The end of August and here are three books I read this month that I enjoyed or will think about for a while.

Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke

Of course, one of the biggest books of the year, I had to at least give it a go. I expected to not get on with this book but it surprised me. The pitch is that main character Natalie is a trad-wife influencer who makes a fortune peddling her perfect housewife life to millions online. Until one day, she wakes up and finds herself in life that isn’t hers. The house, a husband who is vaguely like hers, children who aren’t quite the same as hers, and a real traditional lifestyle where there isn’t a washing machine or dishwasher hidden away. What is going on? For me, the book worked when it was following Natalie’s rise from oddball at uni to marrying the rich (but useless) son of a prominent US politician. I don’t want to spoil anything but for me, I spotted a few holes in the big reveal which stopped it from being a standout. If you don’t think about it too hard, it’s an enjoyable read though.

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The Palm House - Gwendoline Riley

This is on the Booker Prize longlist this year and I loved it. There’s no plot so this is not the novel for you if that’s what you need. It’s more a series of connected short stories centred on Laura Miller and Edmond Putnam who are old friends, though he’s a bit older than she is. Putnam has just left his job at the magazine he’s been writing on for years, thanks to an insufferable new and young editor who wants to come in and make it the New Yorker, without any idea what that actually means or who would want to read it when the New Yorker already exists. I think that as a northerner who lives in London, I can’t help but fall in love with stories that are about northerners living in London. Laura’s mother and their days out in Liverpool and holidays in Spain will stay with me for a while. Extra points for mention of my hometown, Warrington. This is just a very well written snapshot into life, at times very funny and nostalgic, and full of characters who remind you of someone you met ages ago, maybe at a party, and never saw again.

Nevernight - Jay Kristoff

I always try to read a fantasy or sci-fi novel a month, partly because I edit for these genres so it’s important to know what’s being published. Also, I enjoy reading them, though there are certain tropes that are getting overused - I need a break from fairies and dragons for a while. Nevernight is the first in a trilogy. Mia loses her parents at a young age and grows up hellbent on revenge. After being taken under the wing of her mentor, Mercurio, she sets out to find the Red Church of Itreya, essentially a school where teenagers train to become assassins. To get into the school, you need proof that you’ve already taken a life, and so Mia is not only a murderer herself (part of her revenge plot ticked off) but her new schoolmates are too. I enjoyed this dark edge to the novel, knowing that even as Mia is making friends, they’re all pretty cold-blooded killers. There is a bit of romance as well, so I’d say this a bit romantasy. Overall, I thought this was really well done and a nice twist on the boarding school fantasy trope that managed to feel inventive.

Read anything good this month?

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I took this photo on Monday evening, at the vigil for Professor Jason Arday in Trafalgar Square.

Usually my Friday musings are light-hearted notes based on whatever happens to be on my mind that day/week. But today marks a week since Professor Arday’s death and it feels important to mark that in some way. It’s been a heavy week, and I cannot even imagine what Professor Arday’s friends and family have been going through.

For anyone, who isn’t aware of this situation which has been front page news in the UK (though demonstrably less now that the press themselves are coming under fire for the part they played), Professor Jason Arday was a young Cambridge professor - the youngest ever Black professor at the university. His appointment a few years ago was marked with media interest, at that point probably courted by Cambridge. Arday was remarkable not only for being Black but for being autistic, non-verbal in childhood and unable to read or write until he was an adult. I remember reading an article on him in The Times back then and below the line comments were already as vile as you might imagine.

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Over three years or so, Arday fought challenge after challenge. He was accused of plagiarism on his PhD thesis by Nathan Cofnas, a self-admittted ‘race realist’ who doesn’t believe that Black academics belong in esteemed universities. Cofnas was actually sacked by Cambridge for being too racist, and he went on to be employed by the University of Ghent, though as of yesterday they too had suspended him, perhaps bothered by the bad publicity. Anyway, the thesis was examined by Liverpool John Moores Univeristy, who awarded the PhD, and found to be sound. No case to answer. Until new claims were made more recently, coincidentally around the time of publication for Jason Arday’s memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, in the US. Cue a media pile-on that beggars belief. Literally hundreds of articles and opinion pieces, calling into question every detail of a man’s life. Until he felt he had no option but to end his own life.

The anger and sadness we felt on Monday night, the 30,000 or so of us who gathered, wasn’t about whether what was reported was true, or partially true. Whether Professor Arday lied about parts of his life to make a better story or not, did it deserve the same media treatment as a criminal? He was no Epstein. Not a murderer. As one of the speakers on Monday said, I forget who, He never even stole a bag of crisps. Were they just appalled that someone who looked like Professor Jason Arday had managed to get such a privileged position? UK universities have plenty of recent plagiarism cases involving professors that haven’t made headlines - proven cases, while Professor Arday was cleared of the original charge. We talk about double standards a lot in terms of racism, so much that it feels accepted as a part of life that you just have to deal with, but when the cost is so high, isn’t it time to question those who perpetrate them?

The vigil on Monday was both sad and inspiring. Sad for obvious reasons. Hearing the words of Misan Harriman, Diane Abbott and others who met with Jason the week he died and hoped they had given him enough encouragement to go on, only to discover their failure a few days later. But how inspiring to hear from people he himself gave the confidence to go on and do their own PhDs. To hear the words of students and friends and to hear his own hopeful words quoted to the crowd. It was a vigil, not a demonstration, and at the end we were asked to place flowers at the foot of Nelson’s Column. A kind woman next to me handed me one of her flowers, and passed out others to those of us who hadn’t seen the request to bring some.

I have pre-ordered my copy of Jason Arday’s memoir ahead of UK publication next week. If you would like read Jason’s own words and to support a Black-owned bookshop, I recommend ordering from Afrori Books.

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Something more positive this week, as the London heat melts my brain. I can’t deal in negativity until the temperature drops. I’m enjoying the prospect of a slew of indie bookshops opening in places vaguely close to me over the next few months. Isn’t that great? Whenever I get depressed about the AI situation and the growing reluctance of many publishers to take a punt on anything that isn’t a safe bet, I remember that it’s not so long ago that we were told that the e-book was going to render the physical obsolete. That we’d all buy our books online and the bookshop was over. Which is so not the case.

What I love about this new generation of indies is that so many of them are also going in hard on events and also creating small hubs where people can hang out. You go in to buy a book, sit down with an iced cappuccino or a glass of wine and read it. On the noticeboard is a run down of upcoming events, one of which might be with your favourite author. They may also do a spoken word night, or have live music on. Morocco Bound have just opened a second branch near me in Wandsworth (their original store is in Bermondsey) and I’m looking forward to visiting more often. The traditional book club might be a thing, or it might be focused on genre. Most of these new bookshops have a strong social media presence, here on Substack or on Insta or Tik Tok. It feels like the focus isn’t just books (though of course that’s still the main point) but on building community. And with so many of us heavily online or working from home, I feel that can only be a good thing.

