May 2025

Hello, Readers!

Wow, this month seems to have flown by! Let's catch up, shall we?

For any writers reading this, they will probably know that April was the first Camp of the year linked to National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, which is November. The non-profit organisation have been around for years, and there are some truly great novels that have risen from the efforts, one well-known one, and one of my favourites, is The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, which started out as a NaNoWriMo project!

NaNoWriMo is simply a month that brings writers all over the world together with one common goal, write 50,000 words during the 30 days of November, which averages out at 1667 words as day. I've been taking part in NaNoWriMo for years now and always use it to start a first draft, making sure that I commit and get those words down on a page. April and July are Camp, where the idea is similar, but writers set their own goals.

Now, when I went to sign up at the beginning of April, I discovered that the non-profit have had to call it a day as they have been struggling - however, this didn't deter me, as I imagine it didn't millions of others across the world, and I set my goal, which was 30,000 words, in the second book of my new series. I smashed that target in less than a fortnight, very proud of myself, and decided that obviously, I would just keep writing, and aim for every day, no exceptions. I have achieved that too, and smashed the 50,000 word goal post on the 25th, leaving me five days to keep going and my grand total was 61115! Due to there being no official Camp NaNoWriMo this year, there were no official social media badges, so I reused the Winner's badge from 2016 which was the first year I took part!

In the transparency of staying honest, not all of those words were in the document that they should have been, I flitted to other stories as ideas struck me several times, but they were all the right series! Meaning it is coming along, slowly.

What have I been writing?

I stuck with the new project, despite jumping around documents - the spicy biker romance series I have planned now has eleven possible books - following the different members of the motorcycle club, including the female bikers that get patched in! My biggest issue at the minute is that the background story of the MC doesn't really have a direction after the first two books - I need to work on that!

The first book is currently with the second reader going through an edit, the first having sent it back with glowing reviews and not many errors located. Always a good start to the editing process...

What have I been reading?

I fell down a reading hole of checking out other books by an author I'd read recently - Sage RelleAnne. Back in August last year, I read her book, Cut Her Strings, book one of the Fractured Puppets series, which was phenomenal! Truly! I loved it. And the second book in the series came out at the beginning of April which I was waiting for and downloaded immediately, then devoured in less than a few days! Only to find that there is one more yet to come and now I have to wait again... 

So, I went to check out some of her other books, including Vengeful Valentine, which was just a short novella with a quick and dirty plot line. And then right at the end of the month, I devoured Her Day to Die, which I got to the end of only to realise that the second instalment to the duo is not out until this summer... I'm not okay with all this waiting when there are cliff hangers involved!

Aside from that, I picked up Until the Streetlights Come On by Ginny Yurich, the founder of the 1000 hours outside challenge, which I attempt with my boys. An ode to a childhood like we remember, encouraging us to get our children outside and off screens! My boys don't use screens and have limited TV time, because we would rather be outside anyway, and we strive for the 1000 hours goal but so far have only topped out at just over 800 - who knows, maybe this year will be the one!!

What have you read recently that you really loved? I'm always looking for recommendations, drop me some ideas below.

What have I been up to in life?

April has been pretty hectic, what with Easter and then all the home ed trips we've been attending, plus my eldest learning to read. It seems to have been non stop picnics and days out as we have made the most of this amazingly sunny weather here in the UK.

While the schools were on Easter break, we tried to stay away from anywhere that would get too busy, but we have managed to fit in several lovely Easter outings to check out the activities and events that places have on for the occasion.

We spent Easter Sunday with family, taking part in a truly epic egg hunt set up by my sister for the kids, and then a BBQ and chill in the garden all afternoon, taking advantage of the weather once more. I recently became an Auntie, and I got all the little snuggles from my gorgeous nephew.

GIVEAWAY TIME

If you've made it this far, then thanks for sticking around - and it was totally worth it - because I have a giveaway for you! A signed copy of any one of my books in paperback to add to, or start your collection!

To enter, all you have to do is drop me a comment below with a black heart emoji and the title of your choice and I will pick a winner at random in a couple of weeks.

For a full list of my books - check out The Books page!

Thank you

I will never be able to put into words how grateful I am for the support I've had over the years, from my family and friends, the people who have given their time to read and edit my books, and to each and every one of you who have bought and read my stories! Without all of you, I wouldn't be where I am today, because I'd be writing books that no one was reading, and where as I would still write, even if no one wanted to read them... I am so happy that I get to share my stories with you!

Till next time,

Angel x