I can’t believe how quickly the summer is passing and I can’t believe how bad the weather has been!  Still, there’s been a lot of fun like the brilliant day I met up with writer friend, Deborah Wright, last week.  We visited the beautiful Wallace Collection in London and then had a picnic in Hyde Park before taking a ride out on the lake in a pedalo.  It was great fun but suprisingly hard work and I’d like to report that the two dodgem-style incidents were due to the lack of skill in others and had nothing to do with us!

The writing has been going well too and I’ve just finished the second book in my Austen addicts trilogy, Dreaming of Mr Darcy.  This is the one set in lovely Lyme Regis and I had so much fun researching it.  The next one, Mr Darcy Forever, will be set in Bath and I’m looking forward to spending a few days there next month when the Jane Austen Festival is in full swing.

And the big news is that we’ll be welcoming home some feathered friends in the autumn.  We’re rehoming some ex-battery hens via the amazing  British Hen Welfare Trust.  I’ve been wanting to keep chickens for ages and can’t wait to welcome them to our little patch of suburbia.  It’ll be like a scene from The Good Life here!

We’ve just returned from a wonderful week in Lyme Regis.  This was a special research trip for my current novel – The Illustrated Darcy - the second in my series about Jane Austen addicts.  We were staying in an apartment on the harbour front and had our very own view of the famous Cobb.

My novel centres around a new film production of Jane Austen’s Persuasion and it was fun to explore the settings of previous film adaptations.  Here I am on the very steps that Austen’s characters would have descended as well as the lovely Rupert Penry-Jones who played Captain Wentworth in the most recent adaptation.

Lyme is rich in literary history and, if you want to find out more, book yourself on a tour with the wonderful Literary Lyme.

It was a real treat to be able to walk along the Undercliff each morning and to follow the River Lim to Uplyme.  The bluebells were just beginning to open and there were primroses and violets along the paths and – everywhere – the incredible smell of wild garlic.

One of my favourite places to walk is Stonebarrow.  The sheltered footpaths above the sea always remind me of a Rosamunde Pilcher novel.

Here I am at Stonebarrow with my trusty copy of Persuasion.  Alas, I didn’t meet any Captain Wentworths in Dorset but I had plenty to write about my own wonderful heroes.

And I even managed to do some writing on the beach at Charmouth.  It’s always great to write in situ but it was absolutely freezing.  I really did suffer for my art that afternoon!  Still, I got my scene.

And no trip to West Dorset would be complete without a visit to the Donkey Sanctuary where you can get up close and personal to the residents!  I dropped by their wonderful shop to let them know that the sanctuary has a special place in my romantic comedy Molly’s Millions. 

Here’s me with the gorgeous Little Pippa.

There was, however, one distraction with being based in Lyme and that was the proximity of some very nice shops!  Book shops, boutiques and bakers were a particular weakness and one boutique I fell in love with was Frills which is definitely worth a visit if you want to find something a bit special and – if you go – look out for my books as they’re going to stock some lovely holiday reads soon!

If you’d like to see some of my hubby’s beautiful paintings from the trip, visit his blog here.  I love those lasers!

This has been a really amazing month so far.  I met my new publisher, Avon/HarperCollins, last week and I’m delighted to say that they’re going to publish my new novel, A Weekend with Mr Darcy, in September which means I’d better get a move on with my rewrites!  This is my new romantic comedy about a group of Jane Austen addicts who meet and fall in love at a conference in Hampshire, and it’s the first in a trilogy about Austen fans.

The research has been so much fun.  As well as reading all of Jane Austen’s wonderful novels, I’ve been watching all the TV and film adaptaions again and visiting Chawton, Winchester and Bath.  And I’m really excited about the week in Lyme Regis we’ve booked where we’ve got an apartment overlooking the Cobb.  Sometimes, writing is so much fun, it couldn’t possibly be considered work!

The 16th December marks the birthday of Jane Austen and we took a trip to her cottage in Chawton which was serving mince pies and drinks in celebration.  An extra delight was that we had our first snow and it fell thick and fast, covering the garden and the cottages in the village.  It was a scene straight from a Christmas card. 

We also had the pleasure of chatting to the Jane Austen museum’s writer in residence, Rebecca Smith.  Rebecca is the great, great, great, great, great niece of Jane and it’s lovely to think of a direct descendent writing in the cottage today.  Read her lovely blog here.

Chawton House looked especially beautiful and the churchyard at St Nicholas – where Jane’s mother and sister are buried – was silent and snowy.

Then it was on to Winchester where the final chapter of my novel is set.  The cathedral was wonderfully quiet and I sat by Jane Austen’s grave in the north aisle, making some notes for my book. 

Happy Birthday, Jane!  You’re one of the best Christmas presents ever given to the world!

Just home from a week in windswept Wales to find I’ve been nominated for the ‘Lovely Blog Award’ – thanks to fellow writer, Rosemary Gemmell, for the nomination.  In the spirit of the award, I’m delighted to pass it on to writer, Debs Carr who has a gorgeous blog full of fun for book lovers.

Also discovered a lovely review of Molly’s Millions at Chick Lit Reviews.  Isn’t it super?

Well, Wales may have been gale-torn but we had a fabulous time.  We met up with artist Naomi Tydeman and walked our dogs on a stunning beach at sunset. 

We also had lunch with thriller writer Scott Mariani at his wonderful rambling home set deep in the Welsh countryside.  I love Scott’s Ben Hope series and there’s great excitement as its now been optioned by Amber Entertainment!

I got lots written whilst away and I’m rapidly racing towards the end of my novel about Jane Austen addicts.  This has been such a fun book to write and has meant many wonderful research trips.  I even managed to sneak a quick visit to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath en route to Wales and had an absolute ball in the gift shop!

