How to get through the fog of 2022 into 2023

Let’s face it – 2022 has been a weird year.

Coming out of the strict Covid regulations and try to recover a ‘normal’ (ha-ha!) book life, I planned a busy year. And so it turned out:

On 3 January, I published my husband’s fantastic book File of Facts about using personal organisers. (He is […]

Books I've read in 2022

As in 2021, reading books has given me enormous pleasure. This year, I published a historical fiction story, JULIA PRIMA, set in AD 370, the first foundation story to my Roma Nova thriller series, but in this post I’m writing as a reader.

This is not a beauty contest or a selection. The list […]

Helen Hollick: How NOT to fall into the pitfalls of writing an (unintended) series

I’m delighted to welcome Helen Hollick back to the blog to celebrate the release of the latest Captain Jesamiah Acorne adventure. And what breath-robbing story it is! More later… 😉

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow […]

Embarrassed of Roma Nova catch-up

When I checked when I’d written my last post, I was horrified out of my socks. May! And it was a feature about my esteemed writing friend Jane Davis’s beautiful new book, Small Eden. It’s achingly well written – I will never be able to write such clever and evocative prose.

Since then, radio silence […]

London Book Fair 2022

Like many events during the Covid pandemic, the London Book Fair was cancelled for 2020 and 2021. But in line with the general feeling in the UK that the Covid threat was diminishing, the organisers decided to go ahead with the famous publishing-fest.

Although I whipped it off for the photos, my FFP2 mask […]