BOOKWORMS AND VILLAINS

After completing my latest novel release 'Summer at The Secondhand Bookworm', I have spent a couple of days playing around with cover designs for two more titles in the series. I had already planned to write 'Valentine's Day at The Secondhand Bookworm' as book six, after 'Halloween at The Secondhand Bookworm' but I am hoping to be able to complete 'Book Club at The Secondhand Bookworm' and 'Black Friday at The Secondhand Bookworm' before it. So 'Valentine's Day' will be number eight. My sister says that I should keep writing and having as many as I like in the series. She is a fan of 'Agatha Raisin' by M.C. Beaton who is now up to 28 in her series! While I don't even contemplate comparing myself to a successful author, I write for fun, I would enjoy adding more to my series set in a secondhand and antiquarian bookshop, after all, I have ten years of memories and experiences, plus a good imagination. I have already pa...

The Castletown Tuk-Tuk was inspired upon a visit in May to Arundel where the little Tuk-Tuk was parked ready to give tours about the town. I love to include eccentric and humorous things in my series of novels and the Tuk-Tuk was a must! The Tuk-Tuk in Arundel Castletown is my fictional setting for my series of novels set in a secondhand and antiquarian bookshop. The novels are based upon my ten years experience working in and managing a secondhand bookshop in Arundel. I started the series in 2008 for fun, writing two novels for my book colleagues which were a great success. A couple of years ago I decided to rewrite the first volumes and continue with the planned series so as to make them available on Amazon Kindle. So far I have four in the series and am currently working on book five. The Tuk-Tuk first appears in 'Summer at The Secondhand Bookworm', book four in my series of novels, but I will include it in more. I am especially looking forward to including it in...

The Enormous Moustache Chapter 10 in BOOK 4 'Summer at The Secondhand Bookworm' - 'The Enormous Moustache'. 'When Nora began down the hill after parking her car the next day she almost fell over with mixed bafflement and mirth. Filling up a large part of the castle wall that ran towards the gate she and Humphrey had used to visit the Duke’s library was a huge moustache. It had been fixed there as a work of art, made out of willow sticks.' I had some fun writing this chapter which takes place during the week of Castletown's Summer Festival and the 'Art Trail'. I was able to include a particularly amazing piece of art that has appeared in the town - an enormous moustache. The actual moustache currently in Arundel for the Gallery Trail is the work of Environmental artists Mark and Rebecca Ford from West Sussex (my home county). I think it is fantastic and loved seeing it arrive in Arundel. It simply had to appear in my novel and as I was com...

I have started writing the fifth book in my 'The Secondhand Bookworm' series today which I hope to have completed by the end of October as we draw near to Halloween. 'Halloween at The Secondhand Bookworm' takes place over the usual time frame of a week in the bookshop, but this time its 'Shriek Week' in Castletown, and the first task for Nora Jolly and her work colleague/sister-in-law Cara Jolly is to decorate the front of the bookshop with cobwebs and organize a very spooky window. 'Halloween at The Secondhand Bookworm' promises lots of laughs, chaos, crazy customers, plenty of ghostly/horror literary titles, queries and questions and much more as Nora spends six days in The Secondhand Bookworm in Castletown, goes on a day of calls to buy books from people's houses (including to the House of Coffins), attends a dinner in the town dungeons, takes a ghostly tour, encounters zombie walkers, werewolves and what could well pass for Stephen King...

NEW BOOK RELEASE HILARIOUS SUMMER READING 'SUMMER AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM' BOOK 4 IN THE SERIES. It's finally here, finally complete, finally available on Amazon Kindle (and coming to paperback soon) - Summer at The Secondhand Bookworm. I had great fun writing this and was able to soak up the realities of a very hot summer combined with all my notes and memories of working in the bookshop during the festival week. I completed the book just as the hot weather broke so have been editing it with the rain pelting down on the attic windows. I was bemused when The Queen bestowed the title 'Duke of Sussex' upon Prince Harry because I had chosen that title for my Duke in my novels, simply because the novel is set in Sussex I reside in Sussex and it wasn't a title currently in use! My Duke of Sussex makes another appearance in Summer at The Secondhand Bookworm and Nora and Humphrey are given a tour of his library in chapter five. ...

Book selling memoirs Today I would like to share with you Chapter One of my first novel 'The Secondhand Bookworm'. The full novel is available to download and read through Amazon Kindle - all proceeds from the sales of my books go to Mary's Dowry Productions (my film and media apostolate). I wrote The Secondhand Bookworm originally for my work colleagues but re-edited it and re-wrote bits almost ten years later as part of a series of novels now accessible to anyone who enjoys a fun, clean, British read. So, here is chapter one - I hope you enjoy it and I hope it encourages you to start the series. I shall be releasing BOOK 4 this August and am already working on BOOK 5! The Secondhand Bookworm series of novels are available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback. CHAPTER ONE – CONCERNING RAVENS In the front room of an antiquarian and second hand bookshop in a little Sussex town was a young woman named Nora. She was seated at a cluttered counter surrounded b...