For a while now the genre bookshop has been a niche but important subsection of the bookselling community. Forbidden Planet has been selling books, comics and collectibles to fans of sci-fi, fantasy and cult entertainment since the 1970s and has stores across England. In York, one of my favourite cities for an indie bookshop crawl, Criminally Good Books are the go-to for true crime and crime fiction. In recent years, the romance book community has grown ever stronger, particularly since the rise of romantasy and helped along by bestsellers such as Emily Henry and the rise of the sports romance.

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People are a bit sniffy about romance which is quite ridiculous. Actually, most genre fiction has been looked down on at one or another, crime included. But actually, I end up telling a lot of authors whose books I edit to read at least one good romance book if they want to understand how to write a romantic relationship. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve written ‘but why does he love her?’ on an editorial report. It’s really hard to build realistic relationships in fiction and successful romance authors are the experts. Which is why I’m excited about The Scarlet Shelf which opens soon in southwest London (exact location TBC).

Of course, opening a bookshop doesn’t mean the job is done. It can be a constant battle to keep the lights on, just like any other small business. This week came the news that Newham Bookshop has been hit with a 30% rent increase from the local council, leaving them at risk of closure. I’m not an East Londoner but I have benefitted from their support at various events and they’re such a huge part of the community. I know their local authors love them and I hope the council rethinks. For anyone in the UK, you can sign this petition, set up by a local member of the public, here.

If you have a favourite indie store, feel free to leave it in the comments!

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I really didn’t want to have to write about this but since it’s the topic that won’t go away, here I am talking about AI again…

The big news of the last couple of weeks in the publishing world has been the tragic tale of a debut crime writer who received offers for his novel of over $2m (in a two book deal) only to subsequently be accused of using AI to write it. These accusations since led his agent to withdraw the novel and drop him. This Guardian article outlines the main sequence of events as they were known last week. Which is basically that a ton of agents and editors read the novel and loved it, until one editor decided to feed it into an ‘AI detector’. Goodbye multi million dollar book deal, on the say-so of a piece of tech that, by several accounts, has also accused the long dead Mary Shelley of using AI.

A theme of our present society seems to be the love of a good witch hunt, and at the moment it seems to be writers under the spotlight. If you dare to use an em-dash or grammar that is too correct, if you use well-known techniques such as the rule of three, then you must have used AI. Which, when you consider that AI has learned by being fed reams of published works, often stolen, of course it has our techniques down pat. AI has copied the writers, and yet now we can’t even write in the way we always have. AI has stolen our skills and left us unable to use them without risking accusation. Madness!

Luckily, I am too lazy to use em-dashes (or en-dashes). I rely on hyphens that hopefully some lovely copy-editor will fix for me later. When I have time to write, I’m just hammering out words, not looking to interrupt the flow by trying to remember how to insert correct symbols on my MacBook Air keypad. Might this be what saves me from the accusations? I don’t know what it was about Jerry Falade’s $2m dollar to zero novel that made someone sit up and feed it into a detector. Maybe nothing, as I fear that the industry is starting to go down the road of feeding in work on spec in order to save issues later on.

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My own literary agency came out this week to say that they’ve invested in Pangram, which I assume they will use on new submissions. I hope the sheer number of drafts I force my poor agent to read will be enough proof to her that my writing is my own! No need for her to request examples of my writing process. She has it all in her emails! But how terrifying. Having spent the past couple of years trying to stop tech companies from feeding our work into the AI beast illegally, now our own people are volunteering to do it.

Another terrifying development is that the past few big stories about authors and AI have uncovered an unwelcome trend: all the authors are of colour. This article was published today in The Bookseller and is an interesting read. Basically, the conclusion is that it’s too soon to tell what’s going on here. Falade himself has identified a couple of potential issues. One being that Black authors are being questioned more than white writers, something that does seem to fit with the anti-DEI narrative that’s being pushed ever harder these days. The other is that Black authors may draw from different storytelling traditions. If the AI detector has been taught based on traditional white narratives, perhaps it sees in Black stories something unusual.

One thing I do know is that I’d love to read Jerry Falade’s book and make up my own mind. Is it ‘genius’ as his former agent claimed, or full of ‘clunky prose’ as one editor said. Perhaps both! Sadly, it seems we might never know.

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July’s been a funny reading month for me. Whether it’s been the heat, the inevitable weirdness of starting a new job or just one of those things, I’ve not found it easy to get lost in a book this month. Having said that, I’ve still read a fair amount. Here are three novels that I read and enjoyed (mostly!).

Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid

What TJR always does impeccably is make you believe she’s done a ton of research without it feeling heavy on the page. Now, I have no idea about any of the science or engineering behind space travel so if she’s nailed it or not, I couldn’t tell you. However, I believed it and really in fiction that’s what matters most. Really, as the front cover declares, this is a love story anyway. Joan is one of the first women to be accepted onto NASA’s space shuttle programme in the early 80s. The new astronauts, a mix of men and women, scientists and pilots, form bonds amongst the competition of who will make it into space, and when. Joan finds herself drawn to pilot Vanessa but even when it turns out that Vanessa also has romantic feelings for Joan, things aren’t plain sailing. While everyone is happy to turn a blind eye to the heterosexual pairing within the group, going as far as to ignore a pregnancy so they don’t have to wreck someone’s dreams, the idea of a lesbian couple is too much. Joan has to choose: will she pursue her dream and go into space, or follow her heart? Once I got into this, it’s a real page turner. It’s very pacy, especially with a particularly dramatic event driving the narrative.

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Solace House - Will Maclean

I love a creepy house like nothing else. This novel is billed as The Secret History meets The Haunting of Hill House, which I would say does not help with expecations. Like many, TSH is one of my favourites of all time and this novel is not that. Where it’s not a total error of description is that you have a bunch of bored uni students living together in an abandoned mental health institution in order to clear it out in advance of its sale to the university. They drink too much, do drugs, try and sleep with each other and are generally toxic. Plus it’s set in the 1990s so you get some nostalgic references throughout. Things get weird when they’re asked to also start clearing out the house next door, part of the same estate, the titular Solace House. Flayne, the guy who lived there, was a compulsive hoarder and the place is a death trap of old papers and random stuff. When they come across his personal papers they discover that perhaps Solace House has a darker past than they realised. The vibe of this book is hot summer trippy, perhaps based on the amount of hallucinogenics these guys take in their search for what Flayne had been up to. I loved 80% of this book but I like a little more resolution to my novels. This one is a bit too much ‘choose your own interpretation’, which some readers will love. But for creepiness? 10 out of 10.

