Updates

Sometimes the most important discovery isn't hidden in a manuscript. It's hiding in your book metadata.

Yesterday, I sat down to review my books.

Nothing particularly exciting...

Eight stories. Years of mysteries. One final reckoning.

When I began writing The Ancient Lie, the concluding novel in The Highlands University of Ghostology trilogy, I knew it...

Why I brought Serenity Falls, The Mourning Ring and One for Sorrow together in a single collection, despite knowing exactly how much work it would take.

There is something rather...

The story behind The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume One, my first attempt at creating a collected edition.

When I decided to bring the first three novels of the McTavish...

Something rather interesting has been happening with Elm Brook Manor lately.

The ebook is free. Completely free. Readers can download it through Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes &...

How a familiar figure from folklore became the bridge between supernatural horror, historical fiction and the Second World War.

Every story begins somewhere.

Sometimes, an idea...

Some stories are written to entertain. Others become something far more personal to the person writing them.

There are books you write because an idea captures your imagination....

How a television series, two historical figures and a growing piece of writing software helped me discover the story I wanted to tell.

Sometimes the inspiration for a novel...

Sometimes a story begins with a familiar character, an unexpected letter and an idea that refuses to remain within the boundaries you originally imagined.

When I first began...

Sometimes the greatest turning point in an author's life happens long before the first word of a new book is written.

There are books we write because we have a story to tell.

And...

Sometimes the smallest discoveries reveal the greatest secrets. And sometimes, a story written about the dead has a surprising amount to say about love.

When I began writing The...

Some novels are written in peaceful surroundings, with long, uninterrupted hours devoted to storytelling. Serenity Falls was not one of them.

When I began writing Serenity Falls,...

On a remote Scottish island, a lighthouse watches over a restless sea. But some of the greatest dangers are not hidden beneath the waves. They are walking among the living.

There...

Some ghosts remain because they have unfinished business. Others, perhaps, are simply waiting for someone to remember that they once existed.

There is something particularly...

Sometimes, losing everything familiar is the beginning of finding something extraordinary.

Coby McTavish wasn't looking for ghosts.

He was looking for a way out.

An author whose...

There comes a point when the fictional world inside your head becomes too large to live there comfortably.

For me, that point arrived somewhere around eight books.

It wasn't...

You close the manuscript and take a few days off. Then your characters start calling. A writer’s encounter with Character Whispers, the Phantom Guilt Equation, and the strange...

Being an independent author has taught me many things.

I've learned about editing, formatting, metadata, ISBNs, retailer dashboards, advertising, mailing lists, audiobooks,...

This morning, exhausted after another late night of writing, I reluctantly made my way to my desk.

The past few weeks have been taxing. My mind has been stretched between...

There is a peculiar moment in writing that I have only recently learned how to recognise.

I call it Absent Presence.

I doubt the term will trouble the great halls of literary...