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A little more about Through Dancing Poppies: release date: 24th April.

/ Caron Allan / Leave a comment

Only two weeks until Through Dancing Poppies launches: it’s book 3 in my 1960s-era murder mystery series the Miss Gascoigne mysteries. In case you’ve missed me banging on about it for yonks, here’s a quick recap:

Through Dancing Poppies: Miss Gascoigne mysteries book 3: an intriguing cosy mystery set in the swinging 1960s

Poppy Bell is a teenage singing sensation about to ‘hit the big time’ and newly engaged to a man old enough to be her father. Everyone says she’s a gold digger. But then…

Dee Gascoigne, now a fully-fledged—or nearly fully-fledged—private investigator working for the law firm of Montague Montague, meets Poppy a couple of times and can’t help but notice she is a very talented musician who is young, naive and on the brink of something incredible. But she is also surrounded by people who know exactly what they are doing, they’ve done this kind of thing before, are used to the spotlight and the glare of media sensationalism, and know how to present the perfect image to grow a very public career. Then there’s a near miss in a car park, and suddenly Dee has an intense feeling of danger lurking in the shadows. But who is the target? Poppy or her new fiancé, wealthy entrepreneur Teddy Reynolds?

Research for this book mainly consists of remembering my early childhood, and trawling through old photos, or watching Juke Box Jury on YouTube!

Who is Dee Gascoigne? Well, she is the baby born in book 4 of my 1930s Dottie Manderson mystery series. She used to be a modern languages teacher at a posh girls’ school, but was sacked because the school board objected to her leaving her husband with a view to divorcing him. Yes, honestly, that kind of thing really happened. A divorced or separated woman was genuinely treated badly by many people who saw her as immoral or dangerous or subversive in some way.

Almost by accident, Dee falls into an investigating role when she lets her curiosity get the better of her in a village where she is convalescing. She solves the case, and at the end of book one, she is taken on by a family friend’s law firm as a fully fledged professional private investigator. A job she is very well suited to, in spite of her former mentor’s attempt to woo her back to the school.

It’s been great fun writing this book, and I’m already getting ideas together for book 4 of the series, called All That Glitters. As you no doubt guessed, that’s going to be set at Christmastime.

Meanwhile, here’s a short extract for Through Dancing Poppies:

She was about to tell her brother Rob how glad she was that he was with her, but immediately she was distracted by a couple a short way ahead of them, standing under a streetlight. An older man with, she presumed, his daughter. The man appeared angry about something, and the girl, arms folded across her chest, was glancing about her anxiously.

Dee was on the point of asking in her best schoolmarm voice, if there was something the matter, but the girl turned back to glance in their direction. Only then did Dee realise it was none other than the school’s former pupil and new media sweetheart, Poppy Bell.

‘Poppy?’ Dee said, and the girl fixed a look on Dee and Rob, wide-eyed, fearful. ‘Whatever is the matter, dear?’ Dee asked, falling into her role of responsible teacher.

Dee was aware of Rob looking in surprise first at Dee then at the young woman Dee addressed, but Dee fixed her attention on Poppy and the man with her.

‘Didn’t I meet you recently?’ Poppy asked, a frown creasing her brow as she tried to recall.

‘That’s right. I was coming out of the Holly Tree restaurant in London with Miss Evans two weeks ago, just as you were going in. Is everything all right?’

‘I don’t know…’ Poppy glanced at her companion, who turned to look at Dee and Rob. Dee realised he was angry. He said,

‘Some bloody fool just tried to run me down as I got out of my car. Luckily, I leapt back smartly enough, or I’d have been done for. The bastard—excuse my language—the devil wasn’t even looking where he was going. Probably drunk. Had to have been doing fifty, and in a car park too! Anyway, it shook me up a bit, that’s all. No harm done.’ He brushed his suit jacket down as if he’d been rolled in the dirt.

Dee’s hand went to her mouth in horror. Instinctively she glanced around her, as did her brother, but it was too dark to see if anyone was lurking, and they certainly didn’t spot any cars on the move.

‘Rotter’s already gone. Scared of getting into trouble, I don’t doubt. Anyway… Excuse me, where are my manners. I’m Teddy Reynolds. Poppy and I are—well, we’ve just got engaged to be married as a matter of fact.’

Dee, confirmed in her judgement of his appearance on the television, calculated that he was old enough—easily old enough—to be the girl’s father, nevertheless remembered to smile, and said,

‘Oh my! Congratulations! How exciting.’

He put a proprietary arm about the girl’s waist, pulling her close to his side. Poppy smiled up at him, leaning into the crook of his arm, but casting an anxious glance about her from time to time. Further away, another couple had just got out of their car, whilst more cars were pulling in at the gate.

‘Is this your old teacher, lovely?’ Teddy Reynolds asked Poppy.

