Wednesday word of the week – Travail

Travail, or travails, is a situation involving a lot of hard work or difficulty. Eg the travails of book promotion. Apparently just bunging up a link and hoping people will buy it isn’t enough. (But I’m going to try that anyway.)

Here’s where you can buy my book!

Travels is something different altogether – I hope if you have any trips planned they don’t involve any travail.

A lovely review

Someone has posted a lovely review of my novel Paint Me A Picture, over on Facebook. I particularly like the phrase ‘beautifully undulating’ in the post – at least I do when it’s about my book. I might not be so keen if it referred to the author!

Paint Me A Picture is available here as a paperback, ebook or audio book. You can also request it in libraries.

Read a bit …

I’ve been tweaking the site a bit and have now added the opening pages to each of my novels, in case you’d like a taster. You should be able to find each of them under the ‘novels’ tab.

nnadtd1A reminder – Not A Drop To Drink, my short story collection with a liquid theme is FREE to download. (If you don’t have a kindle, you can also download a free app to allow you to read this, and many other books, on your computer.)

Paint Me A Picture

My novel, Paint Me A Picture is currently on sale for 99p (99c).

PMAPcoverMavis Forthright carefully rehearses her jump from Portsmouth’s Round Tower. She’s existed for over five decades. Lived hardly at all. Will end her misery with a few second’s fall into the cold sea. Except she’s not quite ready to die. A half day’s delay to try a bacon sandwich from the cafe won’t matter. Mother’s no longer there to disapprove.

She delays another day to lend Janice a book. Then a week to use her new paints. A month. Until the end of term. Mavis makes new plans; to create paintings full of emotion, to live, perhaps even make friends.

As if to balance her survival a number of people connected to Mavis die. At first that doesn’t matter. They’re people she dislikes. Mavis continues painting, tending her garden, feeding the birds and keeping her home properly clean, without additional concern. Then people who’ve been kind to Mavis are killed or injured. That shouldn’t happen.

Why are people dying? Is it because of charming Norman who’s back from her past, or is that strange boy Jake her mistaken guardian angel? Perhaps Mavis herself is to blame. She must learn the truth, stop the deaths and protect those she’s learned to care about before she can enjoy the new life she’s making for herself.