The Final Strife - Saara El-Arifi

This has been staring at me from the top of my TBR for years and it was finally time. I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy recently and this is a good option if you sort of like fantasy but don’t want dragons. In this world, the colour of your blood designates your place in society. Red blood makes you an Ember, the rulers of the empire. Blue bloods are Dusters, those who work in the mines or in the fields. Clear blood makes you a Ghosting, basically a slave whose tongue and hands were removed soon after birth as punishment for a long ago infraction. Every ten years the Embers choose four new disciples, four of their own who will spend the decade learning how to rule before stepping up to do so. Of course, the choosing is done via various trials which will whittle down the pool of candidates. Sylah lives as a Duster but has been keeping a huge secret: she has red blood. As a child, she was stolen from her Ember family and replaced with a Duster child. She has spent her life learning all the skills she would need in order to enter the trials and win her place as a disciple in order to take down the system from within. Of course, things don’t go to plan. It took me a while to get into this but once I had, I was totally in the world. The characters are well drawn and El-Arifi brings in lots of interesting points on differences, how we treat one another, and also how those with power use it to take away that of others.

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The photo above is how I imagine most authors feel around book publication time. Exhausted, wanting to curl up into a ball and sleep. Even if you’ve not physically had to do a lot, it can be a draining time. You don’t want to have too many expectations but you have to be doing something to help the book. What should you be doing? Are you doing enough? If the book doesn’t do well, is it your fault or the publisher’s?

Last night I went to a housewarming and got talking to a friend I haven’t seen in person in several years. Her first non-fiction book comes out next year and she’s just handed in the final version so now it’s time to panic about what happens when the book is out there. She asked me what she should expect from marketing (she’s with a Big 5 publisher) and what she needed to do. And I didn’t have a good answer because there isn’t, in my experience, one answer to her questions. Which is frustrating.

Partly this is because of the time it takes for a book to come out. Even more so with non-fiction, where you usually get offered a contract based on a few chapters and a proposal and then go off and write the rest. It can often be three or four years before agreeing a deal and the finished book being on bookstore shelves. Even for fiction, where often there is a completed manuscript before signing a contract, there will usually be at least a year to eighteen months before the book is published. Plans that were discussed with much enthusiasm before the ink was dry may have naturally had to move on by the time it comes to put them into action. For example, if you wrote a Greek feminist retelling at the end of that trend, you may have snuck in to get the book deal but by the time your book is coming out, the publisher can see that those readers are now mostly buying romantasy so they don’t want to spend big money on advertising a book that isn’t a guaranteed bestseller.

Publishing loves a sure thing. If you look around at the books getting posters at Tube and train stations, in newspapers, etc, they’re pretty much all ST or NYT bestselling authors. It’s easy to get a marketing budget signed off based on the high chances of a return on investment. I do know quite a few authors, traditionally published, who pay for their own Facebook or Amazon advertising, something that self-published authors have been doing for years. Anecdotally, this works to a certain extent, though so far I haven’t tried it myself. I do think there are tricks that traditionally published authors can learn about promoting their own books. It can be hard to weigh up spending personal money on these things, but for authors further down the food chain, it is an option if you can afford it.

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What I did tell my friend was to actually think about things from a personal perspective. Going into indie bookshops, speaking to local librarians. Word of mouth is still a fantastic way to sell books. A supportive bookseller can shift a heck of a lot of copies if they’re trusted within their community and are happy to place the book on a prominent table. I’m really pleased when I get invited back to places for events, libraries, festivals, bookshops, radio shows - not only does it mean that they must like you (who doesn’t love being liked!) but you hopefully will have a receptive audience of people who may have read your previous work.

For me, the jury’s out on social media. I used to be active on Twitter (RIP) but Instagram is a different beast. I’m too lazy to take good photos and spend an age putting reels together. I tend to post sporadically or just do Stories. A couple of years ago there seemed to be a rash of publishers offering contracts to BookTokkers who had millions of followers. The rationale seemed to be that if you can talk on video about someone else’s book then you can write a novel, and because you have so many followers, they’ll all buy that book. As far as I can see, results have been mixed.

Certainly, there’s no guarantee of a bestseller based on follower numbers. Also, the beauty of TikTok, which I appreciate because I don’t have to get involved with it, is that the bookselling success only works when it’s organic. Real readers talking about books they genuinely love. Yes, publishers do have a presence on there, but they can’t manipulate it. There’s something quite special about that, though if anyone on TikTok with a million plus followers wants a copy of my book to show their audience, just let me know!

All of this is to say, I don’t know what works in terms of selling your book, unless you’re on TV almost every day (Richard Osman, I’m looking at you). My only advice is to say yes to things if you can, to be nice to people, and to not be too tough on yourself if things don’t go the way you hope.

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The above photo is a metaphor for the constant maze that writers and other creatives are forced to navigate. This week’s soul destroying news is about what people are willing to pay for the hard work, skill and talent of others.

First, and most directly affecting writer income, several writers this week have posted the update that UK magazine Take a Break have decided that they won’t be paying their regular writers for the stories they publish. Instead, they’re just going to use AI - future stories will appear with the author ‘the fiction team’. Now, I’m not a contributor to this magazine and never have been, but a lot of writers rely on these small streams of regular income to keep their heads above water. Not only that, but are we truly accepting that AI can replace the creativity of humans? Thriller writer Nicola Martin did the research and actually read the stories from a recent issue and delivers her damning verdict here. Essentially, if you like stories that cover familiar storylines, with predictable outcomes and characters who stay two dimensional, perhaps you’ll enjoy them.

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It seems crazy to me that any publisher would turn to the mediocre, ‘done before’, even to save the small wages that human writers expect for their work. I get that you might think it’s safer to go the tried and tested route, but most of the big fiction bestselling books at the moment are anything but. Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear, has been an attention grabber because it’s not like anything else. It takes a current obsession and turns it into a speculative nightmare. Women’s Prize winning novel The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, is an epistolary novel, of the type that is hardly in fashion. And yet it’s sold millions worldwide. I cannot imagine that the people composing AI prompts have the imagination to even try to get it to create something new and interesting. If they did, surely they’d be struggling along like the rest of us, trying to write something original.

Part of the issue is the expectation of free content. Writing is just another form of content to a lot of people. I can blame Amazon for some of this. Why pay £7.99 or more for an e-book when you can wait and at some point it will be on offer at 99p. But it’s everything. AI is embedded in the art we look at online, at the photography. Part of my new job is finding good images to send out with holiday quotes - a stunning view out over a beach, or an iconic building, that sort of thing. We have a log on to one of the companies offering stock images and you have to actively tick a box to make sure that no AI images sneak in. Some of them are wild and very clearly not real, but sometimes it can be hard to tell. It’s so easy to steal a real image and play around with it, ‘creating’ a new one that might fool people.

