Something wonderful…

Imagine a hot summer’s day when I'm having a leisurely walk along by the Harbour, and seeing a steam ship that's followed by a paddleboarding dog. And why not? This is Poole, and my adopted home town is somewhere amazing things ought to happen, and they regularly do.

This is the SS Shieldhall, and you can find out more about her here, https://ss-shieldhall.co.uk/poole-2025/, including a gorgeous aerial picture of her moored alongside the Quay. This is her seventieth birthday year, and she’s a proud member of the National Historic Fleet. She’s also absolutely gorgeous, and watching her steaming away was an honour.

Just before we’d seen her, we’d stopped to talk to the lovely guys who run the jet ski school by the slipway so I could assess their potential as heroes. We chatted about the weirdness scale, that all of them thought the others were so much further up than they were and whether the love of a good woman is better than the fun you can have with a bad one. The jury’s out on that one, so maybe a bad one followed by a good one? And I suspect that the same thing goes for men. And I'll just mention that they had their wetsuits pulled down so they were naked from the waist upwards, so you know how much effort I put into my research for your sake.

Anyway, we walked on and watched the butterflies once the Shieldhall had finally steamed out of sight and the pilot boats had turned back and headed for the Quay. Then, on the way back, we saw this. Yes, it is a dog heading out with his or her owner on a paddle board. As you do, of course. Or at least you do in Poole, and a lot of what I write about is less strange than what actually happens here every day.

Which leads me round to this week's special offers at 99p in the UK and 99c in the US.

Writing as Eleanor Neville, we’ve got the first four of my present-day Shadows Romantic Suspense books. These are Fallen Angel, Haunted Angel, Running Home and Running Scared, and you’re starting to see characters from them popping up in both my Amy Hammond and my Lucy Williams series. Meet Guy Stannard, or Lucifer as he likes to be known. He’s tough, arrogant, and prides himself on not getting caught having a better nature. The sort of man who makes an ideal target for equally tough cop Sarah, except things aren’t what they seem.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, so you can also meet scarred forensic accountant Mark Graham and find out how he ended up being held hostage for a year and why they’re still trying to get him now. Then there's Rob Harris, who came closer to being a dead hero than he wants to be and is now Running Scared, and his sister Lise, who's dedicated herself to avoiding her family because the last thing she wants to be is a hero. Only now it looks like she hasn't got a choice.

There’s also all the Lucy Williams’ books so far, which I write under my Tia Brown pen name. These are Child’s Play, A Fete Worse than Death and Snakes and Ladders. She’s an ordinary, everyday work-from-home widow who’s devoted mum to Gracie. Once she was someone else and did something else, but she has to hide her old identity and self. Which makes it a shame that her past and trouble keep trying to catch up with her.

So there it goes. See you on Sunday, and who knows what’ll have happened by then. I just know that I hope you have as much fun as I intend to.