A new season

There's a spring vibe around. The bulbs are finished, largely because they started flowering in December (bonkers weather this year!). Although there are cold snaps to come (and Arctic winds forecast for the weekend) there is real warmth in the frequent sunny spells.

In keeping with the spring theme, we have had a family wedding. Our middle son, Sam, married Becky, a lovely girl from a nearby village that he met at university. As luck would have it, she's a creative writing graduate. I wonder what she will write about in the future? In the meantime, we are all reflecting on the best wedding I've ever been to, and had the extra joy of having all of our children in one place at once - which doesn't happen very often any more. Not to mention gaining a lot of lovely friends and family through the young couple. Becky's parents made the whole weekend lovely for us all.

I've run out of plot for the new book (it had to happen, I'm at about 60k words without stopping) so I'm working on the sequel to A Baby's Bones, which is also at the 60k point but pottering along nicely. It is creeping me out - always a good sign. I enjoy writing all the crime stuff, of course, but fantasy is a great pleasure to work on because it surprises me all the time. 

The Secrets of Time and Fate will be released on June 2nd and it's starting to get exciting. We're having a launch party at Walter Henry's Bookshop in Bideford on Wednesday 8th June at 7pm. If I tell you the book includes a ruined cottage in the wilds of Dartmoor, a massive exorcism and a lot of pirates you might guess this is my favourite of the three books in the trilogy. Not to mention that I love writing my great friend Franco Marinello, an entirely made up Venetian sea captain that is a joy to follow around the Mediterranean. I shall be on the Island after that, then off to Winchester Writers Festival, a great privilege to be sharing my passion for fantasy with other writers.