On the topic of ‘free content’, anyone using Instagram may want to update their settings asap. Meta have this week launched a new AI image-generation feature that includes the function to use photos from any public Instagram accounts without having to seek permission. Essentially, unless you opt out, anyone at all can take your photos and content and do what they want with it. Plus you don’t even get notified so you won’t know if someone has taken one of your photos and done something malicious with it. You can turn this off by going to the Settings and activity tab on your account. If you scroll down a bit you'll see ‘Sharing and reuse’ in the section headed ‘How others can interact with you’. Clicking there, you’ll see there are various permissions to allow people to share your posts and stories (something that can be quite useful if you want your content to go wider in a controlled way). You probably want to turn off ‘Allow people to reuse your content on Instragram and with AI features at Meta’. Obviously, Meta aren’t spreading word of this widely in case everyone opts out, so feel free to share the news yourself!

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One of the perks of being published by Harper Collins in the UK is getting an invitation to their annual summer party. It’s held at the V&A in London, my favourite museum, and by some miracle, seeing as it’s held outside, the weather has been good for it each year I’ve attended (since 2019). As well as an open bar, canapés and the chance to meet up with writer friends, new and old, there’s often the chance to visit the main exhibition which this year is Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art. The exhibition is on until early November and I can highly recommend it.

The exhibition includes pieces from the 1920s up to the fashion house’s recent creations. I confess that the period I really love is the 1930s. Interesting clothes that look incredible but also wearable. Almost a century later, you could wear them out and people would just think you looked good (if you were tiny enough to fit into them - always the issue with high fashion!).

Schiaparelli, as you might expect, led a fascinating life. Born in Italy to aristocratic parents, she studied philosophy and wrote poetry. She married a theosophist who later left her after the birth of her daughter. She lived in Paris with no money and was forced to work, which set her on the path to her future career. She worked for Maison Lambal, a small Paris fashion house, for a year before going it alone and producing her first pieces in 1927. It’s said that she was inspired by Art Deco, the idea of classic and functional being stylish (probably why her pieces do appear so wearable still). In the way that tennis stars such as Naomi Osaka, with her custom made kimono-style design at Wimbledon this week, and Serena Williams often wear designer pieces to walk out on court in, in 1931 Lili de Alvarez work Schiaparelli’s split skirt to the All England club.

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When I was doing research for Miss Aldridge Regrets, one of my favourite parts was going to the British Library to pore over old fashion magazines and books. I did my shopping for Lena’s wardrobe, borrowed from her much more affluent friend Maggie, from these. I chose a black and white Schiaparelli gown for her to wear to dinner on one of her evenings on the Queen Mary. It seemed to me that the gown was perfect for Lena’s needs. To not only look stylish and eye-catching enough to pass as a future Broadway star, but practical enough to elbow off the various cads she encountered as well as running around a ship trying to solve a murder.

Maybe one day I’ll be in a position to treat myself to something from Maison Schiaparelli, though with tops and t-shirts from around £2000 and dresses from £8000 that day will be no time soon!

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It’s so hot in London that I can barely think over the noise of the fan that is currently wafting hot air around my living room. Luckily, I started a new part-time job this week so managed to spend three days of the heatwave in an air conditioned office. Today, Friday, is a writing day so once I’ve managed to finish writing this, I’ll take myself off to somewhere cooler to hopefully move a step closer to finishing this draft of my work in progress.

I haven’t mentioned books for a while, so here are three I loved reading over the past couple of months. I’m probably going to talk more about books on here in future - reading is my main pasttime after all!

Outside - Charlotte Levin

Publishing on 6th August (get your pre-order in now!), this is fantastic. If, like me, you love books that make you laugh as well as cry, this is for you.

Beatrice is an actor on the brink of stardom. Following a tragic accident and a betrayal, she finds that she can’t leave the house. Relying on her elderly Polish neighbour to take out the bins and her therapist who is terrified of Beatrice’s only other friend, a bad-mouthed parrot named Matisse, her world suddenly becomes very small and it seems that her longed for career is over. She can’t even go out into her own, now very overgrown, garden. But that changes when Irish gardener Finn knocks on her door one day. Hiring him, she finds that he’s a person she can connect with. Will love conquer all? You’ll have to read to find out, but Charlotte Levin’s novel never falls into cliché and at points is laugh out loud funny.

The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgson

I love Antonia Hodgson’s historical fiction and this is her first foray into adult fantasy. It took me ages to get around to reading this for some reason, though I was pretty certain I would love it, which I did.

In the empire of Orrun, a ruler has twenty-four years, after which they must hand over power to a successor. But the new ruler cannot be a family member. Instead, a contest is held with representatives from each of the monasteries, each linked to a different animal god (Fox, Ox, Bear, etc.). There are both challenges and duels to be faced, and the winner will become the leader of Orren. When one of the contenders is murdered, Neema Kraa, a spectacularly disliked scholar from the Raven monastery, is instructed to investigate and what seems on the surface to fit a fairly traditional fantasy format is elevated to something far more interesting. Hand in hand with the murder investigation, there is a politcal angle as various influential people, not just the contenders, vie for power. Neema also finds herself having to deal with Cain, a former love interest who is now fighting on behalf of the Foxes. There’s even a smidge of romance thanks to their lovers to enemies and maybe back again storyline, though thankfully there are none of the long-winded graphic sex scenes that you get in most romantasy novels these days. This is a great read and there is a sequel coming next year.

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Dungeon Crawler Carl - Matt Dinniman

Maybe not for everyone, but this novel (along with the rest of the series) is one of those ‘overnight succeses’ that’s actually been years in the making. This novel was self-published by Dinniman in 2020 and it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that Penguin stepped in and bought the rights to the series which has been a huge success. DCC has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for 24 weeks so far with millions of copies sold.

The premise is this: Carl is just a regular guy whose girlfriend has just dumped him and left him with her prize-winning show cat, Princess Donut. One cold night, said cat escapes through the window and when Carl goes outside to rescue her, the world ends. Every structure on Earth is suddenly flattened meaning that anyone who was inside at the time is dead. Aliens have come to strip the planet of resources but the lucky survivors have the option of entering the dungeon, essentially a reality TV show that will be televised across the universe. A bit like The Running Man crossed with Saw, but with a cat that can now talk thrown in. Carl and Donut have to try and survive while making allies and figuring out each level of the dungeon. It’s pretty violent at times, in keeping with the idea that most dungeon crawlers won’t survive, but with eight books so far and at least one more to come, it’s interesting to see how the story and characters develop over the series. There are some important themes as well, around othering and how we see others, on what it means to be human, and as well as being very funny at times, it’s sad when, inevitably, characters you’ve grown to love end up dying or have to make terrible decisions in order to survive.

