It’s a while since I posted here but I’ve not been lazy, just busy and one of the results of that busyness is my collection of short stories, Take a Leaf out of My Book.

These are 12 stories that have all been prizewinners in various competitions in the last few years. I haven’t published them as they don’t fit into the usual woman’s magazine style of story (I do write for them too) and I’ve always wondered quite what to do for them. Publishing them myself makes perfect sense and I hope that you and the other readers enjoy them.

Three of them, the title story and A Man’s a Man for a’ That and The Darkness before Dawn were all winners and runners-up in the Imprint Writing competition run by East Ayrshire specially for Ayrshire writers while the others were similarly placed at the Scottish Association of Writers conference, the title story winning there too, or in club competitions.

They’re all different; crime, or perceived criminal behaviour, seems to feature in quite a few of them from the inept gumshoe in Dougan’s Last Case to Secrets, Bramble Jelly and Knitting for Joyce  while Half a World Away is historical and set in Australia and Some Things Never Change starts there before returning to Glasgow. Ped Xing and Are You Listening? are psychological thrillers and the last story, Peach Melba was inspired by my experiences of having a loved one in a nursing home.

Its available for Kindle here and the paperback version will be out shortly too. But enjoy them and please let me have your feedback.