New Book: The Earl's Protection

 New Book:  Now available for pre-order

A marriage born of necessity becomes the one place Caroline discovers she is free.

Plunged into grief when her father and the man she was to marry both fall at Waterloo, Caroline Hewitt does not expect her only brother to dictate the rest of her life. 

The estate Andrew has inherited is on the brink of ruin, and he knows both he and his sister must marry well—and quickly. Caroline rebels against Andrew’s tightening control, but her defiance only provokes his temper. What she does not expect is for him to seize her future with cold determination. 

Driven into peril by his schemes, she finds unexpected rescue in a stranger—a man whose quiet strength unsettles her as much as it reassures. He offers her protection, but safety comes at the cost of a marriage neither of them planned. Their sudden union brings Caroline into a new world of unfamiliar kindness, wary servants, and a family still healing from its own wounds. As she learns to stand on her own feet, she also learns what it is to be cherished. 

But Andrew’s threats grow bolder, and Caroline must choose whether to retreat into fear or step forward into the life—and love—she is beginning to desire. To claim her future, she must confront the brother she once loved—and the courage she never believed she possessed. A tender, slow‑burn Regency romance about trust, belonging, and the quiet bravery required to claim one’s own happiness.

How long does a book

How long does a book have to be these days? My understanding when I began this game a decade ago was that the standard Regency romance would be around 70k words but those I have read recently seem to be getting shorter. Is that true or not true? One I read in the last year, by a very famous author, had pages and pages of sex and very little actual story. A little is sort of expected these days but extended pages scream (to me) that the author couldn't think of more story. 

Deadline approaching on latest book but I have no cover for it yet. Tried Shutterstock a couple of times but nothing that suits and since I paid for a set of 5 and still have 2 to take, I won't be looking anywhere else unless I become truly desperate. (Can't break the habits of a lifetime!) Must keep checking!

The pic is of the entry to Prudhoe Castle but this time, looking out. English Heritage held an open day ay on 2nd May and hopefully, this means the castle, which has been closed for several months, has begun a programme of events and open days. 

Significantly influenced

Ever wondered about the future of advertising your books online?

I've just discovered it is possible to do one Amazon Ad and have more than one title on that ad.

I read that the future will be significantly influenced by AI. Well, I sort of expected that. Protecting consumer data is also crucial. Wasn't that critical when they were teaching AI to write books, though, was it? so I'm not entirely convinced on that one.

Already AD Agencies are touting for business among authors. "let us do your advertising..." 

Pretty soon they'll be writing the books for the (possibly top-line) authors and reaping the royalties before someone reads the book and says "this wasn't as good as the last one - are you sure s/he really wrote it?" Because  *they* could write any sort of rubbish, stick a famous authors name on it and what re-dress does the author have? Or the reader who paid good money for something that is basically a fraud? There probably isn't a law that covers it ... yet.

*anyone who wanted to and had the IT knowledge to do it, really.

Travel was no easy matter

 Friday Night Murder came out in July 2024. My first venture into the crime scene. I think it fits under the label of police procedural since it features Jess Carter leaving the Met and moving north to Hexham as Detective Inspector. On her very first day it snows, she's late for work and hears someone make a disparaging remark about a new Inspector who leaves the top force in the country  - what is wrong with her? Oh, and a dead body of a young girl is found in the snow....

Writing it was fun and the change of scene interesting. Research involved all sorts of investigations into signs of death, post mortems, weapons, all of which should puzzle anyone who ever checks the files on my computer. Also quite different to my usual research into fabrics and styles of the Regency, not to mention hair styles, types of carriages and distances between towns and cities and travelling between them. Travel was no easy matter in 1811 and I can see why most folk stayed at home all their lives.

I am now in the throes of final editing of Saturday Morning Murder which also features Jess Carter and Rory Harrison. Maybe it will be published on KDP by the end of February 25. I certainly hope so. I'm ready to move onto something else. Will there be a Sunday Night Murder? Possibly. It seems a shame to leave all that research unused! 

