My Diary – Archive

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

February wasn’t great health wise as I had a virus for two weeks and then long Covid kicked in yet again. Finally, now it’s March, I’m feeling a bit better. I’ve booked to go on a 5 night cruise in October, just to Hamburg and Amsterdam, but it sails from Tilbury so no planes or trains involved. I’ve always wanted to dip my toe in this form of holiday and five nights seems a good way of seeing if I like it. Ambassador, the company, promise to fully refund the cost if you don’t enjoy it. I’m also going to Bath for six nights to stay with a friend. This is somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit. I’ve written 60 at least Regency novels and so many of them have featured Bath.I think they are filming Bridgerton opposite where she lives in the summer so am hoping our visits coincide.

On the writing front I’ve been crazily busy. Really hard to do everything when you’re not well. This week I’ve had proofs for one book/edits for another/three blog posts and still need to write my WIP. I’ve got, as I told you last month, 18 books coming out this year. 3/4 new titles and the rest backlist. All have lovely covers, been re-edited, and seem to be going down well with readers so far.

I’ve just got the go ahead for a new WW2 series which I’m so excited about. Home Front rather than RAF/Army/Nurses and I can’t wait to start. I’ve already planned the first book in my head and have a good idea what I want to write in the next few books. This will, hopefully, be a long series like Goodwill House. When I hand in the final book in the Army Girl series I’ll start my serious research and the writing will begin in May. The first book will be out either end of this year or beginning of next.

I’m going to finish with Loki’s latest exploits. I got him some plastic spirals, he loves them, and the first night I had to confiscate three and then shut him out of the bedroom as he was playing all night.  He was returning to his toy box and getting another one every time I took one away. He lost an entire packet and I had to buy some more. My grandson found all of them under my bed. From now on he gets one at a time. The spare are safe in a sealed plastic box.

Spring has sprung and I’ve got daffodils and primroses out in my garden.

best wishes

Fenella J Miller

January for some reason seems to go on longer than any other month – it’s hard to believe that Christmas was only five weeks away when it seems like months. I think, like most people, the short days and horrible weather make it seem worse than it really is. Now there are daffodils beginning to poke through the soil, snowdrops are already out, and there’s a wonderful dawn chorus every morning.

On the home front I believe that the horrible long covid is finally going – I still get bad days but they’re not as bad as they were before and I’ve had as many as twelve days without any symptoms at all. I’m making a serious effort to eat better, exercise as much as I can – not the gym or anything silly like that, but short walks, a bit of gardening and so on – and have stopped buying chocolate as I only eat it. I think that my arthritis would be improved if I lost a couple of stone but that’s wishful thinking. If I drop a dress size then I’ll be satisfied.

Loki is by far the best cat in the world – beautiful, intelligent and kind. I never thought I’d be a devoted cat owner but I’m now very much in the cat camp rather than the dog. I’m only going away for one holiday – to stay with a good friend in Bath for six days in June so he won’t be too put out. I just can’t face airports any more so in future my holidays will be ones that don’t involve flying.

On the writing front I’ve reduced my contracted output to Boldwood to 3 books a year but I still might write four if I have the energy and the time. I’ve got, at the last count, three new titles and thirteen back list coming out between now and December. I’m sure there are very few of my readers who will want all the books but I hope they do. The next one coming out is the second one in my new Army Girl series, Army Girls: Heartbreak and Hope. This is on preorder and will be published on the ninth of this month.

I won’t be going to the RNA conference this year – or in any future years – as I just don’t enjoy it. I don’t drink alcohol and 90% of the people attending the conference do which always puts me at a disadvantage.  The one I went to last year was packed with excellent workshops and talks, everybody was friendly and welcoming but the accommodation – being for students – was uncomfortable and the food awful. I’m sure everybody going this year will have a great time.

Until next time

Fenella J Miller

I’m not sorry to say farewell to 2023. So much misery, death and destruction in the world and all of it man made. I sincerely hope that 2024 will see the end to the wars and that the civilians can begin to live their lives in peace again. I’m also hoping for a general election here so we can see the end of the appalling government we have now.

2023 has been  brilliant for my writing, seven books out with Boldwood and all of them have done so well. Thank you brilliant Boldwood. I’m lucky to have Emily Rushton for my editor and we work well together. I’ve cut down my new book output to three because of health problems, but as I’ve got another thirteen backlist books coming out in 2024 I don’t think one less new title will be noticed.

The second in my new Army Girls series, Heartbreak and Hope, is out on 2nd February, and this series seems to be proving popular. The third book has just been handed in and will be published in May. The fourth and final one will be a Christmas title and should come out in September.  Then I’m going back to Goodwill House and intend to pick up Joanna and her family’s stories from 1943 and take them to the end of the war.

I had good festive break, I spend both days with my son and his family, and all my decorations came down on 28th. The plastic boxes crammed with things have yet to be carried out to the shed but they are in my study and not in the way.

I intend to enjoy 2024 and hope that you can all do the same.

Fenella J Miller