A grey day, but still beautiful

I loved seeing the little boats back out on the water because it means that spring’s coming, no matter what it may look and feel like.

It was a chance to think and plot and scheme and plan, because my head is buzzing with new ideas for Lucy and Amy and the Shadows and Windy Bay. I’ve been asking if there are any questions anyone would like answered, and one of them was how I write, so here it is. I do most of the work in my head, and then write the story that’s based around characters. My goal is real people in… well, I was going to call them unreal situations, except that I’m an avid newspaper reader, and that’s where I get the beginnings of most of my plots from. I also love watching and talking to people and exploring places.

So here’s another grey picture of a beautiful place before I go on to the book promotions, which are 99p in the UK and 99c in the US. Thanks for the feedback that you like it effectively split into two sections and the book synopses being included. I always love hearing from you…

The evil that men do

King Charles is being crowned, and the beautiful Dorset stately home, craft centre and farm activity centre at Swansmere are planning to celebrate with giant TV screens, activities for the children, a street food fair with food from every Commonwealth country and fireworks in the evening. That makes it a bad time for someone to start leaving nasty fake reviews that seem to be aimed at hurting Lady Fenton and worse is to come when Lord Fenton's dog is poisoned.

Craft-loving amateur detective Amy, and her husband, the nothing like as retired as he wants to be spy Brigadier Peter Cunningham are determined to find whoever's responsible, but they don’t expect their investigations to lead them to a tangled mix of student extremism and an attempt to sabotage the Coronation. Can they and Peter’s protégées, Colin and Becky combine disrupting their plans without anyone ever knowing anything’s happened with organising the youngsters’ wedding?

Can Amy’s boss and friend, Lady Fenton, forgive herself for what happened with her second husband? And how will Swansmere cope if it rains on Coronation day just as it has for every other Coronation over the last hundred and fifty years?

Death by Misadventure

Peter  Cunningham’s goddaughter needs his help when her mother is murdered at beautiful Corfe Castle. Her bomb disposal officer father died before she was born, and he’s been in loco parentis ever since, but his wife and partner in crime solving, Amy Hammond, isn’t surprised that she hasn’t realised how close they are before because they’re both quiet, reserved, secretive people.

Can Amy and Peter work with old and new friends to solve an old murder as well as a new one and protect the fragile peace process in Northern Ireland? Will their old friends Becky and Colin have the beautiful wedding at Swansmere that they both deserve before they move into new roles? And what will happen to a conspiracy theorist who’s just realised that the Deep State isn’t what he thought it was?

Crazy for Death

A crazy quilt and a woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s led Amy Hammond and her husband's latest protégée, journalist and conspiracy theorist Bob Reid to a new place and a new sort of trouble. The woman is convinced that the quilt holds the story of a long-ago murder that was covered up, and when Amy finds her body on the beach by Poole Harbour, it’s up to her, and her husband, the nothing like as he claims he wants to be former spy Brigadier Peter Cunningham, to unravel a mystery that has disturbing links to the present.

New team member Royal Marine Commando Major Luke Grant brings his specialist expertise to the investigation, and Peter’s goddaughter Stacy brings her sewing abilities and a determination that no one else should have to die in the way that her mother was murdered.

Amy and Peter are off home territory this time, and they can’t be sure that one murder has been committed, let alone two or three, so can they unravel the past and discover whether there are clues in the embroidered quilt before there are any more deaths?

The Sword and The Stone - writing as Eleanor Neville

Christians Cross is a beautiful old-fashioned Dorset village that still has a shop cum post office that has everything you need as long as the owner likes you, a delicatessen cum butchers, a pub with brilliant local foo,  a well-attended church and a thriving school. You won't find it on any maps or google earth because that's how its high proportion of paranormal residents like it and they long ago cast a spell that makes the locals take anything odd for granted. That's very necessary because the village was built on a transition point between universes and hell where magic builds up and very strange things are normal.

Virtuous vampire, writer and occasional Private Investigator  Kit Conway, the werecat Grail Knight Handsome (also known as ex-cop  Phil Jones when he’s in human form) and the rest of the unlikely group of unwilling heroes are in trouble again.

