The new website is live, hooray! I think my designers have done a great job (both uncannily called Andrew S), and while we will continue to tweak and perfect this, I now have a much easier way of updating this news section in particular which I hope means that I can keep readers more up to date with what is being written and coming out, plus all other news.

As I write, Love Hunt is finally, finally out in the shops and selling well, thank goodness. The book-buying market is terribly sticky right now (or should that be credit crunchy?) and of course changing times mean that publishers are juggling formats, all talk is of hardbacks dying out and eBooks ruling the roost. But, for now at least, my latest novel is a big, glossy, colourful chunk of fun with real pages and hard covers to hang onto when the action hots up...

I am writing the Tash/Hugo revisted novel whenever I can, but this is currently pretty tough as I squeeze little moments with in in between preparing accounts for my two businesses of writing and running the dressage centre, promoting LH, and lots of family commitments. Very sadly, my darling father died last month after what is generally termed a 'long battle with cancer'. It was certainly a battle and as enemies go, cancer is one of the Top Trumps in the evil stakes, a vile disease that makes no sense - at least not to this daughter of a man who was until so recently a fit, active, lion-hearted and fiercely clever charmer who had never smoked in his life. We all miss him horribly, and it's still only jusy sinking in that he's gone.

So please forgive me that writing has taken rather a back seat, because it really is hard to be jolly and romantic and upbeat in the face of such immediate and real loss - and I am also acutrely aware through several chats with my publisher/agent and some pretty damning Amazon reviews that I need to stay positive and avoid writing too much dark, heart-wrenching stuff or creating characters that are too complicated or damaged. It seems that being upbeat and positive and funny is what sells my work best, so I am planning to be as wise-crackingly witty as I possibly can in finishing the latest work. It will provide a great antidote to all this national gloom, and I know that my dear Dad - who read every one of my books and was hugely positive about them all - loved the funny bits best, so that's a great legacy to try to live up to.

With any luck, the book (currently given the working title 'Mounted Games' but in search of a much better title to go public with) should be finished this summer and out next year. Meanwhile, Love Hunt won't come out in paperback until early next year - so grab it in hardback while you can if you want to take advantage of current price-cuts.

On the home front, Winnie will be one next week and is currently a fast-crawling missile who is trying to wobble to her feet with the aid of the furniture, Mummy, the dog and anything else she can grab. Dora, who turned two in February, is a complete chatterbox who appears to speak fluent Swedish interspersed with the odd word we recognise, and seems to be following her mother's footsteps into story telling because most sentences begin 'Once upon a time..' I will figure out how to post photos into this section soon and they can beam from the site with their pink cheeks and toothy smiles.

Finally, my other 'business' away from book-writing - the dressage coaching yard that Sam and I run in Somerset (www.dovecote-stables.co.uk) - is at last getting up to full speed, with new clients trying out the dressage schoolmasters each week and coming back for more. The horses are just fantastic - two fairytale Spanish stallions and two geldings, one Portuguese, the other a jet black Friesian beauty. They are amazing to watch and work with. We hope to host two-day and four-day clinics very soon as well as the individual lessons - and I have threatened to start running writing courses alongside these, although I'm not sure how many aspiring novelists would appreciate workshop sessions in a barn surrounded by horses...

For now, I promise that I will stick to my main task, get my head down, write as fast as I can and think happy, happy thoughts. Please do feel free to email me through the 'Contact section' if you have time - I love to hear feed-back and I do always try to get back to everyone that makes contact, although I apologise that it can sometimes take me a while. More news soon.

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