So here I am. It's 5.26 on Tuesday morning, with the new Lucy Williams book downloaded ready to read back. It’s called Snakes and Ladders and I’ll say a little more about it later if that’s okay with you.
The dustbins are out, the table is laid with my Poole Pottery ‘springtime’ china set as if to prove what an optimist I am, the bread is cooking in the bread maker and perfuming the house and the washing machine is on. Ahead of me, I have the fun of helping to get the car ready for it’s annual MOT. Let no one say that my life isn’t exciting!
Yet I enjoy this quieter phase of my life when I can give more attention to the little details like a prettily set tableand menu planning instead of thinking ‘Help, they can’t want to be fed again when I haven’t finished…’ (insert a depressingly long list here.) I’ve got into the habit of playing with my appearance, so my skin is nice and clean and moisturised and I’ve even gone so far as to put my makeup on early and will top up my lipstick after breakfast. I’m sure looking in the mirror and seeing a depressing resemblance to Caspar the Friendly Ghost didn’t have all that much to do with deciding to do that, but the miracle that is red lipstick and dark eyebrow pencil has sorted that out. I’m not much of a make-up person, you see, any more than a lot of my characters are, but Nadine in A Woman to be Reckoned With and some characters you’ll soon meet got me mildly intrigued.
That’s always the way of it for me, which is why I like Lucy Williams so much. She’s tough, competent and deadly if anyone makes it necessary (and wouldn’t it be nice to be like that sometimes instead of feeling like a wuss?) She’s also living a lie the the whole time so she’s been very lonely since her husband died from cancer, leaving her to bring up Gracie, who is bright, assertive, and seems to be dedicating herself to being permanently just a little out of step. Overwhelmingly, Lucy is a single mum so she worries that that’s her fault. She’s also a former spy and now a researcher so she can’t help noticing things. Although it’s hard to miss the crash as a ladder collapses and a man screams as he falls to his death…
Nothing like that, thankfully, has ever happened to me, but I did have to hold the end of the ladder for my husband while he cleared the gutters and the more he enlivened the afternoon by telling me all the things that could go wrong, the more I started thinking ‘that’s a good way to murder someone…’ You don’t do that? Probably just as well, because recent tragic events have reminded me yet again that if someone wants to kill someone they probably will and it’ll all too often be horrific.
That’s why I write, you see. I want there to be one corner of my world where things can work out all right and nice people get what they deserve. So do nasty people, come to that and I do enjoy planning their fates. I was reading a piece in the paper yesterday that said that spy thrillers are popular because of our troubled, slightly paranoid times, so maybe I’m not the only one who needs that. If so, then here are the books that are on special offer this week and oops, I’m out of step yet again because they’re the first 3 books from the Oldcastle Series which is my cosiest series.
THE CHRISTMAS SPARROW is an unashamed slushy second chances story, inspired by my cat, who brought in a live sparrow one Christmas Day and let him go. Have you ever tried to get a sparrow out of a Christmas Tree? This one didn’t want to go, but no handsome heroes, sparrows or cats were harmed in real life and they all end up okay in fiction too.
Then there are the two books before A Woman to be Reckoned With. These are A WHOLE NEW LIFE and HAVING IT ALL. All have feisty heroines who have a lot on their plates, handsome and sometimes unreasonable heroes and guaranteed happy endings, and don’t I wish I could guarantee one of those for all of us!
But I can’t, so it’s on with my day, pausing only to share this picture from my walk down to the sea and wish you the best days you can have till we meet again. Please note, while I was out feeling the spray being blown against my face, two spoilt cats were sleeping contentedly indoors!
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