My romantic murder mystery, Acting Like A Killer, is released today! The usual price will be £10 for the paperback. I was going to make it £9.99, but you get free delivery from Amazon if you spend £10 or more on books and as I find it frustrating to have to pay several pounds for that when the cover price is so close I guessed others might feel the same way. If you’d like a copy but prefer not to buy through Amazon you can order it from bookshops and libraries.

The ebook will usually be £2.99 ($3.99) but for the next couple of weeks it’s at the introductory price of £1.99 ($2.99)

Here’s the blurb –

Amelia Watson needs a dead body by tea time. Less urgent, but more important are – time for a life, the chance to solve crime, an uncomplicated romantic relationship, promotion at work, to be less hurt by her parents’ distance. And then there’s Nicole, and the attractive stranger…

Of course Amelia doesn’t get all she desires, or appreciate everything that life brings. Along the way her priorities change and she ends up with far more than she’d bargained for. Will the unexpected bonus break her heart?

You can get the book here.

I’ve made a short video of me reading the opening to my new novel. You can see it here.

Uxorial means of, or relating to, a wife. I’m not sure how useful the word is in everyday conversation, but it must be more useful than uxorious which means to be excessively fond of one’s wife. Speaking as a married woman I can’t see how such fondness could possibly be excessive.

South African magazine YOU chose a striking image for a story of mine which they published recently. It’s really interesting to see which elements of a story will be picked out for any illustrations and how they’ll be represented.

If you’d like to read the whole story you can find it, along with 23 others, in my collection Slightly Spooky Stories II.

Often I challenge you to use my Wednesday Word of the Week, but not this time. I’d like this one to vanish.

Invent is a word. It means to use thought to create and originate. The result is an invention, created by an inventive inventor. It could be a physical thing, such as a wheel, space ship or cake. It might be an idea, song or story.

Re-invent doesn’t mean anything, or at least not anything good as far as I can tell. Re-inventing usually seems to involve taking something good and popular and messing it up. Favourite food products are re-invented with a ‘new and improved’ recipe meaning they’re smaller, pricier and disgusting. Classic stories are re-invented as unconvincing, watered down versions of the original. Re-invention is so much not a thing, that I’m not even going to make the letters bold.

Ooops, Wednesday Word of the Week seems to have been re-invented as Wednesday Whinge of the Week! I’m right though … aren’t I?

I’ve spent long enough writing, re-writing, editing, proofing and formatting Acting Like A Killer to be in no doubt that it’s a real book. Even so, it felt good to lift a copy out of the box.

Translucent is a nice word. It always makes me slightly hungry as it reminds me of ‘suculent’ and is most commonly encountered in cookery books referring to fried onions. I do like fried onions.

If something is translucent it allows light to pass through diffusely – just as partialy cooked onions probably do (I’ve never actually fished one out the pan to test that). It’s also described as semi-transparent.

Abaddon is an old world which can either mean hell or a place of destruction, or be used to suggest an unpleasant angel or a devil.

I’d try to keep both at a safe distance, if I were you.

Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, but Hallowe’en is coming up and I wanted you to be prepared. For some it’s a time to party in creative costumes, or go out trick or treating. Others (me included) prefer to stay indoors where it’s cosy – and have a supply of pumpkin soup or hot chocolate handy, as well as a book to read.

If you like short spooky, but not too scary stories then you might enjoy one of my collections. There are four so far, each with two dozen stories. Slightly Spooky Stories II is currently on special offer at 99p / 99c.