It’s been a while …

Ravello, Italy, the setting for a story in WHERE SPIRITS DWELL

But I have a good excuse for neglecting my blog, I think … I’ve been finishing the sequel to Spirit Sisters and yes, I confess, there have been a few less than productive moments in there too, though I like to think it all contributes to the general melting pot of, um, creativity … Googling the music on the Corona TV ads (“A Journey,” by Taylor Steele and “Run River” by Jon Swift); fantasising about million dollar haciendas on the Uruguayan coast; watching Modern Family and The Biggest Loser and reading non-paranormal literature. I loved loved loved Mr Rosenblum’s List, by Natasha Solomon and Dark Matter by Michelle Paver—actually, that is paranormal, but fiction, which is still an indulgence in these last stages of writing.

Aside from that, I waded through seventy thousand freecycle messages and procrastinated about putting my own clutter up for collection (I’ll get there). And then there were the endless stream of offers from “deal of the day” websites, few of which I can resist. My latest acquisition is a brilliant bed-sanitising deal. Who knew that there existed people with special UV-machines who’ll come and zap our beds clean? All they had to do was bang on a bit about bed bugs and their revolting emissions and I was sold.

Somehow, despite all of the above, Where Spirits Dwell is now in the very final stages of submission to my publishers. I’ve been haunted by stories set in my hometown of Sydney to far flung places, like Normanton in Far North Queensland, to Ravello, on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, where a scandalous literary personage made a surprise post-mortem appearance in an interviewee’s tale. To know more, you’ll have to wait for Where Spirits Dwell, out in Australia in September. I hope you’ll love it.