Did I take a pair of old pointe shoes and perform a celebratory dance in a stone circle? Yes. Yes, I did.
The reason for the celebration? Well, there’s more than one. Firstly, I’m well enough to dance around a bit. I am enduring one or two monstrous autoimmunity symptoms, but they don’t stop me dancing. And secondly, all three books of A Dancer’s Journey are now ready to dance out into the world!
Scotland’s all misty lochs and magical forests and perfect boyfriends, right?
When dance student Amalphia Treadwell embarks on a secret relationship with her charismatic new teacher, she has no idea of the danger that lurks in his school in Scotland.
Dark, witty, sexy and fun, Tendu is a compelling and seductive story of love, dance and obsession.
The books do include a little dancing in a stone circle. It’s fun, and I highly recommend it. I hope you can all enjoy a celebratory dance too.
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Autumn in Scotland is brief. One day you’re in the midst of the wild and overgrown end of summer, and then – it always feels sudden and surprising – the trees are full of brilliant and bright colours.
There’s also berries. And misty mornings. And apples.
I’m walking through that hot afternoon sunshine, between the trees and the toadstools. There’s so many of those this year.
The end of autumn in Scotland
It all feels rather magical. But it could be over at any moment. When the first frost comes, which could happen any time in the next month, the leaves will turn brown and fall off. The dragonflies and butterflies will disappear. And it will be winter. Like the onset of autumn, this always feels sudden, but at the same time sneaky. Like, when did this cold, cold change occur?
So, I treasure sweet autumnal moments for as long as I can. Look at the sunshine shining through those red leaves. Glorious, isn’t it?
“Those who are looking for a strong female protagonist, love lyrical and expressive writing styles, and favour stories with a touch of magic and ancient mythology, particularly set in Scotland, should put it on their list. They are bound to discover a new author to follow, and a protagonist they’ll never forget.”
Set in 1st century Scotland, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD includes the battle of Mons Graupius between the Romans and the Caledonian tribes. The book features a neurodivergent main character and some rather complicated romance!
Taking place mainly in a fictional castle, THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR blends an often overlooked period of history, the Scottish witchcraft accusations, in particular the 1597 Aberdeen witchcraft panic, with a love story.
FIREFLIES AND CHOCOLATE was inspired by the kidnapped children and young people of Aberdeen. The story follows the adventures of Elizabeth Manteith from the castle and her determined efforts to get back home. There’s love. There’s derring-dos on the high seas… And there’s chocolate!
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The composer Rhodri Williams-Wandoch has created an amazing blend of music and words on the making of meaning. He describes the piece as an intricate and profound improvised invention on a chromatic theme. I’m the second author, a little after 2.20 minutes in, reading an excerpt from SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD entitled On War.
Listen to my dulcet tones (I think I was putting on my ‘posh’ voice) below:
The Garden
I wish I could share the sweet scent of the honeysuckle and lavender. The garden has reached its overgrown summer phase. The poor pink bench looks like it’s about to be reclaimed by nature.
SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
Set in 1st century Scotland, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD includes the battle of Mons Graupius between the Romans and the Caledonian tribes. The book features a neurodivergent main character and some rather complicated romance…
Go here to sign up for my occasional emails that always include some exclusive photos and news of my writing and life. If you would rather just hear about new books and offers, you can follow my Amazon author page.
I have strained eyes. I’ve been writing, writing, writing. Or actually, editing, editing, editing. A Dancer’s Journey is progressing. It feels slow, but these books are long, long, long. And emotional. And diabolical and barbarous and sexy and witty and fun. Working on them is actually immense fun. I will miss it when they’re done.
And they will be soon. They are coming, I promise 🙂 Edit: Amazon!
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Provost Skene’s House nestles between the new buildings and giant plant pots of Aberdeen.
It’s been a long time since I’ve visited the 16th century townhouse. In fact, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been in the city centre. In recent years trips to Aberdeen have been illness or hospital related.
There have been a few changes.
Marischal College
The fountains in front of Marischal College are new:
My father worked in the building when I was a child, and there were regular family trips to the Anthropological Museum there. This was later called the Marischal Museum, and it’s no longer open to the public. You can, however, browse online exhibitions.
Provost Skene’s House
History
Dating from 1545, the house has been lived in by a variety of people over the centuries. Provost Skene owned it in the 17th century, and Hanoverian troops used it during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The Duke of Cumberland stayed there on his way to Culloden. It’s been a museum since 1953. See a more thorough history of the house here.
Museum
The museum used to be set up with rooms furnished in different eras: Edwardian bedrooms and Victorian sitting rooms, that sort of thing. It now houses an exhibition of noteworthy people from Aberdeen, and many of the displays are digitised. I rather miss the harpsichords and harps of the previous arrangement.
