Hello from the Isle of Wight where the cold weather has hit us for the first time. I´m not complaining. We´ve had some beautiful sparkling days after the early morning fog has lifted. Personally I like the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, although I appreciate it can be a problem for those wishing to travel.

I remember an occasion when I was a lot younger and going home from a visit to Devon. It was a very foggy night, and we came up behind an old boy travelling much slower than I thought was necessary. However I didn´t want to risk overtaking him because we couldn´t see what was coming the other way. So I flashed him a couple of times to suggest he could pull into the side and let me pass. He halted and got out of his car and came back, leaving his door open, and told me not to shine my headlights as it was a distraction. When he got back into his car, I overtook him before he started moving again, and we travelled at a much better speed. He kept up with me but shone his headlamps on full beam to try and dazzle me. However I adjusted my rear view mirror so that it reflected his headlights back at him and he gave up after a while.

Enough of that. This week I am promoting my novel “Dancing with Spies” by offering the e-book for $0.99 for a few days. This is the only novel I have written purely from a woman´s view-point and I hope I have succeeded in portraying the emotions and fears encountered by a woman trying to deal with the problems of being cut off and alone in a warzone.

The event in which she is trapped is the siege of Dubrovnik in the Jugoslav Civil war when the city was besieged by the Serb-led Jugoslav National Army and the climax occurs when the JNA opens fire on the ancient city which was a World Heritage site.

I got the inspiration for this novel from visits I made to Dubrovnik and some of the Adriatic islands off the coast. I was particularly taken by the island of Mljet, claimed

to be the most beautiful in the Mediterranean. The island has a sea-fed lake which was originally a gigantic limestone cave where the roof has collapsed. The remains of the roof project from the lake in a precipitous little island, on which was built a monastery, now converted to a hotel. This is where I set my special love scene.

Although the story can be called an adventure, it is also a romance. I hope you will try out “Dancing with Spies” and let me know what you think of it.