New Release - Download Hit and Run using the link below.

Here's what readers are saying:

'Unputdownable'  Amazon reviewer

'I found myself wondering what was happening with the characters while I was at work, or driving (you know those times when you can't just pick up the book to find out!).'  Amazon reviewer

'It kept me guessing as to how all the clues would pan out and kept me turning the pages.' Amazon reviewer

***

I’m excited to announce the publication of my second Alice Candy novel.

It’s been a real test of endurance, having needed one major re-write and several drafts, all because characters grew, sprouted their own personalities and refused to be sidelined.  So we have, in no particular order, a handsome Reverend, a talented artist and her wild, dysfunctional sister, a dodgy-dealing ex-husband, an enigmatic lord of the manor and his equally intriguing staff, a missing teenage boy, and of course the very distinctive and unorthodox DCI Alice Candy, not forgetting her sharp and pragmatic sidekick, DS Will Brady.

One cold January morning, the day begins with a brutal hit and run at Breton Manor, but Alice quickly discovers there is much more to this case than meets the eye.  And so we embark on a tale of complicity and deception, of red herrings and strange twists, only to find ourselves at the end of another cul de sac. 

Tantalising and  complex, Hit and Run is the kind of novel that will keep you guessing until the end.  A full-blooded crime-mystery for readers who love characters they can believe in and a plot that seeks to outfox them.

Available as an ebook for the moment.  Paperback version to follow.

 Click to view on Amazon

Locked Away

When you have to outwit your captor to survive...

Readers' comments: 

'A page turner.'

'A quick, tense read.'

'Character, conflict, and a unique new sleuth.'

The first Alice Candy novel, Locked Away, is very different in tone, having been originally conceived as a New Adult novel.  It has been re-worked and revised, but remains much more dramatic and at times hysterical, as the main protagonist is a girl in her early twenties, Ellie Braintree, who has been kidnapped on her birthday and finds herself in the cellar of a house, terrified in the darkness that surrounds her.  She is, however, no pushover and soon begins to put her quick mind to use to work out who her captor is and how to get the better of him or her and escape.

Things take an extraordinary turn when a second victim arrives, cold and terrified, crouched in the shadows, too scared to say a word.

Ellie needs all her strength and intelligence to cope with this new challenge.  Now, there are two lives at stake.

Alice Candy needs all her skills to find the cellar room before it’s too late. 

Available as an ebook or in paperback.

Click to view on Amazon

SUMMER MADNESS

24-hour offer - 2nd July only

Get all three of the Bev and Carol adventures for £1.99 (usual price £6.47)!

Click here to view book on Amazon

Read an excerpt from Book one: One Summer in France (two girls in a tent):

Polka-dot Pants and Gallic Gall

It was late afternoon when we arrived in France. 

There was a train to Paris that we could catch if we hurried and, this time, there was nothing to stop us.  The carriage we chose was almost empty so we settled down and snoozed our way through the French countryside.

We changed at Paris and boarded another train bound for a place called Narbonne.  I can’t remember why we took this route, but it was probably because the train to Perpignan was not due at a convenient time.  We had plenty of scope for detours, anyway.  And we didn’t realise how big France actually was.

For a while, it was fun to gaze out at passing vineyards, miraculous fields of sunflowers and impressive chateaux.  This was definitely a foreign land.  But there were reminders of England – wooded hillsides and open meadows, a solitary oak.  This was a place that was different enough without being too intimidating.   What struck me most was the scale of everything.  The distances between towns and cities huge, the fields were enormous.  No wonder French cows were so happy.

‘Let’s get off here and find a campsite!’ said Carol, long before we reached our destination and after far too many hours travelling without a proper night’s sleep.  I didn’t need persuading.

The sign on the platform announced that we had arrived in a place called Carcassonne.  It sounded pretty.  We stepped down, and I was grateful for the solidity of the ground beneath my feet.  I was not yet fully recovered from my ordeal on the ferry and was as keen as Carol to set up somewhere for the evening.  Anywhere, in fact, that wasn’t moving.

‘Excusez-moi?  Nous cherchons un camping près d’ici,’ I said, to a woman who had started scowling even before I had started speaking, and who obviously did not realise that I was a master of her mother tongue.

‘Perhaps she’s not French,’ said Carol, peering at a large brown patch on the woman’s neck.

‘Let me try another one.  There!  He looks normal.’

Carol approached a man dressed in white tennis shorts and a purple floral shirt.

‘Excusez-moi, monsieur?  Le campsite, ici?’ I winced at Carol’s appalling grammar.

The man looked even more confused than the woman.

‘Sorry, I don’t speak French,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders and wobbling his chins.

Soon, Carol and Mr. Plunket had become bosom buddies and it wasn’t long before he was loading our bags into the back of his hired BMW.

It was a short drive to Carcasonne centre and what we saw as we looked out of the windows were flowers.  They were everywhere.  Along the verges, in pots along the road, at roundabouts.  Everywhere.  We had arrived in a land of colour and fragrance.  I wound the window down and a French wasp flew in.  Several screams and swipes later, Carol wound down her window and, to everyone’s relief, it flew back out again.  Pulses returned to normal and, after consulting one of the many maps our patient escort had thought to bring along, we arrived at our destination.

Jethro Plunket dropped us off at the municipal campsite and pressed a five-hundred-franc note into Carol’s hand, saying that he had a daughter of his own who was about our age and that he believed in karma.

‘Thanks, Mr. Plunket.’

‘Call me Jethro.’

‘Thanks, Jethro.’

‘What kind of a name is Jethro?’ I asked, as he drove away. ‘Do you think it’s his real name?’

‘No, probably working under cover, doing good deeds for vulnerable girls travelling through France,’ said Carol.

‘Really?’

‘No!!’

Carol said that she didn’t know how I would survive without her and, picking up her bag, marched off to reception, leaving me to feast my eyes on the view of her red polka-dot knickers, which were exposed to the world due to the fact that she had caught her skirt on her bag.

‘Welcome in Camping Municipal of Carcassonne!’ said the sign in the window.

We peered inside and, just as we were about to venture in, a dumpy girl, eating a doughnut, loomed into view and locked the door from the inside.

End of excerpt.