This time, it involves the Holy Grail and the Grail Sword that guards it. The sword is taking people over while it looks for the right person to wield it so that it can save not only England but the whole world. Add to that time slips, a class of eight year olds being taken hostage and the fact that the Archangel Michael, who’s currently in human form as the Reverend Michael Templar, and the river goddess who runs the local pub aren’t allowed to help them this time and itt things are going from bad to worse to potentially the end of the world as we know it. 

Away with the Faeries writing as Eleanor Neville

If you travel deep into rural Dorset, and are lucky (or maybe unlucky, depending on your point of view) then you may find the little village of Christians Cross. On the surface it's a beautiful old-fashioned village with a shop cum post office that has everything you need as long as the owner likes you, a delicatessen cum butchers, a pub with brilliant local food and a thriving school and church.

You won't find it on any maps or google earth because its high proportion of paranormal residents long ago cast a spell that makes the locals take anything odd for granted because the village was built on a transition point between universes. That's why it's the traditional home of the Guardians who have been called to protect the world from things that most people think are harmless legends.

Virtuous vampire, writer and Private Investigator, Kit Conway, Grail Knight Handsome the werecat, O’Donnell the witch-hunting cop and the rest of the unlikely team are back in trouble when O'Donnell's superintendent finds a young faerie princess in the pub car park. She fled an attack by a rival clan and is now stuck on our Earth until Kit and the gang can find a way to get her home. Luckily, police family support officer Caroline Blake is on hand to mother her, and she and Davey Marrak are finally admitting that they’re in love, just as the Holy Grail wants them to be so the future looks as if it's back on track.

Then Caroline is kidnapped just after they manage to get the princess home. Can Kit and the team recover her and foil an old enemy with the help of old friends? And what'll happen if they can't? Are they looking at the end of the world again?

No place like Gnome writing as Eleanor Neville

Some people claim that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Private investigator, virtuous vampire and writer Kit Conway who records the adventures of the group who protect the apparently idyllic Dorset village of Christians Cross, and the world, from invasions from hell, faerieland and other dimensions, can't tell you if that's right, but the new road from Faerieland is definitely causing problems.

When she agreed to the road being created, she never imagined that the village would end up hosting migrants and refugees. Now some of the wide range of paranormal inhabitants have formed a residents association and are demanding  that she accounts for herself As anger and suspicion spreads round the village she realises that there’s more to it than the usual fear of change and it’s up to her, the werecat Grail Knight Handsome, the witchfinder Detective Inspector O’Donnell and the rest of the team to stop it spreading and keep magic away from a world that isn’t ready for it. And this time, their enemy seems to be a child...

A Very Private War

In the late summer of 1940, it seems inevitable that Britain will be invaded just as so much of Europe has already been. The once sleepy little town of Poole has been identified as one of the four likeliest places for them to land, so residents have received letters telling them to stay put so that troops can be evacuated. A shortage of housing has meant that Esther Graham has had to go back to living with her parents while her husband is away fighting, and is juggling bringing up her young son, working at a research establishment and driving a WVS canteen van a couple of times a week to take food to the men and women who man the anti-aircraft batteries and work down on the Quay. On top of all that, she’s also being blackmailed over her husband’s affair.

Everything changes when she and her boss, Professor James Lomax, overhear one of their colleagues being blackmailed by the same woman. No one will take them seriously when they report it, so they decide to try to identify the traitor themselves and are aided, abetted and sometimes hindered by the Professor’s enigmatic young cousin, Captain Carmichael. The Professor isn’t fit for military service because of tuberculosis, but is as determined to prove himself as Esther is, even though it means being under enemy attack from air raids and the enemy within…

Can they help to stop the invasion? And can Esther really blame her husband for his affair when she’s feeling closer and closer to the brilliant, irascible man who understands her in a way that it feels as if no one else ever has? The only thing that she can be sure of is that she is fighting a very private war that she mustn't lose

A Very Personal Invasion

It’s autumn 1940 and the start of the second year of what will be known as World War Two. Esther Graham and Professor James Lomax are combining working at a secret establishment on the Dorset coast with driving a WVS canteen van two evenings a week to take food and drinks to the men who are manning the anti-aircraft batteries and working down on Poole Quay where the Flying Boats are maintaining the UK's only link to America.

