Diane Saxon Blog Spot

You may have noticed the release date of My Mother’s Lies was a little behind this time, and for that I apologise. There is good reason. Some of you may have seen through my Facebook page where I post mostly fun and often candid photos of my furred and feathered friends. Very rarely do I ever say anything negative, but once in a while even I post about tough realities that hit our household. One of the hardest things to cope with is the death of a loved one. Never more so than when it is fast and unexpected.   Such was the case with Beau, my adorable black Labrador who was taken all too young and far too fast. It was a tragedy beginning with Beau falling ill within hours of him having his annual booster. At the same time, Skye, my Dalmatian also fell ill after her booster and spent two weeks on and off a drip at the vets while we were on holiday. We were totally convinced that Skye at the age of thirteen with all her allergies and being epileptic, would succumb and had mentally...

    Stepping back in time as I did when I wrote My Little Brother, I discovered a whole head full of memories of my own childhood. Events that happened which I’d tucked into the recesses of my mind. When I was a little girl, an event happened which I have magnified for the sake of My Sister’s Secret and made so much more of it than it was at the time. It was a fleeting brush with something that could have turned out so much worse than it did. I was never traumatised then. Years later when I was writing about children, this memory emerged to nag at me. Did I do the right thing? Should I have done more? What if my silence had cost someone else? If you’ve read any of my books already, you’ll realise that I write character based largely. Yes, the plots are thick with twists and turns, but the characters create them. My Sister’s Secret is heavy on people because I wanted that complex relationship of a large family, with different personalities kicking in. The ebb and flow...

 

    What comes first when I create a story? – Part 3 What She Saw was for me a different approach initially.  For some unknown reason, the unrest in the world must have affected me. Call it luck, call it intuition, but unusually for this story I plunged heart and soul into the research and background of a subject matter which fascinated me, but I never had enough information on to write in great depths before.  This time the story needed my research to centre around fires, the fire service, arson and the legal side of these together with a depth of knowledge regarding firearms that I’d never previously indulged in. To my utter good luck, I happened upon a fire officer, Charl ie Cartwright, through mutual connections and we met up, messaged, talked on the phone and I prised each and every morbid detail from him regarding fires, heat, the effect on bodies at different stages I also met up with Peter Wright, a retired police officer with a wealth of knowledge abou...

What comes first when I create a story? – Part 2   It’s a strange thing but when I write romance, no one ever asks me what my inspiration for writing the story is. I’m not sure if that’s because they’re frightened of the answer because it might involve … shhh … sex, but I can tell you far more people are interested in your desire to kill. So I gave some thought to my inspiration to write Someone’s There (originally titled Copycat) and I can honestly say that killing off nurses has absolutely no connection to the fact that my youngest daughter is in her final year of her nursing degree. No connection at all… Someone’s There is dedicated to my dad who would have been 100 years old in February 2020, the same month as the book’s release. My dad was a quiet hero. He fought in World War II and we grew up believing the stories he told us were just that. Stories of battles and hand to hand combat. Rescues in the dead of night. But it turned out they were all true. He’d actually b...

What comes first when I create a story? – Part 1 Find Her Alive (originally titled The Keeper) Book One in my DS Jenna Morgan series started with a long, lonely walk in woodland at twilight at the beginning of autumn with my beautiful Dalmatian, Skye. As we wound our way up the hillside with thick trees above and below us, I slipped and skidded along the narrow pathway, barely wide enough for me to pass through let alone move over if someone came in the opposite direction. A low mist had settled over the River Severn and the acoustics of the gorge below me had voices carrying up the hillside to swirl with ghostly echoes. With a vivid imagination, I believed at first it was only that that had my hackles on the back of my neck tingling with awareness, but three steps forward and I stopped while Skye snuffled in the autumn leaves with a delight only a dog would understand. Aware that I was being watched, I turned my head to stare up at the darkening woodland ...

Over the past few weeks we've had a wonderful event happen and we thought you'd like to share in our journey. I'll post a daily update in our chicken diaries each day. Blondie is my little silkie, we hatched her a couple of years ago ourselves and she's been hand reared. She's supremely friendly and our little darling. But she has an issue... she loves to brood. So a couple of months ago we decided that next time she started to brood, we would let her hatch her own babies. She laid two of her own and stole eggs from the other girls - eight in total. I marked eggs laid on day one and day two and removed all the rest that she continued to steal throughout her brooding period. She's a little tinker! And this is what happened. Tune in tomorrow to find out what happened next.

It’s a strange thing but when I write romance, no one ever asks me what my inspiration for writing the story is. I’m not sure if that’s because they’re frightened of the answer because it might involve … shhh … sex, but I can tell you far more people are interested in your desire to kill. So I gave some thought to my inspiration to write Copycat and I can honestly say that killing off nurses has absolutely no connection to the fact that my youngest daughter is in her final year of her nursing degree. No connection at all… Copycat is dedicated to my dad who would have been 100 years old today. Here's the sentimental bit first. I was only 28, my eldest daughter just one, when we lost him and I still miss him every day. To my dad, William John Saxon, who would have been 100 on 26th February 2020, the month Copycat is released. A master storyteller himself, it was only in the years after his death we discovered his tales were mainly true recollections of his ti...

