I’m thrilled to let you know that Kate Marshall returns in Shadow Sands and it’s out now!

The moors are a perfect hiding place for a serial killer. And a chilling return to the past for nascent private investigator Kate Marshall in a pulse-racing thriller by the author of Nine Elms.

Criminology academic Kate Marshall is on a scuba jaunt with her son when they dive toward a shocking discovery: the body of a teenage boy entangled below the surface of the Shadow Sands reservoir. The detective chief inspector’s too-quick narrative of a tragic drowning doesn’t add up, and when Kate follows the evidence, it leads to a darker discovery.

The victim is only the latest in a series of mysterious deaths and disappearances linked to the moorlands—and a mythic phantom said to hide in the rolling fog. When a researcher of urban legends vanishes without a trace, Kate and her associate Tristan Harper must act fast and look deep if they hope to find her alive.

But the elusive serial killer they’re hunting isn’t the only one a step ahead of Kate and Tristan. Someone else is making dead certain that the secrets of Shadow Sands stay buried.

If you loved Kate Marshall’s  previous case, Nine Elms, I hope Shadow Sands will have you hooked from the first page!

I also want to say thank you to all my wonderful loyal readers who have been along with me for the journey over these past few years, cheering me on and taking about my books to your friends and family. I really appreciate all your support! I’d also like to extend a very warm welcome to all my new readers!

Wishing you all a happy, safe, and healthy day, and I hope you enjoy Shadow Sands!

Rob x

I’ve been tense and nervous for the past week, in anticipation of Nine Elms being published. It feels like there’s been such a long build-up to this book, and it seems like ages ago (three years to be exact) since I first had the idea for Kate Marshall, my new private detective. I’ve just finished writing the second book, and Kate is a character I have fallen just as much in love with as Erika Foster. I hope you will too.

Nine Elms is published today in the UK, Australia and New Zealand in ebook and audio, and in the USA you can download the Kindle edition from Amazon’s First Reads programme (the links to download your copy are at the end of the post).

I’ve been away for the past couple of weeks on a promotional trip to the USA. I’ve been to Las Vegas (this wasn’t strictly promotion, I went to see Lady Gaga, she was amazing) Seattle and Los Angeles. It’s been a fun trip, but publication day has been looming at the back of my mind. I’ve done my very best I can writing this book, and I’ve been very lucky to work with a brilliant editing team and my wonderful publishers, but it still gives me butterflies in the stomach to think of you all about to read it! As I always say, my readers are the most wonderful, supportive and friendly bunch, and nothing matters more to me than what you think of Nine Elms.

I’d also like to say a big thank you to my husband, Ján who is always there for me, and for dealing with my crazy moods in the run-up to publication, particularly yesterday. As a distraction, he took me out for coffee and a trip to the cinema, but things in Los Angeles have changed since we lived here 10 years ago… We tried to park, but the only way you could pay for parking was by downloading an app, but the parking app wasn’t available if you use the UK app store… Then we tried to buy cinema tickets and non-USA credit cards weren’t accepted online. Then I got ID’d when we went to get some champagne to celebrate publication day, and I didn’t have my ID. (I should have been flattered, I’m almost 41 and I’m getting really grey at the sides). On a normal day, this wouldn’t faze me, but it all seemed to happen at once, and he bore the brunt of my rant about HAVING THE WORST DAY EVER! I can now see was pretty funny. I want to be able to say that now Nine Elms is published, Ján can heave a sigh of relief, but now the reviews will start coming in!

As I always say, my readers are the most wonderful, supportive and friendly group of people. Thank you for all your continued support over the years. It means so much to me. I hope you enjoy reading Nine Elms, and let me know what you think of it. I always love to hear from you!

Rob x

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year! I hope you are having a great 2019, so far.

I’m working away like crazy on the next book, and I should have some news very soon to share with you. It’s freezing cold here, snowy, but we did have a brief hour of sun today (picture below).  I’ve already broken a couple of New Year’s resolutions. I told myself that I would eat healthy during January. The dreaded podge settled over me after writing the last draft of the next book, which I finished in December, and the food here in Slovakia is so good, and sitting behind my computer and stuffing my face seems to be a writing habit I have to break. I put on 6kg during the last writing spree, and I’ve got another two books I want to write this year, and the weight gain maths is quite terrifying. I’m on a health kick, but last night I got my notes back from the editors of the new book, and I was so happy with them that I had to celebrate, which involved a four cheese pizza and a glass of (slightly flat) leftover champagne. I’m back on the horse today.

