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Storm Christoph was still blowing on the morning of publication day, the 21st day of the first month of the 21st year of the 21st century! Click for links to a couple of lovely publicity posts put out by bloggers – something to sit down to with a cup of tea, perhaps. There was a lot of book love on social media and a mention in My Weekly magazine, too. Plus a review for the Historical Novel Society.

I’ve finished writing the whole trilogy – the second book, The Secret Child – is published in March, so now the excitement is over it’s back to edits on book three. And I’m 10,000 words into a new story – I’m looking forward to seeing where these new characters will lead me.

A surprise courier delivery today – the paperback version of A Maid’s Ruin, available for pre-order now via your local bookshop (support them if you can in these difficult times), WH Smiths and Waterstones online as well as Amazon.

The second part of the trilogy, The Secret Child, comes out at the end of March so if you read the first book now you won’t have too long to wait to find out what happens next!

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Happy New Year to you all. I know everyone is hoping for better and brighter things as the year unfolds, so I thought I’d get off to a good start by revealing the cover for The Secret Child, the second book in The Margate Maid trilogy. I’m so pleased with it – a big thank you to my publishers, Piatkus Books. It comes out in March in hardback, ebook and audio, with the paperback to follow in the summer.

And speaking of paperbacks, there aren’t many days to wait until paperback publication of the first book in the trilogy, A Maid’s Ruin – out on 21st January. Support your local bookshop if you can – most of them are still taking orders for delivery or collection, even under Tier 4 restrictions. Then settle in for a bit of reading to take you through the long evenings ahead, until spring, lighter nights and – with a massive dose of luck – a return to life as we once knew it.