Sorting out your Romans from your Visigoths, Carolingians et al.

Doing a bit of research into the post-Roman world, I came across Chris Wickham’s The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000. It’s brilliant!

From the first page, I was enthralled. Now, I’m a self-confessed Roman nut and intrigued by that mysterious time in Europe after the mid-400s AD until the […]

My first RNA lunch

As a brand new member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, I’m keen to take part in as many events as possible this year. I’d enjoyed myself (and learnt a lot) at the January and March meetings and had been impressed and touched by the very warm welcome given to not-yet-published ‘newbies’.

I was therefore looking […]

Synopsis done!

No novel writer likes doing the synopsis, a tool for planning and marketing their work. When you’ve written 100,000 words of carefully crafted prose, it’s a bit of a sweat to distil it down to a couple of pages. But it does concentrate the mind…

From the advice I’ve been given or read, the essentials […]

A good paranormal romantic thriller

I’ve just read Jayne Ann Krentz’s Sizzle and Burn which I found on the local library shelves by accident.

The female protagonist, Raine, is cut in a different mould to many other heroines – she’s tall, intelligent and independent, but her character avoids suffering from ‘goodgirlitis’. Love interest Zack Jones is tough, sel-assured and […]

RNA meeting today

The Romantic Novelists’ Association had its spring meeting today and speaker Adèle Geras gave a witty and down to earth account of how she got into being a published author. Apart from over 95 children’s books, she has produced four novels for adults, including Facing the Light.

Tea and biscuits afterwards, plus excellent conversation, networking […]