Saturday 30 June 2012

B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree for Sometimes It Happens...


You can imagine how excited I was when I received an email telling me that Sometimes It Happens… has received a B.R.A.G. Medallion (Book Reader Appreciation Group).


B.R.A.G. Medallions are awarded to books that as the web site explains ….

The B.R.A.G. Medallion™ honorees listed here http://www.bragmedallion.com/medallion-honorees were originally selected for consideration from a variety of sources. Sources include, but are not limited to:

i) indieBRAG’s management,

ii) the Company’s reader group (both individuals and members of our participating book clubs,)

iii) self-published authors themselves,

iv) librarians, editors and other interested third parties, and finally,

v) by people like you who have visited our website and appreciate the service we are providing.

A special thank you to everyone at indie BRAG and to all the people who read my book and nominated Sometimes It Happens… for this wonderful award. I am honoured to be a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree!

My book, Sometimes It Happens… along with other B.R.A.G. Medallion holders can be seen at http://www.bragmedallion.com/medallion-honorees/2012/sometimes-it-happens

Sometimes It Happens...  is available in Kindle and will be out in paperback within the next few weeks!

You can read a sample of Sometimes It Happens... by clicking on the STIH at the top of this post and of course it is available from all Amazon sites.
Thank you for stopping by and never forget, sometimes it happens!

Monday 25 June 2012

Food, Fitness & Fun


Why do the weekends always go so quickly? Despite the speed we had a great weekend. On Friday evening we went to the opening of a new cocktail bar / restaurant, Hi Life not far from where we live on the Avenida in Puerto del Carmen. As we sat out overlooking the ocean, we were brought a complimentary champagne cocktail, followed by a large plate of tapas. As if this was not enough, we ordered a superb dish of chicken with prawns beautifully cooked with mushroom, couchettes, pepper served with a rich sauce and a selection of potatoes, all washed down with a good bottle of Rioja. We finished off with a liqueur for me and cognac for Mr PB. Absolutely 5 stars. We’ll be going back!


On Saturday, we were up just after 6am to walk the pouches and take my little run, then after breakfast, yes we managed to eat a hearty breakfast despite all we’d had the night before! Then it was out on our bicycles to the fitness shop. We’ve decided to add another piece of equipment to our little gym. We already have a cross trainer and plate, so now we’ve ordered a multi gym. We can’t keep going out eating fab food with out keeping the waistline under control… laugh!


Sunday, well the calima arrived! A calima is very hot air and sand. The temps yesterday reached around 30c / 86f and everywhere is now looking a little orange as the sand, like fine dust lays on everything it touches. Only thing to do was keep cool in the pool.

It’s Monday again and the heat is still with us, at 6.30am it was 32c / 89.6 and the sun had not yet got out of bed! It’s going to be a very hot day, so will keep cool and write. Book 4 is making progress 61,000 words written so far, who knows how many more by tonight!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Thursday 21 June 2012

Self Doubt

Today I'm over at the Indie Author site, http://www.famousfiveplus.com/ talking about Self Doubt, something I suffer from and maybe other writers do too.

If you've time, pop along and say Hi!

Wednesday 20 June 2012


Today my sassy character, Peggy Stanton is back in her studio talking to the lovely Carol from DizzyC's Little Book Blog. Please pop along and enjoy a piece of Mrs Palmer's shortcake whilst finding out about why Carol is called Dizzy!

Monday 18 June 2012

Flaming June!


It’s a flaming June here on the island and not only because of our lovely weather, but the flaming Acacia, tree is in flower. Everywhere you move around the island you can see the magnificent glow of these trees in bloom.  A truly amazing site.

The Acacia is one of the largest species of trees in the world and has over 800 different types. It seems that over half of the Acacia species is grown in Australia where the tree is often referred to as “wattle”. These large trees grow in warm, tropical and desert type regions like our lovely island, though we are a little more desert at the moment as we have had little rain here, in fact we’ve only had a few drops in the last 15 months.


Whilst talking of trees, brings me to books, there is a connection! And later this year, Sometimes It Happens… will be out in paperback!



Hoping your June is as flaming as ours!

Wednesday 13 June 2012

More Than a Title, It's a Name!

How strange life can be at times! Yesterday I received an email from a person who had the need to trawl the internet and to his surprise saw my book, Satchfield Hall, I can already hear you all sighing and muttering, of course he could find your book, it's out there.... right! But and this is the strange part, he wrote to me not because of looking for my book, but because his surname is Satchfield!

Having found a book with his family name as the title, he has bought a copy of Satchfield Hall as a gift for his grandmother. He asked how I came by the title as he was certain his grandmother would want to know. I had to be honest and tell him, after much searching for a name, I found nothing that suited my story and I made this name up! When I say made up, it just popped into my head and I knew it was the perfect title for this emotional saga set over four decades from 1943, though I had no idea anyone had that name!

He has promised to let me know what his grandmother thinks, I do hope she enjoys the book with her family name! As for me I am still smiling at that email, because it was such a surprise.




Friday 8 June 2012

Peggy Stanton Meets radio Presenter Pete Forsyth!


My irresistible character, Peggy Stanton is in her Chat Show studio talking to the cheeky, Radio Presenter, Pete Forsyth. It’s an entertaining interview and you can read all about it at http://peggystanton.blogspot.com

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Many Voices Singing

As you know back at the end of October last year I set up the Indie Author / Self Publishing site, Famous Five Plus. The idea was then and still is now to bring together self published authors who approach their writing in a professional way so that we can share our writing journey and work together to create as much awareness as possible for every member of the group.

In the few months since FFP was launched, the Group has grown and has become truly international, with authors from: USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, Portugal, UK and the Canary Isles (moi). Within the Group we have ten reviewers who are available to review FFP author’s books. We also have two amazing sponsors, Strictly Magazine who sponsors the Book in the Spotlight feature and provide FFP with a full page in their monthly magazine. Cathy Helms from Avalon Graphics sponsors the Trailer Playing feature and has designed and produced an amazing Author Showcase Trailer featuring all of FFP authors and their publications. This fabby trailer plays on our Home page.

This week, I pushed FFP another step forward and bought the domain name, so we are now http://www.famousfiveplus.com/
On top of this, FFP is now offering advertising space for book covers and already there are some amazing authors showing off the book covers. Advertisers can be seen down the left hand column of the FFP site.

So how has all this happened? Well it’s been down to burning the midnight oil far too often and to every member of FFP working hard to spread the word about the group and each member through Twitter, Facebook and individual Blog and web sites.

Why do I spend so much time doing this? Because we Indies / self published authors need to work together, FFP is one way to do it and if we can make a little noise out there and get our names out to areas otherwise out of reach, then it is worth it. I want to sell my books and I know so does every member in FFP. Many voices singing from the same song sheet must have a better chance of being heard than one solo singer.

Find out just what happens every day at Famous Five Plus by visiting this dynamic site http://www.famousfiveplus.com/




Friday 1 June 2012

June, Time for Shades!

Pinch punch first of the month, or white rabbits white rabbits white rabbits!
Whatever your saying is, wishing you a wonderful sunny June.

And in keeping with my decision to design a poster for each month of the year, here is June's.

I took this picture last week whilst staying at the fabby hotel, Costa Calero. I was lying under this beautiful palm tree reading my Kindle when I looked up and thought how stunning the tree appeared with the sun shinning through its tropical fronzes. I just could not resist snapping away!

Wishing everyone a sunny month  and thanks for stopping by. Now go and get those shades on!