My Office

This is about as tidy as my office gets, and you can’t see the books stacked on the floor.

I have finished Bloomsbury to Barkerville: The Life of Florence Wilson. It will need rewriting after an edit, but it is off my desk at the moment. The research for that book was all-consuming. I even dreamed about aspects of Florence Wilson’s life and woke in the morning full of questions I had to investigate. I really was obsessed with her. She was born in 1823 in the Bloomsbury area of London, lost all her money, went to Russia as a governess, was shipwrecked in the Black Sea, went to Victoria on the bride ship in 1862 at aged 39, started a business there, went to Barkerville and ran two saloons and held mining claims. She died in San Francisco in 1902. Fascinating woman! I’ll let you know the progress of the book.

Book 7 in The British Book Tour Mysteries is finished. I haven’t got a good title for it yet. The murder occurs in her village in Hampshire, but I’ve already used Hampshire in a title. How about “Murder in Ashton-on-Tinch”. Let me know if you have a suggestion. I combed through the manuscript this week, removing all those typos which seem to multiply when I’m not looking. Clare acquires a ten-year-old daughter in this book as well as investigates the murder of a local riding instructor. The usual cast of characters  abound. Not sure when the book will be published, but I’ll let you know.

I am trying to take a bit of a break from writing for a week. The garden is responding to the spring weather, so I will start seeds and plant radishes and lettuce in the expectation that the warmer weather is coming. Gardeners! Always optimistic. Then it’s on to a new book.