A few little insights into the forthcoming book. Yes, I know, another one! Crept up on me a bit, too... But it's nearly here!

I woke up this morning and thought "I've got a book out in two months!"

I don't know why it came as a shock, I mean, I wrote it and everything.  But somehow I've been burbling along, fiddling with edits as they came through and sending them back, occasionally stroking the image of the front cover, but the fact that it's going to be a REAL BOOK and available for other people to read in less time than it takes my mother to cook sprouts...well, it just seems to have crept up on me a bit.

This is the one...

So I thought, in honour of this book's canter towards appearing in public, I'd give you a few little hints as to what lies inside this beautiful cover. Apart from words, of course, there are lots and lots of words, and maybe a little bit of crayoning if anyone has left me unattended with it and a packet of Crayola....

There's a horse called Stan, who has the build and temperament of a hall table and eats everything that isn't nailed down.  And sometimes things that are...  He can generally only be steered by getting off, running round to the front, and leaning hard against him, which, now I come to think of it, describes my car pretty well too.

The hero is an astrophysics PhD called Phinneas Baxter, who specialises in plasma physics.  He's about as far from being a womaniser as any man who deals in plasma can be - which is quite a long way - and when we first meet him he's naked, unconscious, and out on a windy hillside in March.  Which, I think you will agree, is not a natural resting place for PhDs, unless you live somewhere a lot more interesting than where I do.  And probably warmer.

Phinn has a best friend and general hanger-on, called Link.  He's a trust-fund millionaire who put the 'ass' in harassment, but he's loyal.  He's not honest, and he's not trustworthy, but he's the nearest thing to a brother that Phinn has, which isn't always a good thing...

The heroine is Molly Gilchrist, who writes for a magazine, rides Stan out on the moors, and generally tries to keep herself invisible and out of trouble.  Her fiancé called off their wedding and left her under particularly humiliating circumstances, and she's sworn off men and resigned herself to a future of solitary wine-drinking and Stan.  But, you know, haven't we all, on occasion?

And Molly has a friend, Caro, who devotes her time to trying to get Molly to open up her life.  She's Stan's real owner, but has pretty much disowned him because of the above mentioned tendency to eat things that aren't meant to be eaten.

And, as the latest in the 'Yorkshire' series, it's set on the North York Moors (one day I'm going to do guided walks. Point out all the settings for my books, and ending in a really nice tea shop - I think this could be a goer....). The setting for the first chapter looks a bit like...

this.

So. I hope I have whetted any part of your enthusiasm that might have needed whetting.  Or wetting, I make no judgements upon you, oh lovely, if slightly dessicated,  reader.