Fiona

It has been well over a year since I last updated my news page, for which I hang my head in shame. To those of you who have emailed to politely request an update, many thanks for the timely prods! I am finally on the case…

If 2006 brought a sad end to my marriage and an unexpected new love in quick succession, 2007 sprang even more surprises with a new baby and new home. I did admittedly see these coming; something about losing sight of my feet warned me of the former, the ‘For Sale’ sign outside my cottage and frequent trips to poke nosily around remote farmhouses augured the latter.

Dora (officially ‘Dorothy’ after my magnificent grandmother) was born in February. She is a buoyant, blue-eyed, giggly tornado who we utterly adore – and she has changed life completely. Trying to write with Dora in situ is rather like trying to play the piano in a zoo’s monkey enclosure – fun and incredibly distracting. I have been persevering, however, and am nearly finished – but more on that later…

Dora’s arrival seemed perfect timing to look for a fresh start somewhere new – Sam and I felt like a proper family at last, not just two evacuees from sunken marriages clinging together in the storm of bitter divorce battles and financial pressure. The village where we lived is a wonderful place filled with many friends, but it was also a painful reminder of past memories and hopes, filled with ghosts – and gossips! I should know, as I have always been one of them. I was quite happy to be the focus of the scandal radars briefly when Sam and I got together – it seemed just desserts – but after a year had passed, we felt increasingly hamstrung by the ongoing moralising and elbow-nudging of a few individuals. So we sought a fresh start away from that, where we can be known simply as ‘Sam and Fiona’.

In August, we left our idyllic yet tainted corner of the Cotswolds for an almost-undiscovered haven of undulating green tranquillity in the South West. The Blackdown Hills are Somerset’s great secret, more secluded than the Quantocks or Mendips, less wild than Exmoor – but with a breathtaking beauty all of their own. It is utterly spellbinding here, and we were so lucky to find a dewy-windowed, white-washed farmhouse that fits us perfectly – along with a stable yard that Sam hopes to build into a specialist base for coaching riders on our own Spanish dressage horses. I feel I am living one of my childhood fictional dreams; the only difference being that in my teenage dreams I just got to hang around with the gorgeous horseman and ride all day – whereas in real life, I have to write Walker fiction ten to the dozen to try to catch up all the time I lost having a baby and moving house.

And I’m almost there! At the time of writing this, Love Hunt (formally Going, Going Gone) is finally at its rewrite stage, getting ready to be put into production for publication next year. It revolves around the scattered clues if a treasure hunt set by a local auction house, during which my characters find love and romance, enjoy the thrill of the chase and compete for the ultimate prize – a happy ending.  After this, I plan to write an Oddlode book that finally sorts out Rory’s disastrous love life, and that brings him into contact with two old characters I have been longing to bring back - Tash and Hugo. Watch this space!

For now, I must get back to Love Hunt and tie up any loose endings ready to deliver it to my editor for the New Year. I have to hurry; 2008 could bring all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, but we already know one that’s on its way. In May, Dora will have a baby sister or brother. Onward and upward!

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