Got Ghosts? You will have!

Terrific news in the last few days – my new book ‘Got Ghosts?’ is due out from Fox Spirit in October, all set to coincide with Halloween!

The book is a complete romp, very loosely based on the hit TV show ‘Most Haunted’, and features a haunted English manor house, and all the things that go wrong when the film crew of (entirely fictional) television series ‘Got Ghosts?’ come for a weekend to make a programme there.

Greystone Hall’s owner Emily has far too much to deal with, including a plethora of ghosts, an arrogant producer, happy and unhappy mediums, a set of missing paintings, and yet more ghosts, not to mention a burgeoning romance with someone she doesn’t expect.

More details to come, but then if you’re good psychics you’ll know that already…

 

The Sea Garden

I’ve just finished reading Sam Llewellyn’s mystery-in-a-garden The Sea Garden, and loved it.

As I say in my Goodreads review, I’m a complete sucker for any kind of mystery involving gardens (Tom’s Midnight Garden, The Savage Garden, Thornyhold), and this was no exception.

The present-day heroine Victoria uncovers a skull in the ancient, rambling and mysterious garden she and her husband have just inherited on an island off the Cornish coast.  When the skull vanishes again before she’s had a chance to examine it properly, she sets off on an investigation of who it could have belonged to and why it was buried there.  And uncovers a whole furniture-store of closets full of family skeletons and secrets in the process.

The writing was every bit as good as Mary Stewart at her best and the unexpected humour reminded me of Dorothy Dunnett.  Since those are two of my favourite authors it’s hardly surprising I liked this.

The ending was perhaps a little too melodramatic for my liking, but it fitted well with the ‘gothic’ feel of the book, and with the historical elements, and it tied everything up very neatly.

I’m hoping Mr Llewellyn will write more books in a similar vein, that I can look out for and devour.

Shadow of the Wind

I realised earlier today that I’d never got round to putting a review of this wonderful book on Goodreads.  So, to put the damage right I’ve now added a review and given it five very well-deserved stars.

As I mention in the review, it did take me a while to ‘get into’ the book and I had a couple of false starts where something jarred and I got stuck.  However, the third time the author’s style or voice spoke to me; I got over the sticking point, kept going, and never looked back.

The book is quite simply stunning.  I love the whole idea of a library for forgotten books so much I think I’d want to spend all my time in there!  And the mystery of the book that’s selected, and the danger it brings for the young hero, is really compelling.

As with many of the best reads, this one is by no means quick or easy.  The whole thing clocks in at a whopping 500+ pages and the narrative style is quite slow, even ponderous.  But that and the beauty of the prose just add to the overall atmosphere.  I ended up loving it, and want to doff my virtual hat to both the author and the translator who seems to have done an excellent job transferring ‘Shadow’ to English idiom while keeping the lyricism of the original Spanish.

Oh – and if you want to read my rather more concise review on Goodreads, it’s here!

Bookshop Trail

The other day I picked up a leaflet somewhere about a bookshop trail.  Not just any bookshop trail, but specifically the ‘Dales & Lakes Bookshop Trail’, which is a collective of secondhand bookshops in the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District national parks and their surroundings.

I’d never come across this before, and was delighted to find that there are twenty-six participating stores, including several in the small “book town” of Sedbergh, which is situated roughly half way between Kendal and Yorkshire.  We visited the town for the first time last year and I was amazed at the number of book shops lining the streets.  Now, apparently, there are six – not bad for a town of around 3,000 people!

And it’s not just Sedbergh.  The shops listed cover a vast area from Hawes and Hebden Bridge in the Yorkshire Dales, to Keswick and Penrith in northern Cumbria, Whitehaven on the far west coast, and Cartmel and Grange-over-Sands in the south.

It’s an impressive cooperative project.  And I’m really looking forward to trying to visit every bookshop on the list!

Last chance for Necessity’s Door

A quick update – my gay crime/erotic romance novella Necessity’s Door comes out of contract from Riptide Publishing this coming Tuesday (1st November).

If you’ve been meaning to get yourself a copy and forgetting, then this weekend is pretty much your last chance.  Hurry along to my website for more details on where to get hold of a copy, before it vanishes from the shelves and you miss it forever!

Raincheck for Roses

The sharp-eyed amongst you may have spotted that April has come and gone with no sign of ‘Roses in December’ being republished.  Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten – it’s just that when I came to look at the manuscript I found it needed a lot more work than I’d realised to bring it up to my current standard of writing (whatever that might be…!)  Little things like matching quote marks, bigger things like removing the endless dialogue tags, even bigger things like making sure it all makes sense.

It’s going to take longer than I bargained for, and will have to be fitted in alongside other writing projects and General Life TM, but I’m still hoping to get something viable at some point during the year.  It may just be a case of ‘Roses in December’ after all!

Roses in… April?

Those of you who’ve known me for ages might remember my first novel, Roses in December, a gay paranormal romance set in a beautiful English garden.

Well, the good news is that I’m seriously considering republishing the book.  I now have a working cover, and once I’ve got to grips with all the conversion software, uploading to Amazon etc etc that’s involved, I’m hoping it’ll be available soon after Easter.

Do make a note in your diaries, and keep watching here for further updates on when/whether the book is coming – or whether I’ve torn all my hair out and hidden under the sofa for the foreseeable future!