I get asked the question a lot – where do you get your ideas from? Right now, I’m inspired by where we live, right on the beach. I love being by the sea. It’s constantly changing every day, and the beach and the changing tides tell a story.
Where we live in Spain, it’s gorgeous for most of the year; clear skies, blue water, and sun-kissed sand, but I also love it when bad weather hits. The last few days have been very stormy and exciting. At night I hear the wind whistling around our house and the waves crashing on the shore. And during the day, I can just sit and stare at the water and the sky, and I have to pull myself away to work.
[videopress hPTeyKWR]
So how does it directly inspire me? Every day I see all kinds of people on the beach, walking their dogs and having fun… There is a couple who I often see with their drone. They look conventional, but could they be spies working for some undercover agency? Just last week, we went to a Chiringito on the beach for some food, and halfway through the meal, a man emerged from the water in full diving gear carrying two giant dead Octopuses. The man looked like one of those frogmen who hunt for dead bodies, and I immediately started to wonder, how far out he’d been, how deep he’d dived, and what had he seen out there?
And then, on New Year’s day, a huge family came to the beach in front of where we live and started letting off deafening fireworks. A man walking by got very angry, and a huge row erupted. Luckily it didn’t get physical, but it was fascinating to watch this big group of people screaming at each other with rage. It made me think about what could have happened if they hadn’t calmed down… I didn’t get a photo of this, so you’ll just have to imagine.
And then I love how all kinds of things get washed up on the shore after a storm; strange dead fish and sea creatures, a set of false teeth, beautiful stones. Last week, a giant marker buoy tore loose from its moorings out to sea and washed up on the beach right in front of where we live. I took this video, and something about it made me think it was alien, metal covered in barnacles like a skin. I have long wanted to write a science fiction novel, and this marker buoy has sparked an interesting idea… You’ll just have to wait and see 🙂
[videopress Ei5NqE4L]
So, that’s me right now. Living on the beach, having lots of ideas. And I’m writing away, working on a new book for you all. I hope all is great with you wherever you are.
Rob x
Hello! I’ve been sitting on this news for quite some time, and I’m so excited to reveal the cover for my next book Fear The Silence which is my first stand-alone psychological crime thriller. It’s available to pre-order now!
Fear The Silence takes place in London and on a mysterious Croatian island… You may have seen from my previous social media posts, I spent last winter, and some time in the summer living in Croatia and researching some creepy and atmospheric locations.
I’ve been working on this book on and off for the past few years planning and researching, and I’m so excited that I can now share it with you!
Fear The Silence will be published in the English language on July 6th, in all formats, ebook, audiobook, hardback and paperback. (There will be more news about international editions in the coming weeks, so stay tuned).
Thank you, as always, for all your support and friendship. I have the most incredible supportive readers, and I never take your faith in me for granted.
Please consider sharing my news about Fear The Silence. You can forward this email, post the news on social media, or simply tell people when you next see them for coffee. I believe that the latter is the most powerful form of advertising, and I’d be so grateful for your help!
More news coming very soon – Rob
Hello and Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful festive break. I’ve just moved to a new home in Spain, right on the beach. I love living in Slovakia but I have missed the sea so much, so it’s been wonderful to wake up every morning and walk on the sand – so good for book writing inspiration. 
I have commandeered a small bedroom in our new place as my office. I love writing on a comfy chair, preferably with room for my notebooks and a couple of dogs. Last week we found a sofa in a department store with the right amount of squish factor – not too soft but soft enough to sink into with a laptop- and we ordered it.
However, we made a mistake with measurements. When the delivery guys showed up yesterday, they were shocked that such a big sofa would go into such a small room. I wish I’d taken photos, but the poor delivery guys, who were so patient, ended up having to remove two doors and take the sofa to pieces with a drill to get it inside. And despite all of this, there was still a dicey moment at the front door when it got wedged and I thought we’d have to crawl under half a disembowelled sofa forever more.
I think they thought we were a little crazy to buy a three-seater sofa and place it in a small bedroom facing the wall, with no other furniture, but this is perfect for me (and my new office does have a stunning view of a beautiful exotic garden). It’s still a work in progress office, but good enough to start working on my new book!