Dee didn’t care for the old part, especially from him. She said,

‘That’s right. I used to teach here, though I never had Poppy in any of my classes. I taught modern languages: German and French, basically. Now I’m just a visitor like everyone else.’

‘Poppy said she’d met you recently. And this gentleman is your husband, I assume?’ Reynolds said, turning to hold out a hand to Rob. Rob shook the hand, but added,

‘No, no, I’m just her brother. Just come along for the fun of it.’

‘Well, it’s very nice to meet you both. I do hope you’ll join us at our party tomorrow evening. It’s at my sister’s place. She’s married to Poppy’s manager, my good friend Ivor Norton. You may have heard of my sister. Valerie Blackshaw? Anyway, we’d be delighted if you could both join us. It starts at eight o’clock, it’s not anything formal, no need to ‘dress’, haha. I’ll just jot the address down for you.’ He reached into his pocket for his wallet and drew out a small white card. ‘Do say you can make it; everyone from dinner this evening is invited.’

‘Of course, we’d be thrilled,’ Rob told him.

‘Valerie Blackshaw? My goodness, she is my absolute favourite actress! She was just incredible in A Fatal Redemption, and in The Younger Sister,’ Dee couldn’t help bursting out, though she knew it was probably silly of her. But Teddy smiled indulgently and she could see he was pleased. Putting away what appeared to be a gold-plated fountain pen, he handed her the card.

‘Well, you’ll be able to tell her that yourself tomorrow. She’ll be delighted to meet you. Miss Evans from the school will be there too, and others you’ll know. But thank you both for your kind concern this evening. Not everyone would bother. And now, look here, Poppy my lovely, we need to get a move on, or you’ll be late.’

‘Right,’ said the girl, calm enough now to slip back into the usual bored tones of a teenager. ‘See you,’ she added to Dee and Rob, then turned on her heel and walked away.

***

 

 

Torn between three loves

/ Caron Allan / Leave a comment

As you might be aware, I’m putting the final touches to my book Through Dancing Poppies. It’s the third book in the Miss Gascoigne mystery series, set in the 1960s in the UK, and the release date for this book is 24th April. Not long now!!!

As one book nears its end–production-wise, anyway–other books call their siren song. It’s so tempting. Because when you’ve worked on the same book for one year, two years, more, you can start to feel a bit like someone waiting for the last guest to leave at a party. Just, go, already! I mean, you love them to bits, and will definitely invite them again, but right at this moment, you just need them to leave. That’s what it’s like as you near the end of a book you’ve worked on, in this case, for a little over eighteen months.

So the idea of another book to work on is very tempting.

But which one? Something totally new, like my roughly planned out Ain’t Misbehavin’ a kind of caper set in 1931, featuring a couple of clever con-artists, a mother and daughter who scam people out of a ton of money and are always a step ahead of the law.

Or the next Dottie book – book 9 of the series which is due out in December and still needs final revisions and proofreading? This book is called The Rough Rude Sea, and its appeal is very strong–a ship-based setting travelling between the Canary Islands and the Channel Islands in the summer of 1935. Here’s a teeny extract from the beginning. To set the scene, Dottie and William are about to return home from their honeymoon (spoiler! Now you’ve got to read the first 8 books! 😀 ) but they turn up at the docks to board the ship and…

‘This is not what I was expecting.’ Dottie Hardy gazed mournfully up at the small steamship moored a little ahead of them. The nameplate attached to the bow claimed this ship to be the SS Icarus. Dottie felt this did not bode well.
William paid the taxi driver and turned. He frowned as he looked at the ship. ‘Must be some kind of mistake.’
There was an official of some sort standing at the dockside, by the roped gangplank that led onto the ship. He held a clipboard and had a red pencil in his hand. William went over. The young man looked up, gave William an uninterested look and said, boredom oozing from every pore, ‘Name?’
‘Hardy,’ said William without even thinking. Then he said, ‘Hang on, what happened to the SS Tigris?’
The man yawned, and scratched his chin. William was aware of an urge to shake him. William shoved his hands in his pocket just in case.
‘The company’s gone bust. Three days ago, in fact. This vessel has been courteously provided to bring the first class passengers back to British shores, with no expense to yourself, I might add, all costs have been generously covered by SeaSteamers. Was that William Hardy? And er…’ He paused and looked Dottie up and down in a wolfish manner that had William shoving his free hand even deeper into his pockets, ‘I suppose that is the delightful Mrs Hardy?’
‘You suppose correctly,’ William growled, and thrust his tickets and the passports at the man.
The man perused them with minimum attention and handed them back. ‘Seems fine. Cabin 27, middle deck. Dinner’s at eight, in the main saloon bar and dining-room, top deck. No need to dress.’ He yawned again and turned away, all interest in the passengers lost.
William turned to find Dottie was coming up behind him, the taxi driver bringing their luggage from the back of his car.
‘What’s going on? Has our ship been delayed? Or is it moored up somewhere else?’
William, hardly believing it himself, explained.
She looked at the little ship in disbelief. ‘This is it?’
‘Yup.’
‘Really? It looks so small. You’ll never get five hundred people and crew on that.’
‘Nope. He says it’s just for the first-class passengers. I’m guessing there aren’t many of those.’
She stared at the vessel for a full minute. ‘And are we happy to go on board this little thing?’

