A good few years ago now I bought my first ever property - a small, brand-new flat in Birmingham. With much excitement I moved in, decorated, filled it with oddments of furniture and books, and settled down... only to find some very strange goings-on. These included sudden temperature drops, an unpleasant atmosphere, and even physical [...]
Following a rather too-public spat between a well-known author and his cover artist, yesterday was 'cover artist appreciation day' on Twitter. A good cause, because too often artists get scant recognition or credit for their work. And it reminded me that I haven't said nearly enough about the artwork on my own book cover, since [...]
A rather hasty exploration this time, for two reasons. One, there isn't really all that much of Hawkshead to explore (it's a small village) and two, it was absolutely freezing! However, the sun was shining and it was nice to get some fresh (okay, very fresh) air and a brief stagger round. Hawkshead is a [...]
We had a rare (genuinely rare) treat at the weekend - a trip to Abbot Hall art gallery in Kendal to see a painting by Claude Monet. The gallery is a lovely place to visit anyway, with a regular exhibition of local artist George Romney's works, links to local notables such as Lady Anne Clifford, [...]
We used to call in at Glenridding quite often, usually to go walking. There are some great paths on the lower fells between the village and the slopes of Helvellyn which dominate it, and some pretty amazing industrial archaeology left over from the area's lead mining heritage. But for the last couple of years we [...]
Georgette Heyer never did write horror, of course, but some of her more light-hearted crime novels came surprisingly close, and they've always been big favourites of mine. So when I came to write Got Ghosts?, it was to those titles that I turned for some inspiration. To find out which books those were, and how [...]
Warning - this review contains spoilers! We finished watching the Marvel's Inhumans series on TV the other night. Goodness, what a disappointment. The first couple of episodes weren't bad - an intriguing premise, reasonably interesting characters and a nice line in confusion about who the real baddies were. But it went downhill fast. The whole [...]
