Four-and-a-half stars increased to five. I was pleased to read Anne Gracie’s new book, Marry in Haste, last week. And I was not disappointed. The novel is a testament to Ms Gracie’s wonderful abilities with characterization and storyline. She weaves all the little details of Regency life into her novels, but also provides new ways […]
How Changing Perspective can Improve Your Story
While editing the manuscript for Hidden Duchess, I’ve made the conscious decision to change a couple of chapters from one character’s perspective to another. Today, I’m explaining why I would go to all that trouble – and why writers should be looking at their stories from different angles, to give their readers the very best experience […]
Post-Draft Plotting for the Plotter
Plotter or pantser? It’s a question we writers ask each other a lot – are you a plotter, that is, do you know the details and progression of your story before you write it? Are all your duckies in a row before you even write a single word? Or are you a pantser – writing by […]
Book Reviews – February 2016
It’s been a fairly hectic February, what with rewrites and final edits and getting all the publicity sorted for my release on 31 March 2016, but I did manage to squeeze in a few books during February:
Loving Louise
This is just a little taster for you of the world of provincial pre-revolutionary France, where my upcoming novel, The Hidden Duchess is set. 3900 words Louise sighed, irritated with herself. She had just daydreamed away a good half an hour – thinking about Francois again, of course. The always-present-but-completely-unattainable Francois. She pulled her puckering […]
Samira
4100 words In the cool of the evening, fewer visitors entered the temple of Sekhmet. Samira could finally sit down and rub her tired feet. Life at the temple was always busy – sweeping away the ever encroaching sand, making prayers and sacrifices to our Lady Sekhmet regularly to dampen her wrath, assisting the worshipers, […]