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Is it raining where you are


I know I should be grateful that we aren’t having the sort of heatwave that Europe are, and especially not the forest fires, although there were a couple of nasty heath fires over at Studland before the weather closed in. It still seems so very wrong to have to wear long sleeves and a cardigan at the start of August and the plants seem to be thinking it’s autumn.

Still, that gives me more time to write, and I’m busy finishing September’s work and making myself cry in the process, which I think is a good sign. I’ve also compensated for not being able to get out for long walks by carrying on sorting out and planning my winter’s sewing, and my current project is a quilted banner, bordered in a lovely purple fabric with stars and witches hats on it that reads ‘Make your own Magic!’


Soon enough, I know that the weather will clear and I’ll be back walking down by the Harbourside and seeing it as it was for Vinnie Cunningham long before she became the ghost of Lavender House. Only it wasn’t there then. It was a series of marshes that became islets at high tide, but it always gives me a strange feeling to walk down there at low tide and see the bases of the old gun emplacements and then walk along the Quay to where the flying boat headquarters would once have been. I love the sense of continuity as I follow paths that so many women have before me and deal with much the same problems that they have. I find it enormously comforting and inspiring because we may think of women’s liberation as being a new thing but the last thing you’d have risked calling my grandmother or my husband’s grandmother was unliberated. It was simply a very different world with very different rules and sometimes it strikes me that we’ve swapped those rules for another equally daft set and it isn’t really progress at all. I wonder what you think about that, and if I’m not the only vintage lover out there. I can’t be, or the Repair Shop, the Great British Bake Off and the Great British Sewing Bee wouldn’t be so popular…


Anyway, on to the sales bit.


‘Child’s Play’ and ‘A Fete Worse than Death’ will be published on Thursday. These were going to be a series but I put them to one side when Amy sneaked into my mind and my heart so I’ll be interested to know how they do and would love to know what you think of them if you can spare me a few minutes.


Lucy Williams is a widow who works from home and is mother to beloved five year old Gracie, who doesn’t quite fit in at school. Once, she was a spy, but now she lives under a new identity and tries so very hard to fit in. And then… well, you’ll have to read them, won’t you? But let’s just say that her former skills and her newly acquired mummy skills are needed to solve a crime and keep her daughter safe and that she begins to find a very different sort of future.


The special offers start on Thursday, just as the always do and they are on at 99p in the Uk and 99c in the States.


Having it All and the Christmas Sparrow are standalone Oldcastle sweet and cosy romances, which might be worth getting all ready for Christmas or to enjoy in this very unseasonal weather. Perhaps with hot chocolate and the odd chocolate biscuit? Because it’s not ice cream or barbecue weather, is it?


If you fancy something harder edged, then why not try two books from the Eleanor Neville ‘Shadows’ series. Running Home and Running Scared tell the stories of Rob and Lise Kinsella, whose lives were shaped irrevocably when their father was murdered when they were very young. Now history seems to be trying to repeat itself and destroy their country at the same time and what they remember could be vital. Obviously, there’s romance as well as danger and friendship and happy not exactly endings…


If you’re in the UK then there’s also Endings and Beginnings, which is a Windy Bay cosy and tells the story of an older heroine because I think it’s daft to have just young ones now that we will, God willing, live longer. Starting over when you’re fifty plus has its own challenges and there is, of course, a gorgeous ginger cat who’s called Cat because he’s not the sort who likes fancy names!


I hope you enjoy them if they give you a try and till then, here’s a picture of the part of Harbourside I was talking about, complete with sailing boats and ferries like the ones that once made their way across to Cherbourg rather than the better known Dunkirk to rescue Canadian servicemen when France fell.




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