OR… I could have a stab at the more contemporary book Dirty Work, which is book 1 of the new Families Can Be Murder trilogy, a spin-off from Friendship Can Be Murder, my books Criss Cross, Cross Check and Check Mate, which feature posh Cressida and her determination to get rid of annoying or nasty people. She confides all to her diary, so it’s not exactly a murder ‘mystery’. In the new trilogy, it’s her husband Matt who is keeping the diary and confessing everything on paper:

In the front of my wife’s old diaries, there’s always some romantic, sweet dedication, full of love and promises of devotion. I did one for her, years ago, but her first husband Thomas, did loads of them, and they were all flowery and romantic, the kind of thing posh blokes always do, and in really expensive diaries, too, you know the sort of thing, designer stationery. She still keeps them in a drawer of her bedside table and she gets them out now and again and sits there all emotional and lost in the past, and… It makes me wonder if she loved Thomas (she never ever called him Tom) more than me. I get a bit jealous when I think of him. Which isn’t fair, I know, but I can’t help it, I just do…
Oh yes. So now I’ve got my own diary, and all it says in the front is ‘99p from Last Chance Book Bargains: your last chance to buy ’em cheap!’ Really cheap too, there’s a calendar in the front, and there’s two 27th Februaries. Is that for some kind of late Groundhog Day, or in case I need a do-over?
But instead of sitting in comfort in the sunroom at home like she does, here I am, stuck in the cab of my van, writing a quick sneaky note as I wait to find out what my dad is getting up to.
‘Matt,’ he said to me one day last week, ‘Could you give us a lift to the New Mills Business Park? I’ve arranged to see someone about something next Friday afternoon, ’bout twoish.’
Well, I don’t mind doing things for my dad—we get on really well, he’s not as young as he was, and he’s always been there for me, even when I was in prison—but he was acting dead cagey, so naturally I was onto him.
‘What’s it about?’ I asked him.
He just tapped the side of his nose. ‘No need for you to get involved, mate. I just need a lift, and don’t for the life of you go mentioning it to your mother.’
Nothing sets off alarm bells like my dad telling me he’s up to something I can’t tell my mum. What’s the old bugger getting up to now? At first I thought it might be some kind of birthday surprise he’s got planned for her. But to be honest, I doubt he even remembers when her birthday is, after only forty-nine years of wedded bliss. It’s like the pin-code on her phone. He needed to use her phone, and it was locked. So he asked her for the code, and she (very cleverly as it turns out) said, ‘Just tap in the code. It’s our wedding date.’
So obviously he was completely stumped. Not big on remembering anniversaries or birthdays, or… just anything really.

So tempting, all these writing/rewriting options. And then there’s a new series idea I’ve been thinking about for several years, The Runaway Policeman. I’ll just leave that with you.

***

 

The Roughest Rudest Sea – first draft blues

/ Caron Allan

How I think I look as I contemplate my next scene.

So as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m knee-deep in the first draft of my new Dottie Manderson mystery, The Rough Rude Sea. It’s book nine of the series and we join Dottie and William on their journey home–by ship, of course–from their honeymoon. I suppose by rights, I should change the series to the Dottie Hardy mysteries – but let’s leave that on one side for now…

I’m wrestling with characters, trying to piece together the ‘action’, everything is at the juggling stage and the ‘What did I say his name was?’ stage. But at least I’ve got ten months to sort it all out. That shouldn’t be too difficult. I think. Or…?

Here’s sneak-peek of the opening of the story; I hope you are intrigued:

August 1935. Gran Canaria.

With hindsight, as she lay dying on the hard floor of the dining-room, Katherine Henshawe realised she should have expected this to happen. She should have been on her guard. She’d been a fool, she saw that now. If she’d had any doubts about the severity of her situation, the gently spreading pool of blood on the floor in front of her gave her a good indication. She tried to call for help, but of course it was pointless. No one came.

‘Save your last few breaths,’ her killer—for she knew now that was who this smiling person was—told her with a wink. ‘Not that it’ll do you much good. Not long now, as I expect you can see for yourself. And with you out of the way, I shall be very rich. Very rich indeed. I hope you enjoyed your holiday!’

At the door, there was a slight pause, then a merry chuckle and the door closed again.

