Hello from N.E. Switzerland – that’s Switzerland in the foreground of the pic above, with Germany on the far bank. My home is on the left edge, slightly above the middle. Sitting at my laptop, I can see the lake glistening in the all-too-hot sunshine we’ve had this summer. If it existed, the Lakeside Hotel in my Escape to Switzerland series would be somewhere on the first little headland on the left. And just look at the gorgeous covers Vinci Books have made for the series – I’m still drooling over them:
Freebie alert: I’m starting a brand-new newsletter, with book news, pics and stories about life in Switzerland. And if you sign up, you get TWO freebies – a prequel novella to Saving the Lakeside Hotel, and another of the same length with two long-short psychological suspense stories. You can sign up HERE or on the home page of my website.
On to the car alarms. Yes, that’s plural. There were two, on different nights. And yes, both at 3 a.m, give or take. What do you do when a car alarm blares out at that time of night? I sold my car years ago (that’s it below, the day it went to its new owner), so I could safely leave the leaping out of bed to investigate option to other people. And both times, the woo-UUP, woo-UUP stopped after a (neverending) minute or two, leaving me wide awake with time to think on my hands. That’s where the advantage comes in, when you’re a writer.
Often it’s those 3 a.m. flashes of inspiration that provide the solution to a tricky plot problem, or in my case, an idea for book. The important thing is: Write it down immediately. Right then, at 3 a.m, because you’ll have forgotten by the morning. Or if you’re one of those techy people (I’m not) you can mumble it into the device of your choice. I spent one 3 a.m. extra-thinking time having an idea, and the other planning in more detail how to go about it.
The result? Two results, actually. A new suspense novella will be coming in the autumn. It was originally part of an unpublished collection owned by my previous publisher, but has now reverted to me. My cover designer is working on the cover image already – it’s going to be the prettiest suspense cover ever. Watch this space for more news on that. The other result is an idea for a whole new suspense novel, just when I’d thought Missing… Rose Malone would be my final full-length book in this genre. You can watch that space too – slowly…
Local news: Like most other places in Europe, we saw the eclipse last week. I can remember the 1999 one. The sculpture below was originally a sand sculpture made in Rorschach (town in top pic) the same year, then later immortalised in stone.
Bargain book news: Missing… Rose Malone is on a 99p Kindle Monthly Deal in the UK until the end of the month.
Happy reading!
(And don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter for those freebies – just go HERE)