My Diary – Archive

How can it be the start of autumn when it’s still 23 centigrade in England? Normally in September I heave a sigh of relief and stop watering the garden and think about planting my spring bulbs. I’d have to pull up still flowering plants in order to put in the bulbs and I’m not going to do that – anyway I’ve got Nigel now to do it for me. Everybody needs a Nigel and it took me months to find him. I also have an anonymous chap who comes every six weeks to valet my car inside and out for £15 . I have a window cleaner who also clears the gutters, washes the facias and soffits and cleans my solar panels – how lucky am I? The man who services my central heating boiler is coming next week and I haven’t even thought about putting the heating on. Strictly Come Dancing starts in a week or two and I can’t get enthused because that’s the start of the lead to Christmas. Nobody thinks about Christmas when it’s in the high 20s – unless you live in Australia or New Zealand!

I discovered only two days ago that taking paracetamol every day for my headaches was actually causing the headaches – it’s called rebound headaches. I had this once with migraine tablets but didn’t realise it could happen with something you can buy over the counter. I was blaming an unexpected return of long Covid and it’s actually my fault. I’ve now gone twenty-seven hours without pain relief and so far it’s not been too bad – much harder at night – but I know it’s the right thing to do. My grandson starts secondary school next week and I’m sure he’s going to enjoy it once he’s settled but I know he’s not looking forward to it. To go from a junior school with only four hundred pupils to a secondary school – however good it is – with over fifteen hundred will be difficult for all the new incomers.

On the writing front this month I’ve plenty to tell you. Boldwood have taken a six book Regency series from my remaining backlist and I’m thrilled about that. I’m pretty sure they’ll take the other two series as well and hopefully some of the other stand-alone titles eventually. They took my four Pemberley related books last year and these finally come out in October and December. The final book in my Army girls series came out last week – Army Girls Operation Winter Wedding – and is doing well in the charts. The first of my new World War II home front series set in Wivenhoe, a riverside village near Colchester, is already on preorder – Wartime Arrivals at Harbour House – and will be released at the end of November. I’ve written 25% of the second book which will be handed in next month and come out in the New Year.

I didn’t watch much of the Olympics and certainly won’t be watching the Paralympics but I do watch the test cricket. A very English sport one I’ve loved since I was small as the start of the cricket season always heralded going out of London and spending the day in the country somewhere watching my stepfather play cricket.

Until next time
Fenella J Miller

Here we are again – another month has gone by and  some people are already talking about Strictly Come Dancing which doesn’t start until September. I’ve even heard mention of the C word – far too early for that. I’m tickety-boo and really well, enjoying my garden and my friends and family. It took me fifteen months to get rid of long covid, thank God it’s finally gone and I haven’t caught it a third time. Eagerly anticipating my next holiday which will  be my first cruise, I’m going with Lizzie Lane, another Boldwood writer, in October. We are going from Tilbury for five nights with Ambassador. The ship is small which is what we wanted. We will be visiting Hamburg and Amsterdam.

There’s been an election here and I’m delighted to have a sensible, caring, moral government after fourteen years of Tory corruption and cronyism. It will take years to put things right but they’ve made a good start. The surge of far right fascist voters is deeply worrying and I hope Keir Starmer addresses that.

I finished the first in my new series of WW2 Home Front books set in Wivenhoe. I was taken aback that my editor didn’t think it was the best thing I’ve ever written. 🙂 I’ve completed the edits and hopefully she’ll now love it as much as I do. I can’t start the second one until we’ve spoken about the first as I’m not sure which direction she wants me to go. My next new title is Army Girls Operation Winter Wedding and it’s out later this month.  This is the final book in this series.

Today all Boldies are celebrating the fifth birthday of our fabulous publisher. I joined in 2020 but my first book didn’t come out until 2021. Now twelve new books written and sixteen back list taken by them. The last four, my Pemberley series, come out October and November. There are now over 150 Boldies ( authors) and twenty plus staff. Thousands of best sellers and always at least ten in the top 100 on Amazon. I think there are four 500 000 sellers and four 1 000 000 sellers – hoping I’ll join the former later this year.

Olympics is still going but I only watch glimpses of this. Pleased we have won medals but only really get enthused about test cricket.

