Authors Electric

   The colour of Autumn.   Pink and blueberries, ripening   Still green, dripping with rain.   Madonna. The intense perfume drifts after you around the garden.   Raindrops on dahlias.

Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't like Autumn? There are those who puff and pant their way through summer complaining about the heat, or who like me dread the dreariness of winter with its cold feet and chilblains - ugh! And however lovely spring can be, how many days of it do we usually get between the blizzard and the heat-wave? On our wedding day in Scotland it actually snowed -  and that was in April. But autumn! I feel a collective sigh of appreciation going round. Even for those without a personal orchard, mellow fruitfulness can be found in abundance in the hedgerows: - sloes, damsons and blackberries. Scavenging - we love it! Then there's that feeling of pleasant wistfulness that goes with misty mornings and low sun through the trees as one year dwindles into another.  Kick those leaves and light those fires. Autumn perpares us for what is to come - soon I might be ready for hygge after all. All these meanderings were brought on by our trip on Satu...

Cotswold cosy mystery novelist Debbie Young Writing a series of seven seasonal cosy mysteries, it was a no-brainer to make the second novel, T rick or Murder? , focus on Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Night - two traditions that divide my characters (and my readers) into different camps. In Trick or Murder? , the strange new vicar makes his mark on the sleepy Cotswold parish of Wendlebury Barrow by banning the PTA Halloween Disco. Realising he may have alienated his congregation before his first service, he tries to redeem himself by inviting them to an impromptu Guy Fawkes' Night party at the vicarage. Naturally, mayhem ensues, during a fun romp that celebrates both traditions. A fun seasonal read for October Post-publication, I asked friends which occasion they prefer, and why - asking only British friends because, beyond our shores, Guy Fawkes is unknown, which I allude to in the opening chapter of the book. (I also explain what it is during the course of the story...

When I started planning the cosy mystery series I'm currently writing, I thought I had a bright idea: I'd make the seven books span the course of the year. What's not to love about writing a book for all seasons, and then some? Whatever the time of year, I'd have a topical book to tout. Summertime for Sophie Sayers Given that my Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries are set in a small (fictional) English village (no surprises there), its residents are naturally very conscious of the seasonal changes, and their social calendar dictated by the time of year. That's just how it is in the small (non-fictional) English village in which I've lived for the last 26 years. Here in my real life village, I'm so much more aware of the passage of the seasons than when I lived and worked in and around London. Working in a city centre, I was more likely to spot the season by what was in shop windows , rather than by the appearance (or disappearance) of lambs an...

It's early Autumn, or, if you prefer, late summer, and in my very peaceful part of North London, there's a kind of golden silence which seeps into my head. The very last of my huge crop of tomatoes remains to be picked, and this morning I gathered an unexpectedly large bunch of runner beans - all this richness from a small suburban garden. This time of year feels like a kind of dream time through which I wander almost mindlessly. Soon there will be the first breaths of the winter to come, and I love that - it's thrilling. I am not a summer person. Recently I found myself picking lawn daisies just before their decapitation by lawn mower - these lovely little things always come back. I haven't picked daisies since making daisy chains with my kids and my grandchildren, and I suddenly wanted to - they are so sweet. The movie based on one of my books has now progressed to the stage of location and actually filming, and I will be shown the first images in ten days time...

October 8 th and we are heading north. It’s that time of year; the annual gathering of a group of friends brought together by Di, no longer with us and much mourned. We come from Southampton, York, Alnwick, Berwick-on-Tweed, drawn by powerful associations and the beauty of the Cumbrian lakes and fells. On a cloudy, moonlit evening we visit Di’s grave in Dacre churchyard. It overlooks fells where the larches are always standing out against the other trees, as if marching to their own individual beat of time. Her Lakeland slate headstone is dwarfed by the Norwegian maple now. Fourteen years ago it was a spindly sapling. We toast Di in Bollinger and pour a libation. It disappears rapidly into the earth.  Usually, at this time of year, we meet autumn as we drive northwards. This year, the colours in the trees are hardly changed. It hasn’t been cold enough yet to work the magic of turning green to gold, russet, scarlet. When we’re there, on the shore of Ullswater, green is st...

It's been an especially beautiful September - my favourite month - and I've been watching the year slowly dying in a haze of gold. My London back garden is full of colour. Today I picked my last runner beans, and was starting to remove the stems which were infested with blackfly when the structure up which they'd been growing collapsed, reminding me cruelly that it's been a year and a half now since I lost my beloved David who set up the beanpoles in the first place. Recently, I've been meditating on my own death, and, indeed, death itself. In my work, I've always found endings difficult - they have to be perfect, rounded, right (would that life were like that) and I've often fantasised about having a convenient 'END NOW' button I could click at an appropriate time. To be honest, it's not just a fantasy. I have recently become a member of Exit International. The 'appropriate time' is certainly not now, but I would like to think that, i...

So, I'm blogging on this significant date, when the world was burdened, or enriched, depending on your point of view, by yet another of those 'you-know-whats'. Maybe, though, this is one of the reason I've always loved Autumn with its fiery colours (this is the rampant Virginia Creeper putting on a show in my front garden) and its silhouettes, its short days and its drama -  that ominous beginning-to-be-winter chilly breath behind its fake gold. I've always loved Keats's poem - yes, that one - the one we all know, but which never grows stale... 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...' And we have the very last of our homegrown tomatoes ripening on the windowsill. In this same month, I've also re-published as an ebook, GEMMA AND THE BEETLE PEOPLE, http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009NW7XLK .  This was originally published by Walker Books, as an Early Reader, with short chapters and very accessible language, and it's still doing well in ...