Blog

I did something out of character in the week before the publication of The Perfect Sister.  Alarmed by alerts that a level 5 lockdown was imminent, I sent a panicky email to my editor, wondering what would happen if my long-awaited, about-to-be-released book was trapped in transit, locked down in a warehouse somewhere, unable to… Read More

The publication of my tenth novel with Hachette Books Ireland was always going to be special. It seemed no length of time since I’d signed on the dotted line for books 1+2. All of a sudden, here I was, ten books and a whole decade later. Writing has enriched my life in ways I never… Read More

The bookshelves of Ireland are glutted with ‘How-To’ books on novel writing. The internet is another huge resource where you can find a multitude of articles laying down various rules and regulations, tips and techniques. Then when you have suitably frazzled your brain and overloaded your critical faculties on a million and one contradictory ways… Read More

In A House Full of Secrets, Vikki accepts an invitation from her good friend Niall to accompany him to his family weekend reunion in Lynes Glen, his childhood home in a remote part of Ireland.  The county of Mayo, where Lynes Glen is located, is part of the Wild Atlantic Way, one the world’s longest… Read More

Since the beginning of time, lovers and their passions have exhibited much the same sentiments as they always have. We have St Valentine, a 3rd century saint associated with the expression of love. He was martyred and buried in the Carmelite Church in Whitefriar Street, Dublin, and is commemorated on 14th February each year.  Then… Read More

What would we do without our mobile technology? Without our phones and tablets and laptops, which have become almost like an additional, invisible vein attached to our bodies, carrying a constant drip feed of disparate information, updates, likes, comments, chit chat, news, fake news intermingling with global catastrophes,  selfies and shout-outs, straight to our hearts… Read More

Families: they can be united by a shared history, or divided by secrets, eccentricities, or skeletons buried deep in the closet. At the heart of A House Full of Secrets is a divided family at odds with each other. The Blake family, Alex, Lainey and Niall, grew up in the remote and beautiful county Mayo,… Read More

Chapter Eight When I read her diary, I knew. Everything. It had the effect of pulling the plug from under the life I had known up to then, changing it completely, so that everything was sucked down into a dark and narrow vortex.   Yet when I eventually came up for air, choking and struggling, I… Read More

The lough is still out of bounds. The forest track leading to the beauty spot where Gabrielle met her untimely end has become impassable. Fallen tree trunks, shrouded with clusters of vegetation and thick tentacles of ivy, block the entrance.   Where prisms of sunlight pierce the leafy canopy, clumps of untrammelled nettles, tumbleweed and briars… Read More

I know I’m not the only one who spent a childhood reading under the bedcovers, caught up in the escapism of a good mystery story. I binged on the entire Enid Blyton collection, moving on to devour the Nancy Drew series, and soaking up every page of my brother’s Hardy Boys collection, almost ruining my… Read More