Blog

When I first started writing The Old Crones Club, I wanted to reclaim something I felt was missing from so many stories I loved. I wanted to give voice to the women we were told to fear—the witches, the stepmothers, the crones who became villains the moment they stopped being "useful" to the story.

This book is for anyone who’s ever been told they were too old, too loud, or too much. It’s for anyone who’s secretly rooted for the villainess. And it’s for anyone who’s ever felt invisible in a...

I’ve always loved a good fantasy heroine — especially the kind who pushes back against the world around her. The ones who don’t sit quietly. The ones who carve their own path, even when it costs them. Over the years, these characters haven’t just entertained me — they’ve helped shape the way I see the world, the kind of women I admire, and the stories I want to tell.

So, I thought I’d share a few of my favourites — the women I keep coming back to long after I’ve closed the book.

Addie LaRue...

Many writers have perfectly curated desks, home offices, or even writing sheds, and need silence to focus. While I do a lot of writing at home — usually early in the morning before work — I also love writing out in the wild (well, in coffee shops and on trains... not actual wilderness!). I find the buzz of people around me gives me energy. As long as I’ve got headphones and a good classical playlist to drown out clinking cups or crying babies, I can write just about anywhere.

My husband writes...

Everywhere you look, there’s advice about becoming an indie author. In fact, there’s so much out there, it can feel overwhelming—leaving you with a mile-long to-do list and a sinking feeling that if you don’t tick every single box, your book (which you’ve poured months or even years into) will vanish into the Amazon algorithm, never to be seen again.

I leaped into this endeavour with one simple hope: that someone I’d never met would read and enjoy my book. What I didn’t realise at the time was...

Some people hear the word trope and think they’ve heard it all before. And maybe we have — but I still love them. Tropes, to me, are at the core of storytelling: familiar patterns we gravitate toward not because they’re predictable, but because they offer comfort and endless room for reinvention.

As someone who reads (and writes) a lot of fantasy retellings, I’ve noticed I keep coming back to certain story shapes. So here they are — my 10 favourite fantasy tropes, and why I adore them.

1. The...

Every great hero — or dare I say, even great villain — has an intriguing origin story. From Batman’s tragic loss to the Wicked Witch of the West’s mistreatment over something as simple as being green, it’s the dark and twisty parts of their past that shape them into the characters we love — or love to hate.

So, in that vein, I thought I’d share the origin story of my book, The Old Crones Club.

In a previous post, I talked about my “why” for writing this book. But the idea itself came together...

This post is a celebration of Bristol’s marvellous indie bookshops. Yesterday, I joined a Bookshop Crawl — think of it as an old-school pub crawl, but with books and bookish people. There were two competing tours that day; we chose the longer, four-hour walk. We visited eight bookshops in total, but there are so many more that we’ll be doing Part 2 soon to cover the route we missed.

Shop #1: Max Minerva’s

maxminervas.co.uk

This was a brilliant start to the day. I was slightly worried about...

When I started planning my novel I used the amazing resource Blueprint for a Book, by Jenny Nash. She takes you through a unique process for outlining your book while staying true to your purpose for writing. One of the key parts of the book is working out the “why” for your story. This really resonated with me as I am a big fan of Simon Sinek and his book Start With Why, which is all about how people inspire action and create a lasting impact — and in my life books have been a constant...