Thank you for all the wonderful messages over the holidays and from the recent foreign and UK publications. The UK and Commonwealth paperback edition of Dark Water was published just before Christmas, along with Chladnokrevne, the Czech edition of Cold Blood, and last week La ragazza nell’acqua, the Italian edition of Dark Water and Oiseau de nuit the French edition of The Night Stalker were published. Thank you to everyone who has messaged. I have been deep in the writing room, and need to catch up on my replies, but the messages you’ve sent have been wonderful and have given me such a boost over the last few months locked away writing.

That’s all for now, it may have seemed like I’ve been a bit quiet over the last few months, but behind the scenes there has been a lot of exciting book-related stuff going on. Thank you, as always, for all your support, it means the world to me – Rob x

You might have seen the news I posted a few weeks ago, that I am going to write a new crime series. The idea for a crime series centred around a Private Detective has been knocking around in my head for the past couple of years, and I’m so excited to start work on something new, and to introduce you all to my new series character, ex-cop turned P.I, Kate Marshall.

Since I made the announcement, so many people have asked if this is the end of Erika Foster. So, I wanted to write this post to reassure readers that I’m not going to stop writing the Erika Foster series. I have plans for many more books. I love writing them, and there is so much more life left in Erika, Moss, Peterson and the rest of the characters. I hope I can continue writing the series for years to come. I would just like the opportunity to write something different, and I’m lucky that my new publishers are very excited and enthusiastic about this new series.

I’ve been writing three books a year since 2011, which is when I started self-publishing my romantic comedy novels, and then from 2015, I started to publish the Erika Foster crime series with Bookouture. It has been exhilarating, and so much fun to write and publish at this pace, but it’s not something I want to continue to do. For my health and my sanity, I need to take my foot off the gas, just a little.

However, I don’t want this to sound like a gloomy blog post! I know how many of my readers eagerly await new books. I am still going to be writing every day, and my new publishers have given me the freedom to write my new Kate Marshall series. I still plan to write more Erika Foster books in the future, and another Coco Pinchard novel. So, there may be a slight slowing down of my publication schedule, but, for me, it means that I can keep healthy and sane, so I can write quality books for you all. I have always said that I am in this for the long run, and I hope to write for many years to come. As long as you all want to read books from me, I will write them.

Stay tuned for more news, I will keep you posted.

Rob x

After what seemed like an endless winter, spring arrived in Slovakia a couple of weeks ago, and a week later, summer. Just over six weeks ago, the lake in the park where we take our dogs was frozen, and the ice was thick enough to walk on. Today, I’m sat in my little office in shorts and t-shirt and trying to stay cool. It’s baking hot.

Spring/Summer morning in Slovakia

I sat down to write my new book, which is still in the shaky early stages, but it was one of those mornings of distractions. You might already know from my social media posts that we have two dogs. Ricky (boy) and Lola (girl). They are father and daughter. Lola has been speyed, so there is no chance of any father-daughter puppies being born, and she doesn’t go into heat, but twice a year, around the time she should be in heat, she still seems to give off a scent. And today was that time! So, for the first part of the morning I had deal with a mad humping Ricky who wouldn’t leave her alone. Then after I separated them, he seemed to think my leg was equally desirable.

Just as I seemed to get them settled, and I picked up my laptop, Lola decided that despite being toilet trained, she would prance in front of me and pee all over the rug. There is a huge old sheepskin rug in my office, which is a little bit tatty, but very cosy. I got up to clean it, but it was a huge pee, and a hot day, so I decided to put the rug in the washing machine. I have done this once before and it came out beautifully clean and I thought it would dry quickly in the hot weather.

I picked up the laptop again, but within a few minutes the washing machine was making a horrible low growling noise and then it died. I managed to get the door open and the rug out, but it was dripping wet and covered in foam, so I lugged it into our small garden, draped it over the washing line, and started to wash off the foam with the hose. I didn’t see that one of the dogs had now crapped on the grass next to where the hose is coiled up, and I had pulled the hose through it. I now had dog crap all over my hands and down the front of my clothes.

I came back inside to clean it off and found that the washing machine had regurgitated dirty water all over the floor. By the time I got everything cleaned up, Ricky was back to his crazed humping. I got them settled, sat down to write, and then the doorbell rang with a  delivery. I had ordered a new suitcase. Cue more barking jumping and then Ricky started to hump the new suitcase. I got the dogs settled again, and again picked up the laptop… Then there was a test of the nuclear warning sirens.

