Latest News

Best laid plans... So, I was supposed to be in Amsterdam this weekend to promote the launch of the Dutch edition of the book -- DE LEGENDE VAN DE KAPERS -- but have been struck down by a vile bug which has left me deaf as a post and in danger of bursting my eardrums if I fly. I am immensely disappointed not to be there: my Dutch publishers are lovely and their reinvention of the book, with a smart classical painting on the jacket, is intriguing. I was looking forward to seeing the book in situ, as I did in France and doing my bit to support their enthusiastic launch. It is always a great buzz seeing copies of your book in foreign book shops and supermarkets (I unexpectedly stumbled on LE RAPT DE PENZANCE, the French edition, in a Carrefour in the NE suburbs while shopping for dinner with Abdel and his brother Sadik and wife Ouarda): it really brings it home that your work has gone out into the world and is living its own life, going out and chatting up readers, even taking them home without your knowledge or permission. It's pouring down with rain here in Cornwall and my smart author-promoting-her-book clothes are sitting sullenly in the wardrobe with nowhere to go: I am reduced to watching NCIS on TV with the volume turned up to deaf-pensioner loud. Ah, it's a glamorous life being an author...