Thank you everyone for such a wonderful launch of FROM A PARIS BALCONY over the past few days. I appreciate your emails, messages on my Facebook page and lovely comments- I will reply when I can! Busy editing book four- in my old jeans, old jumper. It’s funny! I’m in lockdown with it. Will send… Read more
In celebration of the release of my third novel, FROM A PARIS BALCONY on October 11th, 2016 with the lovely Lake Union publishing, and to thank my wonderful readers for all their support, I am giving away five bundles of books- signed first edition copies of all three of my Paris novels, wrapped in silk… Read more
While spring declares its first tentative blushes outside, I have been busy, busy, busy! Much travelling- a conference, a writer’s festival, a research trip. Book four is now with the publishers and my study is brimming with gorgeousness. The box of advance copies of FROM A PARIS BALCONY have arrived, along with audio books and… Read more
I want to share a true story with you today, because it resonated with me so much when I heard about it. I can still see the train, shimmering through the cold, foggy winter morning, appearing, ghostlike on the track… The young girl in this photo is Isa. She was the daughter of the family… Read more
How fast the year is flying! It seems that it is all happening, and one of the nicest things of all is that we have the cover design for From a Paris Balcony, my third novel, to share with you here. The book is set partly in Paris during the late nineteenth century’s Belle Epoque,… Read more
As I sit here, writing my fourth novel, snow has left dappled white patches on top of our local mountain. It almost seems as if this is a present, something that is atop everything else, and slightly beyond us, down here in the valley carved out by the river below. It almost suggests that there… Read more
Why is is that we are drawn to stories about the Second World War? What is it about this tragic event that changed the course of the lives of a generation that makes us want to read about it? I would argue that reading novels give us the chance to get inside the head of… Read more
I have been asked by several readers for book club questions for The House By The Lake. What I’m interested in when researching and writing these novels is the idea of secret histories- stories of families and people who have largely been forgotten, whose histories may have been overlooked as not important enough to be… Read more
Back from a fascinating research trip for book four. The setting grew on me while I was there- kind of crept up and is lingering with me still. The owners were incredibly generous with their time, stories, kindness and beautiful food, and I have more stories, breath-taking history and mysterious ghost stories than I can… Read more
For the most part, a writer’s life is made up of working away at a computer- and in terms of writing about Paris, all the glamour only exists in your head! But today I have something special to share with you-a little enchantment to take you back to Paris if you like. This is the… Read more