I’ve lived in Slovakia for a few years now, so it isn’t quite as horrifying as it was the first time I heard it (I had no idea that there was a test, and I thought it was real). It is incredibly loud, as I suppose a nuclear warning should be, and comes from several hundred speakers dotted around the town, and the test lasts for a good minute. The dogs went ballistic, barking and spinning and then the automated voice kicked in, echoing around the town and off the hills opposite. With everything that is going on in the world, I didn’t wonder if nuclear war had been declared, but after a few minutes it stopped, and the radio in the kitchen started to play ABBA, so I figured that, for now, all was good. All this had made me hungry, so I gave up trying to write and had lunch.

The dogs are now asleep, and it has started to rain, so I thought I would write this blog post.

I was lucky enough to visit New York last week. I’ve been once before, but that was 19 years ago, when I was a student, and I visited on a snowy weekend in late February. I loved it, but it was freezing cold. I remember long icicles hanging off fire escapes, piles of blackening snow at the roadside, and steam rising from the drains. I also remember that I didn’t pack warm clothes, and spent the whole trip sheltering in coffee shops and bars, which was difficult with little money.

A view of Central Park at 6am (awake due to jet lag!)

This time around I went with Ján and met with my new publisher, Amazon and Audible will be publishing my new books in the U.S, and Grand Central, who are publishing the Erika Foster series in paperback in the U.S.

As well as our meetings, we got time to explore the city. The weather was glorious ( the word ‘glorious’ doesn’t often spring to my lips, but it was glorious) It was warm and sunny, spring was lagging a little behind Slovakia, so the trees in Central Park were in blossom and bursting with green. We were there for a week, and didn’t quite manage to get over the jet lag. I’m not a morning person, but every morning I was wide awake at six. We stayed in a hotel opposite Central Park (which was the only thing the hotel had going for it. Always check out the customer reviews before you book!) so all we had to do was cross the road and we were in the park. Breakfast in the park every morning was a highlight.

By the lake, Central Park

We also visited the street and the brownstone house used in Sex and The City, where Carrie Bradshaw had her apartment. I love the show, but for some reason I didn’t think that there would be lots of people there. The apartment block is on a pretty non-descript street. When we turned the corner, the road was full of Sex and The City fans lining the pavements, standing in the road, and oblivious to the cars zooming towards them and honking. The apartment block is still a private residence, and the steps up to the front door are roped off with a big sign asking people to stay off the steps. It was strange how the building was both iconic and functional. While we were there, a woman emerged from the front door holding two full bin bags. She shuffled down the steps, leaned over the rope and dumped them into a bin on the sidewalk, then went back up again. She either seemed used to the craziness around her, or she was ignoring it. All the while a young woman was stood at the bottom of the steps beaming and posing for a photo, lost in a world where she was Carrie Bradshaw.

Carrie Bradshaw’s house from SATC

One smart thing the building owner has done is to put a charity box at the bottom of the steps, asking that if you take a photo, you leave a dollar for the local dog’s home. I didn’t feel as guilty posing for a photo, as I was doing it for a good cause. We also went up The Empire State building, walked The High Line, and saw a show (Book of Mormon, very funny) and we walked and walked and explored. I loved New York, and it won’t be another 19 years before I go back.

Spring on The High Line

But now I’m home, and I have a new book to write, which is exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Ricky has started to hump my leg again, and I need another cup of coffee, so that’s all from me for now. Thank you to everyone who has sent messages about Deadly Secrets. It’s now a month since publication and I have loved reading all your messages and thoughts. I have also given the website a little wash and brush up. There is now an ‘Interviews/Media’ page and you can check out a Q&A video I did last year, where I talk in more depth about the Erika Foster series and answer questions from readers.

Until next time, Rob x

It’s been more than two years since The Girl in the Ice was published, and it has been a life-changing couple of years. The book has sold over a million copies, and is in the process of being translated into 27 languages. It hit the #1 spot on the Amazon US Kindle store, #1 on the Amazon Australia Kindle store, and it spent six weeks at #2 on the Amazon UK Kindle store (so, it’s rather unfortunately known as my huge #2). It won the Dead Good Reader Award at the 2016 Theakston’s Harrogate Crime Festival, and was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards.

