilliam Darcy of compromising her daughter, that is exactly the outcome. Trapped in a seemingly loveless marriage and far from home, she grows suspicious of her new
Happy New Year! I wish you good cheer, hope, success, good health and, above all, love in 2016 – all of which are so beautifully encapsulated in this poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. New Year: A Dialogue MORTAL: “The night is cold, the hour is late, the world is bleak
What does the name ‘Don Juan’ mean to you? No doubt you can think of various characters with the name and attributes of Juan, the archetypal womaniser. Given that the heroes in my Andalucían Nights series are all strong, virile, handsome Spanish men, the legend of Don Juan resonated with
For me, choosing the title of a book is one of the most fun parts of the writing process. But it is also one of the most important elements when it comes to book marketing. Working with publishers for my fiction, I have come to understand that the title is
Happy Christmas! I hope you are celebrating today with someone special. Here is one of my favourite seasonal poems, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (The three kings Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar will feature again on my blog soon, for La Fiesta de Los Tres Reyes Mages.) The Three Kings Three
The novelist Jean Rhys declared: ‘All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person.’ I understand her viewpoint entirely. It is a noble and beautiful sentiment that what matters is the art, not the artist. When I was
In my new novel Masquerade, the heroine Luz is a writer. She works on commission, writing biographies of notable figures. A Cambridge graduate, her first commission was penning the biography of an ancestor for one of the great families in the Highlands of Scotland. With that book now complete, she
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