No one would find her in time now. She knew too that she would never see her home in Berkshire again. Katherine Henshawe spent her final moments praying. Not for a miracle. Not for the prolongation of her life, or even for forgiveness and the chance for an eternal life in Heaven.

From the corner of her eye, she could just make out the crucifix on the wall. With her last breath, she prayed that her killer would suffer horribly for what they had done to her.

 

This book will be released in December, as I mentioned, and eBook pre-orders are available. There will also be a paperback version, and a large print, and even a hardback edition as I know some people really like those. Stay tuned for more updates!

***

‘So, where do you get your ideas?’

/ Caron Allan / 3 Comments

I know I’ve written on this topic a couple of times before, but it’s one of those questions that never goes away.

‘Where do you get your ideas?’

This is one of the first questions people usually ask me – and I’m pretty sure it happens to other writers all the time. It kind of makes me want to groan, because it’s next to impossible to give a sincere and considered answer to this question without boring the pants off everyone by talking for an hour. The short, somewhat trite answer might be, ‘Everywhere!’

But if we really want to answer the question, it takes a minute or two longer. Because really there’s no single answer. Ideas don’t come from one unique, unvarying source. Nor do they come in the same way each time. Anything from the world seen or unseen can come to my attention and lead me to think, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting…’

Inspiration, which is what ideas really are, comes from everywhere and nowhere. A snatch of song, a news story, a little patch of colour on a card in the paint section of the DIY store, the turn of a person’s head making you think just for one split second it’s someone else, someone from another time, someone who should be dead. An unexpected view of yourself in a shop window, that odd moment before you recognise yourself, that brief second when you think, slightly puzzled, ‘I know you.’

An overheard snatch of conversation, ‘Don’t lose my hat, man, my hat’s my identity,’ and ‘Of course she never did find out who’d sent it.’ A film, a book, a taste, a smell, a memory, a story your mother told you – you’ve known her all your life yet this is the first time she’s ever mentioned this particular incident.

I have based two full-length stories on dreams, three short stories and one novel on songs, a poem on a piece of art, a novel based on a documentary I saw on TV about ancient tapestries, (Opus Anglicanum: Latin for English work), and another about the Reformation. I’ve written a short story about an arrowhead, and another about ancestral bones and the relevance they might have to a Neolithic man, about a couple of  trips to Skara Brae in the Orkneys.

I’ve written a whole series of stories about the fact that all too often people think it’s okay to take the law into their own hands. (I’m looking at you Cressida, MC of the Friendship Can Be Murder trilogy!) I’ve written about work situations, about hopes and plans for the future, about family tree research, about children, and pets, and parents. About love. About the absence of love. About Faith. About fear. About books I read as a child. And books I read as an adult. I’ve written about identity and what it means to be who I am, who you are. I’ve written about death – loads.

I saw a gorgeous man on the bus many years ago and wrote a story about him, (The Ice King – still not ‘available’, but if you’re intrigued, here’s a link to a short bit about him.) I’ve read news reports and been inspired to create my own story around some of those. I’ve written in hospital having just given birth, in hospital awaiting treatment for cancer, at work during my lunchbreak when I felt so depressed I just wanted to run away and hide. I’ve written when sitting on the loo, sitting in the garden, on holiday, in bed with flu, and in cafes all over Britain, Europe and Australia. I’ve written on buses and trains and planes. I’ve written when someone I cared about has died. I’ve even got inspiration from sitting down at my desk every day and just making myself write. Sometimes I’ve written page upon page of ‘I don’t know what to write’, like lines that we had to do at school, and still nothing has come to me and I’ve gone away desperate, feeling that the well has not only dried up, but was only a mirage to begin with.

If you are a writer, you squirrel away in the eccentric filing cabinet known as your brain EVERY single thing that you ever experience, and a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle or creating a patchwork quilt, you keep trying pieces together every which way until something fits and makes a pleasing and meaningful picture. There’s not really a pattern to it, there’s not a system or a set of regulations to follow. You just do it.

That’s where I get my ideas.

***

Criss Cross: Friendship can be Murder: book 1

/ Caron Allan

I first published Criss Cross in Feb 2013.

It wasn’t the first book I wrote, but it was the first book I decided to take the plunge and self-publish. An early reviewer said it was the worst book they’d ever read, which made me feel quite proud. It was an achievement of sorts, though maybe not in the way I’d hoped! 😀

I suppose it’s not for everyone–stylistically, it doesn’t suit a lot of people’s taste. It’s written in the first person, in diary-entry sections rather than chapters, and the character herself, our narrator Cressida is ‘posh’ (which is why the trilogy was, to begin with, called the ‘posh hits’ murder series).

