This sucks!

Life isn't fair I know that but all I can about what just happened is that IT REALLY REALLY SUCKS! And who's next I wonder? Me? Maybe that would give me the kick to start accumulating rejection slips.........

Amazing what a bit of research can turn up

Still doing the re-writes. In the course of this I decided to do a bit more research into the Royal College of Music - after all this is where some of my book is set and it always helps to have a first hand view. Now I used to go up to RCM every weekend. My brother had a scholarship and Mum and I would go up with him, spend the day in London and then catch rehearsals before we all took the train home. Sometimes the whole family would go up if Martin was in a big concert. The point is - I know the place I used to race up and down the steps at the back of the Albert Hall. I couldn't find any old pictures of us outside RCM so using Google Earth and Image finder I pulled up some photos of the College. I must have a black and white memory, it's not granite grey, it's bright freaking red. Sandstone red! That's not a colour you can hide.
See below.

Rewrites

I haven't written anything new the past couple of weeks it's all been re-writes. This is not a bad thing - it's great to have four fresh pairs of eyes pointing out things that I've missed. Read an arc of The Host. Am currently reading 'The Beekeepers Apprentice,' It's the first of the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series by Laurie King - so good I bought my own copy. Also reading 'Bonk' by Mary Roach and 'Willful Creatures' by Aimee Bender - I sold books at the event last week - not many but the reading itself was really good and so I've borrowed a copy (thanks Linda!)

Hold Tight by Harlen Coben

How far would you go to keep your kids safe? Would you spy on them, track the GPS in their phones install software on their computer? Add to these troubling moral questions the seemingly unrelated puzzle pieces of two suburban murders, a homicidal brother in law, teenage suicide, pharm parties, paternity issues and a tough as nails police investigator trying to connect the dots.

Hold Tight is part police procedural, part hi-tech and part twisted soap opera. It also shows the damage done by the click of a mouse. After finishing this book you may just want to pop upstairs and check on your kids……

The Rosetta Key by William Dietrich

If only all history lessons could be like this! Adventurer Ethan Gage arrives in Jerusalem still on a quest for ancient knowledge and hardened by the loss of the woman he loves. The French, led by Napoleon are trying to conquer the Middle East, do they seek the same thing Gage does? Old enemies and new friends help Gage in his quest. Gage uses his brain and his mentor Ben Franklin's knowledge to survive against impossible odds. Will Gage find The Book of Thoth? and can he trust the Rosetta Key - a woman risen from the dead to bewitch him again.

This is fic-history at it's best. The battles of Jaffa and the subsequent massacre, the Siege of Acre and the battles at Mount Tabor are all historical record. Dietrich winds Ethan Gage into this world and makes it real for the reader. He also shows how the supposedly civilised French could be capable of such horrific atrocities and how war un-civilises even the most cultural of races. A cracking read, I can't wait to read Napoleon's Pyramids - the first of the Gage books.

Finally writing again - review of Compulsion

We've been back since Monday and today is the first time I've written anything. 599 words but this is a bit of puzzle piece, not quite sure where to stick it or even if I'll use it at all.....

I'm reading an arc of William Dietrich's Rosetta Key. I started it last night at the Art Barn in between setting up and waiting for people to arrive for the event - no I didn't read it in front of anyone else. One of my Uncles who has long since passed away used to spin stories of his exploits in India and the Far East and I used to lap them up. Dietrich's Ethan Gage, reminds me of him and now I have to find Napoleon's Pyramids because that seems to be the first book in the series. Again more fic-history - this one comes out next week.

Also trying to get hold of an arc for The Host - the new Stephenie Meyer - nothing to do with the Twilight series. She's coming to SLC in May and we're hosting (no pun intended!) her.

I reviewed Compulsion before we went away but it's out now so here's the review.

Ten years ago murder made him a millionaire and now he’s turned it into a hobby.

LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis returns from an extended sick leave to zero case load. Then a girl goes missing, a harmless old lady is attacked in her front yard and across the country a serial murderer claims he killed missing 16 year old Antoine Beverly. Swamped, Milo calls on Dr Alex Delaware for help. Alex travels from the bright lights of New York city to a forgotten ghost town North of LA. He and Milo are on the trail of a crafty killer whose twisted ‘benevolence’ leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. Can they catch him before he kills again?

Losing You - Nicci French

On her 40th birthday Nina Landry, her son Jackson and daughter Charlie are due to leave remote Sandling Island and jet off to Florida with Nina’s new boyfriend. But 15 year old Charlie vanishes and normal life is suspended. When a desperate Nina can’t get any help from the local police, she turns detective, questioning Charlie’s friends, lovers, even her own ex-husband, uncovering her daughter’s secrets, deconstructing her teenage life in order to save it. But can she? Who can she really trust on this island of secrets? Nina isn’t going to stop until she’s found her daughter but the tide is rising and time is running out.

I couldn’t put this down. French spins a gripping tale out of every parent’s worst nightmare.