 I finally typed The End, which I almost never do, on the 174th sheet of my new Regency. Whether it is the end or not, it is printed out and needs a title.  I'm thinking of Double Trouble but don't take that as final. Here's the opening:

London, 1811

 “Confound it, Ellen! Why in the world is he talking to her?”

Phee’s voice, though low, carried the unmistakable edge of fury. A flush rose high on her cheeks, and her periwinkle eyes, ordinarily cool and composed, sparked with indignation. She stood rigid, chin lifted, the ostrich plume in her hair trembling slightly with the force of her restraint.

Only Ellen, standing close enough to catch the words, heard them. She blinked once, slowly, and followed her sister’s gaze across the crowded withdrawing room that tonight did duty as ballroom.

There, beneath the golden glow of a dozen chandeliers, stood Richard, Lord Quarrington. Tall, dark-haired, and infuriatingly at ease with his situation, he was engaged in what appeared to be a most agreeable conversation with Lady Cecilia Frosterley. The latter, all pale gold curls and artful delicacy, tilted her head just so, her gloved fingers resting lightly on the edge of her fan. Her laugh, soft and silvery, floated across the room like a bell.

“He may speak to whomever he pleases,” Ellen said mildly, though her tone carried more caution than conviction.

But Phee was already moving, her silk skirts whispering with purpose as she strode across the parquet floor. Guests parted instinctively, some with murmured greetings, others with sidelong glances. Ellen followed, her own steps quieter, more measured.

“He does not need anyone’s permission to speak to any young lady of our acquaintance,” she added, catching up.

Phee halted so abruptly that Ellen nearly collided with her. Eyes blazing, she declared, “But he knows how much I dislike her.”

Ellen opened her mouth, then closed it again. She had learned, over the years, that Phee’s tempers were best met with patience, not argument. Still, she ventured, “And Lady Cecilia knows how much you admire him.”

Phee’s breath caught and for a moment, her expression faltered, showing a flicker of vulnerability beneath the outrage. Then she drew herself up, spine straight as a sword. “That is entirely beside the point.”

“Is it?” Ellen asked gently.

Phee didn’t answer. Her gaze had returned to the far corner of the room, where Lord Quarrington now leaned in slightly, saying something that made Lady Cecilia smile. Not the demure smile expected of a debutante, but something sly, knowing. And downright possessive.

Phee’s hands clenched at her sides.

The room was stifling. The scent of beeswax and lavender hung heavy in the air, mingling with the perfume of roses and the faint tang of perspiration. Music drifted from the musicians’ gallery playing a waltz, languid and sweet but Phee heard none of it. Her world had narrowed to that corner of the room, to that smile, to the way Richard’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed.

He had laughed like that with her once.

The Next three months.

 Another re-edit/new cover complete!

This is quite an experiment to see if covers and titles really do make a difference. I am following stats and reports keenly, and all I can say is this has been the nest month this year which kind of proves something.

The next three months will be interesting.

 I don't know what I'm going to do now. I think everything has been done that needs doing. 

However this coming week will be busy. I have  a hair appointment on the same day my dog is booked in for an ultrasound scan. That's Wednesday and we are having lunch at the Black Sheep in Masham on Saturday. Bill has a lunch date on Tuesday but I stay at home or walk the dog while is out enjoying himself. 

I shall have to think about writing a totally new story soon, but so far nothing is consolidating in my brain. 

I'm working on it!

 Corrections done! I am always amazed at how little things get missed until the published book pops up on my ipad!

 "brough" instead of brought, a period where it should not be, little, insignificant things...

All caught and corrected now. Not that there were hordes, but perhaps half a dozen things to alter. So now I suppose I must concentrate on getting the word out that it is available. The downside of the job, if I'm honest.

Once that is done I can get on with other things. Dusting, perhaps. Wiping off dirty finger marks on doors and other exciting things. Not very enticing, so maybe I'll do a little editing on an older book. I enjoy that when I start because it tells me that I have learned something about writing over the years! I seem to remember that when I first wrote my book about Finlay, it was something like 160,000 words. Right now it is down to 105k, and I'm still editing. I was very wordy at the start of my writing journey. Look out for a new edition of Alba is Mine soon. 

