Marked on 22 April each year, Earth Day is a reminder to celebrate the natural environment and to pat ourselves on the back for our efforts to protect it. Alongside the usual recycling, composting and picking up other people’s litter, I spent it admiring the early blooms in our garden wildflower meadows and the newts…
Alongside the humour in my novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, Matty’s story tugs at the heartstrings. But readers differ in what they find particularly poignant. One early reader told me, I was all right until I got to the nuns. The most tragic part for me came when I was researching ballroom dancing for…
My previous post was about the female friendship at the heart of my novella, Stolen Summers. This is about my character Matilda’s short-lived friendship with a male patient and the surprising discovery I made when I was researching his background. I made Eustace a Black World War I veteran, partly to do my small bit…
It’s often said that we choose our friends – but we have to find them first. We make friends from the people we cross paths with, from our schoolmates, neighbours, co-workers and people who share our leisure pursuits. We might choose friends who have similar interests and outlooks to our own. But not always. Sometimes…
The history of mental health care is littered with discarded treatments revealing the practitioners to be barely more rational than the patients. One fad that seduced me for a short time when I worked as a clinical psychologist was ‘earplug therapy’ for people who heard unwanted voices. Wacky as it seems, there was solid research…
For some, history means kings, queens and political intrigue. For others, it’s a litany of colonisation and war. At my school, history leapt from Roman Britain to the industrial revolution, where history meant innovation, manufacturing and machines. Now I enjoy fiction that honours the lives of those the history books have often neglected: working-class people;…
When readers asked about a follow-up to my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, I was surprised. Although I had thoughts about how my character, Diana, might have developed since 2004 when the novel is set, I didn’t plan to explore them in fiction. My perspective turned on its head shortly after I submitted my third…
Different readers will find different things in a book and the author doesn’t always know best. Nevertheless, I’ve drawn up a list of seven things I’d like potential readers to know about my novel, Lyrics for the Loved Ones. Find out more in my post on the website Female First.
I’m interviewed by Yvonne Battle-Fenton for her podcast, Bookable Space, about my novel Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home. I also read three extracts, one from each of my main characters’ points of view. Yvonne asked me about the inspiration for this novel and what it was like drawing on familiar settings: Cumbria where I grew…
I’ve been leading a walk through Jane Eyre territory for years but last month was the first time anyone asked me where Mr Rochester, the owner of Thornfield Hall, got his wealth from. I couldn’t remember what Charlotte Brontë tells us in the novel but assumed – as did the woman who asked the question…
Readers aren’t being rude when they refer to the heroine of my latest novel as a funny old woman. As she approaches her hundredth birthday in a care home, her youth has long gone … Read about my elderly heroine on the wonderful book blog, Being Anne:
What a delight to be interviewed again on Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM. This time the focus is on Lyrics for the Loved Ones, the follow-up to Matilda Windsor is Coming Home, which Hannah and I discussed on the programme in August 2021. Hannah was curious about what it was like to return to…
Fiction is a branch of the entertainment industry, so even serious novels need to raise the occasional smile. But even though there were moments of comedy in my first two novels, I wouldn’t have thought humour was my strong suit. That changed with my third novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, published in 2021. It…
Although lockdown literature is not – yet – officially a genre, I’m not the only author who found inspiration in the changes wrought by the Covid pandemic. In my recent guest post for Shiny New Books, I’m sharing my reflections on some of the novels I read as I was drafting and editing mine. I’m…
As mentioned in an earlier post, British Royal family had a lavish ceremony earlier this month and millions of fans from around the world joined in. But I was focused on a milestone in a much more modest House of Windsor as my fictional Ms Windsor becomes a three-book series. In my new novel, Lyrics…
As you probably know, the Windsors of Buckingham Palace have had a shindig this weekend. Meanwhile, the character known as Matilda Windsor is about to feature in her third book. Yes, Matilda Windsor is now officially a trilogy. I can’t help viewing the festivities through Matty’s eyes. While I’m sure she’d love to hobnob with…
Keen as I am for readers to pick up my next novel, Lyrics for the Loved Ones, I don’t want you to spend your time and money on something you might not enjoy. So, I’m coming clean on the factors that could put readers off. It covers the early months of the pandemic, a period…
