Great God! This is an awful place
Think of this: a place where each night lasts for months and so does each day. The mean annual temperature is −57 °C. It’s a place where money isn’t important because there’s nothing to buy. There are no children or old people or land mammals and only one species of insect. There are no trees […]
Merry Christmas, one and all!
Do you enjoy crime fiction? If so, do you subscribe to the Crime Readers’ Association? If not, I’m sure you’d find it worth your while – and it is free. The CRA is the readers’ arm of the Crime Writers’ Association (of which, by the way, I am once again Membership Secretary). Subscribers receive a bi-monthly […]
Coffee and Crime: a splendid idea
Kate Jackson, a fellow crime fiction aficionado, who blogs at https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress.com, has started a splendid new venture, Coffee and Crime, a book box subscription service that you can receive as a one-off or monthly. Each box contains two surprise vintage mystery novels, related goodies, such as notebooks, tote bags, coasters, a sachet of coffee, and […]
The book I wish I had written (and the one I did write)
It’s always a thrill when publication day arrives. All the hard work and waiting is over and here at last is the book! Plans for a launch are in progress, but meanwhile, I’m a guest today on Sue Hepworth’s splendid blog, Fragments from a Writer’s Life, and you can go to http://SueHepworth.com to hear about what […]
Listen to me read ‘Roller-coaster Ride’
When Janet Hutchings, the editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, asked if I would read one of my stories to be recorded as a pod cast for their web-site, I was very happy to oblige. ‘Roller-coaster Ride’ was the story we agreed on, and it’s one that’s close to my heart. It was inspired by […]
Crossing-blogging with Moira: Shadows on the Rock
I flew into Québec on the 15th October, and by coincidence that is the same month that Willa Cather’s novel. Shadows on the Rock, opens. ‘One afternoon late in October 1697, Euclide Auclair, the philosopher apothecary of Quebec, stood on the top of Cap Diamant gazing down the broad, empty river far beneath him. Empty, because […]
Where do you get your ideas?
This can be a difficult question to answer. But in the case of my short story, ‘Accounting for Murder,’ which appears in the new CWA anthology, Mystery Tour, edited by Martin Edwards, I know exactly where I got the idea. About eight years my husband and I bought a small, derelict house in Northern France. […]
. . . you’re in for a bumpy ride
I went to Québec because I love Willa Cather’s novel, Shadows on the Rock, which is set there. (There are worse reasons). When I decided to go to this year’s Bouchercon, which was held in Toronto, the opportunity to go onto Québec for a few days was too good an opportunity to miss. Naturally I took […]
Best thing since sliced bread?
It’s that time again in the publishing cycle: the time when I have to bend my mind to promoting my new novel. Cold Cold Heart comes out in the UK in November and in the USA in January 2018. It is always a thrill and a privilege to have a book published. But as for the […]