Podcasts

Call me slow if you like but I have just discovered the world of podcasts.

The only trouble with them is I tend to fall asleep - which is great if its late at night and sleeping is what I really should be doing, but not so good if it is midday and I am supposed to be working.

I hear them all day long as my other half listens to political/news podcasts,. I hear them but I don't listen. Well, sometimes I do when it's Rory and Alistair. But it gave me the idea that it would help save my eyesight if I listened to things instead of reading them all. So I began looking for podcasts in my area and found  loads of creative writers do them.

Many are American. We are usually a decade behind American trends, though maybe the delay is not so long now as it used to be thanks to social media and television. I've begun with Urban Fantasy author Lindsay Buroker since I enjoyed her Death Before Dragons series. She is a six figure author so she must be doing something the readers like. 

Will I do a podcast? I think the world is safe as haven't a clue how to do it technically. 

What hope is left?

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are revolutionizing the publishing industry. That is the polite term for what is happening. There are other, less polite views from those who object to any sort of software doing all the work in a fraction of the time it would take an actual cover artist to do it. There are fears it will put a lot of software artists out of work.

In 2025, these technologies will play an even more significant role in content creation, editing, and distribution in various ways as the algorithms grow more and more sophisticated and generate content indistinguishable from human-written text. Used in journalism it can and probably begin to produce more news articles, reports, and summaries.

These algorithms study our behaviour online. This allows them to “provide personalized content recommendations” or, as some see it, plague us with ads of what to buy next. It is claimed publishers will be able to provide more of what we actually like. Tools like  Grammarly  already assists writers with editing. I've used it myself and wished it were swifter. By 2025, such tools will offer more suggestions and reduce the time required for manual editing. 

It will be tempting. I can see that. But I also have fear that if authors turn to using AI to “write” six books a year for them, what hope is left for the struggling author who can manage to hold a job and write at night and perhaps publish a title every two years?

Switching genres

 There's such a lot to learn when switching genres. 

I am busy doing research and the police would think me a serial killer if they they looked at my research folders on my PC. Titles like Forensics, Poisons, decomposition rates, and fingerprints abound. 

I can think of plots but so far nothing has really grabbed my attention. So much has already been done so it is very hard to find a new angle on killing someone. I am discovering authors in the genre and so far I've found Caroline Graham, Peter James (of the Roy Grace series) and next I'm going to try Robert Galbraith (Cormoran Strike fame).

I already knew L J Ross, Mari Hannah and Robert Goddard, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, Tess Gerritsen, Jack Cartwright, J M Dalgleish and Ann Cleeves but what I am delighted to find is the wide range within the genre. Some are too gruesome for me and those I avoid. Some are a tad wordy, and some are quite brief - I am always surprised when I get to the end of a Joy Ellis!

Designing characters

 Flicking through one of my notebooks this morning and found this:

Bad storytelling: 

lack of progression; false motivation; redundant characters; empty subtext .

They all result in bland, boring text. So says Robert McKee in his book STORY published in 1999 and I wouldn't dare disagree with him. Why would I? what he says is true.

Designing a story: 75% of the work goes into deciding who are the characters; what do they want; how do they go about getting it; what stops them; what are the consequences. 

I don't spend long enough on designing. I'm always so keen to get going, to start writing my characters and get into the story. Maybe I should have spent longer on the  consequences of ignoring good advice.

The craft of writing

 

To paraphrase Emma Darwin, “conscious craft has become intuitive craft” in my own writing.

I noticed when I did my second draft of FRIDAY NIGHT MURDER how often I had filtered the scene through the eyes of my main protagonist. I also noticed how easily I was ripping out the filtering words, without actually thinking about it.

To me this was a sign that I am improving. I also noticed how often I changed -ing endings to -ed endings. I think I even went for direct thought instead of having my chosen character think aloud. Why was he so nervous? Instead of  Jess wondered why he was so nervous.

