What is in a street? It was my husband, Michel’s, birthday last week. We were in Paris. I decided that aside from taking him for a delicious dinner it was time for us to stay up late and go to a jazz club. We haven’t done that in a while. Instead of choosing one of…
I love properties and the excitement of property renovations, as those of you who have read my Olive Farm series of books will know, but rarely have I suffered from House Restoration Envy or indeed House Envy, pure and simple, until I was travelling through the midlands of the Emerald Isle where as Fate would…
William Shakespeare and I were companions way back, from the time when I was about seven. We spent whole long days and nights together, when I had been ‘naughty’, when I was being punished for some misdemeanour or other. Our house in Kent had a spare room in it, a third bedroom, I remember. It…
I have taken a short break away from my desk to visit – revisit – Greece. Last week I was in Thessaloniki where the city’s 18th annual documentary film festival was in full swing. As my husband is a documentary filmmaker and I have written several films, this is always an excellent opportunity to meet…
Dear friends, My lovely publishing team at Michael Joseph, Penguin, has teamed up with Goodreads to offer a copy of THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER as a special Easter gift to one lucky reader. The offer is open for entries from Friday 25th March until Monday 4th April. It is open to readers from the United States,…
I was interviewed by BBC Radio Lancashire yesterday http://bbc.in/1QIVj5x
If you are looking for the perfect Mother’s Day gift, I think THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER will do the trick. The reviews coming in are really terrific and I genuinely believe your Mum will thoroughly enjoy it. Go ahead and spoil her. You only have the one Mum. Happy Mother’s Day to all my readers, Carol
I won’t pretend otherwise. This February is proving to be a very bittersweet month. As I mentioned in last month’s blog, my new novel THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER was published on 11th February with a few nice events lined up by Michael Joseph/Penguin to launch it. A special and exciting moment for me as this new…
Anyone wanting to come to meet me in Lancashire at The County Hall in Preston on 8th March. Ticket £5. Event is 6.30pm for 7pm talk. Ticket price goes against cost of book, I believe. Book here elaine@silverwoodevents.co.uk
Dear readers, I hope you have enjoyed getting to know me better and learning more about THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER over the past week. To finish we have one more exclusive for you – a little interview I recorded when I was in London visiting my publisher a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy! x
Dear readers, to celebrate the publication of THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER we’ve organised a blog tour featuring exclusive content on a different blog each day for one week. I hope you enjoy hearing more about my writing process, the people who have inspired me, and of course revealing more of the world of Luc and Jane…
Any author reading this blog who is two weeks away from publication will know the nail-biting angst I am suffering. Those days leading up to the release of a new work… So, I won’t describe any of the emotions that are soaring through my body right now. We all know them. Instead, I thought I’d…
Here is the opening chapter to my new novel THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER to be published on 11th February by MJ Penguin. Dear Reader, As you will discover when you begin to read the first chapter of THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER, the novel is set on a magnificent vineyard in the south of France and opens during…
As I write this, we are 25 days from the official publication date of THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER – 11th February – and I am suffering a little bit from what the French call le traque or in actors’ speak: stage fright. That moment as you step out onto the stage or in front of the…
Years ago, when I was living in Bromley, a small market town on the outskirts of London, England, I used to perform at the local amateur theatre – and even once at the professional theatre. I was so keen to get going with my acting career that my parents had difficulties to keep me concentrated…
I am in Rome. I usually make the ‘pilgrimage’ at some point during the run-up to Christmas. The street illuminations are magnificent, the shopping is deliciously decadent and hectic and the Irish Catholic child in me thrills at St Peter’s Church and Square decked out in all its Nativity glory. Except that this year the…
I have written and thrown out several posts for today, turning over in my mind what more could be said on the subject of the recent abominations that took place on Friday 13th in the City of Lights. An evening of darkness that has touched the world, preceded and followed by murderous atrocities in Beirut,…
We are olive harvesting at present. It is one of the farm activities that I find the most relaxing, particularly during the glorious November days we are experiencing. The leaves of the olive tree, dried, steeped in hot water and drunk as a tisane, are supposed to be a very efficient remedy for high blood…
Some of you may have read about or seen on the news the appalling floods that hit my homeland of Cannes and its environs in the south of France at the beginning of this month. We were there; we had driven down the day before to spend a quiet week together, olive harvesting and writing….
The destruction of our ancient history, of magnificent sites that are, or were, jewels in our cultural heritage and are now nothing but rubble, makes my blood boil. We are all of us reading the news and staring at photographs that are breaking our hearts. And we are so impotent, or so it feels to…