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This is the National Year of Reading of which I as an author and reader am a great supporter. So I thought I'd take a moment to look back at the events I've done this year and look forward to those yet to come. My thriller, In Cold Daylight , was shortlisted for the World Book Day Prize in February and in March on World Book Day I gave two talks: one to the sixth form of a local school and the other to readers at Portsmouth Library. I've undertaken a marathon book signing event on the Wightlink Ferry, back and forwards from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight all day - and yes it was a calm day, thankfully. I've spoken at libraries in Dorset, Sussex and Hampshire and taken part in a great murder mystery evening organised by Portsmouth Library in July. I've supported Independent Bookseller's Week with fellow authors Kate Mosse and Dee Williams. I've ran a Writing Fiction Workshop at Sinah Warren holiday complex and given talks to retirement associations, business...

The News in Portsmouth are running a very worthwhile campaign called Spread The Word , which aims to get more children and young people reading. Part of this initiative is to record well known local and national people talking about their favourite books and what reading means to them, so I was very honoured and pleased to be asked to contribute. Here I am talking about one of my favourite books from the Golden Age of Crime ( 1920s to 1940s). The Port of London Murders by Josephine Bell, who incidentally was one of the founder members of the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) of which I am a member. Published in 1938 this book is not only a great puzzle but realistically portrays what life was like in London in the 1930s and shows the sharp contrast between the rich and the poor. The reader visits a London that has long since vanished, with working barges on the River, the many wharfs and docks alongside it, the London smog and much more. It also focuses on a very modern problem, dru...

The end of week one : The countdown begins to reach that final TOP TEN in Spread the Word World Book Day 2008, and already I'm chewing my nails. Goodness alone knows what I'll be like by the end of January almost ten weeks away. I probably won't have any fingers left! Had a missive from the World Book Day Spread the Word campaign today about how it's going. The first week of voting and two articles have appeared on it: Guardian Unlimited and The Bookseller, plus there's a piece on the BookTribes blog. As the Guardian article says not all the authors are actually 'hidden gems' some of them are already 'Names' so I'm up against the BIG BOYS now. Here are the links to the articles for those of you interested. http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2215448,00.html http://www.thebookseller.com/news/48726-top-100-push-for-wbd.html http://www.booktribes.com/blog/2007/11/23/hidden-gems-discovered/ Next week Classic FM in partnership with National B...

IN COLD DAYLIGHT -my thriller about fire-fighters -has been selected as one of the books for World Book Day/Spread The Word. www.worldbookday.com/spreadtheword Yippee! I've made the long list so now all I have to do is get into the Top Ten and that's where I need your help. I need as many votes as I can to make it through to that Top Ten and you can vote on-line for what will be "The Most Talked About Book 2008." The short list is to be announced at the end of January, with the ultimate winner being announced on World Book Day on 6 March 2008. Each person who votes gets the chance to win £100 of National Book Tokens in a weekly Free Prize draw, so there’s an incentive to enter. If you would like to vote for my book then you can read about IN COLD DAYLIGHT at: http://www.worldbookday.com/spreadtheword/books/book-detail.asp?BookID=65 . And to give you a taster, here is a preview of the book. You can also read the first chapter by clicking on the above bar. “IN COLD DAY...