Prepare to be scared...



Do you believe in ghosts?

Nicola doesn’t, until she visits a fading West End theatre on an outing from drama school. From that point on, nothing can break her obsession with the theatre’s hundred-year-dead founder, Sir Charles Ducrow.

But will she ever see him again?

In May, My Weekly ran my two-part serial, Forever Together, in

Nicola and Brett
as they appeared in My Weekly

which students Scarlett and Brett watch Nicola’s increasingly weird behaviour following her trip to the theatre.

But that serial only told half the story, because Scarlett could mostly only guess at what was really going on.

Now you can read the full haunting tale in a compelling novel-length version of Forever Together that tells the story from Nicola’s point of view.

Click here to read the first couple of chapters and download Forever Together from the Kindle Store. Prepare to be chilled... and inspired by the lengths to which two hearts will go to fulfil their destiny.

Writers' Forum

The new Writers' Forum is out now and includes a feature on how I wrote the My Weekly serial A Life of Loyal Service about a Buckingham Palace maid despite having never written a below-stairs type of story before... nor even having watched Downton Abbey!

I was also pleased to read in this month's issue an interview with crime writer Peter Lovesey by Joan Moules. Lovesey's Sergeant Cribb series was a favourite of mine in my early teens, having turned to titles like Wobble To Death and The Detective Wore Silk Drawers after watching the TV series based on the books.

Although I don't write much crime, Lovesey's writing was a definite influence and inspiration to me in terms of his crisp, clean style, jaunty tone and sense of humour.

The Art of Magazine Fiction

Detail from Andre Leonard's
illustration for my story Forever Together
in My Weekly

My thanks to Andre Leonard for his fabulous illustration to the first part of my two-part story, Forever Together, in this week’s My Weekly. It’s uncanny how Andre how depicted the heroine, Nicola, exactly as I imagined her, even down to her ponytail which I always pictured her having but never actually described in the text. How spooky is that? And how appropriate for a tale full of weird, spooky goings on at a creepy old theatre?
Andre has illustrated my previous serials Fairground Attraction and A Life Of Loyal Service and it’s such a pleasure to have my work illustrated so classily.
I interviewed Andre for Writers’ Forum last year and was surprised to learn that his beautifully detailed ‘oil paintings’ are actually produced digitally, with a program called Painter.
“It requires the use of a graphics pad - I use a Wacom as it’s the best - and a digital pen or stylus,” Andre explained. “Unlike the ones used on phones they are pressure sensitive and can be programmed to mimic the actions of various types of brush.
“I usually do all my sketching off the computer, then scan the final sketch for painting. The advantage of digital illustrations is the ease in which alterations can be made and the speed of delivery. Re-works used to be a nightmare but now alterations can be done and the job re-sent within hours.”
I can’t wait to see the picture for the second instalment.