Blog

Book number 14 in the Armstrong and Oscar cozy mystery series is set in Florence's famous Duomo. This amazing medieval masterpiece (real name: the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore) with its unmistakable dome has been rightly designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site....

As an eager fan of war and spy films and books, I drew on my memories of all the spies I have watched and read about over the years, while using my imagination for this book. Most spies worked in enemy territory like those brave men and women who were recruited during...

I hate having my picture taken. As soon as the lens finds me, I freeze. I’m not part of the selfie generation. I’m old school. I don’t document my every move with photographic evidence of me having the best time, living my best life, my face angled just so to catch...

One major theme in Fury is the fact that all the MacGregor siblings are named after the Earp family. This was inspired by the excellent Netflix docudrama Wyatt Earp and The Cowboy War, which I highly recommend. I was mulling over Fury before writing it when I watched...

Ever wondered where the initial planning, thinking, and formation of an idea for a book comes from? Well Tom Bale has shared some notes from some early planning alongside a note about how the inspiration for his brand new book Deadly Games came about! Keep reading...

Things you don’t have to do this Christmas   We all love Christmas - but of course it’s stressful. The clue is in the fact that it has a countdown. The only other countdown events are weddings, and the apocalypse.    When we were fully in the throes of...

You know you need a break when…    Christmas really is my favourite time of year. But sometimes it gets a bit... too much, you know? So much prep on top of keeping normal life jogging along. I’m normally finishing writing a book before my adult kids all pile back...

My inspiration for writing, Stolen The inspiration for my new novel, Stolen, came from ideas centred around the increasing level of disturbing behaviour teenage girls face in our society. Their everyday lives seem harder to navigate than when I was that age.   Jess is...

Dive into The Bridge Between Friends, a powerful and unputdownable WWII historical novel! The Compass Usually, I start a book by trying to find the story, but in the case of The Bridge Between Friends, the story found me. A few years ago, I was window shopping at...