With my writing buddies…
I always thank ‘Team Bryndza’ in the back of my books, and this is us all!
This leads me to my current book, Devil’s Way, which is now published! This is the fourth book in my Kate Marshall Private Investigator series, where Kate Marshall’s investigation into a young boy’s disappearance sends her down an unexpectedly twisted path.
The location of the Kate Marshall series is inspired by my childhood holidays on the south coast of England in Devon and Cornwall. We always stayed in the same hotel every year, The Tors, in Belstone, where you can step out of the front door and onto breathtakingly beautiful moorland. Now, as a disclaimer, today The Tors has been completely renovated and is a stunningly beautiful and modern hotel, but back in 1995, it was somewhat rustic and, let’s say, atmospheric and rather spooky – an ancient stone building which overlooks a graveyard on one side. Back then, the hotel rooms didn’t have private bathrooms and if you needed to go in the night, you had to leave the comfort of your room and walk down this long, dark lonely corridor with creaking floorboards and windows looking out over the grave stones! I would try to avoid drinking anything in the evening as I was always terrified. The graveyard was often filled with fog and shadows that seemed to move…
The good thing was that every morning it would be bright and sunny and we would go walking on Dartmoor. There is so much history and atmosphere on the moors. And every day was different. I was fascinated by the ancient stone circles and the vast expanses of bogland you can inevitably stumble into. I remember the vast Tors – tall formations of stacked rocks – which always made me think of a giant who had assembled them as part of a huge game of Jenga. I loved to paddle amongst the moss-covered rocks in the rivers and streams, and some days we would walk out to ancient burial chambers carved into rock, spooky ponds surrounded by dead forests, and Roman aqueducts that were built hundreds of years ago – and yet they still worked, carrying fresh water across vast expanses of open moor. And layered on top of all of these places was the temperamental weather. I remember experiencing a whole year’s weather during one day on Dartmoor, changing from blazing sunshine to fog and then storms and sleet! Now, I’m writing this as a forty something who really appreciates these holidays, but at the time I would often moan and whine, and complain that we weren’t going to Disneyland like all of the other kids in my class at school. When I look back, I’m so glad to have these holiday memories.
I could go on and on about the strange and beautiful things I saw on Dartmoor, it certainly made an impression on me. I have chosen to put many of these experiences into Devil’s Way and Kate and Tristan’s investigation… Did the young boy who went missing stray into bogland, or fall into the Devil’s Way gorge which leads to a mysterious sinkhole – or was it the work of someone, or something, even more sinister?
I’m lucky enough to have the freedom to write my books for my readers, and I always think of you when I write. Thank you for all the wonderful support you give me, I have the best readers in the world. I hope you enjoy reading Devil’s Way as much as I enjoyed writing it ❤️
Devil’s Way is out now in all formats; ebook, audiobook, hardback and paperback and you can get your copy by clicking HERE (This is a location based link, which opens in a new window with all the store options in your country) And if you have Kindle Unlimited Devil’s Way is included in your subscription
Thank you for all of the wonderful messages you have sent, you have helped to make 2022 very special, and it was wonderful to get out there and meet readers again! Your messages lift my spirits and spur me on to write. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a very happy and healthy New Year! Rob x
Hello, I hope everything is great with you. I can’t believe that it’s already November! ‘Devil’s Way’ the fourth Kate Marshall book, is now complete and will be published in the English language January 12th. I’m now working on my first ever stand-alone crime thriller, which will be released next summer and I’m very excited for you all to read it. Thank you to everyone for your wonderful messages and shares on social media. The 7th Erika Foster book, ‘Fatal Witness’ has now been published in The Netherlands, Portugal, and most recently in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
I thought I would share this blog post from the archives – from 2012 – when me my husband, Ján, and my mother-in-law, Vierka, took a trip over the border to the Czech Republic…
July 2012
Our trip to the Czech Republic had two stops. The first was Prague. I’ve been to the Czech capital a few times before and always loved it. We had our dog Riky with us this time, and he always draws a crowd of admirers. I lost count of how many times people stopped to pat him on the head or cooed at his cuteness. He does look a bit like a cuddly toy that’s come to life. He was a lucky pup and got to see all the sights…
The second stop of our Czech holiday was a tiny village called Hoštice. It sits south of the Czech Republic and is a six-hour drive from Prague. Hoštice is famous for being the location of three iconic Czech comedy films; Slunce Seno, Jahody (Sun, Hay and Strawberries), Slunce, Seno a Par Facek (Sun, Hay and a couple of slaps) and Slunce, Seno, Erotika (Sun, Hay and the Erotic).
