Tropical Splendour

A week on an island in Fiji does wonder for a creative soul.

Before you think I have been thoroughly indulgent in my choice of holidays this year… cruises, island idylls.. well, actually you are correct. I have been indulgent, but for good reason. My darling husband and myself have just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary so this year has indeed been, the Celebration of Us, which culminated in a wonderful family holiday to a Fijian Island (not the one on which we spent our honeymoon but just as pleasant).

40 YEARS!

Getting there involved a travel agent with the patience of a saint as she wrangled us and our 2 sons and their families (10 of us in total) on to planes, buses, ferries and assorted accomodation. Happily everything went according to plan, the granddaughters came away with braided hair and all four enjoyed a quiver full of new and exciting experiences. Hopefully their hard working parents managed a bit of rest and recreation and DH and I enjoyed every second of their company and a chance to get to spend some quality time with our grandchildren. Most importantly, we are all still talking to each other so something must have worked.

However prior to getting on the plane, it was a mad dash to get AGONY IN AMETHYST to the editor. It got there and I am sure my lovely editor will view it with cold, hard eyes and send it back with pages of notes. Timing is perfect as I am off to Sydney for a few days at a writing friend’s lovely property in the Blue Mountains for a writing retreat. An ideal opportunity to get stuck into those much needed revisions.

In the meantime I shall enjoy some downtime to catch up with my ‘to do list’. Just today I went off on a tangent trying to piece together the various ‘family tree’ files. My darling uncle, who has been the keeper of the family records (having been at one time, a professional genealogist), is now beyond the task and so it falls to me and I have let my version of the files fall behind. The first problem being they were on an external drive that died on me. It cost an arm and a leg but the boffins managed to retrieve the files and I spent this afternoon reloading everything into yet another upgrade of Roots Magic and saving the file everywhere I can. I guess I am now the official keeper of the family secrets.

THIS MONTH’S SPECIAL OFFER

The Australian editions of THE POSTMISTRESS and THE GOLDMINER’S SISTER are on sale in Australian and New Zealand for $4.99 for the month of June.

(For those of you NOT resident in Aus/NZ … I have recently regained the ‘overseas’ rights to all three of my Maiden’s Creek books and I will be revising them, putting fresh covers on them and re releasing them into the world - but probably not until early next year)

New Books/New to you Authors

I like to do shoutouts for friends’ books that I think I might interest you.

This one is for the Regency Romance fans - THE REGENT’S MENAGERIE. A choice of two anthologies of novellas/short stories (one sweet and one a little spicy - depending on your taste!) based around a common theme: “The Prince Regent is in one of his moods. The growing menagerie of unusual and bizarre animals from around the world is eating into his finances. That's money he could spend on a new waistcoat! His head animal keeper, Sir Anthony Hoult, hatches a plan to gift some of the animals to friends and foes alike. After all, a problem shared is a problem halved!”

(Only available on Amazon)

And on the subject of Fiji… for fans of the Harriet Gordon Mysteries and historical mysteries, have you discovered Nilima Rao’s A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI?

And what am I reading/listening/watching…?

Reading: My slow read of War and Peace is plodding on (thank heavens for the audio edition) but while I was away I finished…

• C.S Harris WHAT CANNOT BE SAID (Sebastian St Cyr Bok 19). Harris is back to her best with this one.

• Karen Baugh Menuhin THE BELEVEDERE MURDERS (Heathcliff Lennox Book 11)

• I started Sujata Massey’s THE BOMBAY PRINCE (Perveen Mistry Book 3)

Listening: War and Peace but also… MURDER AT ASHTON STEEPLE (Heathcliff Lennox Book 10) by Karen Baugh Menuhin. I love this whimsical cosy mystery series and the narrator is so good (I actually prefer the audio to the written word)!

Watching: No TV for a week! However on the plane I watched JEANNE DU BARRY (with Johnny Depp as Louis XV). It’s in French with subtitles and it is excellent. I also watched NEXT GOAL WINS - a Cool Runnings type story about a football team. It’s had good reviews and I really enjoyed it. I also rewatched A STAR IS BORN (the recent version). It bears a rewatch and I do enjoy the music.

What’s your favourite read/ listen/ watch for the month?

All from me… please feel free to comment directly to the Substack post :-) I love hearing from you and if you are not already a subscriber, consider subscribing to my posts and look out for a link to a free download of the Harriet Gordon prequel novella THE UMBRELLA in your inbox :-)

Best regards

Alison