I am delighted to take part in something new and interesting this weekend: an indie author tag party blogfest, organised by Francine Howarth. The idea is to meet other indie authors and tag their books. There are 19 authors taking part so that means I've 18 blogs to visit and many new books to…

Snowbound on the Island, my short seasonal novella, was published a few days ago and is…

Author Jonathan Frazen has got me thinking today after a talk he gave at a literary festival that has been widely reported in the broadsheets. He says that ebooks are a bad thing for society because of their "impermanence". He argues that text - i.e. on paper - is permanent and that authors and readers need the security of knowing that.

Here's Franzen's…

Just listening to Steve Wright on BBC Radio 2 this morning and he mentioned a survey done of people who had fallen in love "at first sight" i.e. on their first date. They were asked what signs they had experienced that made them think that they had fallen in love straight away. Six things emerged that were reported. I am afraid I didn't hear who carried out the survey. These were:

-- a shiver down the spine

-- feeling an emotional connection, like you know the person well (even…