I’m so thrilled to be able to share the cover of my sixth psychological thriller  with you. Isn’t it stunning?

All Anna wants is to be able to sleep. But crushing insomnia, terrifying night terrors and memories of that terrible night are making it impossible. If only she didn’t feel so guilty…

To escape her past, Anna takes a job at a hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum, but when seven guests join her, what started as a retreat from the world turns into a deadly nightmare.

Each of the guests have a secret, but one of them is lying – about who they are and why they’re on the island. There’s a murderer staying in the Bay View hotel. And they’ve set their sights on Anna.

Seven strangers. Seven secrets. One deadly lie.

Someone’s going to sleep and never wake up…

Sleep will be published in the UK in hardback and ebook on 21st March 2019 and in paperback on 5th September 2019.

If you’re a regular  reader of this blog you’ll know that this book was a tricky one to write. All I knew when I sat down to plot it was that I wanted it to be a book about sleep. I’m fascinated by the subject, particularly sleep issues like insomnia, sleepwalking and night terrors, and how and why we dream. I knew I wanted my main character to have insomnia and I had an image in my mind of someone who worked in a hotel, drifting through the corridors in the early hours, unable to sleep. But why couldn’t she drop off? Guilt. That was the first thing that came to mind. She feels guilty so she can’t sleep. But what does she feel guilty about?

I started thinking about the guests in the hotel too. What was going on behind the closed doors of their rooms? Why had they traveled to the remote Scottish island of Rum? Were they running away from something like Anna? Or were they seeking something? What secrets were they hiding?

Bit by bit the story slowly came together. And now it’s done! I sent the corrected proof pages back to my editor last week and, in the next month or so, proof copies will be going out to reviewers, bloggers and authors. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about how this novel will be received but I’m always nervous about sending a little bit of me out into the world to be judged.

It may only be five months until the book is published by the publicity process has already started and I’ve got until November to write two short stories that will be published in magazines in March. We’re also starting to put together a book shop tour – something I’ve never done before but am very excited about. Do shout if you’d like me to come to your city. I can’t promise we’ll make it (we only have a week!) but if there’s lots of interest in certain cities it might help swing the decision!

While all that’s going on I’m cracking on with the second YA thriller (publication date June 2020). I had hoped to get the first draft done by the end of November but I’m taking my time over the opening chapters and progress is slow. This is normal for me. I only really get to know my characters when I start writing and beginnings are quite tentative until the characters become firmly established in my mind. Then I start to speed up a bit! I’ve never completed NaNoWriMo before but I might do it this year so I force myself to sit in my chair  and write 1,667 words a day. With any luck I might end up with a messy 60k first draft by the end of it.

Why the hurry to get as much written as possible by the end of November? Well, in December I need to start plotting my seventh psychological thriller so I can start the first draft in January. With the rom coms and the YA books it will actually be my ELEVENTH book. Next year marks the ten year anniversary of Heaven Can Wait, my first published book. I can’t believe how fast the years have flown by.

If you want Sleep to magically appear on your ebook reader, or drop through your letterbox on publication day then you can pre-order it now:

Pre-order from Amazon.co.uk
Pre-order from Waterstones
Pre-order from Audible (narrator: Clare Corbett)
Pre-order from iBooks
Pre-order from Kobo
Pre-order from Google play