My Autumn Catch-up

Hello folks! How are you all? I am fine – I am also fifty!! Yes, astonishingly, given that I sometimes feel like I’m twenty-five (not my knees) and dress like I am thirty. Converse are not suitable for people my age, I hear! This is shocking news. Particularly since Murray has outgrown his ankle-high-fluffy-lined winter ones and I have got my hands on them . . ! I am waiting for Dylan to outgrow a very nice fleecy zippy-up thing . . . Am I the only person who does this?

My other big news is that Between Sisters is out in paperback and has a fabulous new cover look!! I adore it and can share none of the glory for making it – that is all down to Orion’s amaaazing design department who create magic. It’s the story of Cassie and Coco, sisters who love each other and their wise granny, Pearl, who brought them up. But the women want to find out more about their mysterious mother, who left when they were children…

Thank you to all the gorgeous people who’ve emailed me about the book and how they adore their relationships with their sisters – and I am so honoured to hear from people who could understand the backstory of Cassie and Coco’s mom because they have gone through something similar. Your words inspire me. All your lovely emails inspire me, so keep them coming.

What happens after you say ‘I do’?

My new book Secrets of A Happy Marriage, is out now in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. UK readers – you’ll be able to buy it in March next year.

It’s the story of the Brannigan family, a big birthday, and how Jojo Hennessy can’t understand why her father rushed into marriage so soon after her beloved mother’s death; of Bess Brannigan, who thought that she was marrying lovely Edward and has inherited the hatred of his daughter, Jojo, as well; and of Cari Brannigan, who would dearly love to stab all men with her blood donor pencil since she was dumped at the altar, but has to stick with editing crime novels instead. Until work starts to combust in the worst way possible… I hope you love it!!!

Getting organised

OK, so I have been infected with the Marie Kondo thing: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. This is partly down to a lifetime of never throwing anything out on the grounds that ‘you never know when you might need it. . .’ This is also my excuse in the sales and may explain the otherwise inexplicable red fishnets. (Yes, really. I don’t wear ordinary fishnets – do not have the legs for them – so, what was I doing with red ones…?)

I have books and clothes I can’t see as they are all black, and bits of paper! Save me from the bits of paper. I have tried to tackle this before with the help of organising containers. Now, I have an organising container problem. Too many of them. But Marie Kondo – and do read it, she is so sweet – has plans for all of this. I have done almost all my clothes – I now have no clothes because the bulk of my wardrobe is either fading black skinny jeans or fifty short-sleeved tops dating back to the Bay City Rollers (looong time ago), which are useless as I am a cold person. If you sort out your clothes, trust me, you will realise what you have and what you need. I have not gone to the shops to buy what I need as I might get side-tracked by things that do not suit me. I have history with this. I have yet to do the bits of paper and odds and ends: komono in Marie’s words, which are tricky.

What I’ve been up to…

I have been busy writing the new novel Secrets of a Happy Marriage. And promising to do more yoga to stop my spine from solidifying into a hunched look. This is what happens when you sit at a computer all day and read at night and pretend to use your foam roller on your back.

But the fun I had with my family on their summer holidays!!! We get lots of summer holidays in this country – three months and we did loads of things in between me writing. We saw the Georgia O’Keefe exhibition in the Tate Modern in London, and did karaoke in a cool 50s place with my darling sister, Lucy. I LOVE karaoke and had never done it before!! The room wasn’t sound-proofed, sadly, but the guys outside didn’t look that traumatised what with the Vogue-ing, etc. We saw the Leonardo de Vinci drawings exhibition in Ireland’s wonderful National Gallery. Such utter genius. His anatomy studies were so incredible, modern scientists could work out what diseases the people involved had died of.

Diamond Dogs

The Puplets of Loveliness are as lovely as ever but Dinky has heard of a miniature Dachshund who has a tennis-bracelet-style doggy collar with diamante on it and she is wildly put out and wants one. Or so she says. If anyone can help me with this….email!!

That’s all for now, folks, but I’ll send a pre-Christmas round-up, so watch out for that, and you can always catch me on Facebook!

Cathy xxx