The films are written and directed by the legendary Czech director, Zdenēk Troška and they satirise village life in Czechoslovakia during (and shortly after) Communism. They are still shown regularly on television in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and attract huge viewing figures (and recently they have been uploaded to Netflix with excellent subtitles).
We arrived in Hoštice on a hot, sunny summer morning, and what shocked me the most was that it was exactly like stepping into one of the films. Nothing seemed to have changed in the twenty or more years since the third movie was made. Villagers went about their business, ambling up the sleepy lanes with trolleys full of firewood. Old ladies in their flowery housecoats and headscarves stood gossiping. The local pub looked just like it had in the films; many of the villagers who appeared as extras sat chatting in a haze of smoke whilst photos from the films hung on the pub wall, showing much the same. It was life, imitating art, imitating life.
Outside the famous pub from the films with Maminko Vierka and Riky
The stunning views from the top of the village
And then the lines between real life and the movies blurred further. Zdenēk Troška based the movies on his experiences of living in Hoštice, and he still lives in the village. We’d chatted with the landlord of a pub in Prague, and when he heard we were visiting, he’d said that if we passed Zdenēk Troška’s house, we should ring the bell because he loves to come out and talk to fans.
When we got to the top of the village, we passed a beautiful house with his name written on the front gate. Being British, I didn’t want to ring the bell and bother him, but Ján, who is always more courageous than me, went ahead and rang the bell. To my shock, Zdenēk Troška, a Czechoslovak cinema legend, came out of the house and welcomed us warmly. It was incredible to meet him. He spent half an hour chatting with us about the films, and he posed for photos, and when he heard I was British, he talked about his love of Ken Russell films. I also told him that I call my mother-in-law ‘Maminko’ which is the Czech word for ‘Mum’ rather than the Slovak word which is ‘mama’. I first heard ‘Maminko’ when I watched Slunce Seno, Jahody and it’s thanks to that film that Ján’s Mum will always be ‘Maminko’.
Meeting legendary film director, Zdenēk Troška
Our last stop on our day out was Hoštice train station. In the films, the village of Hoštice is so small, that the trains rarely stop at the station and speed through to make up time, forcing passengers who want to go to Hoštice to jump off the moving train. My favourite scene is when a group of people going to a wedding is forced to leap off onto the platform, in their best clothes, carrying gifts. They complain about this, but they also accept the situation. It sums up the absurdity of life in Communism in such a funny, self-deprecating way. I loved our visit to Prague and Hoštice, and I’m excited to visit more places in the Czech Republic very soon!
Hoštice train station… where the trains never stop, they only slow down
Hello! I just wanted to give you an update on what’s next. I’m thrilled to say that Kate and Tristan are back sleuthing in another twisty dark case! I’m excited to reveal the cover for Devil’s Way, which you can now pre-order here
The book will be published in the English language on January 26th, in all formats, ebook, audiobook hardback and paperback, and I can’t wait for you all to read and listen to Devil’s Way.
I always say this, but I mean it more each time – thank you, as always, for all your friendship and support. I have the most incredible supportive readers, which I never take for granted.
Please consider sharing the news with your friends and family. You can share this blog, or post the news on social media, phone, text them, or tell people when you next see them for coffee. I believe that word-of-mouth is the most powerful form of advertising, and I’d be so grateful for your help to tell everyone about Kate Marshall and Tristan being back!
Happy reading, Rob x
You can pre-order Devil’s Way by clicking here
I’m very excited that Fatal Witness, the seventh Erika Foster book, is now published! Click here to get your copy (this is a universal location-based link, which will take you to your location with store options)
It’s terrific to be back with a new Erika Foster novel for you all after a four-year break. I was asked recently if I still get nervous about publication day. And this got me thinking back to what it was like when I published the first book in the Erika Foster series, The Girl in the Ice. And also, when I published my debut novel, The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard, back in 2012.