But I like to think the story has heart. and it’s not so much a murder mystery as a murder confessional – throughout, Cressida tells us–more or less–exactly what she’s up to. Of course, the joy of first person narration is the reader can only know what the narrator knows, so if she doesn’t know everything, well, well, well…

Some people liked it though. One reviewer seemed to ‘get’ it. To my great joy, they said:

“…the heroine is completely without morals…You really should not like her, but you find yourself wishing her every success in her increasingly bizarre schemes and personal entanglements”

Whilst another (I’m bragging now – sorry!) said,

“Outstandingly witty, daft, exciting and so enjoyable!! This is the best book I have read in a long time. Exquisite!!”

And someone else said,

“…enables the reader to enter into the twisted world of the main character … reading her journal … you take voyeuristic pleasure in her inner thoughts, plans & audacious exploits”

Why am I going on about it? Well, I’ve just started writing a new book for a new trilogy, which is a ‘twelve years later’ spin-off of the Friendship can Be Murder series. The new one is called Families Can be Murder, and book 1 will be called Dirty Work. You can find an extract from the book on this page:

These books are quite different to my Dottie Manderson and Miss Gascoigne series. It can be helpful to write something different. I don’t want to get into a rut with my other two series, and it’s nice to write something that feels new and different, and gives me scope to write outside of the historical periods of the other books.

The first books, though, Criss Cross and the other two books in the series were a bit of a leap of faith for me. Could I really do it? Could I actually write–and publish–books that would sell? It was scary, and 12/13 years ago, self-publishing was still quite a new concept to many people.

Some people told me I was kidding myself, that I was just a wannabe, that if it wasn’t published by a traditional publisher then clearly my book was rubbish, and a mere hobby or wishful thinking. Oh well, you can’t please ’em all!

Just in case you’re interested though, let’s go back to the beginning. Here’s what Cressida had to say in book 1:

(Caution: contains bad words!)

Blurb:

Spoilt society girl Cressida Barker-Powell wants to murder her interfering mother-in-law. In her diary she carefully plans the perfect murder but when she arrives at the scene, she finds the old woman already dead. Soon it becomes clear that her Hitchcock-Movie-loving best pal, Monica, has carried out the deed for her! Taking the murder-switch idea from their favourite Hitchcock movie, Cressida decides the only real way to show her gratitude is by killing off Monica’s philandering husband and his bimbo girlfriend. Monica should appreciate the idea of swapping murders. That’s what she wants, right?
Wrong!
Cressida quickly discovers this was not what her friend had in mind, and a devastated Monica is now hell-bent on revenge. Which means their friendship is definitely over. Isn’t it?

Criss Cross:

Sun 24 June

To my darling Cressida

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! Have fun writing down all your thoughts and plans and dreams, then when we’re old and grey we can sit together on that terrace in Capri and watch the sun go down, drink a glass of wine and you can read me the spicy bits from this journal and we will have a good laugh and talk about the old days!

With all my love forever and ever

Thomas xx

Same day: 10.35pm

She must die!! I hate her!! I refuse to put up with her a moment longer, she is an evil, conniving old bitch without a grain of family feeling and it’s time she was dead!!

Mon 25 June—2.35pm

Have you noticed how some people just never seem to realise they’ve gone too far?

I was going to start off my new journal with something terribly erudite and wise. Like a new school notebook, I particularly wanted the first page to look lovely. But I suppose it really doesn’t matter if the first page isn’t perfectly neat and everything: the whole purpose of a journal is to pour out one’s innermost thoughts and give vent to all the frustrations that, as a nicely brought-up person, one can’t give full reign to in ‘real’ life, and so obviously even the first page can get a bit messy. And now just look at it!

But I digress. I must explain from the beginning…

It was my birthday yesterday. 32 already. God, I’m old! I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror this morning and even in the flattering south-facing light and all steamy and fresh from the shower, I’m absolutely certain I could see the tiniest line down the left side of my face from my nose to the corner of my mouth—I’m convinced it wasn’t there yesterday. Wonder if I’ve left it too late for Botox?

Among a number of very extravagant birthday gifts, my Darling Thomas gave me this sweet little journal. I’d mentioned weeks ago that I used to keep a journal when I was a melodramatic teenager, and how nice it was just to write down everything that happened and to really get it out of my system and add in lots of ‘grrr’ faces and heavy underlining, and lo and behold, the dear man, he surprised me with this journal for my birthday. So here I am.

It’s an absolutely beautiful book. It has a hard cover with a weird kind of gothicky design in the most gorgeous shades of black and purple and gold, with a magneticky bit in the front flap to keep it closed, and the pages, somewhere between A5 and American letter-size, are edged in gold too, so it feels very glamorous to write in—In fact I was a bit afraid to begin the first page, hence all the fuss about it looking nice and neat, I almost got a kind of writer’s block!

