2018 had some lovely highlights. The summer holidays were wonderful and I enjoyed every minute of both the trips we made, to the Amalfi Coast and to the East Neuk of Fife. Seeing A Pattern of Secrets in the window of Waterstones in St Andrews was very exciting and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting about books when I visited Waterstones in  Dundee.

Nearly every week of term in 2018 I managed to visit a local school during my class non-contact time. Having the opportunity to talk to so many P4-7 pupils about reading and writing, however briefly, has been a real privilege. This display was created by pupils at St Mary’s Primary in Hamilton, who had been reading A Pattern of Secrets.

Signing with Julie Fergusson at the North Literary Agency was a fantastic moment, She has been enormously helpful in helping me to shape and polish Finding Finch and I’m really looking forward to seeing what the future brings.

Guardians of the Wild Unicorns has gone to print and will be published on the 21st of February.  The lovely booksellers at Waterstones in Braehead have kindly agreed to host the book’s launch on World Book Day, Thursday the 7th of March.

In November Guardians of the Wild Unicorns was featured on Kidlit TV’s Publisher Spotlight Spring 2019 Showcase https://kidlit.tv/2018/11/live-its-the-publisher-spotlight-showcase-spring-2019/  and the US edition of the novel is published in April. It is all very exciting, but as publication date gets nearer, worry sets in. My fingers are crossed that readers enjoy Guardians of the Wild Unicorns as much as I enjoyed writing it.

At the moment, I’m working hard on a teachers’ resource pack to go alongside the novel and have been thrilled by the number of primary teachers who have taken the time to email me with ideas and suggestions after the resource pack’s first draft was posted on teachers’ Facebook sites. Every day another email arrives with more ideas…the resource pack will be a massive document by the time it’s finished!

Early next year, work will start on the line edit of The Titanic Detective Agency. I’ve already had a sneak preview of the cover, and it looks fabulous, thanks to the amazing design skills of Anne Glennie at Cranachan Books. It has been such fun to research, although I have to admit to getting submerged in historical detail at times. It’s impossible to immerse yourself in the tragedy of the Titanic and not be desperate to find out what happened to the survivors in the months and years after the sinking.

2018 hasn’t been all good, of course. There have been family health scares and work challenges. The prospect of Brexit is alarming and it is hard sometimes to feel positive about the future. But whatever the difficulties to come, I know that 2019 will have its highlights too. Bring them on!