For the long answer, the screen needs to go wobbly, and flashback music needs to play…
I’ve had so many setbacks in my creative career. I went to drama school, graduating in 2001, and spent six exciting and challenging years working as an actor. When I met my Slovak husband, Ján, he encouraged me to follow my dream of becoming a writer. I spent another five years doing all kinds of jobs in-between writing my first novel, The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard, in the evenings and weekends. I then spent another year querying literary agents before finally signing with one, only to have my hopes dashed when the book was turned down by every single publisher.
In 2010 we felt beaten down by the expense of living in London, so we moved to Los Angeles, living day-by-day and hand to mouth for an exciting, unforgettable year, but by late 2011 we ran out of money. And without jobs, long-term work permits, or health insurance, we knew we had to come home. But where was home? Coming back to live in London was out of the question. I’d loved the years we spent living there, but I fancied something different, so we decided to return to Ján’s hometown in Slovakia.
Ján’s Mum, Vierka, took us in for what was meant to be a few weeks, and we ended up staying for 4 years! And this was when I felt I really became a writer. I love my mother-in-law to the moon and back, and I will never forget her generosity and the sacrifices she made having us live with her for so long. She believed in me as a writer, just as much as Ján did. It was a challenging four years, all living on top of each other in a one-bedroom flat with two dogs! But it was also a lot of fun. Luckily, the cost of living in Slovakia was low, and I was given the gift of time. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Every day, all day. I wrote a book about our time living in Los Angeles, which Ján translated to Slovak, and then he managed to land a book deal with a Slovak publisher. In industry terms, the advance was tiny, just €500, but back then, this was a considerable amount of money, and I was finally a published author! It spurred me on. The book was published fast and was a moderate success, and then another Slovak publisher asked if I had anything else.
I dusted off The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard, and Ján sold it to the publisher and the sequel I had just started writing Coco Pinchard’s Big Fat Tipsy Wedding. This time they offered a lot more money, enough to live on for the next few months, and my confidence grew. Around this time, we decided to publish the English-language versions of the books on Amazon’s KDP self-publishing platform. This decision was life-changing. At the time, it felt like a significant risk The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard had been turned down by every single publisher in the UK. Could we do it ourselves? But things were changing for writers. Self-publishing had just taken off, and writers were selling vast amounts of books doing it all themselves. I knew I had a great book I believed in, but we had to make it look as good as we could. We found a great cover designer, and I’m glad we did because I think it was the cover which sold the book in the first instance.
The first cover for The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard!
The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard was launched with little fanfare, sitting on the sofa in the living room of our one-bedroom flat and pressing ‘enter’ on my laptop. The first six months of sales on KDP were patchy, but with a great cover and with Ján working hard to find ways to promote the books on social media, and it started to sell more and more copies each month. It was incredible. I kept going and wrote seven books in total that we published on KDP in two and a half years. It was hard work but liberating, and by the time we published my seventh book, the romantic comedy Miss Wrong and Mr Right sales were incredible – it sold 30,000 copies during the spring and summer of 2014. We could finally afford the mortgage deposit on a small one-bedroom flat of our own. It was a bit of a dump, but it was ours.
Then, I decided I wanted to do something different, so I started writing the detective story that would become The Girl in the Ice. I did it without any feeling of pressure or any expectation. We didn’t tell anyone, and as far as I knew, no one was writing British crime fiction where the lead character is a Slovak. Although the first draft of the book was actually written with Erika returning to Slovakia after the death of her husband and solving a mystery as a civilian, I then figured that the story would work better as a police procedural set in London.
After years of setbacks, everything seemed to fall into place. My self-publishing success made contacting my future publisher, the new digital start-up Bookouture, a little easier. I sent them the first draft of the book, and after a nerve-wracking wait, they offered me a three-book publishing contract. Three! I couldn’t believe it! Then things moved very quickly, I worked with a fantastic editor on re-writes, and within 3 months, in December 2015, The Girl in the Ice had a stunning cover, and it was live on pre-order.
The stunning original cover by Henry Steadman.