Read any good books lately?

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It’s that time of year again, the few weeks of June/July where I somehow end up watching lots of sport on TV. This year there’s also the football World Cup to fill our screens and newspaper headlines. I wouldn’t describe myself as an avid watcher of sport for the most part. I find football matches boring for the most part, but during a World Cup it’s different. There’s drama, shock defeats (or wins, depending which team you support), gossip. The difference between a tournament and a sporting season is of course the truncated time span. How nice that everything can get wrapped up in a matter of weeks, not months!

A highlight of this time of year is Wimbledon. A fortnight of tennis which actually happens to take place about twenty minutes walk from my flat. In the good old days when you had to apply for Wimbledon tickets via the post, I managed to get tickets most years. It was a bit of a process - post them a stamped self-addressed envelope and they would then send you an application form that you filled out and then posted back. This was the era of Federer, Nadal, Murray, the Williams sisters, and I’ve seen them all play. Now it’s a lot easier to apply for Wimbledon tickets, and they are still very strict about how the ballot works to avoid ticket touts, but now that you can just fill out a quick online form, a lot more people apply I presume. The fun thing is that you can still go and queue to try and get in, or head along after work when ticket holders start to leave - they let people pass on their tickets when they go so while you won’t get on Centre Court to see a big star, you can often get in to sit on the hill and soak up the atmosphere. There’s no Alcaraz this year (my current favourite) but after the drama of this year’s French Open, who knows what might happen?

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While the chances of British success at Wimbledon are slim to none, for those who want to feel patriotic, there’s not just the football. The British Grand Prix is, as usual, on the first weekend of July. My brother goes every year with his girlfriend and their massive tent (literally bigger than some London flats). It costs a small fortune and you could go for a week all inclusive in a European beach resort for less, but Silverstone is something else. Not just motorsport but a festival vibe. With Lewis Hamilton having been the podium for the last two races, plus George Russell and current champion Lando Norris flying the flag, it should be a good one this year.

It’s the stories that bring me back to these sports. The drama! Watching Hamilton win his first grand prix in years last weekend, after months of speculation that he’s way too old/past his best/should step aside for the newer generation, was extra sweet. When he stood on a podium with two drivers whose combined ages were less than his, it not only proved that age is just a number but also showed just how idolised he is amongst these new drivers who were babies when Hamilton took his first GP win. In tennis, it’s about who can take on the big names. We want to see a shock defeat, an epic three or five set battle that goes on for hours, perhaps some drama where someone wears a slightly darker colour than the regulation tennis whites.

Outside of the sport itself, there are all the other factors that play a part. Will it rain during Wimbledon? Probably. How will Americans cope with the sudden influx of foreigners after spending the past couple of years trying to kick them all out? Most big sports like to make out that they’re apolitical, despite many being run by dubious characters, mostly men with millions in the bank, so it can often feel as though there’s a scandal somewhere waiting to be uncovered. Would I love England to win the World Cup? Sure. But I’d be just as happy with a final that has some red card drama and a penalty shoot-out.

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This week’s topic isn’t personal per se. I’m not dealing with any specific rejection of set back. But I did do a couple of bookish events this week, for Essex Book Festival and a lovely book club at Roehampton Library. In both sessions I got asked questions around the topic of tenacity, keeping going, getting over the rejections. Probably also prompted by the fact that I haven’t been shy about telling everyone how difficult my latest novel, The House of Fallen Sisters, was to write!

In addition to this, a few authors have been posting this week about their own writing trials, including Susan Stokes-Chapman sharing rejection emails from her first (unpublished) novel and Anna Bailey talking about the particular pain of shelving a novel at an advanced stage.

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Is it helpful to talk about these things? I think it is. As an aspiring writer, facing the query trenches for the first time, it helped to put my situation into perspective. No one wants to think about months and years of work going nowhere. But that is the truth of writing. So many scrapped drafts and chapters. Entire novels that, if you’re lucky, only a few people will read all the way through. How depressing! But on the flipside is the unparalleled joy of having a short story accepted for publication, signing with a literary agent who loves your work, meeting with an editorial team who’ve put together a whole powerpoint on why you should pick them to publish your novel. Okay, some days it feels like a thankless slog, but knowing that you’re not alone is a huge help.

They say that the only difference between a published writer and an unpublished writer is not giving up. To an extent that’s true. But you also have to be willing to accept criticism. The honest truth is that not everyone wants to. Your creative work is your own to a certain extent, but if you want it to be in the public domain then you have to think about… the public. Traditional publishing is a business, whether you’re considering one of the behemoths like Hachette or Harper Collins, or a small indie publisher. One of the hardest types of rejection to receive can be from the editor or literary agent who loves your novel but can’t see a place for it in the market. Spreadsheets and financial analysis is involved in every acquisition meeting. These rejections don’t mean that you can’t write, they just mean that the people who make the decisions don’t think that enough of the public will be grabbed by the premise.

So how do you know when to shelve a writing project? It completely depends on your aspirations. I have my own first novel in a drawer which I put there after around 50 rejections from literary agents. I gave up on that novel but it was a catalyst for writing my eventual debut, This Lovely City. My current agent was one of those ‘love it but can’t see a market for it’ rejections for the first novel. Thanks to that feedback, which included advice on the sorts of novels that were marketable, I knew to target my next novel at a story that I believed in and loved, but that should also be attractive to agents and publishers. However, plenty of writers have a particular story that’s important to them no matter the sales. For those writers the best option might therefore be to look at self-publishing, perhaps having copies printed for friends and family if it’s something personal or based around a family history.

Ah, writing. So much fun! Like all the creative industries, it’s subjective, frustrating but can also be incredibly rewarding (though probably not financially - sorry!). My best piece of advice is to try and find trusted readers who’ll give some honest critique of the work. After that, it’s up to you whether to listen or not!

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I have a new TV obsession that I don’t think enough people know about (possibly because it’s on Apple): Widow’s Bay. Think horror, with a liberal smattering of popular tropes of the genre, mixed with comedy. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does. Brilliantly. If you’re usually not a fan of scary stuff, this feels enough tongue in cheek that you’ll probably be fine with this.

