Trouble On The Tide

Here it is – the first sneak preview of the third Eliza Kane story – Trouble on the Tide. The first draft is finished and it has been an absolute joy to write. I set myself a deadline to finish this draft before going on holiday next week, so I know there is still a lot of work to do, especially in the latter half of the story. I’m itching to start editing. There are tweaks to be made, characters and scenes to plump up, a new twist is already floating about in my head, but I need to stop now, sit on it, and attack the manuscript with “new eyes” when I return to my desk in December.  I don’t think I have ever enjoyed writing a novel so much – probably because I know Eliza and all her foibles very well by now, plus part of the book is set in 1981 – my teenage years – so to re-visit that period in time has been great fun!

I will spend the winter editing and polishing off, and plan to launch the book in early summer 2023. More good news is that I hope to be able to have a physical book launch as well.  A new independent book shop has opened in Lymington in the New Forest, and I have been able to persuade the lovely owners, Robyn and Dan, to stock the Eliza Kane Investigates series in their “local author” section.  Robyn has done a grand job persuading her customers they will enjoy meeting Eliza, and they are now on their third stock-run of books (granted they don’t hold a huge stock but it’s wonderful to be told they’ve sold out!)

I know I’ve been all too quiet on social media while I’ve been working to get Trouble On The Tide finished, and as any author knows, if you disappear off air for a while people very quickly forget about you and your books. Self-publishing is all about being visible and vocal, but I have accepted that for my own personal well-being I need to concentrate on the things that make me happy – which is writing!  

I did pop my head up to do an author talk at a local arts centre in my old home village of Bursledon on the eastern side of Southampton earlier this week. As I’ve said before, “performing” in front of an audience is something I would never have seen myself doing a few years’ back, and I’d like to thank the Greyladys Art Foundation for inviting me along, and those brave souls who ventured out on what was a horrible Tuesday evening to listen to me wittering on about my path to publication.  I always refer to my path as a rocky road because just like the chocolate treat of the same name it’s full of soft gooey bits, delicious bits, colourful bits, and some very hard, break your teeth on bits. Right now, with Amazon sales and page reads on Kindle Unlimited of A Crisis at Clifftops and The Puzzle of Pine Bay trickling in slowly but surely, I’m at soft-gooey stage, which is a very satisfying place to end the year!

Don’t forget books make wonderful Christmas presents – personalised signed copies of all four of my paperbacks are available directly from me and I’m happy to post anywhere in the UK. Sadly I’m down to my last few copies of Your Secret’s Safe With Me and The Theatre of Dreams….and when they’re gone, they’re gone. The books will remain on Amazon in ebook format only, and signed paperbacks will become very rare copies. Who knows, one day they could be worth a fortune! I dream on…