As Christmas went by, I was very excited to hear that it had sold a couple of hundred copies on pre-order. We’d never had a book on pre-order, and to think people were buying it before they knew what it was about was incredible. Me and Ján went to a spa in the new year, and it sticks in my mind, the moment when I was brushing my teeth before bed, and he yelled that The Girl in the Ice had gone into the top 100 on the Amazon UK chart. On pre-order.
Two weeks later, my whole life changed completely when the book was published. The Girl in the Ice went to number one in the UK, Australia, and then on the American Amazon chart. It was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller, and an author friend posted copies of the newspapers. It stayed high in the charts for months and sold hundreds of copies daily and then thousands. Foreign rights deals started to come through with more and more countries buying the book, and it was just astonishing, like a giant wave that kept going.
When I signed the contract, I’d agreed to write the first three books very close together, so even before The Girl in the Ice was published, I’d finished writing the second book, The Night Stalker, and I’m so glad I did because then it all hit me and became quite overwhelming. In between writing. I travelled to Spain, Italy, The Netherlands and the Czech Republic to promote the foreign editions and saw The Girl in the Ice on the back of buses in Barcelona and in huge displays in bookshops. Within 6 months, The Girl in the Ice had sold a million copies in English, and over 100,000 people pre-ordered The Night Stalker.
Almost all the worldwide editions of The Girl in the Ice (I’m still missing a couple!)
People often ask me how it feels to be a bestselling author, and after a hard-won struggle, I can honestly say it’s wonderful. I feel lucky and grateful to all the readers who buy my books. But something always lurks at the back of my mind, those memories when I couldn’t even get my friends to read my first book, and no one wanted to know. Now with a bestselling book, I was doing exactly the same thing as I did back when no one wanted to know, sitting down at my computer and immersing myself in my characters, telling a story. I kept thinking, why do people want to read my books now? I felt impostor syndrome for a long time, and sometimes I still feel like that today. But I’ve learned to ignore that voice in the back of my head and write, write, write!
On buses in Barcelona!
Exhausted but happy in Barcelona airport 🙂
The Night Stalker was published, and still, things didn’t slow down. I was promoting the books abroad and online while simultaneously writing the third book in the series, Dark Water. 2016 turned to 2017, we built our dream house, and I wrote the fourth and the fifth books, Last Breath and Cold Blood.
Throughout it all, the response from readers was, and is, constant and terrific; I received so many wonderful messages from people who had taken Erika Foster into their hearts and the other characters from the books, Moss, Peterson and Isaac. It was a fantastic rollercoaster, but by 2018, when I was writing Deadly Secrets, the sixth book, I knew something had to give. I loved writing these books and wanted to carry on for as many years as people wanted them, but I was exhausted and burnt out, and I didn’t want to let my readers down. I needed to slow down and take stock.
So I did. It was the most nerve-wracking thing to stop writing books that are so popular and so many people love. Since 2018, I’ve lived a little bit more away from my computer, and I’ve also written the first three books in another crime series about a Private Investigator, Kate Marshall, but in the back of my mind, I’ve been itching to keep that promise I made that I would go back to Erika Foster.
So, I’m so excited for Fatal Witness, the seventh Erika Foster novel, to be published! It’s so good to be back! Returning to these characters has been as fun as I thought it would be, and I’m so excited for you all to read it! I’d also like to say thank you to every reader out there for your support, love and kindness and for talking about my books. I appreciate each and every one of you. My readers are the most important people, and I will never let you down.
And just so you know, there won’t be another four-year gap between books. I’m already planning Erika Foster book 8!
Happy reading, Rob x
Click here to get your copy of Fatal Witness (this is a universal location-based link, which will take you to your location with store options).
This website started out in 2011 as a blog called ‘British Guy in Slovakia’. Back then I was still a struggling, unpublished writer and I wrote this blog to keep me sane and to document my new life in Slovakia.
