My Books
In England’s green and pleasant land
Why I decided my leading man should be an opium grower
The discovery that Mitcham – only three miles from where I live – was once the opium-growing capital of the UK made me decide that Small Eden’s leading man, Robert Cooke, should be a physic (or physick) gardener. The term has fallen out of use, but it means a grower of medicinal or healing plants….
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Setting free the parakeets
Adding to the urban myths about the origins of London's green ring-necked parakeets
No eden, small or large, would be complete without birds. Several species feature in Small Eden. First, we have the songbirds in the hedgerows and the pleasure gardens. There’s Hettie’s grey African parrot Fairfax (a personality in his own right). And then we have the green ring-necked parakeets Robert buys for his pleasure garden. I…
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Small Eden: Cover Reveal
The story behind the cover
I felt very strongly that the cover for Small Eden should have a strong local anchor. The inspiration for my tenth novel was the cottage I have called home for the past twenty-one years, built (as far as we’ve been able to ascertain) as the ticket office for pleasure gardens which opened at the turn…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Smash all the Windows: the typesetting
The Making of a Book
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…
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Smash all the Windows: the proofread
The Making of a Book
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…
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