In my new novel, A War of Flowers, Clara is given perhaps her most difficult task to date. She must befriend Eva Braun, Hitler’s girlfriend, in the hope of gleaning any insights into the mind of the dictator. Eva Braun is perennially interesting, and I wrote a piece in The Telegraph responding to Martin Amis’s speculation about their sex life. The link is here…..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11165627/Adolf-Hitler-sex-life-Eva-Braun.html

It was very exciting to find, after an Amazon promotion, that Black Roses became a number one Kindle bestseller in the historical fiction chart, and number five overall! Many thanks to everyone who tweeted the link and I hope those who bought the book will enjoy it.

Here are some of the events this Autumn where I’ll be talking. It would be great to meet readers and chat!

Saturday September 13th: Chiswick Book Festival

Friday September 26th: Kennaway House Sidmouth

Sunday September 28th: Soho Literary Festival

Tuesday September 30th: Henley Literary Festival

Sunday October 5th: Wimbledon Book Fest

Friday October 17th: Guildford Festival

Saturday October 18th: Isle of Wight literary festival

Thursday November 20th: Yorkshire Post literary lunch

I think my publishers, Simon & Schuster, have excelled themselves with the jacket for the paperback of The Winter Garden. It seems to breathe glamour, and hits just the note I was hoping for with my Clara Vine series. Also, I love the inscrutable look on the girl’s face as she gazes beyond the camera….

Here’s the jacket of the new Clara Vine novel, out in February! It’s 1937, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor are in Berlin for their honeymoon. The Mitford sisters are in town too, as a season of partying begins to woo the former English king. Meanwhile, in one of Himmler’s new Bride Schools, established to train wives for the SS, a young woman is found murdered.  Clara, who knew the girl, discovers that her murder is linked to a far more ominous secret. But in her attempts to uncover the truth, she finds herself in greater danger than ever before.

Well, there had to be something good about October half term, and here it is. Black Roses is reduced to a bargain price in the Kindle Half Term sale..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Roses-ebook/dp/B008J45RBG/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1382343684&sr=8-1&keywords=black+roses

It was compulsory florals at the Isle of Wight literature festival, where I discussed spies in fiction and non-fiction with Clare Mulley, author of The Spy Who Loved, and Roger Hermiston, author of a thrilling biography of George Blake. I argued that the great thing about having a spy as a protagonist is that it serves as a fantastic metaphor for what writing is, or should be – ie, careful observation, heightened perception and close attention to detail.

If someone had told me this time last year that Black Roses would be book of the week in Waitrose, well I wouldn’t have believed them, but here it is!

Black Roses is to be Waitrose’s Book of the Week during October! I’m so pleased and will be haunting the aisles accordingly.

My new paperback cover has arrived. It’ll be in the shops from September. I think the girl looks suitably trepidacious…