One of the things I love about having a new book come out is the chance to get out and meet readers. School visits are one of the best parts of the job. This November saw the publication of my latest book, The Thornthwaite Betrayal, which meant I was back on the road to spread […]

This week I celebrated the publication of my second book about the Thornthwaite twins with a book launch at Daunts Books on Cheapside in London. In the company of friends, family, publishers, booksellers and colleagues, past and present, we marked the return of the murderous twins with poisoned wine, deadly nibbles and specially made cupcakes. […]

In order to mark the forthcoming publication of The Thornthwaite Betrayal (October 20th – published by Piccadilly Books), everyone’s favourite murderous twins, Lorelli & Ovid Thornthwaite have offered their services to rid the world of other fictional characters. Using the hashtag #KillaCharacter, fellow authors, book reviewers, teachers, booksellers, librarians and other good folk of Twitter […]

As with many of my ideas, this is more last minute than it should have been but I’m going to give it a go anyway. Calling all schools, pupils, teachers, Steven Spielbergs… If you would like to have a go at making book promo for my new book, The Thornthwaite Betrayal then you will win […]

Exciting news. I have decided to become a professional sports presenter. I realise this news may come as a surprise to those of you who know me since I have never hitherto shown the remotest interest in a) sports b) presenting. So why have I, a children’s author of 29 books to date, decided to […]

We have just returned from our third music festival of the summer, where my family and I performed a show based on The Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates with a bunch of talented friends. We’ve had a wonderful time at Latitude, Greenman and Wilderness, but I do wonder… does anyone else do this? (I don’t […]

I am delighted to reveal the cover for my new book, published this October by Piccadilly Press, The Thornthwaite Betrayal. If it looks familiar it’s because the book continues the story of Lorelli & Ovid Thornhwaite, a pair of twins who have spent their lives trying to kill each other. The Thornthwaite Inheritance came out […]

This year I was invited to perform at the Hay Festival. I consider it a great honour and privilege to be invited to attend literature festivals and Hay is one of the best. It is also one of the great joys of my job. For this reason I put a lot of effort into my […]

Creative Writing Course for Kids: Week 5 So last week was our final week. I actually thought it was a six week course, but no, it turned out this was the final one. And for our final session I picked the theme of music. I know lots of writers use music to write. It’s very […]

Creative Writing Course: Week 4 As well as doing this creative writing course for kids (and holding down a TV job), I am – as usual – racing to meet a deadline for a book. As it is the first in a new adventure series it involves lots of dramatic action sequences. I struggle a […]