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The setup is this. Matthew Rhys plays the increasingly stressed mayor of a small island community (it’s almost worth watching this just for his facial expressions). He has big plans for Widow’s Bay to become the new Martha’s Vineyard, and he’s desperate for tourism to take off. In fact, it seems crazy to him that it hasn’t already. He’s an outsider, not born on the island, but hasn’t really left since his son was born and his wife died. There’s a weird rumour that no one born on the island can leave. If they try, they’ll die. But that’s nonsense, probably, according to the mayor. He doesn’t believe in the curse that is said to afflict the island. Until strange things start to happen…

One of the early cultural references is Jaws. No big shark, but a mayor who is hellbent on bringing in tourists, even as strange things happen and the locals, one in particular (Wyck, played by the brilliant Stephen Root), do all they can to stymie his plans. There’s fog, a sea hag, the violent island history that includes the Boogeyman, a local serial killer who murdered several teenage girls a couple of decades earlier. All that good stuff. Kate O’Flynn plays Toms’s assistant Patricia who is already a fan favourite. Her ‘claim to fame’ is that she was supposed to be one of the Boogeyman’s final victims but saved herself by hiding under the bed. Is she telling the truth or is she, as her old schoolmates believe, just a fantasist who tried to gain attention by putting herself in the story?

You’ve got a haunted hotel, a strange self-help book, weird mushrooms that only grow on the island and might make you mad, the Boogeyman’s abandoned former house and a wealth of spooky island history. Paired with some hilarious lines (showrunner Katie Dippold also wrote on Parks and Rec), with only two episodes left I don’t know how this is going to end but I’m already hoping there’s enough material to make this a continuing series. I mean, doesn’t every good horror franchise have at least a couple of sequels?

If you’re in Essex, the Essex Book Festival started this week. Lots of fabulous writers will be speaking at events across the county. I’ll be speaking at Belhus Library, South Ockendon on Tuesday 9th June at 11am. You can get tickets here.

The photo above is a fairly accurate representation of the temperature of my flat on Tuesday. The UK is just coming to the end of a very hot week but the weather will turn back to grey with a touch of rain next week, and I may well start to miss the intense sauna like atmosphere. Probably not. But just in case I’ve picked out a few books that I can reread if I want to imagine I’m sitting under a Mediterranean sun, preferably by the beach.

Heatwave -Victor Jestin

I’ve written about this novella before but it definitely sticks in the memory. If you like books about nice people, this isn’t for you. Seventeen-year-old Leonard is ‘that guy’, the outsider who makes everyone feel a little uneasy. At the start of the book, Leonard is on a camping trip in the south of France with his family. It’s August, it’s hot, and loner Leonard can’t sleep one night so he goes for a walk. He happens to see an accident happening but, rather than helping and probably saving a life, he just watches to the end and then buries the body. The next day happens to be the hottest in almost two decades and the story basically follows Leonard around the campsite as he starts to unravel. Unsettling and, for anyone who has memories of trying to sleep under red hot canvas, increasingly uncomfortable.

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Villa America - Liza Klaussmann

Again in the south of France but with very different vibes, this is a fictional version of some very real people. Sara and Gerald Murphy were friends of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald amongst other luminaries of the jazz age. American, they moved to Cap d’Antibes in the 1920s and bought the house that they named Villa America. This is very much a novel rather than a loyal biographical recreation, but all the more entertaining for it (in my opinion). Expect the odd cameo (Hemingway, anyone?), lots of drinking and debauchery and hijinks.

Hot Milk - Deborah Levy

And so to Spain! This is a difficult mother-daughter relationship so if you enjoy those types of novels, this is for you. Sofia has taken her mother Rose to a village on the Spanish coast. Her mother is suffering from an unidentifiable illness and there is a clinic nearby that she hopes will be able to help. Like Heatwave, this is very much a novel about atmosphere and complex characters (rather than likeable). I remember a lot about how I felt while reading this, and not that much about what actually happened. In that way, it emulates the way I felt a couple of days ago when I felt my brain had melted and all I could do was try to exist without trying too hard!

Anyway, these are my choices. If you have any good suggestions for other novels set in the heat, leave them in the comments!

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Sometimes you have to take a risk, right? This is what I'm telling myself during my last week of official full-time employment. A proper job that paid me a salary. From next week, things become more uncertain. If it all goes the way I hope, I’ll hopefully end up in a better situation. But so much is outside of my control…

The reason I’m leaving my job is that the role is being made redundant. There was an option to apply for a new job that I just didn’t find interesting. Financial security vs. spending 40 hours a week doing something I hate. I want to say that it was a tough decision but it wasn’t. Have I made a terrible mistake? I’ll find out soon enough.

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My main reasoning was that there are jobs out there that I’d love to do alongside my writing. I had hoped that this one fit that category and for a while it did. Some paths run their course. It can often feel safer to stay where you are and this decision sort of forced my hand. I’ve applied for a job that literally could have been designed around what I want to do. I may not get it, but it’s proof that there are other, better options.

Writing is a precarious profession. What I’ve learned over the years is that anything that puts my life out of kilter seriously affects my ability to write. Stress, money worries, etc. all stop me from writing productively. I will need to get a new job sooner rather than later, but I also have a book to finish. A few weeks off will allow me to finish this current draft and see if my agent thinks it’s anywhere near being ready to send out on submission.

Every day is an exercise in convincing myself that I haven’t done something insanely stupid. I have savings. The weather next week is going to be glorious, which I’ve taken as the universe’s sign that I was supposed to be off work! I know that I have good skills and qualifications and there are a lot of jobs out there that I could do. I could spend a couple of weeks binge watching everything on the streamers before cancelling all the subscriptions I waste so much money on. I should probably do that anyway.

Anyway, I have one interview lined up (for the dream job) so fingers crossed. I’ll keep checking up on what’s out there - I reckon I have a few weeks of quiet bliss in which to finish my novel before I have to start panic applying. Wish me luck!

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Looking at the weather report for London this weekend, it seems a good opportunity to stay in a read a good book. Or two. This week I acquired a couple of ideal candidates. One, a guide to creative writing by my own former creative writing tutor, Julia Bell, the other a memoir and literary detective story by Cathy Rentzenbrink, a brilliant writer and overall excellent bookish person.

Between the Lines: Life Lessons from the Creative Writing Workshop

Julia Bell is a Professor of New Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, where I studied for my Creative Writing degree. Published last week, I was privileged to attend Julia’s book launch where she did a short reading from the book. After almost thirty years of teaching, she’s now written this guide to creative writing. Drawing on her classroom experience, the book features a series of stories from Julia’s classrooms over the year. Her examples are based in reality but tweaked so that each tale is not based precisely on any one student. Rather, she has taken the lesson learned and worked out a new way to illustrate it. The book is full of advice for writers, including a focus on paying attention and slowing down. In the modern world where we’re all glued to our smartphones even more so than when I was studying for my master’s degree a decade ago, it’s a good reminder if nothing else. Talking to other writers at the launch, we reminisced on those classroom days and the freedom they gave us to try stuff out without worrying about the stakes: deadlines, contracts, editor expectations. As I work my way through the third draft of my work in progress, I’m finding this book a good reminder of why I write and how much I enjoy it (most of the time!).

