A few years ago my husband organized a golf trip to the Gold Coast of Australia for members of the local New Zealand RSA (Returned Services’ Association). I’m not a golfer, but the lure of sunshine, half naked lifeguards on the surf beach, great shopping, and the...
This statue of Mackenzie and his dog Friday stands in the main street of Fairlie, New Zealand. The real story of James Mackenzie, the sheep thief and man from whom the Mackenzie country in the south of the South Island takes it name, is still shrouded in mystery. He...
When I was working through my edits for Hunted & Seduced, my editor asked me about my use of the word reivers. Did I mean Reavers, the ferocious race, that featured in the television series Firefly? And wasn’t I spelling it incorrectly? No, I answered. I mean...
One of the cool things about writing books with mystery and suspense elements is that you get to kill people off. The murder can be behind the scenes where the reader doesn’t see the grisly stuff, or the murder can be graphic and gritty and give readers nightmares....
During the last few months, I’ve done a lot of reading about dragons and their different characteristics. I’ve read fiction and non-fiction. One thing everyone is clear about is that dragons come in lots of pretty colors. Here are a few interesting facts about...
Dartmoor, the first national park in Britain, was formed in 1951. It’s a large open area famed for its moor, the bogs and stone tors, and wild ponies. Around 33,000 people live within the park and many others visit to experience the wilderness. Man has farmed, mined...
In my release, Mistress of Merrivale, the heroine’s mother has dementia. Since my story takes place in the 18th century she hasn’t been diagnosed, but as the writer I know she has Alzheimer’s. It’s a silent disease in which the family suffers just as much as...
The other day I picked up a copy of IF WALLS COULD TALK, an Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley. It’s a fascinating read, full of all those small social details that we often don’t hear about when we’re reading about history. Here are a selection of things...
All the Middlemarch Shifter stories are set in my home country of New Zealand. I didn’t start out to write a series. In fact my aim was to write a paranormal story featuring black leopard shifters. But it soon became obvious that the brothers I’d given Saber Mitchell,...
