using theme in your novel 23 Jul 2013 | 02:59 pm

Last weekend I was at the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference up in Sheffield. As always it was a brilliant event, fully worth the six and a half freaking hours I spent sitting motionless in tr...

Untitled 11 Apr 2013 | 12:32 pm

DEAR THING is out in hardback today! And to celebrate, I’ll be giving away two signed hardback copies of the book, along with a copy of Claire’s lemon drizzle cake recipe. (Which is seriously yummy. C...

celebrations 9 Apr 2013 | 08:25 pm

Well, Dear Thing comes out on Thursday  in hardback, and I am sort of excited. Well, really excited. It’s even more exciting because Saturday is my birthday. On Thursday evening, though, I will be cel...

new house, new book, new everything 1 Apr 2013 | 04:10 am

Well, we’re in the new house now. It’s taken some time, and we’re still not all settled (I’ve spent all evening painting the kitchen, for example,a beautiful warm subtle green) but it’s feeling more a...

moving 25 Feb 2013 | 03:53 am

We’re moving house on Friday. Not far—less than half a mile away, still very close to Fecklet’s school—but far enough so that it will be a new neighbourhood, new shops, a new route to town. We moved i...

coming to life 13 Feb 2013 | 09:52 pm

My lovely publicist at Transworld (@LynseyDalladay) has just tweeted a photograph of a proof copy of DEAR THING, which they are sending out to press and bloggers now ahead of its hardback publication ...

beginning 12 Feb 2013 | 02:55 pm

I hate starting to write a new book. I believe I’ve mentioned this before, because it’s a perennial problem. I have, to date, started a fair number of them—including the ones that haven’t been publish...

proof 8 Feb 2013 | 03:07 pm

  I got the page proofs for my new novel, DEAR THING, in the post yesterday. This is always an exciting moment. It’s nearly as exciting as seeing the finished book, because this is the first time I’ll...

Happy birthday, Mr Holmes 6 Jan 2013 | 11:19 pm

my best (unpredictable) books of 2012 2 Jan 2013 | 09:24 pm

According to Goodreads, I read 61 books in 2012. When I came to choose my favourites of the year, I noticed that they all had one thing in common: they surprised me. With all of these books I remember...