My Books

It’s been a long time coming. Two years, 3 months and 6 days to be precise. But launch day is finally here. I want to start with a very big thank you to my advance readers, who have already been sending me feedback and asking about the best place to post reviews. I always suggest…
» Continue Reading

It’s been a long time coming, but my *ninth novel will be released in eBook format on 13 July. To be among the first to have it delivered to you, you can pre-order now at the special price of £1.99/$1.99. (The cost will be £4.99 on release). The universal link is https://books2read.com/u/brWppZ. When you use the link, just select…
» Continue Reading

Winning an award produces a whole raft of emotions and, as Olivia Colman proved so charmingly at this year’s Oscars, it is impossible to predict how you’re going to react. I learned that I’d won the Daily Mail First Novel Award when I was at home on my own, beginning to get really quite nervous…
» Continue Reading

As a self-published author, I get to blow my own trumpet. (After all, I have no-one to do that for me.) And so with a small introductory fanfare, I can confirm that Smash all the Windows has been shortlisted for the first Selfies Award, produced by BookBrunch in association with the London Book Fair.  “The shortlist we’ve come…
» Continue Reading

For the next few weeks, Virtual Book Club will be taking a break. Instead, I’m going to bring you an exploration of the use of art in fiction. Fictionalised stories behind real painting; novels based on the lives of real artists; fictional artists, fictional works of art; fictional members of real art movements; fictional muses…
» Continue Reading

We’re nearing the finish line. Now we turn to the book’s interior. What is it going to look like? And how will that add to (or detract from) the way that the reader experiences the book? From Wiki: Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical types or the digital equivalents. Stored…
» Continue Reading

This week we come to the final edits and the proofread. And for this I used Perry Iles. He describes his job as ‘look after the small stuff’, but attention to grammar, spelling and consistency (is it proofread, proof read or proof-read?) is vital at this stage, when the temptation might be think you’re on…
» Continue Reading

In this week’s blog, I focus on the structural edit. It includes a contribution from my structural editor, Dan Holloway, the person Stephen Fry might have had in mind when he said, “We are not nouns, we are verbs.” “I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who…
» Continue Reading

This week will be the first of a short series of posts about the production of Smash all the Windows. Its cover design has been attracting compliments, with many people wanting to know about my cover design process.  One of the other huge joys of self-publishing is choosing how to present your work. Given that…
» Continue Reading

Since winning the Daily Mail First Novel Award in 2008, I’ve become known for writing about big subjects and giving my characters almost impossible moral dilemmas. What interests me is how people behave under pressure, because it reveals so much about them. And as the tagline of Smash all of the Windows suggests, my new…
» Continue Reading