I really will have to think about moving to Chawton one of these days as I’m there so often.  My latest trip was to hear a lecture about Jane Austen’s manuscripts and it was fascinating stuff.  Did you know that our beloved author didn’t know how to use apostrophes properly?  She would send her hand-written manuscripts to the publisher with all sorts of crossings out and errors and they turned everything into the perfect prose that we know and love today.  But I think the highlight of the talk for me was actually being within touching distance of six first-edition copies of her books!

Monday brought a trip to the Isle of Wight to deliver more of hubby’s paintings to Island Fine Arts.  We were anxious about the crossing as there was some heavy rain around but it was fairly smooth, thank goodness, and the sun even came out for us in the afternoon and we drove up to Culver Down where Roy painted and Molly and I went walking. 

Back at home now and my first website competition has come to a close.  Katie Fforde chose the winner out of over three hundred entries and the signed copy of Molly’s Millions and the goody bag are winging their way to Chaitali in Illinois, USA. 

If you’d like to know more about Katie Fforde, have a look at the Writer Top Tens  page where you can also read all about Carole Matthews too!  More top tens coming soon …

This week’s been pretty packed so far and it’s not over yet!  Monday brought a trip delivering my husband’s paintings to the Hampshire Art Fair and, as I found myself in Jane Austen country again, I couldn’t miss visiting her resting place in Winchester Cathedral.  It’s the most amazing building and you could easily lose yourself there for hours but I had a very specific job to do – making notes for the final scene of my novel. 

It was really moving seeing Jane Austen’s grave and remembering how young she was when she died – just 42.  And we visited number 8 College Street – the house in which she spent her last days.  Here it is below – the bay window was her bedroom.

Here’s Jane’s grave in the north aisle of the cathedral.

And, in the spirit of my heroine, I lit a candle in her memory.

Wednesday morning brought a telephone interview on BBC Radio Oxford.  Click here to listen to the show – it should be up for a few days.  Once again, I was asked - as a romantic novelist - for my opinion on pre-nuptial agreements and you can hear exactly what I think at about nineteen minutes into the show!

The rest of the week has been spent on the novel and it’s going at a cracking pace at the moment which is is just as well as the next few days will be spent away from my desk but more about that later …

On a day stolen from summer, we visited the pretty Hampshire village of Chawton – home of Jane Austen. I’d visited her cottage before but, now that I’m writing my book about Jane Austen addicts, I wanted to see it again. It’s such a lovely place and I adored seeing the pretty topaz crosses worn by Jane and her sister, Cassandra. And the gift shop is an Austen addicts’ dream with books galore and the brooding image of Darcy everywhere!

I’d also booked for a tour of Chawton House Library - the place referred to as the ‘Great House’ in the letters of Jane Austen, and owned by her brother, Edward.  There are some fabulous portraits and wooden pannelling, and the library is a delight featuring many rare books by women writers published between 1600 to 1830. 

Whilst walking in the grounds, I managed to take a tumble – Marianne Dashwood style – and badly twisted my ankle.  But, despite the fact that I was in Austen-land, there were no handsome men on horseback to rescue me and I had to do my best to hobble my way back to where my husband was painting .

If you’d like to see his lovely paintings of Chawton, visit his blog here:

I was sitting at my desk on Thursday, looking up gorgeous Georgian houses for my new novel about a group of Jane Austen addicts when I received an invitation to appear on Radio Five Live!  The Richard Bacon show wanted a romantic novelist to talk about pre-nuptial agreements and how they take the romance out of marriage.  I’ve never been on live radio before and thought it would be an amazing experience.  I was cabbed in to the BBC at White City where I met the lawyer who would be arguing the case for pre-nups on the show, and we were introduced to Richard Bacon and userhered into the studio where enormous headphones were donned.

I’m pleased to say that it all seemed to go well and that I only embarrassed my husband a little by telling the nation about our old-fashioned courtship which included many a love letter!

Whilst at the BBC, I heard that Jonathan Ross was filming his show and I couldn’t resist leaving a copy of Molly’s Millions for him at reception.  He has a reading group on Twitter and I’ve heard he likes romantic comedies!

Now, it’s back to the desk.  I’ve discovered two amazing Georgian houses in nearby Oxfordshire and will be visiting them tomorrow.  Another hard day at the office …

I was out and about a lot this month. First, there was a writers’ day in London when I met lovely author Sam Mills who is staring in a film adaptation of her amazing children’s book, The Boys Who Saved the World. Watch the fabulous trailer here. We then went to meet with best-selling author Carole Matthews who was part of a panel giving a talk about promotion. And then, to round off the day, it was off for a hot chocolate with author Juliet Archer who had just done a mammoth book signing at Borders on Oxford Street for her debut novel, The Importance of Being Emma, which I’m really looking forward to reading. We both share a love of Jane Austen, and Juliet is writing wonderful updated versions of Austen’s novels.

Another trip took us to the Suffolk coast. Here’s Molly and me in front of the Butt and Oyster at Pin Mill – the setting of one of my favourite Arthur Ransome novels, We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea.

It’s always a magical feeling visiting somewhere that you’ve read about in a novel and I got very excited when I discovered Alma Cottage, believing that I might just bump into the Walker children or dear Jim Brading.

Our big trip of the month was a week on the Pembrokeshire coast where hubby painted and I made good progress on my new novel, Connie Gordon’s Clan. But it wasn’t all work and, doing our best to dodge the gales, we had many gorgeous, gorse-filled walks along the coast, spying the sweet violets, primroses and celandine.