Just published my Author Notes for November - this month I’m talking about review bombing, AI audio narrators, women’s fiction and burning the Handmaid’s Tale! I love writing these, and if you love a peek behind the scenes at the writing and publishing industry then I hope you enjoy this one. Link in my bio.

Great news from @listnrcrime who did an amazing job of adapting my novel You Don’t Know Me into a six-part drama podcast series! Congratulations to everyone involved!

You know I talk a lot about the books I’ve published, but do you know about the novel I wrote that got rejected? I hope this week’s Substack helps and encourages anyone struggling with worries about failure and rejection, particularly around creative work. Links to read in my bio.

Motivated Monday! Bleary-eyed but happy at 6.30 am this morning, about to write my Substack then start work on some last structural edits for my new book When She Was Gone, after a great chat with my publisher and agent last week. My new psych suspense is full steam ahead for release in September 2024 and I can’t wait to share it with you! PS for those who follow my Substack, you’ll also be pleased to know I’m also being left alone in the cafe at the moment - long may it last 💃 PPS Update an hour later - spoke too soon, it didn’t last 🙄 but my brush off tactics are well developed now!

New on Substack today! I'm mixing it up again with a combined book and film review, discussing the new Ballard of Songbirds and Snakes movie, why the Hunger Games story has endured for the last fifteen years and how it plays into the cultural imagination. Hope you enjoy this one, and please come and join me on Substack to read all my posts about writing and creativity. (Links to Substack in my bio.)

How lucky am I to be part of this wonderful writing group quartet, with @holdensheppard @jtaylorauthor and @davidallanpetale . We had our annual Writers of the North event yesterday where we answered lots of audience questions about all things writing and publishing and got to hang out and sign books over a delicious afternoon tea. Many thanks to Clarkson library, Sharon Carnegie and the team for putting this on and to @dymocksjoondalup for providing the books for sale. And finally a huge thank you to everyone who came along and all the great questions. See you next year!

It's that time of year! Ben and his brilliant team at Shepherd asked me for my 3 favourite reads of the year, and here they are. These three are very different but they encapsulate a lot about the kind of books I love to read: exciting, thought-provoking, original stories that highlight and celebrate women's lives. Dying to Know by @raecairnswrites is an action-packed thriller, and I've recommended it to lots of people this year. Rae has a wonderful sense of pace and great characters, and this is one you can't put down. Wifedom by @annafunderauthor is a genre-bending (part fiction, part memoir, part biography) look at the forgotten story of Eileen O'Shaughnessy, George Orwell's wife, and the significant impact she had on his creativity. It also challenges us to think about our own stories and approaches to Wifedom. Finally, Lessons in Chemistry by @bonnie_garmus_author is a wonderful story of the challenges of being a female scientist/cooking show host in a 1960s man's world, told with great humour and a wholly unique narrative voice (who could ever forget Six Thirty the dog once you've read this one). You can visit shepherd.com for more great reads and recommendations, including my own celebration of female-focused dystopias. And I'll be highlighting more of my reads of the year in my Christmas newsletter in a couple of weeks, which will also feature a couple more great giveaways just in time for the holiday reading season! If you don't receive this newsletter already (quarterly and packed with book news and giveaways), sign up in my bio.

My Substack today is personal and it felt uncomfortable to post (I have been well trained in female politeness after all!), but the truth is I am having a strange experience with a faux-polite version of mild harassment in one of the places I go to write, and I wanted to share the frustration of it. I’m sure other women will relate to the context, if not the situation. I’ve realised the Meta algorithm doesn’t like posts that lead away from Facebook and Insta, so they will not show this to many people. If you enjoy my writing please consider sharing, and subscribing to my Substack. Link to this article and my Substack home page in my bio.

Today on Substack I’m talking all about keeping questions at the forefront of the writing process. Follow the link in my bio to read it now. I hope you enjoy this one! If you like posts like these, sign up to my Substack for lots more about writing, publishing and creativity. (There’s a link to subscribe in each post.) I’m writing regularly, documenting my experiences and processes, in the hopes of connecting. encouraging and supporting other creatives along their own paths. Substack isn’t ‘another’ social media app, there are no ads or spam, it’s just a lovely place where you can engage with writers on all your favourite topics ❤️