The Glass Floor
The glass floor in the cellar is still there, and I’m glad about that. The room was previously a coffee shop, and walking over the floor was a highlight for me as a child. I may not have been frightened when locked in a witch’s hoosie, but this floor scared me in an exhilarating sort of way.
I put the scary floor into the castle of my books. The quote below is from Fouetté, the third and final title of the forthcoming series, A Dancer’s Journey, and it describes how the glass used to look in Provost Skene’s House.
Eerie green light still shone up from below the glass, showcasing the museum pieces in the floor: barrels, bottles, various metal implements, a cauldron. The glass had been replaced, of course, and part of it given proper hinges, not like back then when…
I had to cut the quote short there, because: spoilers. The floor is no longer lit up.
The Painted Gallery
The highlight of the house for me now is the Painted Gallery. It has not changed, apart from the removal of the Mouseman benches.
The ceiling depicts the life of Christ. Below is the Entombment, with a kilted gentleman standing to the right.
Something else that has not changed is the smell of Provost Skene’s House. It’s quite strong and distinctive. I think it might be caused by the use of some sort of speciality wood preserver or furniture polish.
I walk across the flagstone floor of Provost Skene’s.
And then stroll between the old and the new.
I prefer the old.
The Angry Man
Let’s finish with an angry man. He was originally situated on the wall of a 19th century bakery in the city. It was shut down due to its close proximity to a sewer; the baker blamed his neighbours for the closure, and pointed his angry face at them. He now glares at everyone as they walk past Provost Skene’s House.
SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
Set in 1st century Scotland, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD includes the battle of Mons Graupius between the Romans and the Caledonian tribes. The book features a neurodivergent main character and some rather complicated romance…
Go here to sign up for my occasional emails that always include some exclusive photos and news of my writing and life. If you would rather just hear about new books and offers, you can follow my Amazon author page.
It’s Midsummer, and I’m in celebratory mode and sounding my (imaginary) carnyx, a wind instrument of the Iron Age Celts.
Writing Update
All major edits have been completed on all three books of A Dancer’s Journey. There’s still a couple of smaller edits and proofing to be done, but great progress has been made. I’m not announcing publication dates just yet, in case autoimmunity causes delays, but I am delighted to have come so far with what is really rather a personal magnum opus! Edit: Amazon!
Sound of the Carnyx
In the video below, a musician plays a reconstruction of the Deskford Carnyx. The original was discovered in this area of Scotland and dates from the time of my Iron Age novel, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD.
SISTERS
Set in 1st century Scotland, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD includes the battle of Mons Graupius between the Romans and the Caledonian tribes. The book features a neurodivergent main character and some rather complicated romance…
Midsummer, or High Summer, is important to the people of the book. There’s dancing, singing, storytelling and other, naughtier, activities in the stone circle. There’s also feasting and fighting, and the sound of a newly constructed carnyx.
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“The gable of the great hall rose high to the front, a huge chimney boasted diminutive battlements, and other lower layers of pink castle sprawled out haphazardly in front of me. There were three small turrets, upended cones that had been meticulously finished round and round with ever smaller and smaller lichen dotted tiles. Tiny mismatched windows blinked in the sun: circles, squares and one narrow bent rectangle. Sections of roof ended randomly, some with mossy little steps to nowhere; one jutting brick triangle had been shaped to fit the side of a sloping turret.”
The Red Well by Whitehills in Aberdeenshire is protected by an unusual building. On the autumn equinox, at sunrise, a beam of light shines through the doorway of this beehive-shaped shelter and illuminates the well within. This happens on the spring equinox too. The well, and the building, are said to date from Roman times.
A Witch’s Hoosie
When I was a small child, I lived with my grandparents in Whitehills for a while. One day, playing with my cousins, I was locked in that building to see if the witch would get me. The place was referred to as the ‘witch’s hoosie’ back then, by children at least. There were scary stories of an old lady witch ghost. I was quite interested to see if she would show up. She didn’t, and I was eventually freed, my lack of fear having disappointed my companions somewhat.
The door is kept locked now.
Since then, I’ve always viewed the well as rather a magical place, and keenly look out for the quick glimpse of it in the landscape that you get when driving along the main Banff to Portsoy road.
It’s in a particularly beautiful spot, the Red Well. The town of Banff can just be seen in the distance below.
It was seven years in the making, this book. Both the novel and I went through a lot as the story developed: severe editing, hospitalisations, deleting, pain, rewriting, crying and being monstrous.
It’s on Kindle Unlimited too so can be read for free (there’s a 30 day free trial).
Newsletter
Go here to sign up for my occasional emails that always include exclusive photos and news of my writing and life. They’re a more intimate space than the blog. If you would rather just hear about new books and offers, you can follow my Amazon author page.
Well, WordPress prompt, when I was fifteen, I took over my ballet teacher’s school for a few months before going to college.
Despite being far too young for such a responsibility, I loved it, and it paid for all the dancewear and equipment I needed for my studies.