Until next month,

Fenella J Miller

I don’t understand how it can be July already – maybe it’s because the weather in June has been so wet and cold it still seemed like spring. My garden has gone wild because of the rain and I’ve got to get someone in to dig things up for me. It’s frustrating not being able to do the things I want to but there’s nothing I can do about that.
On the health front I ended up being taken by emergency ambulance to hospital – spent seven hours on a trolley in a corridor but did have a cat scan, ultrasound, blood tests et cetera. Everybody was respectful, kind and no complaints about that. I don’t understand how NHS staff are still coping. There were two unpleasant incidents they had to deal with and in one of them it was just appalling language from a woman with mental health issues and the other, a man with mental health issues, actually attacked a nurse. Let’s hope the next government can do something about this.
It turned out to be an infection and after two lots of antibiotics I’m more or less better, but it takes longer to recover from anything at my age.
At least Long Covid  has finally gone – it only took thirteen months!
On a much happier note I spent six glorious days in Bath with my friend Lizzie Lane – another Boldwood writer – and finally saw all the places I’d just read about and have written about in many of my regency books. Bath lived up to everything I’d hoped and on the Saturday Lizzie held a writers’ garden party and there were fifteen of us talking shop eating and drinking and that was a wonderful end to my trip.
I had hired a car to drive me both ways – on the way down it took four hours – on the way back the driver decided to go on the scenic route taking me past Stonehenge and goodness knows where and it took 5 1/2 hours; he chewed his nails the entire time. Needless to say I’ll be using a different company next year..
On the writing front I had the first two of my Victorian sagas published and they seem to be doing well – in fact all my books seem to be doing well – I was so lucky to be picked up by Boldwood
I am now writing the first book in a new series set in a riverside village in Essex so far it’s going well. More about that next month.
Until next time, best wishes,
Fenella J Miller

Late again, sorry. The Boldwood Party was excellent, celebrating 5 years. Travelling by car was good but caught in the torrential rain and rush hour made us over an hour late. Return journey was much better. Army Girls Behind the Guns came out  and is doing well, thank you. Final book, Army Girls:Operation Winter Wedding, is on pre-order, just sent copy edits back, and will be out in August. Was racing along with the first in a different sort of saga, set in an actual place, Wivenhoe, with real people mingling with my characters. No uniforms for my main characters but her will be sprinkling of secondary service men and women until hospitalised last week.

Won’t bore you with the details but it wasn’t fun. On the plus side I’m now almost 7 lbs lighter. Going to take me another week to get back to writing.

Weather has been grim, so is the news. However  really happy Trump has been found guilty and we’re going to get rid of the awful government we have in  the UK and replace it with something sensible.

Will be more news next time,

best wishes

Fenella J Miller

First photo is now, other one is last year. Garden looking wonderful.

The older one gets a faster time goes which sounds nonsensical but is in fact the truth. I can remember sitting behind a wooden desk at school thinking that I wouldn’t survive until the weekend and the thought of half term or a longer holiday was so far away it was impossible to imagine it. Now it’s April and I don’t know what happened to March.

My garden is finally showing signs of life, my fruit trees are blossoming but my daffodils and tulips have been miserable this year. I think it’s because of the rain we had practically every day for months – I think the bulbs must have rotted. I’ve almost finished the final book in my four Army Girl series it should be done by tomorrow. Then I’ve got a long list of waiting jobs and being in the garden is one of them.

I’ll have a couple of weeks to catch up with all the domestic issues that I’ve ignored and then will start serious research for my new series. This time there won’t be any main characters in uniform – it’s going to be set in a real village on the banks of a river in Essex. The main characters will be people who live there and the stories will be their personal stories but with plenty of excitement, hardship and romance and all set within an authentic World War II backdrop.

I’ve got so many books coming out this year – sixteen I think – that it’s hard to keep up with what’s been released. In March the final two books in my Pilot’s Girl series came out; they did very well when I indie publish them a decade ago and a new readership appears to be enjoying them as well. This month, April, a two book series – it was published before as Victoria’s War – The Nurse’s War and The Nurse’s Homecoming will be published. This is based on my mother’s memoirs and I think it’s one of the best I’ve written. A novella linked to The Pilot’s Girl, The Pilot’s Story, is also out this month. The third book in my Army Girl series, , is on preorder at the moment – and comes out next month.

I seem to be finally coming out of  long Covid that I’ve had for the past twelve months – I still get the occasional day when I can’t get out of bed – but it was only one in March and I really think – unless I catch it again – that I’m free of it. Let’s hope a new version doesn’t come and we all catch something nasty again.

I hope you  had an enjoyable break over Easter; if you don’t celebrate it as a religious festival that you enjoyed the chocolate eggs that everybody can eat.

Until next month

best wishes

Fenella J Miller