The third draft suffered more of the same. No doubt one or two examples will have escaped the editing scissors but hey! It is a good step forward, especially since I was doing it without being told to do it or because I’d read an article somewhere.

Hung up!

 I got into a muddle yesterday over which POV I was writing.

The more I thought about it, the more puzzled I got. So today I am giving myself a brief refresher -

First Person: story is told by "I"

Second Person: a narrator describes the readers' thoughts, words and actions  "You feel your heart race"

Third Person: the story is told from inside the character's head. "she remembered the day"

Third Person Multiple POV. The story is sometimes told from a secondary character's POV as well as the main character.

Omniscient Narrator: As if God tells the story, seeing into every character's deepest motives and thoughts.

Author Intrusion when the author slips personal comments into the scene. Definitely a No-No!

Mixed Viewpoint when first and third POV are both used. Useful in time slip and romance novels.

In all cases, limit information to what the POV character can know. Avoid head-hopping. Give clear signals when changing POV with a physical break or scene break. Name the POV character in the first sentence after the change.

This year so far has been very wet and the result is rampant growth of trees and shrubs. Paths are overgrown and lost, so I thought today's pic was rather appropriate.

Big Moments

 I research writing a lot, and I make notes.

I often combine several "experts" into one set of notes on a particular topic, so that if I want to mention such things here, I can't always quote an exact reference.

A case in point is "Cut the Sagging Middle."

This has been written about time and again, but what I gleaned from my research is that in a novel of 70k words, page points 70, 140 and 210 are IMPORTANT.

Now I must confess I never calculated how I was doing page wise but I was aware I should have big emotional moments. I just didn't care too much about where they appeared!

They should include turning points in the hero and heroine's story. (You can tell I was writing historical romance at the time) They should also have a Black Moment and work hard as they struggle to get through the BM to a HEA ending.

It shows in everything they do!

 Dialogue is important. to a writer and also to a reader.

Each character in the story should have their own voice. The reader should be able to recognise a teenage girl's dialogue from a business man's without being told which is which.

Working in some speech patterns helps readers grow familiar with particular characters.

Sometimes what is said is at odds with body language and this can be a Good Thing. We can signal disapproval with our faces, bodies and eye contact or lack of it. It doesn't have to be verbal to get the point across.

Showing signs of a character's emotions is more powerful than simply telling.

Men and Women are different, and it shows in everything they do and say - or don't say!

Conflict can be simple

 Ever wondered about conflict in creative writing?

It's important. Without it, a book is boring.

There is conflict in action and everybody can see when two characters come to blows or the Indians attack the cowboys. There can also be conflict that is only implied or suggested, even hidden.

People rarely agree about everything, no matter how good a friendship is. Little things niggle and become an irritant, and can lead to big blow-ups which may seem to be about one thing but are often due to something completely unsuspected. Those conflicts make life really interesting! So often these spats show what people really are and what makes them tick - or explode.

My dog and I have conflict. She wants to dart from side to side at great speed, following every last smell but I want her to walk sedately by my side and not drag me into a hedge or a cowpat.  We struggle. Eventually I win, and she loses interest in the smells. (Not really, but she stops dragging me to them!) Sometimes I can be patience itself with this behaviour but sometimes I am dangerously close to shrieking at her and since she's deaf, it doesn't help. 

The shrieking can be because several small incidents have happened to me that particular day, and it is the cumulative effect that tips me too far over the edge. This can happen in fiction, too.  It doesn't have to be one word, or one phrase, but it might be several comments from different characters spread over a day. Conflicts can be simple or they can be complex. Writing conflict is wonderful.

Never use a verb

 

“Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.”

I saw Elmore Leonard’s piece about creative writing and liked the sentence so much I read the rest. (I have read it before and agree with most of it.) Other authors say similar things, and sometimes they way they say it is entertaining.

It took me a while to know when I needed to use the verb “said” at all. So many times, particularly if only two characters are in the scene, the tag is not needed. I think I’ve got it now.