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The Agatha Christie Cure: What Reading the Queen of Crime Taught Me About Life

You can pre-order this now ahead of its publication in September but until then I will be smug in my ownership of an advanced proof copy. I think that any fans of Queen Agatha will love the idea of this book. My high school library had a great selection of Christie novels and I spent most of Year 7 working my way through it so I can say, like Cathy, that she was a childhood heroine of mine. This book is partly a memoir of Cathys’s own recent crisis, but also a dive into Christie’s life, in particular the breakdown of her marriage, those infamous days when she went missing, and her following reinvention. Even if you’ve not read much Christie at all (or any), her personal story is as interesting as her novels. Plus you can use Cathy’s recommendations on which novels Agatha Christie books to start your reading journey with.

I love books about both reading and writing. If you have any recommendations, leave them in the comments!

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Sometimes (usually?) it’s worthwhile taking your time to do something properly. Okay, you might have a deadline which becomes more important, or if it’s an easy task you don’t need to think much about. But when it comes to art, to writing or creating something that you hope will be as pleasing to others as it is to you, what’s the rush?

On Wednesday evening I went with friends to see the incomparable Rosalía at the O2 in London, on the second night of a show that felt considerably fuller - sold out, in fact - than the last time I saw her perform a few years back. For the Motomami tour, the crowd was generally younger and mostly Spanish. This time around, it was very mixed with plenty of grey hair on show and a mix of nationalities. She also came with the incredible Heritage Orchestra and even though she’s never put on a bad show, this felt huge. A real event that you felt privileged to be a part of.

When this album, Lux, was released, Rosalía gave a series of interviews with magazine and newspapers, talking about the process of writing in 14 languages and her unorthodox method of spending a year just writing lyrics, with no music. In the streaming age it seems unusual, when artists seem to drop new music willy-nilly, sometimes at an insane pace. This feels like a move back to a proper album, especially when you consider that four of the album tracks were only very recently made available via streaming so if you wanted to listen to them before April you had to buy a physical copy. This was supposed to be an album you paid attention to and spent time with. Not hitting shuffle and getting a strange mega mix but hearing the music the way you were supposed to.

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This approach makes me think about how we approach writing. I suppose it depends on what our expectations are for the works we create. In genre fiction, the demand can often be a book a year. If you’re writing a fast paced thriller, a tight three hundred page novel where the page-turning plot is what matters most, it can be very achievable. By far my quickest novel to write was Harlem After Midnight because, being a sequel, I already knew most of the main characters inside out and I knew who my murder victim was. All I had to do was keep writing and work out who did it as I went along! But if you’re writing something more complicated, with a more high concept storyline (aka what I’m writing now), it can be trickier.

I’m currently working on the third draft of my work in progress (and yes, there will be more to come after that, I’m sure!) and for now I’m still loving the premise. To keep things interesting for myself (this is a joke) I’ve changed the point of view and also the tense in each draft until finally this draft feels like it’s clicking into place. If I ever get a contract for this novel I’ll write a post about why I’ve made these choices, but as of yet there’s no guarantee of success! It seems like a long winded process and it’s now years since I wrote the first line of something that now is a long way from what I’m writing but was a necessary step into getting here.

There is no race to get this finished because if I rush it won’t be the novel that I want it to be. And this, I suppose, is something that I was reminded of while watching Rosalía perform her triumphant show this week. Taking the time to do something the way you want it to be done, ignoring outside pressure and also the demands we make on ourselves to finish something earlier, is vital. Sometimes we think that if we could just get our work in front of someone, if we strike while the iron is hot (for those writing something that seems popular right now) then it won’t matter that it’s not quite as polished as we want it to be. By all means, take advice. Find readers to tell you what needs work. But I, as much as anyone else, need to be reminded sometimes that the process is there for a reason and it will take a long as it takes.

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I’m writing this from my hotel room in Madrid. May 1st is a holiday here so lots of things will be closed (unlike the UK this includes places like most supermarkets, museums, etc - the Spanish take their time off seriously!). It’s actually quite freeing. A day when I don’t have to be a ‘good tourist’ and go off seeing things. My only plan is to take a book and head out on a walk and see where I end up.

Being away from home can feel a little like stepping outside of your day-to-day. That’s pretty much the purpose of a holiday I suppose, and I’ve felt very lucky to have had this planned, just at a time when I needed a break. This has been a trip of two halves. Last weekend I was in Barcelona on a city break with family. We did all the usual stuff, visiting the Gaudi houses on Passeig de Gracia, taking the funicular up to Montjuic and sitting outside restaurants in the sun. We had tapas on the beach and braved the hordes at the Sagrada Familia (actually more impressive in real life than in photos). The staff at our hotel (Petit Palace Trencadis) were amazing and we talked my parents into queuing outside a restaurant for the first time in their lives (for a local neighbourhood restaurant with good food and great value prices - it was worth it!).

Saying goodbye to Barcelona, I headed to Madrid alone by train on Wednesday. I confess to being a lover of train journeys. Watching the countryside whizz past is so much more enjoyable than seeing the inside of an airport. Also, I boarded a train that started its day in Marseille, which felt very continental. Announcements were in Spanish, French and English, everything ran on time, and it was all very civilised. The wifi was, of course, useless, but you can’t have everything.

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So here I am, back in Madrid. My main reason for coming is to take a dance course here in the north of the city, enough out of the centre that I can afford a quite fancy hotel with a swimming pool. The course starts tomorrow so I had a brief sightseeing window yesterday, when I finally got to the Reina Sofia museum to see Picasso’s Guernica, though like with most of these famous paintings, I’m not sure you get to fully appreciate them in a crowded room full of fellow tourists, everyone trying to find that non-existent photo angle that will fit in the full paining, avoid glare from the lights and not include sections of other people’s heads.

Another box ticked was that I also got to Desperate Literature, an international bookshop where you can buy books in English, Spanish and French plus a few other languages. They also have some rare books if you have a few hundred (or thousand) euro to spare. For writers, give them a follow on Instagram. Their short story prize has just closed for this year (judges: Claire-Louise Bennett, Ottessa Moshfegh and Joanna Walsh) but check it out in advance of next year. I bought a copy of Octavia Butler’s Fledgling and they stamped it for me, which made me ridiculously happy!

