New Book - April Release

It's almost here!

Book 2 in my Daughter of Kali series now has a release date, and I am very excited. April 5th will see the birth of the sequel to Awakening, featuring our heroes Kaz, Em, Darius, and a whole new cast of characters.

In Daughter of Kali:Unholy Alliance Kaz is now sixteen and a Warrior, but her Mum is still desperately ill. It's a tale of adventure, demon-slaying, and kick-ass heroines - but it's also about family, loyalty, and how far we'd go to protect the ones we love, even if the people around us don't understand what we're doing.

Here's the blurb on the back (always one of the hardest bits to write, in my experience!) 

Demons, magic, and a mythical beast named Gary….

Sixteen year old Kaz is now a trained Warrior for the secret society known as the Guild. Just like her mother before her. But her Mum is in a coma, and only demonic power can save her.

Going against everything the Guild stands for, Kaz must make an unholy alliance with the Named One who once inhabited her mother.

She also has a Goddess on her case. Kali wants her to fulfil a prophecy - only Kaz isn't quite sure what that is.​

Her own power, the bloodthirsty inner voice she calls the other, is getting stronger. And as if that wasn’t enough, her emotions are going haywire. She’s torn between Darius, the Warrior in love with her best friend; and Jack, dark, brooding, and a bit irritating.

Kaz finds herself navigating a dangerous path at great cost. The lives of those she loves are in danger, and her only hope of saving them is to solve the mystery of the prophecy - even if it means losing herself.

In honour of the new release, my publishers Peach have also updated the cover of book 1, Daughter of Kali: Awakening. 

What do you think?  I like it - but then, I'm biased!

Sequels are tricky things to write - how much detail do you put in from the first book? How much will readers remember, and should you assume some readers haven't read book 1 at all?

Hopefully I've got the balance right but I would love to hear from other authors who've written a series to get their take. 

You don't have to read Awakening to make sense of Unholy Alliance - but it helps.



Unholy Alliance will be available on Amazon from April 5th at a promotional discounted price. I hope you snap up a copy, and please leave me a review if you can.

Because unlike my main character Kaz, I actually care what other people think! 

Wheel of Time

Getting older is no picnic.

For one thing, maintenance becomes a full time job. All that effort to look young again – the pruning, tweezing, plucking, dying, (of the hair, not physically expiring. Though come to think of it, the latter is also happening.)

In my head, I’m still twenty-something; the youngest person in the newsroom, happy to be referred to as a ‘girl’ and not find it condescending, capable of working 24/7 and function on all cylinders. Now I’m one of the older presenters on screen and a mentor to some of the younger staff. If I don’t get seven hours of sleep a night I’m more grouchy than a grizzly bear. And if anyone calls me a ‘girl’ it’s because they’re short-sighted or being ironic.

I think the hardest part is the knowledge that I am no longer cool.

I used to be cool. I was a war reporter and the Home Affairs Editor for a national news network. As a young journalist, I fearlessly blagged my way into Serbian territory in Kosovo. I once got made an honorary member of the RAF when I flew refuelling missions with them in the Balkans. I launched Aljazeera – the first face on a network that now gets viewed regularly in hundreds of millions of homes. And I did it with the eyes of the world on me, not to mention the Qatari royal family. I’ve interviewed world leaders, terrorists and celebrities.

Fast forward twenty years. I am still a TV presenter, I still interview powerful people and I still hold a position of authority. And yet, somehow,  I am not cool anymore.

I can pinpoint the exact moment It happened. It was when my daughter became a teenager. It is a commonly known fact among teenagers that their mothers are never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, cool.

My daughter cringes with embarrassment when I meet her friends. I’m not allowed to talk to them lest I use my ‘journalist’ voice. “What’s my journalist voice?” I ask, puzzled. “The one you use to ask questions,” she replies darkly. So that‘s it then. I’m not even allowed to ask how they are.

I am also a Young Adult author, and some of her friends have read my book, Daughter of Kali Awakening. They seemed to enjoy it. The school even asked me to go in and do an author talk for the girls. My daughter is mortified by this. Obviously, appearing at school will reveal how deeply uncool her mother is.

I’m curious to know whether this phenomenon holds true for people in really cool professions. Did Neil Armstrong’s kids roll their eyes when dad started talking about the  moon landing again? Do Michelle Obama’s girls forbid their mum from talking to their friends in case she uses her ‘First Lady’ voice?

But I suppose I had it coming. When I was a teenager,  I considered my own parents to be old-fashioned stuck-in-the-muds. I loathed it when they tried to make well-meaning conversation with my friends, cringing when they made jovial jokes and tried to be matey with them. Three decades later, I finally know how they feel. What goes around comes around.

Now you must excuse me. Those grey hairs won’t tint themselves.