Welcome to the New Year...

Cricket, tennis... birthdays... January is the month that never ends

I hope you had a wonderful festive season… however you celebrate. We had four generations at the table on Christmas day and it was as, I hoped, happy chaos with lots of left overs. I seem to have purchased the largest ham in the shop but happily we are through that now and the ‘diet’ has begun. No ‘dry January’ here - it is my birthday month and I am not celebrating with soda water!

Of course here in Melbourne, it is high summer and a very warm one it is proving to be. I don’t know what we did before air conditioning in our living area! Mind you we don’t have aircon in our bedroom. Just as well I had all that Singapore conditioning!

My writer’s year kicked off with a book fair at one of our seaside towns - a busy place at this time of year. As luck would have it we caught the one day when the weather was appalling-humid with thunderstorms and torrential downpours, which may have kept people away, and it was fairly quiet. However, it was lovely to catch up with some friends (writers and real people), meet some new-to-me authors, and talk about my books and writing with the attendees.

Next book signing will be the ARRA event in March (details below)

BOOK NEWS

I was hoping to share the cover and link for the ‘world’ release of the THE POSTMISTRESS… the first of my Maiden’s Creek books (now THE WOMEN OF MAIDEN’S CREEK series)… but there has been a hold up in getting it up on Amazon so that will have to resolved before I can go live that news.

However for my readers in Australia and New Zealand AGONY IN AMETHYST (Book 5 in the Harriet Gordon Mysteries) will be a KINDLE DAILY DEAL in the Amazon Australia store on 14 January (which is my birthday so I’m calling it my present to you!) for just $1.49. One day only!

DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES

Saturday March 29 I will be attending Australian Romance Readers - A Romantic Rendezvous in Melbourne Event (there are also events in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth). Tickets are on sale now. Click the button below for more information and booking. If you are coming along and would like to preorder any of my books, the link is HERE .

And what am I reading/listening/watching…?

Reading: Sujata Massey’s THE BOMBAY PRINCE (Her Perveen Mistery series) - it’s been on my TBR pile for far too long. I really want to get into some varied reading this year so I have found a ‘Bingo Card’ to tick off this year to make it more fun. But before then I will be reading my friend Mary Lou Stephens new book THE JAM MAKER which I will be helping her to launch at an event in February.

Listening: Not travelling far enough to get on top of my audiobooks. I am still listening to Mick Herron and the last of the Slow Horses

Watching: Cricket and upcoming tennis! Lots of lying around over the quiet days so the list is long! Black Doves (Netflix) and All Creatures Great and Small (Britbox) and for something really mindless Traitors US. Compared to the other Traitor franchises, this lot are really cut throat and an insight into US reality TV that I have managed to avoid (as the participants seem to be drawn from US reality shows)! Top watch of the year so far The Inside Man (Netflix) with Ted Danson… gosh he is aging well as an actor.

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

That is all from me… please feel free to comment directly on 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 wishes

Alison