I have a story in the current issue of Yours magazine. If it seem familiar, you may have read it before in Take A Break’s Fiction Feast. When a story is bought, it’s common for the company to require the right to republish the work in any of their publications – and Yours and Take A Break are both owned by BAUER.

I’ve not been making much progress on my latest novel over the last few days. That’s because we’re having a new office fitted. That would be disruptive even if it was all going well. It is NOT going well!
The garden on the other hand is blooming lovely and time spent out there never fails to cheer me up.

We’ll be off on our travels soon (although not quite as soon as we’d hoped). I’ll be taking Little Mallow with me, in the form of the draft of the fourth book in my cosy mystery series. As I’ll also be leaving it behind in a more literal than literary sense, I popped down to take some photos of the view from the beach this morning.

The ladies swimming are braver than me! I don’t mind the cold water (I’ve been in when there’s ice on the beach) but I like it to be a a lot less wavy!

If you’re wondering exactly where Little Mallow is, then sign up to my newsletter (link in the right hand column) and you’ll recieve directions, and a special edition of the community magazine.

Last Saturday, I was delighted to be one of eight author’s at the Lee-on-the-Solent crime literary festival. It was great fun, and really interesting listening the the other author’s talks. Despite all attempting to make crime pay, we all write quite different books, at different speeds and in different ways.

Sarah and Jas from The Bookshop, did a fantastic job organising the event, sourcing great props including blood soaked rags and a murder board, and ‘policing’ activities on the day.

I’m very pleased to have a story in the current issue of Woman’s Weekly. Just to prove I don’t have a one track mind, this one is all about biscuits – not cake. However…

… it’s my birthday today, so as it happens I am currently drinking tea and eating cake.

I have been writing, but perhaps not as I would have done without a garden full of tulips to distract me. As they’re so fleeting, I think I’m justified in going out to admire them – even if that does extend my tea breaks significantly.

The tulips will soon be gone and I’ll be giving my writing more attention… at least until the iris and peonies start to flower.

Do you read books via kindle unlimited? If you do, you may be interested in this selection of romances, these cosy reads, or this mixed genre collection. A few of my books are included in those promotions, along with work by several other authors. If you’ve not tried kindle unlimited before, you can often sign up for a free trial, which is a great way to sample the books of new (to you) authors, with no financial risk.

Maybe you don’t like ebooks, I know not everyone does. We all like spring flowers though, don’t we? This is my little patch of ‘meadow’ currently full of tulips, promroses, grape hyacinths and hellebores.

A little while ago, I happened to see an episode of Call My Bluff (a vey old repeat – it’s not something I watched when it was originally broadcast). One of the words was seege, meaning the sushing sound sound the sea makes as it comes ashore. I thought that would be a good one for word of the week, so when we went for a walk yesterday, I took this photo.
Back home, I made a nice cup of tea and looked up the word. Or rather I tried to. Online all I could find was that it was an old, alternative spelling for siege. That’s when you don’t let people out of their castle until the give up and let you in – but not a come in and I’ll put the kettle on kind of way.
Seege isn’t in any of our dictionaries either. I may have misremembered the spelling, but had no luck with the likely variations. It’s possible I mixed up the definition with that of another word. I didn’t just make seege up though, as Gary vaguely remembers it too. Oh well, it was a nice walk!
Have you ever heard of seege?