One of my literary heroes, Augusten Burroughs read the book and wrote to tell me how much he loved it, and another, Jeffrey Deaver read the book and provided a wonderful quote. The Italian edition, La Donna Di Ghiaccio became the biggest ebook bestseller in Italy during 2017, and the Czech Edition was my second big number 2, becoming the second bestselling book in the Czech Republic after J.K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And throughout all this I have been lucky enough to gain a wonderful, funny, warm, and loyal readership who have stayed with me and continued to read the next books in the Erika Foster series,  and tell their friends and family how much they love the characters. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. If you love a book, the best thing you can do is tell people!

So, I’m so excited that today is publication day for the U.S trade paperback edition of The Girl in the Ice! The cover has been slightly refreshed, and the text inside has been slightly adapted in places to accommodate American English, ‘Lift’ becomes ‘Elevator’ ‘Boot’ becomes ‘Trunk’… ‘Theresa May’ becomes ‘Donald Trump’ (Okay, I’m kidding about the last one) My American publisher, Grand Central has done a fantastic job with the American edition, and they allowed me to have input into these minor changes. Thank you to all at Grand Central, you guys are the best!

What really excites me, is that The Girl in the Ice will find a whole new audience in paperback in America and beyond. I have just heard that as well as being available in all good bookstores across America and Canada, it will be included in some great promotions in Target and Barnes and Noble book stores, so keep a lookout! And if you do see it in your local bookstore, please consider taking a selfie with a copy of The Girl in the Ice, I would love to meet new readers!

I’ve spent the past week in bed with a chest infection, so I’m blogging about this later than planned. I’ve also had to miss out on the snow here in Slovakia, and the Christmas market, and I was gutted that I had to cancel a book signing in Brno in the Czech Republic last week. To everyone who was going to go, I’m sorry that I couldn’t make it. We are going to re-arrange it for early next year, so stay tuned. Right up until the day before, I was determined to go, but after a visit to the doctor where antibiotics were prescribed, I was told sternly I had to stay in bed. So that’s where I’ve been. Slowly getting better, but going mad. On the plus side, I’ve managed to do a lot of reading!

I had a great trip to Prague the first week of December, where I did my first proper book signing at the Palác Knih, Neo Luxor, in Wencelas Square, which translates as ‘The Palace of Books’. (I figured that if you’re going to do your first book signing, there’s nothing like doing it in a palace) It was for the launch of Temné hlubiny the Czech language edition of Dark Water.

The beautiful display of Temné hlubiny in the Palác Knih, NeoLluxor. To give you an idea of scale, the little book in the bottom left corner is a large hardback!

We stayed right on the square, with a great view of the city.

It was freezing cold, but we had a great view of Wenceslas Square, and Prague castle.

The PR at my Czech publisher, Grada warned me in advance that there might only be a few people who turn up, as I’m a new author, and it was my first book signing. I needn’t have worried, when we arrived at the Palác Knih NeoLuxor, it was crowded, and there were lines of people snaking all the way to the back of the bookshop.

There was a question and answer session at the beginning, where I was ably helped by the translator, and then we ‘christened’ the book. It’s a tradition I hadn’t come across before living in Slovakia, and visiting the Czech Republic. Grada asked my husband, Ján if he would be the ‘Godfather’ for Temné hlubiny (for a christening a book has a godfather or a godmother) and we toasted the book with glasses of champagne, and then we poured a little was poured onto the book, a baptism of sorts. (see the video below) My Czech editor managed to look both pleased and aghast, as we soaked a perfectly good book in booze… I hope, at least, it was dried out on a nearby radiator.

[wpvideo kkEV4mx4]

After the christening, I settled down for the book signing. It was wonderful to meet so many amazing readers, and Czech book bloggers and I wished I had more time to talk to everyone. Thank you to everyone who came along.

[wpvideo gif2WO2T]

Grada then organised an afterparty at Oliver’s Coffee Cup, also in Wenceslas Square, where I got the opportunity to meet so many the fabulous book bloggers in the Czech Republic, and thank them for all their support for the Erika Foster books, and this was a wonderful end to a great day.

Q & A at Oliver’s Coffee Cup

The next day I had the chance to see posters for the books on the Prague Metro, which was another dream come true. The poster in the tunnel was easy enough to photograph…

But the one on the escalator was a little difficult, which involved travelling up a long escalator, and then just before the top, I had to turn and start climbing back down it the wrong way…

It was a fantastic visit, and I want to say thank you to everyone at Grada, who were so kind and organised so many great events and really looked after us.