But all my good intentions and deep thoughts and years of accumulated adult wisdom and the desire to create something really special went out the window when my cow of a mother-in-law turned up on a ‘surprise’ visit and now my first page—well second really, under that really sweet little message from Thomas—Is absolutely ruined! I only hope to God Thomas doesn’t read it!

Not that she’d remembered it was my birthday any more than my own mother had—oh no! One can’t expect her (or either of them in fact!) to keep track of trivial little details like that. No, she needed Thomas’s advice about some financial matters, and thought she’d pop over. After all what’s an hour and a half’s chauffeured drive here or there? Of course she didn’t bother to ring first, see if we were in or free or anything. Clarice is used to everyone falling in with her plans.

‘I knew you wouldn’t be doing anything important,’ she says as she breezes in, dropping her coat in the middle of the hall, frowning around at the décor before settling herself in the drawing room, demanding tea. Not just the drink! By ‘tea’ she means that Victorian/Edwardian meal between Luncheon, as she calls it, and Dinner. She expected crustless sandwiches, crumpets, cakes (large and small), scones, jam and cream, the works. And copious amounts, of course, of tea-the-drink. China, not Indian. With lemon slices in a dainty little crystal dish, not 2 litres of semi-skimmed in a huge plastic container.

Thomas reminded her that it was my birthday and that consequently we had plans for the evening. She waved a negligent hand. Her hair, a shade too brave, was salon-perfectly waved if somewhat stiff-looking, and her clothes were at least one generation too young for her, but hideously expensive as well as just—well, hideous. Did I mention I hate her?

‘Oh that can be set aside. You can easily go out some other evening. My financial affairs are of the first import.’

Thomas looked at me. He didn’t want to fight with his mother and I knew there would be no point in trying to push him to resist the onslaught, so for poor Thomas’s sake, I sighed and shrugged and he sat down next to the old dragon and asked what she wanted to know. Meanwhile I dashed off to ring Monica Pearson-Jones and a few others, to let them know that we would either be horribly late for the theatre party, or quite possibly not turn up at all. I have to admit I was feeling quite cross and rather sorry for myself. However, Huw and Monica’s machine had to take the terrible news, as they were out. I hoped to God they weren’t already on their way.

***

Thanks for reading!

Summer news – 2 things!

/ Caron Allan / 6 Comments

I hope you’re all having a fabulous summer–you parents are probably already counting the days to when the kids go back to school, though, right? I remember the first day back when I used to sit and just listen to all that silence… bliss!

Welcome to all the new subscribers–there have been quite a number of you just lately – thank you so much, and I really hope you enjoy your free book. And a warm welcome back to you stalwarts who have been with me for a few years now, thank you so much for your continued support and interest.

I just have two quick things to tell you this month–I’m keeping it short (about time, I hear you say…)

1. Guess what? I’m now ‘officially’ cancer free!!!!!!!!!!! Woo!!!!!!!!! After almost two years of really tough times, we finally got the good news from my oncologist a couple of weeks ago. I can’t take it in, it still seems unbelievable. Hopefully I will start to enjoy my new freedom from hospital appointments, treatment, endless tests and checks, and just… well, get on with my life. Trips to the hospital comprised 75% of my social life–I have no idea what I’m going to do with all that free time now. Here’s a pic of the top of my head – I’m ecstatic to have hair again, it’s soft like a baby’s and a bit curly – though rather greyer than I remembered! (Yeah but my skin’s still awful!)

2. My new Dottie Manderson mystery is out on the 6th September. It should have been two weeks earlier than that, but a few things have  prevented me from meeting that deadline. And it seemed better to put the date back by two weeks than a few days. So that’s Midnight, the Stars and You – book 8 of the Dottie Manderson mysteries coming out on the 6th September 2025. If you’re desperate for something to do, you could head to this page on my blog and find out more about the book, and if you’ve got a few dollars/pounds/euros burning a hole in your pocket, preorders for eBooks are available here. Pre-orders are not available for paperback, hardback or large print paperback but I promise you they will be available on release day in September.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for the encouraging/uplifting messages you’ve sent me in the past, helping me to get through the dreaded Big C. I really appreciated it.

 

Midnight, the Stars, and You: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8 – coming September 2025

/ Caron Allan

So this happened…

Like an eejit I decided to go ahead and put my next Dottie book on Amazon for pre-order. It will be released on Saturday 6th September 2025.

It’s eBook only at the moment, I’m afraid.  Paperback, large print paperback and hardback will follow around the same time, but are not available to pre-order, sorry. The paperback version will also (eventually) be available from other online bookshops.

This is book eight in the Dottie Manderson mystery series. I’ve mentioned it a few times before, but here’s a bit more detail:

Book 8 of the Dottie Manderson mysteries finds Dottie fed up with waiting and all the fuss, and just wanting to get on with being Mrs Detective Inspector William Hardy.