Last week, the final COVID restrictions were dropped in Slovakia, and we went for our first day out to Podhájska spa. I love Podhájska, and I couldn’t quite believe it had been over two years since we last visited. It made me think about a blog post I’d written, back in 2013, so I thought I would share it again here. You can tell it’s quite an old post because I have coloured hair in the picture above, and it was all my own back then. Now it’s grey with blond on top!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this about a fun day out at Podhájska spa, when the world seemed a much more normal place…
Sometime in Summer 2013…
This summer has been all work and little play. So with a bit of breathing space before I start writing again, we went for a Spa day. Slovakia is rich with geothermal springs, and scores of thermal spas are dotted across the country. One of the wonderful quirks of Slovakian TV is that you can get an overview of how many Slovak spas there are. If you happen to be up early in the morning, you can switch on the national TV stations STV1 or STV2 and watch a montage of live CCTV images from the thermal spa’s across the country – all set to the soothing sounds of folk music. I find watching this quite relaxing. It’s also quite funny to see members of the public, picking their nose or yawning with no idea they are being broadcast on TV. It’s people watching on a grand scale. They also do a similar CCTV montage with ski resorts in the winter, which is another favourite of mine.
One of my favourite Spa’s is in Podhájska, a forty-minute drive from the town where we live, Nitra. We always try to get there once a month, although the last time we went was in February when there was snow on the ground.
Podhájska Spa is unique amongst the Slovak geothermal springs in that its thermal waters have a similar composition of minerals as the Dead Sea. When I asked Ján’s mum how long there had been a spa in Podhájska, she couldn’t tell me. But she can remember when she was little, and it was just a vast pond dug out from the mud where you could jump in and soak your tired bones in the thermal waters for a couple of Kronen ( the old Slovak money before the Euro). When I first came here in 2007, it was a little more stately on a bitterly cold January day, and there was a giant steel-lined pool with seats built into the edges. We gently swam through the hot murky water as snow swirled around our heads. Many of the men were drinking beer, resting their bottles on the icy crust around the pool, and a group of elderly ladies sang Slovak folk songs in a soft, uplifting harmony whilst the snow settled on their shower caps.
After we were well and truly pruned, we did the next thing the Slovaks love to do at spas – we got pickled. We drank shots of Slivovica ( a lethal strong but delicious Plum brandy) and ate the most heavenly juicy roast duck. I fell in love with Podhájska, and Slovakia, there and then.
However, during our past few visits, something has been slowly taking shape in a mud-churned field next to the thermal pool. The mud and scaffolding have yielded, and a modern new Wellness Center has appeared.
This was a hot summer day in comparison to my first visit, and the temperature was nudging 35ºc. I didn’t fancy our usual soak in the hot pool, so we decided to treat ourselves to a day in the huge swish new Wellness Centre. It was very different. Once inside, you are ushered through a computerised entry system controlled by a little wristband. A rather excited lady, who might have been recently promoted from scraping mineral rust off the old pool, proudly showed us the touch screen locker system in the changing rooms.
From there, you walk under a fish tank in the ceiling where a couple of large lethargic fish with collagen lips sway and stare, and into Bazénový Svet (pool world), a series of steel-lined pools with crystal clear thermal waters. There are whirlpools and fountains, with seats which gently pump out massaging jets and bubbles, all under a vast curved wooden roof. There is even a Water Bar where coffee and alcohol can be drunk and paid for with a swipe of your wristband. The centrepiece is a waterfall that activates every half hour and plays a pleasant soft-rock song with African drum beats, which sounds a lot like something U2 recorded to help end world hunger. You can stand under the water as it falls from high above and pummels your back with a satisfying massage.
Outside the wooden dome is another hot pool with a sauna, sun loungers and a Bio Pond surrounded by reeds where special algae with skin healing properties tints the water green.
Slipping off a bar stool (before drinking)
Waiting for the U2 rock song to call me to the waterfall
After splashing around happily for a couple of hours, we moved deeper inside the dome to Vitálny Svet – which translates as Vitality World. We walked back under the fish tank, past the excitable woman and into a large, dark, quiet cave, tiled from floor to ceiling and lit with purples, greens and blues.
We had the place to ourselves as we tried out all the procedures. We darted through a tropical tunnel fuelled by jets of freezing/hot water. A salt cave sprayed us with sea salt vapours – all the more impressive for a land-locked country. There was a Swedish sauna, a bio sauna, a herbal steam room, a salt steam room -all excellent- by my favourite by far was what I called The Pizza Oven.
Its Slovak name is Vodné Peklo, which means Water Hell, but it was far from hellish. It was a low, tiled igloo where a fine vapour descended from a domed ceiling whilst the water plinked and plunked where it met the walls. A column in the centre shot water out like a fire hydrant, and every sound seemed to echo and circle endlessly as the lights changed colour.
