Krismas at Castle Marsh... a seasonal story for you featuring my favourite people. I've done Christmas stories for each of their websites in the past, but decided this year on just one. It gets tricky not giving away major plot points nowadays! It's under 2000 words. Krismas at Castle Marsh Pete stared at the location display on the console in front of him.

Under Pressure came from a steampunk-ish storybundle collection, although I'm not sure how this crept into it. It's more of a weird time travel adventure with literary and rock overtones. But it completes my Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge for the year (I've been holding it back since September). It also helps my TBR mountain where, just like a true mountaineer, I'm having trouble on the final stretch.

This week's Crimson’s Creative Challenge was a surge of colour on an otherwise dull day. I thought it was perfect for a Holly and the Ivy prompt. It's 150 words. CCC065 - The Holly and the Ivy “You need to strip this ivy off this wall.” The surveyor hated old properties. “That wall’s listed. Can’t touch it. And the ivy’s holding it up.”

Jane Austen would be 250 today. I wondered what she would make of life now. Especially since I saw someone eminent quoted as saying "anyone who compared life in 1950 with life today would conclude they were two different planets." And I would agree. The Maquette of the new statue of Jane at Winchester Cathedral A quick comparison: England in 1775 and 2025…

Kiwi's Christmas Tale is the last of the Kiwi series, and my last Marvellous Middle Grade book for the year. I didnt expect to get this far, and I don't know how many more MG books I'm going to read and review, especially as I've been removing them from my TBR. But who knows what 2026 will bring? Kiwi's Christmas Tale (Kiwi #6)

Slow Gods: A space opera of breathtaking imagination from the most original voice in speculative fiction. That's the strapline, and it's a lot to live up to. Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC, although it was too close to the publication date (18 November) for me to read it in time... Slow Gods by Claire North…

The Fantasy Castle came about as it was what I saw in the picture, before I saw its caption. This week's Crimson’s Creative Challenge is both uplifting and sad. I’ll take the uplifting bit. It's 150 words. Plus 45 I couldn’t cut out. CCC064 - the Fantasy Castle A walk before dusk. What was hidden in the trees, a fantasy castle?

My Year in Books is a fun thing which I do every year. I’d like to encourage more people to do it. Just copy the categories and add appropriate titles of books you've read this year. It's supposed to be funny, or at least slightly amusing. I link them to my reviews on this blog. All thanks are due to the…

My December 25 Homework report! I'm doing this on the second Monday of the month... to avoid coinciding with the IWSG post in the same week. It can't be third Monday, because that is currently MMGM day. The Homework Report schedule I have a stack of things on my to-do list, which I often indicate at the start of the year.

Holidays and Homicides is on a blog tour with Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours from its publication on 2nd to 15th December. As you can guess, it's a seasonal anthology, and most of the authors are in the Sisters In Crime network in the US. Holidays and Homicides by Rosalie Spielman, Catherine Bruns, Gin Jones, Annie McEwen, Lena Gregory, Jennifer Fischetto, Anne Marie Stoddard, Kelly Rey, Misty Simon, Christine Knapp, Jamie L.

Giftmas is a fundraiser by Rhonda Parrish, a blog hop that aims to raise money for the Edmonton Alberta Foodbank. You may feel up to donating to the foodbank, through the link below, but if not, please consider donating, in cash or kind, to your local foodbank, or any other charity of your choice. This fundraiser closes on December 9th, ie.

It's finally happened! I'm now on Draft2Digital. You may have been there for two years, I know, but there was a hitch for those of us that had publisher accounts AND author accounts at Smashwords. I'd been 14 years with Smashwords almost to the day. It was December 2011 that I published the Princelings of the East on Smashwords. So what difference does it make?

I always need a Book Review Round-up of some kind, every year. There are always ones that got away, short books that I didn't have much to say about, collections that should be treated together. This one started with my reading Prime Meridian, then led on to others from the same Storybundle purchase, and the one two years later. Still working out the theme, but may have been international spec fic.