On that note, I’m off to walk in the sunshine and find somewhere to read and have a coffee. Enjoy the holiday weekend!

It’s been a while since I did any reading recommendations but trust me, I am as voracious a reader as ever! I’ve been sent some fantastic historical fiction recently, and these are three coming out over the next few months that I think are particularly worth shouting about.

Havisham - Elle Machray - out 7 May

Even if you’ve never read Great Expectations, you’ll surely know the story of Miss Havisham, the woman jilted on her wedding day who never got over it. I’ve never been a particular fan of Dickens’ women (his great mate Wilkie Collins was much better at writing female characters) but Miss Havisham’s story always felt particularly vicious to me. This novel seeks to put right the caricature of the bitter woman and reveal the injustice of what was done to Charlotte Havisham. I love a revenge tale but this is something more. Rather than a lonely figure, we discover the friends she had before she put them aside for the rogue Compeyson. It’s a story of rediscovery in a way, as she remembers why she was a great businesswoman (far more astute than the men who have almost ruined her family business) and finds new love. It’s a very compelling read, finally turning Miss Havisham into a more three dimensional character.

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Feast - Catherine Kurtz - out 4 June

Feast is the story of Minha, a young woman who’s grown up never fitting in. Her father was a sailor from India who left London just after she was born. The only person who showed her much attention was her French grandfather, who taught her the language, and so she ends up stowing away to France in an effort to forge a new life for herself. Of course, poverty in nineteenth century France isn’t any better than in England, but Minha strikes lucky. Her exceptional palate leads her to save the life of a local duke and she is appointed his official poison-taster. As you might imagine, her suddenly elevated position doesn’t go down well with the other staff in the duke’s palatial mansion. If you love food, the descriptions in this novel will be right up your street. It has gothic fairytale vibes as well which I loved.

The Scandalous Ladies Football Club - Frances Quinn - out 2 July

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love Frances Quinn’s novels. They’re proper historical fiction with heart and real characters that you root for. Yes, this is a novel about a football team, but if you’re not into football you don’t need to worry. Really it’s a tale of friendship but, as with all of Frances’ books, it also shines a light on the issues that women faced not all that long ago. Minnie Newton is the school teacher who sets up the football team at the heart of the novel, and all sorts of women turn up, all seeking something more than the lives they’ve been told they should want. They all have their own small (or big!) secrets, things they’re hiding from each other or from husbands or fathers. When you think that full professionalism of women’s football is less than ten years old, you see what trailblazers the early players were. But more than football, it’s the stories that these women have that kept me glued to the page. Also, who doesn’t love that arrogant man who thinks he knows it all being put in his place, and there are a few here…

All three novels are available to pre-order now!

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The finish line. The light at the end of the tunnel. Thank God it’s almost done.

Yes, I am coming to the end of a draft of my new novel. Just a couple of chapters to go - easily doable by the end of the weekend. Next week I’ll have time to tidy my flat, go to the gym and do basic chores that I’ve been ignoring for the past couple of weeks as I’ve immersed myself in the book and powered on to the end. Is the novel finished? No. This is just a draft, and only the second full draft. I’m a drafter not a planner, so i often take 6-8 drafts before the novel that you will hopefully read some day (this novel isn’t under contract so it’s still very much a hypothetical at this stage).

The second draft is, for me, very much about ripping up the first one and starting again. My first drafts are messy, wild things. I take all my initial ideas and throw them into the manuscript to see what sticks. I’m still finding out who the characters are. Often I have an idea about themes that might be interesting to include but as I write, those things become less important and something else emerges. This draft has been about leaning into what worked in the first draft (with some help from my agent who sent me invaluable notes after reading) and pushing some of the more interesting aspects a bit harder.

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Finishing the draft will be a relief. An excuse to take at least a week off. I know it’s not perfect though. This draft is on the short side (for me) because I’ve focused on getting the story right. I need to layer in more background details, develop minor characters who decided late on that they wanted a more starring role (meaning that the light touch I gave on their initial scenes now doesn’t cut it). In my opinion, this draft is loads better than the first so I will have a slightly anxious wait while my agent reads, hoping that she agrees!

The good thing is that I still love the story. This draft has been a lot of fun to write and on miserable winter days it was nice to escape to southern Spain and write scenes on the beach or a tense conversation over vermouth at a bar overlooking the sea. I’m already planning my research for the next draft and thinking of ways to layer in more historical detail. I haven’t yet felt the frustration that can come after several drafts, when things aren’t coming together and I can’t see a way out. I will of course not jinx myself by saying that those things aren’t in my near future - I know how quickly a novel can turn on you!

Enjoy your weekend and know that at some point I will be hitting the Send button on an email to my agent and looking forward to a week off!

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One of my favourite weekends of the year is upon us: the Easter bank holiday weekend. The glorious four days that, if you work an office job in the UK, you hopefully have off. Four days to do whatever I want with. It’s a particular luxury for me because for many years working as a travel agent I was expected to work part or all of it.

Working bank holidays, Sundays, the days that most people have off, was something I got used to. Any retail worker - of which the travel agent can be counted - will be. And for a long time I didn’t mind it. Weekends were often lucrative, a time when a couple or even an entire family could come in and spend a couple of hours planning a big trip and hopefully put down a deposit. The upside was always a day off in the week. A day when I could go to the cinema or a matinee of a play when it was quiet. Or get an appointment at the hairdressers when it was less crowded. For the two years that I studied for my Masters in Creative Writing I agreed to work every Saturday during term time so that I could have a day off in the week to go to class but also to focus on writing. Even though I was still working full-time, that day felt like gifted time.

The opposite of that was the five or so years when I could afford to write full-time. Then my time was purely my own. I could take time off whenever I wanted. Weekends and bank holidays didn’t have the same meaning, other than remembering that the shops were open reduced hours, or that transport might be busier or quieter than normal. It was a real luxury but, in the same way that I would miss Britain’s four seasons (even winter!) if I ever moved away, I missed that appreciation that I’d had for the humble day off.

But now I have a four day weekend. It’s been a tough time at the day job recently, with much change taking place and more to come. Combined with trying to finish writing a novel that I know could be amazing, if only I can stick the landing. I have four days ahead of peace. No plans but to write, which to some may sound like I’m working all weekend but honestly, I’m thrilled to have the time. I have tickets for the cinema booked (to see Project Hail Mary, if you’re interested) but other than that, a glaring self-imposed deadline and a manuscript that’s calling out for a thrilling denouement, I have nothing to do. As if to help me out, my ancient Sky HD box seems to have given up the ghost so there’ll be less TV related distractions… Ah, well.

Happy Easter to anyone celebrating and a fantastic weekend to you all.