It was a deeply relaxing hour. Just when I thought the Podhájska I know and love had vanished in this new ultra-modern space, we stumbled upon some heated loungers in a tiled alcove. Above the loungers was a little window, and someone, I like to think a little old Slovak lady, had hung up a lace net curtain. I’m not sure if it was act of protest, or the desire to make the window look nicer. Thinking about it now, it was probably both.
We found ourselves firmly back on Slovak ground when we left the Wellness and went for something to eat. I had spicy Ram Goulash with fried potatoes, and Ján had Pork Schnitzel with melted cheese and salad. All washed down with tall glasses of Corgon Beer, and finished off with homemade ice cream. Quite pleasantly undoing all of the healthy procedures we enjoyed in the Spa.
And, here I am, back in the present-day 2022. A (little) older and blonder, after an hour in the boiling hot waters, in the same pool I first experienced in 2007. I’m happy to say that Podhájska is just as enjoyable, and the home-made ice cream is just as delicious x
Hello from a very sunny but rather chilly Slovakia. I hope that you are getting some sunshine where you are? I am very excited to reveal the cover for the new Erika Foster crime thriller! After a four-year break, Erika Foster is back in Fatal Witness, which is available to pre-order here
I spent the past winter writing the book in Dubrovnik, which was quite a magical experience. However, Fatal Witness is just as gritty and gripping as the other books in the Erika Foster series. I do think that a little of the magic of Dubrovnik has rubbed off on me because Erika’s private life starts to improve in this book, with some new developments which will set up the series in future books to come (I’m trying not to give anything away)!
Fatal Witness will be released in English in all formats (ebook, audiobook, paperback and hardback) on July 7th 2022. I can also reveal that Fatal Witness will be published in The Netherlands on August 16th, and it will be published later in the year in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (exact dates to be confirmed). Also, stay tuned to my social media and website for more announcements regarding other countries.
Thank you, as always, for all your support and friendship. I have the most incredible supportive readers, which I never take for granted. Please consider sharing this news with your friends and family. I believe that word-of-mouth is the most potent form of advertising, and I’d be so grateful for your help to tell everyone about Erika being back! I can’t wait for you all to read and listen to Fatal Witness!
Rob x
Click here to pre-order Fatal Witness (this is a universal location-based link, which will take you to your local Amazon store)
The publication of Darkness Falls today has been awesome. I love publication day. It’s always nerve-wracking but very exciting to see one of my books go out into the world. This is the time for me, when a book finally feels real, and I can see what people think.
Publication day often always starts for me with a trip to the loo (I know, classy) I woke up this morning at 2am, needing to pee, and this is when I saw the Darkness Falls ebook had just arrived in my Kindle’s virtual library. I’ve since found out that 15,000 people pre-ordered the ebook edition, which is awesome, and when I hear this, I always think about the Kindles and e-readers where my book will appear, and that’s when the nerves kick in.
On my return from the smallest room, I lay awake for an hour thinking about all those Kindles and e-readers, and then I managed to get back to sleep. When I woke up, it was a lovely sunny day, so before breakfast, I took the dogs out in the garden and made this video for social media, still a little bleary-eyed…
[videopress 5R67aOWg w=”600″]
After breakfast, I sat down to get some writing done. I’m 50,000 words into a new book (news about that very soon) and I just managed to hit my daily word count in between looking at social media/ posting on social media/refreshing sales rankings/reading emails. At 10am I was was thrilled to see Darkness Falls hit the number one spot on Apple Books in the UK!
After lunch me and my husband, Ján took the dogs into town for a publication day coffee and cake (and a little drink) and I managed to switch off for a bit and enjoy the sunshine.
And then we came home, and I’m cooking chicken with baked potatoes, and writing this to you in-between trying to upload these photos and videos on a dodgy WI-Fi connection. All in all a quiet, but perfect publication day.
I’ve already received so many lovely messages. They all mean the world to me, and I’m so happy and grateful to everyone who has bought a copy in ebook, audiobook or print. THANK YOU. I’m very excited to hear what you think of Darkness Falls!
Rob x