Blog

The idea for The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up came to me gradually, a bit like Shelley’s memories in the novel. At first, I just knew it was going to take place in a hospital and involve a friendship between a patient and a volunteer. I worked the plot out bit by...

In Summer Wedding at the Second Chance Sweet Shop, Jamie and Fin are preparing for their big day, but as we have learned to expect in Holly’s world, things never go off without a hitch. (See what I did there?) As such, I thought it might be fun to share one of my own...

When Harald Hardrada arrived in Constantinople to enlist in the Varangian guard, he would have expected to find the new emperor, Michael IV, in charge. What he found instead was Michael was in a state of near open war with his wife, the empress Zoe, who had also been...

Today is publication day for Finding Friends at the Cornish Country Hospital. This story features Esther, who is recovering from the heartbreak of a broken engagement, and her mother, Caroline, whose own life seems to be unravelling too. Caroline has always felt...

Inspiration for A Fresh Start at Wagging Tails Dogs’ Home I began thinking about writing a series about life at an animal rescue centre a few years ago and then my younger sister and her partner began volunteering at Wellidogs (Wellingborough Dog Welfare) and after...

I’ll Be There For You When we first moved to France in 2009, it was a bit of a leap into the dark. Looking back, I wonder how we managed to pluck up the courage to move hundreds of miles away from everything we knew, to a country whose language we barely spoke and to...

A Good Enough Mother is out today! Get your copy here 🧡 One of the questions I’m most often asked about my writing, is why I’ve changed genres. Well, to be fair, I’ve done it more than once! I started my career as a novelist by writing ‘chick lit’. It was very popular...

In the UK, there are around 7 million – one in every ten people – who are unpaid carers, although it’s believed that three in five people will take on this role at some point in their lives. How many of these are young carers – those under eighteen with caring...

Inspired by the real Ambassadors Plot of 1918, in Murder in Moscow, Fiona and Kitty become embroiled in a plot to assassinate Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. The Ambassador Plot was spearheaded by British ambassador Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart along with super spy...