Merry Christmas!

Just a note to say Merry Christmas, and a happy and prosperous New Year, to all my readers. Thank you all so much for your support over the last year - it's meant a huge amount to me to sell my books and think that people are enjoying them!

And this is 'over and out' for a little while as we're off on a cruise for the New Year and I won't be around to update my blog. Stand by for further reports in 2007. :)

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone.

Woo! - a new story

Some news at last! LOL

I have a new story due out in the January issue of Forbidden Fruit. 'Night Music' is the story of a man who wins a trip to Salzburg in a music magazine and rashly invites his best mate along for the ride. Needless to say, all does not work out quite as he planned. :D

The new issue of the magazine should be available either late January or early February but here's a very brief snippet to whet your appetite:

We abandon the opera to its fate. It doesn't seem very ethical but his grasp is too strong to break and besides, given the choice between Mozart and him it's easy to take my pick. Ben may be infuriating but at least he isn't dead.

We cross back over the river and I assume we're heading for the hotel, but without warning he pulls me under an arch and up an alley between two shops. It's dark and dingy and looks like the sort of place they store the dustbins but he taps the side of his nose. "Trust me, you’ve got to see this. Eleanor found it when we came before."

Eleanor's his girlfriend, when he wants her to be. I'd rather push her off a cliff than believe a word she says, but he's dashing ahead of me up the hill, turning every now and then to make sure I'm still there. He looks like an eager puppy and I can't deny the plea in his eyes so I do as he says, trying not to look at his bum in those skin-tight jeans he always wears. That's easier said than done, because it’s constantly in my face. The lane's so steep it's nearly sheer, with flights of steps every few yards and back-breaking stones in between. I thought I was fit, but on this slope I'm starting to flag.

Ben turns again, grinning, to wait. "Come on, grandad. You can do better than that!"

I stick out my tongue and soldier on. He's not that much younger than me really but you'd never know the way he carries on.

The lane's obviously a religious place. It's lined with shrines, each more ornate than the last, painted and gilded in rococo splendour, statues gleaming in the light of a myriad candles. The last is a calvary, Christ flanked by two thieves - three naked bodies assailing my eyes. It's all I can do not to gasp, all I can do not to picture Ben hanging there instead. My trousers are getting tight.

Tight pants or none I make it to the top; the hill is crowned by a friary, remote and forbidding behind high stone walls. It reminds me of Ben, who always retreats when he can't handle life. He's spent the last month retreating from me....