News / Journal

October 2009

From where I’m sitting right now I can see the sunlight glinting off a huge spider’s web at my window and I’m reminded that we’ve already moved on into autumn. This week my second son will be twenty and at the end of the month it’s my birthday too. How life rushes past if you don’t watch it and catch it!
Last week – still engrossed in final edits for A Sister’s Gift – I was immersed in the vivid colours, pungent scents and sounds of the Brazilian Rainforest. I may have actually been sitting here at my desk but as far as the fertile landscape of my mind went, that’s where I really was. Something of a surprise to emerge now then – ms completed and sent off – into the reality of a beautifully bright and crisp October morning. Outside, my lawn is studded with the burnished brown of a hundred undisturbed chestnuts – so few squirrels to come and gobble them up this year! The woody smells of someone burning garden waste draw me down into the darker, damper part of the garden which has been given over to woodland trees. Here, I just pause for a bit.
My next book has been revealing itself to me in tantalising glimpses over the last week or so. A song I’ve been listening to every day in the car has suggested the tone of the story; it will be sad and yet funny, poignant and yet aspirational, full of hope. I also know my characters will have some connection to nature – hence my sudden interest in the trees! Now I’m enjoying this in-between time, having just completed the demands of a three-book contract and having some space to quietly observe the story which is emerging next.

On a more newsy note, you may like to read a rather nice review of Little Miracles posted up by a lady called Leah on her website.

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