Sometimes I long to go back and re-edit all my earlier titles, but will have to stay as a record of my learning process. Ten times 70k words is 7ook and to read through that lot with a correcting pen would take maybe longer than I still have on earth!

Too much dialogue?

 Ask yourself -

Do I rely overmuch on dialogue? 

There’s a trick to handling dialogue. A story needs a narrative voice to anchor us in the story, to tell us who these characters are and how they relate to each other. Without that, we lack understanding of

a) what is going on (no context)

b) where they are (no description)

c) why they are having this discussion.(motivation)

It’s good to have a description of the surroundings which may or may not be important to the conversation. Since we cannot hear the voices, we miss out on clues such as dialect, tone, emotion.

The very first literary agent I ever applied to said bluntly, “You’ve forgotten the who, why, what, where and how.” (I think those are the words she used. It was at least fifteen years ago! But if I misremembered, I’m sure you get what she meant.)

If a reader has to go back and read every word three times over to get the sense of what is unfolding, they will give up from sheer exhaustion. So remember - just dialogue may look cute, but it will not do the entire
job.

 

People talk of Gothic novels - aka Northanger Abbey – but what is a gothic setting? Dracula’s castle is gothic because it helps invoke gothic themes. Take architecture, add in claustrophobia and creeping dread, toss in distance from civilisation, a prison-like atmosphere and you are almost there. 

Old places, and isolated wilderness helps to set the scene.  Almost any castle will do, especially if it is partially ruined and has a dungeon or better yet – a locked door. How about an ancient mansion, a hunting lodge, or dilapidated chateau? There are plenty of ruined cottages scattered about the norther landscape.

Take something familiar and twist it. A doll isn’t gothic-scary, but a doll that inexplicably appears on your bedside table might be. How did it get there? Who put it there?

Signing the contacts on some property isn’t scary, but doing so in Transylvania might be, especially if a mysterious and reclusive count lived there.

Historical fiction is based in reality. In Gothic horror, magic and monsters and things that go bump in the night might be real.

In a Gothic horror, the doll would be the ghost of a horribly murdered girl that now possesses the doll.

In historical fiction ghosts aren’t real and there will usually be a protagonist driven mad by the nasty doll shunted around by her wicked uncle.

 I like writing about the Viking Age which tends to be action-packed and practical. But I am beginning to think along the lines of a chieftain’s hall in the middle of nowhere, with a murderer who stalks the corridors at night, leaving gruesome trophies behind!

Yes, I did read Beowulf at uni!

But add in dread, and snow them in over a brutal winter as they are picked off one by one…

New Cover facts

 Been working hard  these last few weeks. 

I've been trying Amazon Ads and so far, I'm making a profit. 

Not a great profit, but  definitely in my favour.  In following the course I learned that my approach to marketing was dismal, and so I've been uprating my book descriptions, dreaming up hooks and renovating all my covers. They may not be perfect now but they are an improvement and may still change in the future 

It takes a lot of time and effort to do all this, because I have to find out where I'm going wrong  before I can try to put it right. I've lost count of how many videos on compositing and graphics in general I've watched - not to mention the talks I've listened to on the best way to use Ads. It has meant that I've been absent from Facebook and Twitter but then - would anyone notice my absence? 

It has also meant I've done no writing of fresh material though I have

 revised Alba is Mine. In doing so I discovered how much my writing

 has improved since 2005, which was a bit of a surprise.

I have put the new cover for Far After Gold up today as a comparison. It isn't that old, as my covers go, but I learned that a linked series of books ought to have the same font and cover treatment. If you check the pages for my books at the top of this blog, you will find that all my "Viking" books are now using the same fonts for the title, sub-title and author. (I've just noticed that the newest cover  I've put up here does not have a capital letter for Viking. I'll have to rectify that very soon.) So: Far After Gold, Viking Summer, Viking Bride and Magician's Bride are now "linked."

I'm happy. Now it is time to get back to planning a new book.

If you've ever wonder about the title I chose its an old saying that "Man will travel far after gold."