2020, it has been one of the most challenging year’s of my life. My challenge winner still goes to 2012 when a few rounds of chemotherapy and an emergency admission with sepsis after my daughter’s wedding made it memorably tough for me. 

We all have gruelling years so what’s different about the woes of 2020? I think the difference is how they have involved everyone! That ‘s what makes 2020 a time that none of us will forget in a hurry. Somehow, we’ve got through a year of pandemic and grief, isolation, shielding and masks and of rethinking the way we work and live. If we add another year of  Brexit negotiations and a USA election where one candidate still insists the votes were rigged, then there’s no escaping that  it’s been a troubled 2020 world wide. 

However, a few glimmers  of light have  kept me going. I discovered zoom and attended “zoomba” classes with the group I usually met at the gym. I found I was more extrovert 💃 with my dance moves in my own bedroom and really enjoyed this new way or interacting. Since then, I have read from my novels via zoom and even attended a Christmas zoom party!

 The best glimmers of all have  been finding more time to read and write. I’m so thankful we have had books to entertain us and I’ve been reading and writing more than ever over the past year. 

• 

We haven’t been able to travel much but this observation by Mary Pope Osborne rings true: 

‘READING IS THE PASSPORT TO THOUSANDS OF ADVENTURES’

Through books, I haven’t just visited different cultures, I’ve travelled back in time! 

I released my wartime family saga, ROSE’S CHOICE,  in July and, at a time when shops were closing and entertainment was limited, a lot of people took up reading. I’m happy to find all of my books have sold well this year. 

My spin off novella, THE UNWELCOME ANGEL, was published in October and it is exciting to see that my gamble of writing about an epidemic during an epidemic paid off. This shorter wartime Christmas read is popular as an ebook and the paperback is clocking up Christmas sales.

I wrote this novella whilst we were locked down for an extra few weeks in Spain. We meet four families who face an epidemic that swoops down on the colliery rows of Linwood in 1944    I certainly felt empathy for the families as I was writing. It’s an uplifting tale with a dollop of romance so certainly not all doom and gloom. 

I love both of these covers by JD Smith and I’m delighted she’s going to create the cover for the sequel, ROSE’S EVER AFTER

As the year ends, I’m completing the sequel to ROSE’S  CHOICE and I’m hoping the second part of Rose’s life will be just  as popular. If all goes to plan,  ROSE’S EVER AFTER will be out as an ebook and paperback in the spring.

All I want to share now is a thought from Alfred, Lord Tennyson: 

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering,’It will be happier.’

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 

Chrissie x