Hello people. I am back from another year at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and I can honestly say it was the best yet. My seventh time! 

I recently finished my 13th novel and, as I write this, it is currently with my agent for her verdict (cue much email-refreshing and chewing of nails on my part).

Most of my author friends are, like me, traditionally published, and one theme that comes up again and again in conversation is frustration. And a sense that we don’t have control over our careers.

I was tidying up my Google Drive recently and I found this post! I originally wrote it as a guest post for someone else’s blog but I had a great Q&A session with my Debut Author group last week and a lot of these topics came up… so I thought it was worth a repost here!

I want to start this article off by saying that if you have been offered a traditional publishing deal for your book, then this is a MASSIVE DEAL.

Happy new year to you and welcome to 2026! I have just turned 45, which feels like a weird milestone. I turned 40 during covid so it was a bit of a non-event, but 45 really does feel… well, grown-up.

My new suspense novel, Connie, is coming out in January - in just under two months’ time! 

I haven’t done an ‘honest thoughts’ post in a while, but this topic has been niggling at me lately, so today’s the day! Let’s talk about publicity.

Hello! We are already more than half way through the year, so I thought I’d do a little behind-the-scenes update this week (also, it’s the summer holidays, and nobody really wants to read another post about SEO - right?!)