This week's Crimson’s Creative Challenge takes us to Cromer, and this shop with pistachio and pecan goodies. I've been reading Slow Gods (review next month), and the two sort of merged together into something nutty. It's 159 words. With another 100 left on the cutting room floor. I could have got under 150 by cutting the pronoun explanation, but you probably need that.

Last time I went down the TBR Hole my list ended at 914 (plus 7 in currently reading). I'm pruning things from my TBR list I am never going to read, realistically. I am posting monthly for a bit, then whenever I want to take some older books off my TBR shelf.  Down The TBR Hole is a meme created by…

Artificial Evolution is the third book in Joseph R Lallo's Big Sigma series. The previous were Bypass Gemini and Unstable Prototypes. He's also responsible for the Free-Wrench series, and you know how much I loved that. This is more straight science fiction. Artificial Evolution (Big Sigma #3) by Joseph R Lallo Artificial Evolution is the third book in the Big Sigma series, building upon the story and characters introduced by Bypass Gemini and Unstable Prototypes.

This week's Crimson’s Creative Challenge takes us to a telephone box in the middle of Ringland woods, not far from where I used to live. This might not translate too well for US readers, but then again... It's 195 words, sorry. CCC061 - Telephone Box He emerged from the time machine clutching his customary black bag. It held everything a traveller could possibly need, even in 1980s England.

Yertle the Turtle was added to my TBR in desperation as I searched for a title beginning with Y for my Alphabet Soup reading challenge. You may find it hard to believe, but I had never before read anything by Dr, Seuss. He may be the mainstay of children’s stories in the US, but I was well past that age before his work crept into British bookshops and libraries, so all my knowledge of the Cat in that Hat, Horton and Whoville, have all come to me third hand, often through quiz questions!

Given how much time I spend trying to communicate with my animals, What Sheep Think About the Weather appeared to be the ideal book for me. The blurb promises ideas and techniques to understand animals better, to see things from their point of view. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the advance copy, and to Amelia Thomas for writing it.

This week Crimson’s Creative Challenge gives us good vibrations in the woods on Mousehold Heath, just outside the City of Norwich. You get a fabulous view of the city from there. The beech trees with their mounds and neighbouring paths are reminiscent of those in Epping Forest. This piece draws on my knowledge of both areas. It's 147 words. CCC060 - Good Vibrations…

Jane Austen and me. We would have been well acquainted, I think, although I would need to be rather more ladylike to fit into her friendship circle. Would she have been generous with her writing advice, or was the critique of works of fiction restricted to trusted family? On finding Jane I was lucky enough never to have had an Austen novel as a set book in school.

A Homework report! I never tell you what I've been up to behind the scenes with any regularity, and it doesn't show as outputs (unless I direct you to it), so I decided to do a new feature on the second Monday of the month - my Homework report. Logically, it should be the first Monday or the last Monday of the month...

I have 2 time travel reviews for you today. The Book of Lost Hours is recommended by Net-galley and the publishers for lovers of The Ministry of Time and the Midnight Library, among others. Hmm, that sounds like me then. It was published on Thursday. Thank you for the ARC. The Frozen People is the first of a new series by Elly Griffiths, focussing on an investigator in her fifties, Ali Dawson, who aims to solve cold cases.

A tapestry of colours in this week's Crimson’s Creative Challenge. Although...it's not one of the Challenge photos, it's one from the Sunday post that inspired me more. It's what happens when you decide you need more coloured pencils to do justice to your autumn art efforts. And there's very little fiction in this story. It's 150 words.(gold star) CCC059 - Tapestry…

The IWSG question of the month for November asks about life as a writer. I had a look at all the other things that go on at IWSG as listed in the monthly email. I wonder whether I really want to be bothered with any of it? Coupled with, am I getting too old to be writing MG now? Or indeed doing this?