I’m delighted to have another 5 star review for my romantic murder mystery, Acting Like A Killer.
If you’d like to read it yourself you can order through bookshops and libraries, buy as a paperback or ebook through Amazon, or get the ebook from a variety of other retailers.
My story Puppy Love is in the special Easter edition of Yours magazine. I like the cute illustration – and I’m pleased it didn’t give away the twist ending. (A magazine which has since ceased publication did that more than once!)
I’m even more pleased they gave my books a mention. I haven’t noticed a surge in sales, but letting people know the books exist does slightly increase the chance of them buying one, or requesting it from their library.
I’ve no idea where they got the photo from. It is me, but it’s not recent. My hair has been at least five different colours since then.
I’ve got a couple of stories in the May issue of Take A Break’s Fiction Feast, which is out already. Plus None is about a wedding and having nobody to go with. That’s not a position I’ve yet been in. Accidents Happen is about things going horribly wrong. I didn’t have to use my imagination quite so much for that one!
The illustration for my story Caramel Shortbread in the April edition of Take A Break’s Fiction Feast would be making me really hungry, except that it was my birthday yesterday. My lovely husband made me a really nice, and really huge, chocolate brownie cake. He rarely bakes (it was the third time ever) but he did an excellent job.
It was a double celebration for me as the day before I finished the second draft of my next crime novel. I took the day off writing for my birthday, and will have a few more days away from the novel (Disguised Murder in Little Mallow) before the next draft. I like to work on something else between drafts as that gives me some ‘distance’ and helps me see what I actually wrote, not what I meant to say!
Talking of doubles, I have two stories in that magazine. The other is called Baggage. It’s about handbags, and relationships. Caramel Shortbread is also about relationships, as well as living up to the title.
If you’d like to know more about me and my writing you may like to sign up for my occasional newsletter – you’ll get a free short story if you do, and can unsubscribe at any time.
To fry is to cook in hot fat or oil. Americans refer to chips as a fries (and crisps as chips). Getting fried can be a slang term for being cheated or sunburned.
Fry are also baby fish. I’m sure there are some in this reservoir.
I’m delighted with the latest review for my novel Acting Like A Killer. I’m currently nearing the end of the draft of my current work in progress, another murder mystery and this has really motivated me to get those last couple of chapters written and the editing under way.
Gosh I’m a super writer. You can read my stories in a multitude of magazines or buy one of my books and what’s more you jolly well should!
Er, sorry about that. I was just demonstrating what it’s like to be bumptious. It means to be annoyingly confident and self-important. I’m not really like that am I, at least not all the time?
I know, we’ll put it to a vote (that couldn’t possibly go wrong, could it?) Is the picture appropriate because –
A) I’m looking jolly smug as I’d just won a poetry competition (which was ages ago and yes I’m still going on about it) or
B) Because of the location?
When referring to a person, strapping means big and strong. Now I know firefighters come in various shapes and sizes as well as both sexes and are no less effective for that, but somehow when I see the trucks go by I imagine all the crew to be big strapping lads. These days I don’t spend much time on imagining them, but I was absolutely forced to do so while writing my romantic novel Firestarter. Being a writer is such a tough job!
Strapping is also the action of using straps to fasten or secure something so it can’t get away. If I imagined that sort of strapping in connection with firemen, I’d keep it to myself.
You’ll note my plan to photograph actual firemen didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped …
Sorry, I’m not offering to take you out to dinner! Instead I have a suggestion for a bargain night in.
All of my books with a love or romance theme are currently reduced to 99p. That’s these four short story collections – Love Is The Answer, Lots Of Love, With Love And Kisses, and All That Love Stuff and the following novels A Year And A Day, Firestarter, Leave Nothing But Footprints, Acting Like A Killer and Escape To The Country.
Whether you spend it reading one of my books or not, I hope you get to do something which makes you happy today.
