Artful Deception

I have something to show you today that’s not a plant or a skyscape. It’s a book cover. Well, the first rough draft of one, at least; it looks too modern at the moment. Below, is the idea for a cover for the sixth (and final) Clearwater Mysteries novel, ‘Artful Deception.’ I say ‘last’, but I’ve left the end of the series open for a development to happen if I want to take the characters into the future. It’s taken me a while to get this one ready, and it’s still only in the 2^nd draft stage though must be completed by April 22^nd.

If you’ve not read the series, then you need to start reading in order with ‘Deviant Desire’ as part one. It’s a mystery series with ongoing characters and storylines set in 1888, London. Through the series, the stories involve a range of actual characters (Tennyson, Bram Stoker, the Ripper – but not in the same story), and a team of created characters who progress through the series. They all have twisting and surprising mysteries to figure out, there’s a fair amount of intrigue, plus humour, love and steam trains, and the books tend to be set in a certain ‘world.’ For example, ‘Unspeakable Acts’ (part three) is set in the world of the Royal Opera House, and part four, ‘Fallen Splendour’, concerns a poem, whereas ‘Artful Deception’ features paintings.

Anyway, it makes a change to show you this rather than the weeds in the courtyard or the empty sea, so here it is, with a link to the five available books in the series – so far. It’s an Amazon.co.uk link, but you can find the same in Amazon.com and Australia, Canada, Germany… Lots of Amazon stores. As usual, my books are available in paperback, on Kindle and as part of Kindle Unlimited.

The Clearwater Mysteries

Draf cover

Share on Facebook

Up on the roof

Another quiet weekend, but then there’s no other option. We’re allowed out after today, though we’re not going anywhere until Wednesday and even then only the ATM, pharmacy and supermarket and mainly to pay for the deliveries we’ve had over the last two weeks.

Saturday

We have been managing to fill our time constructively, though an awful lot of TV has been watched in the later afternoon/evening. Yesterday, we had an online quiz session with a few others via messenger; nine people, five screens showing on one, but I managed to cast the phone to the TV so it was easier to see. Apart from the quiz itself being fun, hilarity was added when a Symi visitor was accidentally invited to the group. A good mistake, don’t get me wrong, but something of a surprise to her as well as us. Funnier still was that she couldn’t back out of the group without everyone closing down their phones and starting again, so she gave us the view from her window and carried on in the background, no doubt wondering what we mad people were up to. (Still waving at you Gwen.)

Sunday

The up on the roof title of today’s jotting is because the photos were taken from up there over the weekend. The high winds on Saturday had the house vibrating as they were up to force seven, and Sunday was a misty morning. Today, there are still broken clouds around as the sun starts to rise.

Monday

Share on Facebook

And into the weekend

And so here we are heading off into the weekend with the weather looking variable, some cloud, possible rain, sunshine and warm… As usual for this time of year, we have a bit of everything. We’ve been watching a fair amount of television while editing a book and getting on with the usual as much as we can around the house. We were watching Countdown on TV yesterday when the random letters turned up as you see in the photo below. It’s not an anagram, and you can ignore the first D, but after that… well, we laughed when it got to Neil gas. Little things like this keep us going.

I think as I’ve so few photos, that I’ll take weekends off for a while and only post Monday to Friday. I’ll return to normal as soon as I can, but with not much to tell you and only photos from the roof or balcony, there’s not much point splashing ten pics every Saturday. So, bear with me and tune in Monday to Friday for this, the no-news, daily news channel, lol.