2017 is here already and, like most writers, the view from my desktop hardly changes. This Christmas I was able to get out into the fresh air, smell the frost in the atmosphere, and admire the lovely village where I live (and which I too often forget is there).

Below you can see Warton Old Rectory which is a few hundred yards from my front door. Now a ruin of mellow sandstone, it is a rare surviving example of a large medieval house, which was once a home for the local rector. Up until Tudor times, it was also a Manor where courts were held. Click on the picture to find out more.

Plenty of stories must have taken place here, yet I have had little time to ponder its significance. One of my resolutions this year is to slow down and to keep reminding myself to get out from behind my desk. Writers are not machines, and plenty of time for ruminating, developing and deepening our work is necessary. And one of the reasons I love historical fiction is precisely because it gives me an excuse to visit old buildings, museums and archives. I want more of that in 2017!

There is a lot of pressure these days to churn out content, and to keep offering new titles, even if they are not quite ‘cooked’. I want to resist this, and instead focus on writing something I’m really proud to have produced. All my historical novels take a lot of research and then time in the writing. They can’t be ‘churned out’, even if I see novelists in other genres producing four or five books a year. And I love to learn with each book how to improve my writing craft. So, my next book is in the editing phase, and the one after that in its first draft phase. Both will need a lot of work before I’m happy to let them go out into the world.

There are some lovely characters for you to meet in the next book – the ruthless Abigail Williams who keeps a blade in her sleeve, the feisty Deb Willet who turns the tables of Samuel Pepys, and the irrepressible Pepys himself. All this in a London still charred and blistered from the Great Fire. Sample chapters will be available here soon, and I look forward to sharing it with you in 2017, and to giving you more insights into my writing process.

Until then, whatever this year brings (!) we can always escape into a good book, and I wish you a wonderful year of reading.

Happy New Year!