An unexpected invitation could be just what she needs. How wonderful it will be to get away to a weekend house party and forget all the worries of organising the wedding! Unfortunately it’s a house party that will never be forgotten: squabbles, cliques and even unexpected death.

Of course, William, like all husbands-to-be everywhere, has no interest whatsoever in the problems of the right kind of lace or the perfect place setting. In any case, he’s got a special kind of investigation going on, one that means bringing a good friend to justice, stretching his loyalty to his profession almost to breaking point.

Interested? If you are, you might like to read an extract here!

If you would like to pre-order the eBook, you can click on these links below, or search on your local Amazon platform.

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.de

Amazon.au

Thanks for reading!

Deleted scene from Rose Petals and White Lace: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 7

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments

From time to time, I share a deleted scene from one of my books. And as I was a bit stumped for something interesting to say, I thought I’d share this one, a deleted scene from the most recent Dottie Manderson mysteries, which was book 7: Rose Petals and White Lace. I suppose I could call it an internet exclusive 😀

In this extract, Dottie is on her way somewhere with William’s Uncle Joe and she bumps into William’s ex, Moira Hansom… I hope you enjoy it.

As they made their way back towards the house, a woman coming from the opposite direction stopped in Dottie’s path. It was Moira Hansom. She was clearly as astonished to see Dottie as Dottie was to see her, but Moira recovered her poise rather more quickly. Seeing that Dottie was going to talk to the woman, Joe continued a little further along the road, waiting for her just out of earshot.

Dottie was taking in the other woman’s plumper form, along with the loosely fitting dress and matching coat. A frightened, jealous sensation went through Dottie as she looked at her.

As if guessing Dottie’s thoughts, Moira laughed her smart sarcastic laugh.

‘Oh, you needn’t worry. It’s not William’s,’ she assured Dottie, patting her stomach.

Dottie was scandalised that she should speak so openly about it right there in the middle of the street. But her mind seized on the words and her nerves began to settle back to normal. Dottie nodded but said nothing. What on earth could she say to that?

‘That’s why Gervase’s parents are taking such good care of me,’ Moira said, the smart attitude dropping away with the lowering of her voice. ‘And thank God, I say. I told them we were about to announce our engagement, but that he wanted to wait for the end of the enquiry before making it official. Actually, he didn’t even know, I hadn’t told him. You won’t say anything, will you? Without them I’d really be in a fix.’

She held out her hand to show its only ornament: the old hideous, clumsy ring Gervase had given Dottie, or more correctly, had shoved across the table at her, she amended silently.

Dottie nodded again. She found her voice. ‘You’ve had it altered and cleaned.’

‘Yes. Well, it certainly needed it, we both know that. Though it’s not what I would have chosen for myself, of course, had the opportunity arisen. Still, as they say, beggars can’t be choosers.’ Her voice wobbled at the end of this little speech.

Dottie felt a wave of sorrow. ‘I hope things work out all right. And that everything goes well with the baby.’

‘Thanks. That’s decent of you. The Parfitts, well, they’ve been very good, actually. Gave me a cottage near them, it’s very pleasant and comfortable. And they give me a generous allowance. Promised to put him—or her—through school and college. Of course I have to toe the line, go to all their social functions, that sort of thing. Though not for much longer, of course. I’ll soon be shut away until after the arrival. In any case, it’s the least I could do.’

Dottie nodded, once again unable to think of anything to say.

Moira added, ‘I’m thinking that in a few years I might be lucky enough to meet a suitable chap amongst their acquaintance, it’d obviously have to be someone they’d approve of. But a girl needs to think about these things, and make the best of a bad job, I always say.’ She glanced at Dottie assessingly. ‘I suppose you and William are back together?’

Dottie was on the point of nodding yet again but stopped herself. ‘Yes, we are. He’s up here, there’s been another enquiry, this time into… about Gervase… and everything.’

Moira nodded, biting her lip. ‘Yes, I did hear about it. That was Evangeline, Gervase’s mother. She pressured Edwin to do that. It’s not really as personal as it seems. They just wanted to lash out, I think. What with losing his brother shortly before Gervase himself.’

‘It must be a terrible time for them. I imagine that your… news… has helped them a great deal. You’ve given them hope for the future.’

‘I think so.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Well, look, they’re coming. We’re on our way to visit some friends of theirs. I imagine you won’t want to see them.’

‘Not particularly.’ Dottie hesitated. ‘Well goodbye.’ She held out her hand.

Moira surprised her with a sudden brief hug and a cool kiss on the cheek. ‘You’ve got by far the best man,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

She hurried away. Dottie, lost in thought, caught up with Joe.

