I have had a roller-coaster weekend. The release of The Heir of Westmacott Hall isn’t even the most adrenalin-inducing instance of the last two days! I don’t want to keep anyone waiting. The Heir of Westmacott is now available on Amazon for purchase or to read through KU. Go nuts. If you like your scientists with a side of gothic romance, this is one hypothesis you will want to test yourself: The Heir of Westmacott Hall.A mystery science can’t solve. Newt Grimshaw lives by the scientific method. His current hypothesis is that transforming his former family home, Westmacott Hall, into a school will: A) remove him from poverty B) restore the ruined reputation of his chemist parents, and: C) silence...
It is a miserable day here in North Canterbury! We haven’t seen the sun since yesterday morning. The hills that I can usually see from my window are distant, hazy shapes. Rain drips from the trees in the garden and drums on the roof. It is, in fact, eerily like the scene in Sorcerer’s Heart I was working on this morning. And on that note, yes, I’m still working on Sorcerer’s Heart! Progress is slow, but thanks to my author friend Jamie Sands and others joining me for regular writing sprints on the weekends, I am making progress. I’ve also finally finished editing and formatting The Heir of Westmacott Hall, the fifteenth book in the Read by Candlelight series. I...
Happy Belated Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it. It’s not a tradition we have here in New Zealand, but I have actually attended a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner while I lived in Japan, and while that was probably non-traditional, it was a lot of fun. Thanksgiving this year would have felt very different if you’re used to celebrating with friends and family. I can sort of relate. I’ve been sick for most of this week, so I’ve been unable to socialise and have found myself really missing my friends. What I’ve started doing which is making a big difference has been to watch live streaming videos of people doing pretty repetitive tasks on YouTube. Listening to them chat about their day...
This is two days behind schedule, but I’m not beating myself up about that. November has been an incredibly difficult month for my entire family. Although this is late, I’m actually really proud of myself for putting myself ahead of my publishing schedule. I’m pretty bad at recognising when I need to take a break, but there were a couple of times this month when I could have worked on writing or editing, but instead I realised that I needed to care for myself—and I did! And honestly, I think that is the reason I am able to bring you The Christmas Party today. If I’d pressed ahead and pushed myself, I might be in even worse shape than I...
I’ve got mixed feeling about this update. Normally, a new book is something to celebrate. However, this is not a book I think anyone is looking forward to! If you’ve been reading the Read by Candlelight series in publishing order, than you’ve already noticed that Cross is… absent…in later books. That he predeceased Pip was not exactly a secret. I knew that I wanted to tell the story of how Cross died at some point, but I thought that it would be a long while in the future. I was not expecting to write this book this year. This book had other plans and here we are! This was definitely one of the more challenging of the Read by Candlelight...