I really wanted to end with a photo of the Christmas Market in Prague, but time got away from me, and I didn’t get the chance to take pictures. So I have this picture from a couple of years back, when we took our dog Ricky to Prague. If in doubt, end with a cute puppy! 🙂

Thank you to my readers and the incredible book bloggers all over the world who have made this an unforgettable year. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, very happy holidays and have a very healthy and prosperous new year.

See you next year for more books!

Rob x

I was in London for publication day last week of The Girl in the Ice, and spent the morning visiting Waterstones in Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square to sign some copies, and then I had lunch with my publisher. It was such a fun morning, and a lovely lunch, but it all happened so fast that we didn’t get much of a chance to take photos. Around mid-morning it started to snow when we were crossing Trafalgar Square, and as the soft white flakes spun and whirled around our heads, I hoped it was a good omen for The Girl in the Ice.

At Waterstones Piccadilly, with the lovely Sphere Publicity Director, Kirsteen Astor.

This publication day was different to others. It’s the first time that The Girl in the Ice will be available in all bookstores and supermarkets, and whilst every publication day before has been full of excitement and trepidation, this publication day felt different.

I lived in London for many years, and you may have read in my previous posts what a long struggle it was to get published. So it was incredible to see my books piled up in the Waterstones in Trafalgar Square, and to see them in the WH Smith in Charing Cross station.

The Erika Foster books are set in South London, where I used to live in Forest Hill, Brockley and Honor Oak Park. For the 7 years I lived in South London, I commuted into the city most days, for auditions when I was an actor, or when I worked in offices as a temp, and for nights out at the theatre, or clubbing!

Charing Cross was the train station which took me home, and it holds so many memories for me; the times I arranged to meet family and friends under the clock, I met my husband Ján on our first date outside the Marks and Spencer. I spent many days on the station concourse, doing promotional jobs, handing out free samples of chocolate or shampoo to the early morning commuters. Regular commuters will identify with the hundreds of times I just made the last train by seconds, slipping into the carriage as the doors closed, and the times when I stood on the platform watching the last train slip away on the track!

When I wasn’t missing them, or running for them, I also spent so much of my time  waiting for trains, and I would kill time browsing the books in the WH Smith by platform 5, and gaze at the shelves, dreaming that one day my book would be there. So it was a HUGE moment, when we went to the station, and there it was!

As I stood outside the store, holding up two copies we’d just bought, I tried to hold on to the feeling and drink it all in. A dream I’d had for so many years had come true… and then I saw that our train was about to leave (we were headed to Bromley to visit friends) so feeling like a Londoner all over again, we made a mad dash for it, fumbling for tickets as we ran to the ticket barriers, and onto the platform. Thankfully we just made it onto the train as the doors closed. It seems some things haven’t changed!

You can buy the new Sphere edition of The Girl in the Ice from all good bookshops – and there still might be some signed author copies in Waterstones Piccadilly and Waterstones Trafalgar Square.

Last Breath has been nominated in the semi finals for the Goodreads Choice awards 2017.

I would really appreciate your vote to get me to the final. You can cast your quick, one-click vote via this link below, thank you 🙂  https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-mystery-thriller-books-2017

Today is the publication day of Cold Blood, the fifth book in my Erika Foster series. Publication days are always very exciting, and nerve wracking, knowing that this is the first time readers get to hold a copy in their hands. I spend the day wondering how many people are opening the book for the first time, and reading the words I’ve worked on so hard for the past few months. I hope that I haven’t let my readers down, because it’s readers who have given me the opportunity to write full-time, and for that I am forever grateful.

My first ever publication day was March 2012, in Slovakia, for a book called Mrcha Hollywood. It’s the Slovak language translation of my book Lost in Crazytown. It was an exciting, but rather terrifying day. My first ever book was being published, and I couldn’t even read it!

My first published book… and I couldn’t read it

Late in 2011 I moved back from Los Angeles to live in Slovakia, with my Slovak husband Ján. I had been writing for several years with small amounts of success; I’d written some comedy sketches for a show which I performed in London, and I’d taken a play I’d written to the Edinburgh Festival. Early in 2010, I’d completed my first novel The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard and it had excited a literary agent enough for them to take me on. I came very close to a publication deal in the UK, only for it all to fall through and for the agent to lose interest. So in late 2011 we came to live with Ján’s mum in her small flat in Slovakia.

