Regular readers might recall that I often do daily ‘advent calendar’ posts but I decided to give that a miss this December. What I am preparing is a list of the top ten books that I’ve read this year. I’m not going to rank them one to ten but just the ten best of the 70 or so fiction books that I have read in 2020. If you are wondering if that is more or less than usual because, well because it is 2020, that’s probably about normal for me. Then there is all the non-fiction but I tend to dip into many of these rather than read from cover to cover, so my list will be fiction only. Stand by for this nearer the end of the year.

Now to recording. A few weeks ago, I was invited to chat to the lovely History Hacks Ladies. As a result I am now a podcast, whatever that is.  So if you want to hear me chatting about Sins as Red as Scarlet in a very croaky voice you can. There’s plenty of other good stuff on there too, so head on over and listen in.

Then, whilst I was still reeling from all the Genealogy award thing excitement, came the amazing news that I had won a writing competition. I found out on Monday and once I’d picked my jaw up off the floor, spent most of the week with a stupid smile on my face. I don’t usually ‘do’ short stories but both my novels are on the Trip Fiction website, so when they announced a competition I decided to give it a go and well, wow, just wow – look! You can read my story and those of the other winners on the site. It is also a great place to look for books that are set in your favourite locations. If you are expecting my story to be set in the West Country, sorry, no, Northumberland this time. I’m afraid it is no good sending begging letters asking for a share of the prize money as a significant proportion has already been donated to charity. If you like the story and still haven’t dipped into my novels, if you are very quick, I can still send signed, festively wrapped copies out to the UK in time for Christmas – you do need to order directly from me for this though. P.S. and here is what the lovely judge said – I still can’t believe this is about something that I have written.

In other news, I glimpsed this under the clematis yesterday. I am hoping he is hibernating not deceased and will add more leaves and possibly build a shelter to put over him as this looks a bit exposed. The first photo was taken in the summer.