In my second year of dance school, I got a job in a shop in Covent Garden. It was a very nice shop. I had more money. No more choosing between food and decent pointe shoes.
But here is where things go a bit darker than the WordPress prompt probably intended. I knew really, that working both Saturday and Sunday, after a hard week of dance training, was a bit foolhardy. My sensible friend, Suzette, who would have counselled against this, had returned to Mauritius. More about Suzette and dance training here
So, I became exhausted. There was dance injury after dance injury. I developed a chest infection that lasted five months.
The shop sacked me for being ill. This left me even more vulnerable than I had already been, at seventeen, alone in London.
There was a violent predator.
There was an incident from which I was lucky to escape with my life.
Fast forward to the present, skipping several other jobs…
And my writing is influenced by my past. This is most evident in my contemporary work. There is a dark event in TENDU, the first book of A Dancer’s Journey, that I knew how to write because of my own experience. Not that it’s exactly the same, of course. In fact, it’s quite different. Fiction has to be more dramatic than reality, and more interesting. Far more interesting…
And have an infinitely more exciting setting…
These books have dark moments, but they are actually quite fun, overall, I think. And naughty. Like life, if you’re lucky!
There’s also this strange little post about what the characters of A Dancer’s Journey get up to when I’m away from the keyboard.
Historical Fiction
Set in 1st century Scotland, and featuring the cliffs and caves of Cullykhan Bay, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD includes the battle of Mons Graupius between the Romans and the Caledonian tribes. The book features a neurodivergent main character and some rather complicated romance…
Taking place mainly in a fictional castle, THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR blends an often overlooked period of history, the Scottish witchcraft accusations, in particular the 1597 Aberdeen witchcraft panic, with a love story.
FIREFLIES AND CHOCOLATE was inspired by the kidnapped children and young people of Aberdeen. The story follows the adventures of Elizabeth Manteith from the castle and her determined efforts to get back home. There’s love. There’s derring-dos on the high seas… And there’s chocolate!
Go here to sign up for my occasional emails that always include some exclusive photos and news of my writing and life. If you would rather just hear about new books and offers, you can follow my Amazon author page.
Near the village of Pennan in Aberdeenshire, Cullykhan is a place that has long been appreciated by people, so it has a rich history. To the left of the sandy and sheltered beach lies an impressive promontory.
It’s been home to an Iron Age fort, now vitrified, and a medieval castle. Excavations have uncovered Neolithic and Roman finds (read more about these on the Canmore site).
From the promontory, you can see the Deil’s Lum (meaning devil’s chimney). This cave shoots sea spray with a roar during stormy weather.
It’s a place – promontory, bay and caves – that I write about quite a lot.
In THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR, Isobell, Jasper and Ian have to cross the inside of the Deil’s Lum before following a tunnel to the castle. The tunnel is fictional, and so is my description of the interior of the cave, or rather it’s stolen from just around the corner.
As is my way, in the name of research, I have explored every tunnel and cave that is remotely accessible by land at Cullykhan.
This one leads to a dark and seagull-filled space… and it’s this space that I made the characters traverse, after slipping and sliding across it myself, of course.
Isobell, at least, did not enjoy the experience:
The truth was that caves and tunnels were more fun when told of beside a fireside, in dry clothes with a full belly. The reality of them – the cold, the wet, the dripping and the echoing, and the smell of decay – was only startling. The roof looked as if a huge ogre had wielded a knife inside the cliffs, cutting and carving to his heart’s content, but the idea contained no mirth, nor even any interest. And what lay ahead in this new life of ours?
Excerpt from THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR
Climbing to the Cave
Staring at the entrance of the Deil’s Lum from across the divide wasn’t enough for me so, one day, I slid down the hill and climbed up into it. This is foolhardy behaviour, and not recommended, but I made a short video so you can see the cave without risking your own life and limb.
Writing Cullykhan
Cullykhan features heavily in the Iron Age story of SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. I loved writing about this beautiful place, capturing the essence of it in words. I took its great magnificence, and its beauty, and swirled them around, adding terrible, strange and unexpected events into the mix.
Set in 1st century Scotland, and featuring the cliffs and caves of Cullykhan Bay, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD includes the battle of Mons Graupius between the Romans and the Caledonian tribes. The book features a neurodivergent main character and some rather complicated romance…
Taking place mainly in a fictional castle, THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR blends an often overlooked period of history, the Scottish witchcraft accusations, in particular the 1597 Aberdeen witchcraft panic, with a love story.
FIREFLIES AND CHOCOLATE was inspired by the kidnapped children and young people of Aberdeen. The story follows the adventures of Elizabeth Manteith from the castle and her determined efforts to get back home. There’s love. There’s derring-dos on the high seas… And there’s chocolate!
Go here to sign up for my occasional emails that always include some exclusive photos and news of my writing and life. If you would rather just hear about new books and offers, you can follow my Amazon author page.