Thank you for dropping by my blog. I post about a variety of topics including book reviews, my author journey, the writing craft and more. All my blog posts are listed below, but if you fancy looking at a particular topic, you can check the drop down menu on 'blog' on my main site menu. New blog posts added weekly, Monday or Tuesday afternoons GMT. Hope you enjoy!
This week on the blog, I’m reviewing Goldsong, an indie fantasy novel by author Beth Hudson. Here’s the blurb to give you a flavour: The Blurb A reluctant king. A legendary harp. A city divided.Traedis Atenel never expected to find herself a king. When she fled her city and her family, all she wanted was to become a bard and make her own way in the world. Now, touched by strange magic and harrowed by imprisonment, she rules the city she
This week on the blog, I’m talking about writer’s block. You may have noticed a pattern that my blog posts address something relevant to my own writing experience. In other words, last week I struggled a bit with writer’s block. Or rather, perhaps more accurately, ‘editor’s block’. This sometimes happens when looking back over my manuscript. Some bits I enjoy going back over to revise. I’m quite happy with how a scene plays out, whether it’s a few lines of description
This week on the blog, I’m reviewing Widow’s Lace by Lelita Baldock. It’s been a while since my last book review! I’m so excited to tell you about this wonderful novel. You may remember me mentioning Baldock before from me reading her other fantastic book, Where The Gulls Fall Silent. It was one of my top 10 favourite indie reads of 2021. You can also check out a recent interview I had with the author on my blog. I didn’t realise
Hi all, info about the launch of my next novel! The Oak Tree Calls will be released on this Saturday, 7th of May. I’m quite excited! If you haven’t already seen it yet on social media, here’s the front cover and the blurb. Also below is an trailer to give you a bit more of a flavour. Yorkshire, 1909. Kindness can turn into love, but not if it’s destroyed by the secrets of the past. When broken-hearted Penelope weds David Thornton
April Camp NaNoWriMo has landed! Or rather, it landed on the 1st April (I’m a bit late to the party). Writers partake in a virtual retreat, a more flexible version of the November event. Writers can choose their own goals rather than the common goal of wanting to hit 50k words in a month during November. (More info about April Camp NaNoWriMo can be found here.) I’m away later on in April, so I thought I’d do a ‘mini’ goal for
This week on the blog I’m talking about editing. Editing can often feel like a daunting task. Maybe you, like me, have moments where you just want to send the story out there as soon as you’ve hit ‘the end’. Here’s some reasons why editing first is so important! A lot of what will follow may well sound like ‘teaching grandmother to suck eggs’ – sorry if it sounds like that! However, some of you may be just starting out with
Hi everyone, I’m excited to have an author interview on my blog this week! Allow me to introduce to you author Lelita Baldock. Her wonderful novel ‘Where The Gulls Fall Silent’ was one of my top 10 indie books I read last year. Her other books are firmly on my TBR. So without further ado, let’s get into the interview! 1. Introduce yourself! Tell us who you are, where you are in the world and what you like to write. LB:
Today on the blog, I’ll be reviewing A Wider World by Karen Heenan. This is Heenan’s second of her wonderful Tudor Court series. It is the sequel to the first book, Songbird. However, as it focuses on a different character than the first book, could also be read as a stand-alone. (Head here for my review of Songbird). Here’s a blurb for a bit of a flavour: Returning to England after almost five years in exile, Robin Lewis is arrested and
Hi everyone, I thought I’d give an update on my author goals! We’re somehow already halfway through March (each year seems to go by quicker than the last). So I thought it would be a good time to look back at the goals I made at the start of the new year and see how it’s going so far. 1. Have my 3rd historical fiction novel published My 3rd novel in my Dark Ages Celtic series is not published yet, but
This week on the blog, I’m talking about screen time. It’s ironic really that I’m writing this blog post on a screen, but that’s really what I want to discuss – how we balance screens. For me and probably most authors I know, technology is important for our business. We use our laptops or devices to craft our novels. We use also use screens for marketing or building our online presence – social media, blog posts, newsletters, websites. Plus, these things