Some of you will know that, last month, a few days before my first draft of Blood Deep was due in, my trusty old laptop passed away. My laptop had been my Blackthorn buddy for almost fourteen years and all of the first four Blackthorn books were written on it.

Blackthorn didn’t start on my laptop, of course. When I first started writing the series, I was armed only with a pen and paper and my electric typewriter because, back in 1996, I had no such thing as a computer. Four years later, my laptop became my Blackthorn haven.

The poor thing certainly worked hard all its life, sometimes for ten or twelve hours a day until, eventually, it couldn’t hold more than 8% battery at a time. In the last few months, it had to be permanently plugged in – and when your writing buddy is of the nibbling variety, it can be quite a feat managing Blackthorn and a loose cable!

Tilly – my rescue bunny/A mistreated bunny rehabilitated/When the Blackthorn angst gets too much!

Of all the times to leave me though, my laptop certainly picked the most opportune. Happening around my 40^th birthday, I had the perfect excuse to indulge. So here’s where the rest of the Blackthorn series will be written – on my brand new laptop! It arrived last week but, with my second draft of Blood Deep due in on Monday, yesterday was the first time I got a chance to play with it.

The keys are backlit! Perfect for night-time tapping away!! (A dark PNR author has to consider these things.)

And talking about the rest of the Blackthorn series… the REALLY exciting news is that Bookouture is showing interest in signing more!! We’re currently in conversations about it so please keep your fingers crossed that all goes well. I can’t think of any better publisher to see the series through to the end.

So thank you to everyone who is helping make this happen by rating and reviewing my books, leaving all your comments and messages of support here and all the amazing stuff that happens on Facebook to help spread the word (reaching over 4,000 people last week alone!). Basically, thank you for making it loud and clear that you want more Blackthorn. Not only is my publisher listening, you’re helping tempt new readers into the series every day. I am so VERY grateful for your support.

I’ll have more news on Blood Deep shortly but, for now, for those who are assuming it’s the final book (and contains the end battle), I can’t stress enough that it’s not. It’s all about the final couple – and many more pieces of the Blackthorn puzzle falling into place. Then, as I put it to my publisher, the honeymoon period is over (cue a scary-sounding “mwah-ha-ha”). I’ll have more news for you in a while about what to expect next – as well as that eagerly awaited Blood Deep release date, and so much more!

xxxx