***

In the Neolithic Village

/ Caron Allan

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you will have seen this one before… I do quite often repeat myself. Mainly because I know anyone who has already seen it will either have forgotten it by now, or will be happy to gloss over it once more, but there will be many people who (hopefully) won’t have seen it yet.

Recently I’ve been digging out photos and other pictures for posting on Pinterest – it’s one of my favourite platforms, as I’m a very visual person, I am inspired by what I see. And during this digging out process I found some more photos I took years ago when we went to Skara Brae, in Orkney, an island group off the north coast of Scotland.

Seeing those houses had been a goal of mine since I watched that iconic Simon Schama documentary A History of Britain, and I had to see it for myself. It’s not often something inspires me to that extent, but that really did. And because I a) love people and b) love history, I wanted to see a place where those two things met. And where so gloriously stunning as the neolithic village Skara Brae, unearthed during a violent storm in 1850, it was last inhabited four thousand years before that. This glorious place set my imagination on fire, and I concocted this short story…

The corridors linking the houses are dark, black-dark, and yet the children run back and forth giggling and jostling as children have always done. They barely pause in their running as the corridors narrow or curve. They laugh in and out of the houses, running amongst the groups, tribes, families. Outside, beyond the house, the sea and the wind roar, and strange creatures prowl the earth. But not in here.

In the houses themselves, the central hearth is the main light and although bright enough to prepare the food by, the illumination doesn’t reach to the farthest parts of the room where the animals are safely housed against thick stone walls. But their soft noises and comfortable smells lull the elders who sit by the fire and prod the embers or stir the cooking-pot by turns.

Soon the eye becomes accustomed to the dimness and it is possible to see not just vague shapes but the shapes of the bodies of the cattle in their pens, or the shapes of the drawings in the sand of the fireside floor, the simple outlines that accompany the story that is being told. A half-grown child, listening to the stories with wide eyes is given instructions and items of interest, are brought from the dresser to the one who speaks, who holds each thing up for all to see and recounts all that is known, the history of the item, the way it happened to be found or created, all that makes it special is told now to those who are gathered. They’ve heard it before. Even last night but still they all look and a discussion takes place, even the child speaks. He will be a fine man one day soon. They look on him with pride. One day, he will be the teller of stories.

The food is passed round, grain and meat and fish and coarse bread, flat and hot from the stones by the fire. Everyone eats and there is a strange hush over those in the house for a time. There is a ritual about eating. There is a ritual about being in the safety of a warm and solid home with the cattle and the fire. This is what it means to be at home.

It is evening, the day draws to a close and everyone is gathered in the safe warmth of the roundhouse, and nearby, there are other houses, with other people gathered, and the children are the running link between them. More stories are told, more conversation and discussion over the nature of the stars and their brightness, of the tides of the sea, of the path of the moon who guides the hunters and blesses the crops.

And over the way, along the dark tunnel then out into the air, in another similar house, the ancestors listen and smile as the brightness of the moon creeps in.

*

Embracing the mess

/ Caron Allan

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about routine and how I think it’s essential to productive creativity. But what do you do if your routine goes to pot and everything is unsettled and out of sync?

Just go with it.

I’m thinking of that song by Scott Walker about a million years ago, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself.’ That’s just what you should do.

If you allow the stress of being disorganised to get to you, you will become depressed, anxious, feel guilty, and become increasingly non-productive, then get even more deeply depressed. So it’s important to allow yourself the room to just do what you can manage, and don’t sweat it. Do what you can and don’t beat yourself up if you feel you’re not achieving as much as you should, or planned to achieve.

Do what you can, and gradually normality will reassert itself. Even if you only write a small amount, remind yourself it’s a step forward from yesterday, and any progress, no matter how small, is good. You may even find, as I am beginning to realise, that it’s a normal part of your creative process.

I usually start strong, like most writers. I have a good idea of where the story is going, I know what it’s about. But for me, again like many writers, the problems arise about halfway or so into the story when suddenly I realise a) I’m useless at writing, b) my story sucks, and c) it’s never going to be ready in time.

The first couple of times this happened, I gave up on the story. That was a long time ago when I was a young writer. Then I realised I could work through the doubt and fear and finish a book. And for a long time, that’s what I did. But the last couple of years have been exceptionally stressful in my life, and pressures have taken their toll. And now, my old anxieties have resurfaced and this time it’s so much harder to push them away and carry on. But that’s what I’m going to do. Because what choice do I have? Do I want to give up writing? NO!

So now, I’m embracing the mess, and working with it, secure in the knowledge that, regardless of my feelings and the muddle that is my so-called WIP, I can do this. It might take a while, and it might be baby steps, but I will get there, and finish this book.

‘Mesdames et messieurs, allow me to reveal at last, the identity of the criminal’, said Birdcule Poirot

***