Professor Lomax bitterly resents the tuberculosis that means that he’s not fit enough to fight, and Esther is struggling to come to terms with her husband’s infidelity and the baby who may or may not be his daughter by the traitor who blackmailed him. That's why she’s nothing like as delighted as her son and parents to hear that her husband is coming home on leave.

He insists on taking her away for a night at a posh Bournemouth hotel, where he’s offered some beautiful second-hand jewellery. Esther doesn’t want it, because the Professor’s cousin, the enigmatic spy Kit Carmichael, has asked them to keep a look out for jewellery that’s been looted from bombed houses and stripped from dead and dying women.

Now Esther has to juggle loyalties, air raids, being kidnapped and helping the Professor to rescue her husband and Kit Carmichael while foiling a plot to infiltrate agents into Britain. Old enemies and new friends complicate matters, and so does the growing relationship between her and Professor Lomax. Can she love two very different men in very different ways? What does she want to do? Does she have a choice? All she can be sure of is that this is a very personal invasion.

A Very Different Kind of War

It’s March 1941, and Esther Graham is juggling looking after her son Michael and her newly adopted daughter Etta, working at the secret research establishment and driving a Women’s Voluntary Service canteen van in the evenings, taking food and drink to the Home Guard and the people manning the guns that protect Poole in Dorset, which is a prime invasion site.

She and her boss, the enigmatic Professor James Lomax, have already helped to foil two Nazi plots, but as the raids increase, the war feels closer and closer to home. Can they, and the Professor’s cousin Major Kit Carmichael, foil a potential invasion, deal with a tragedy, and help to capture a Nazi spy in this very different kind of war? Can Esther cope with her love for her boss and her husband, who’s serving in Egypt, and will a new friend give her a glimpse of a road she didn’t take and an understanding of who she is now and who she wants to become?

The Omega Project - Writing As Eleanor Neville

Three strangers meet when they try to help the driver of a crashed tanker on a quiet road on the day after Christmas.

They've all had awful Christmases and have made all sorts of New Years resolutions, but heir lives change forever when the tanker explodes and they gain unwanted superpowers. Now they're being hunted by people who want to turn them into guinea pigs and they'll have to learn to work together if they’re going to find a way to make a ruthless pharmaceutical firm and a high-ranking government official back off.

Lara has become gorgeous and irresistibly sexy. Padraig can make anyone or anything do anything he wants them to and former wounded soldier Nick Jackson is now as good as indestructible. All those gifts would be amazing if this was fiction, but real life is a very different matter and they'll be lucky to survive, let alone thrive…

Twice Shy - writing as Eleanor Neville

Horror writer Rebecca Warr has lived a reclusive life since discovering that she was a vampire when her supposedly dead father turned up on her sixteenth birthday. She loves the house that she’s renovating high up on the cliffs on the beautiful Dorset coast and has almost managed to convince herself that she’s happy with her solitary life.

Then she sees Doctor Nick Kent at the end of a rickety jetty on a cold, damp winter's day and is worried enough about him to go to speak to him because he seems so isolated and desperate. She's the one who needs rescuing when she puts her foot through a rotten board, and seeing her own blood awakens the hunger that terrifies her.

Soon, she’s being threatened, and her father suspects Nick, and Nick suspects her father. Who can she trust? What does she want? And is it possible for a vampire to have a happy ending when any human she loves will age and die while she stays young?

Changing Times

When spy Kate Laurence is sent undercover to investigate a laboratory that’s producing some very strange technology, the last thing she expects is to find herself swept into an alternate timeline.

Her opposite number, Robert Sime is upright, uptight and old-fashioned. He finds her just as much of a puzzle, but they’ll have to learn to work together if they’re going to stop the transfer of technologies that is making both their worlds unstable and get her home.

Only where is home for someone with no close relatives who’s always been a loner? Can you build a relationship when your worlds are so different? Would you give up your whole world for love? And what was The Incident that caused the break between their worlds, and could it happen again?