Amazon UK              https://amzn.to/2T3JK2z Amazon.com              https://amzn.to/2SYbd6Z Kobo                           https://bit.ly/39Zw6Es

The fog this morning was really thick and the dogs and I took our normal lonely route alongside woodland and farmers' fields. Maybe this is why I'm an author, because not only do I have a wild imagination, but I think I also have good instincts. Skye is allowed to be off lead almost all of our walk because a) She's well trained and really obedient. b) If we see other dogs, she'll circumnavigate them so they don't come into conflict. c) She doesn't stray any further than 10 p aces away. Beau on the other hand, although 90% obedient, he will if he sees another dog a) act as though he's never been trained in his life b) charge over to say hello, even if its a mile in front c) forget all recall. So this morning on the walk where we never meet anyone and where Beau would normally be allowed free range, my instinct with the poor visibility was to put him on lead. First we met a man in the thick fog walking in the same direction as us with three dog...

After dropping off a baby hedgehog this morning at Cuan Wildlife Sanctuary, I took Beau and Skye for a walk along Wenlock Edge, one of my favourite places. My head has been a little empty of inspiration after writing Copycat in four months and then some really hard editing. I don't classify it as writer's block, but just a need for my brain to rest. This is the place to unleash all those ideas again. In the early morning mist with the sun creeping over the Edge you can simply stand and let the silence pour over you. With nothing but gentle birdsong and the snuffling of the dogs. This is my inspiration. Amazon UK -  https://amzn.to/2XtPwMS Amazon.com -  https://amzn.to/2NW56O4 Kobo -  https://bit.ly/2Qq7AG6

It was the perfect marriage… until they fell in love. Chaya is a young woman torn between her duty to family and her life in the UK. While her traditional Sri Lankan parents want her to settle down into marriage, what they don’t know is that Chaya has turned away the one true love of her life, Noah, terrified of their disapproval. Gimhana is hiding his sexuality from his family. It’s easy enough to pretend he’s straight when he lives half a world away in the UK. But it’s getting harder and harder to turn down the potential brides his parents keep finding for him. When Chaya and Gimhana meet, a marriage of convenience seems like the perfect solution to their problems. Together they have everything - friendship, stability and their parents’ approval. But when both Chaya and Gimhana find themselves falling in love outside of their marriage, they’re left with an impossible decision – risk everything they’ve built together, or finally follow their heart? ...

In the days before our big thug of a black Labrador arrived, there was this cute little darling. She's the one in the middle at the back and she was probably around 6 weeks old in this picture. Eight weeks old in the next one on the day we brought her home. Skye was my inspiration for The Keeper and the book is dedicated to her. When she was around eight months old, Skye was left for several hours on her own, something we had never done before - and never done since! She provided her own entertainment and quite literally ate our kitchen doors. And there started the tiny nugget that formed Domino's character in The Keeper. A male Dalmatian, much bigger than Skye, I based him on Skye's dad, a glorious big example so like Skye in looks. The story of The Keeper formulated some years ago when Skye and I would wander through the deserted woodlands over the far side of The Ironbridge in Shropshire along Benthall Woods. Dark and creepy, the acoustics al...

When I was sixteen I desperately wanted to join the police force. My father had been in the RAF as had my brother so I was quite accustomed to shift work. My middle sister joined the Force and I really wanted to as well. Unfortunately for me, that year I was too young for the intake and me mam (being from Georgdie origins...) insisted that I do something productive in the intervening year and enrolled me in a private secretary's course at the local college . It was a two year course! By the end of it, mam pushed an advert for a private secretary under my nose, I got the overpaid job and quite frankly that was the end of my police career. In the meantime, the 17 year old me met my tall, dark and handsome. A young police officer 4 years my senior, 6'7", dark brown hair, brown eyes. How could I resist? Some years later, 35 years of marriage and two gorgeous daughters, my poor long-suffering husband is now subjected to nudges at 3:00 am to enquire about police proced...

Set in Ironbridge where I walk my dogs through the dark & atmospheric woodlands , my imagination took me along the narrow pathways of ‘What would happen if I discovered a body?’ and then, ‘What if the killer saw me?’ #TheKeeper #preorder https://amzn.to/2U6VTUH @BoldwoodBooks

Calling all #Bookbloggers The Keeper is now available for request on NetGalley! Happy reading!! http:// netgal.ly/e9Y4fH

A high adrenaline new psychological crime series, introducing Detective Sergeant Jenna Morgan.  Perfect for  fans of Angela Marsons, Karen Rose and Mel Sheratt.