At this point I was at a very low ebb. I was about to give up writing and had started looking for work as an English language teacher. However, Ján encouraged me to keep going and write down some of the strange and crazy experiences we’d had in Hollywood. I wasn’t keen on writing a new book which would never see the light of day, but he persisted, and took me out to the local Chinese, where we started to talk through the our year in Los Angeles, and the more we talked, the more I saw it might make a good story. We worked out that the little money we had could last until January, so we might as well have one last roll of the dice.

I wrote furiously from October to December 2011, working 7 days a week, and at the same time, Ján translated it into Slovak. By Christmas we effectively had two books, one in English and one in Slovak. In early January of 2012, we submitted the manuscript to several publishers in Slovakia. My confidence had drained away over the holidays, and the January blues did nothing to help. I had a Skype interview scheduled for a job with an English language school, and was brushing up on the TEFL qualification I had taken the year before. I had zero expectations for our book, I knew it was good, but I had submitted work to editors and had been turned down so many times before.

Then, on Tuesday 17th January 2012, just as I was making a cheese toasty and contemplating the interview I had the following day, Ján came through to the kitchen and told me that one of the publishers we’d submitted the book to, had read the manuscript, loved it, and they wanted to publish it. Could we meet them in Bratislava the next afternoon!

I didn’t dare get too excited. The following morning, I did the Skype interview, which went well, then we took a snowy bus journey to Bratislava, and went to a small cafe just off the main square. The people from the publishing house were running late, and I thought at first that it was all a big joke, or that they had bailed on us. Then they arrived in a flurry of apologies and excited chatter. Coffee was ordered, and they said how much they loved the book, how funny it was, and how it would appeal to Slovak readers. They showed us a mock-up of the cover they had produced, and they said they wanted to publish it within the next six weeks! They also offered us an advance. It wasn’t a king’s ransom, just €500, but we were lucky enough to be living rent free, and the cost of living in Slovakia back then was very low, so it meant the wolf had, temporarily, left the door.

Me and Ján at the printer, seeing Mrcha Hollywood come hot off the press

When I look back, so much of being a writer is about having belief. Belief in yourself and your ideas, belief from friends, a family member, or loved one. I spent so many years dreading being asked at a party what I did for a living. As an unpublished writer I’d often feel like a complete failure. Although, now I realise that I wasn’t. Every writer has to start somewhere. Every writer has to persevere against difficult conditions, where the odds feel stacked against them. I honestly thought I would never get published. It all seemed far out of reach. I was the last person who thought I would ever be able to make writing my full time job. I came close to giving up so many times. I dread to think what would have happened if I had!

So, back to the publication day… Mrcha Hollywood was published in March 2012 at a big launch event where I was interviewed by the press, where I signed books, and where I didn’t understand much of what was being said. They must have wondered who this rather  nonplussed new author was! We were featured in every newspaper and magazine, there was a poster campaign in bookshops; we even went on Breakfast TV in Slovakia. Mrcha Hollywood quickly became a bestseller.

Within weeks,  another publisher wanted to know if I had any books Ján could translate, so I dusted off the manuscript of  The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard, and they bought it, and also hired Ján to translate. I also bluffed a little at the meeting that I was writing a Coco Pinchard sequel, and they asked to buy that also! This was the push I needed to keep writing.

We weren’t rich, but it bought us valuable time to write, and I was able to turn down the teaching job I’d been offered. It was with this little boost of confidence that we decided to go ahead and self-publish the English language versions of The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard and Lost in Crazytown through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

Since then, it’s been a steady but exhilarating ride. I’ve taken steps forward and I’ve suffered setbacks, but I’ve kept moving, and more importantly, I’ve kept writing. The more you write, the better you get, and if a reader likes one of your books, they will always want to read more. Readers are the most important people. Writers should never forget this.

The long journey to get here has made me appreciate so much. I appreciate my husband who has supported me all the way, we are a real team; Team Bryndza Books rules! And I appreciate every reader who has talked about my books to a friend or family member, and the wonderful community of book bloggers who support so many new authors on social media. And lastly thank you to Oliver Rhodes, Claire Bord and everyone at my publisher, Bookouture. You all have so much faith in me, and you’ve given me such creative freedom and a platform to flourish and develop my crime thriller series.

I wanted to write this blog post to say thank you, and to also say that whatever you want to do with your life, it’s possible as long as you work hard, dream big, and never give up!

Rob x