I’m writing today to show off the shiny new cover for The Cove, and which will be out (re-released after a thorough polish and edit), on July 25^th. It’s a bit complicated this, given I’ve just released another book (Little Ghosts), but I’ll do my best to explain: 
 

I first self-published The Cove in October 2021, and it did quite well, with some very pleasing reviews (thank you as always). I then promised a second book in the series called The Pool, which I didn’t get around to finishing, because a) we moved house, b) I wrote another book (which became Little Ghosts) and c) I’m very bad at hitting deadlines unless someone’s actually going to die. But then I got talking to Storm Publishing, who wanted to republish The Cove, and then The Pool when I finally got around to finishing it, and hopefully a third book in the series too. Actually, re-reading this explanation, it’s not so complicated after all.
 

Anyway, in a strange twist of fate, all of those things have now kind of arrived at once. Firstly, The Cove is up and available to pre-order now, showing off its new shiny cover (see below). Secondly I’ve finished The Pool (no one even had to die) and it’s in the hands of Storm’s editing gurus as we speak (release date TBC but sometime this year). And finally I decided that it makes sense to start writing book three in this series right away, which might or might not be called The Hunt, but which I’m having a very fun time writing thank you very much.   
 

I guess the one thing that is complicated is that many of you will already have bought and read The Cove when it first came out. If that’s you, do I recommend you read it a second time? The answer is you won’t need to in order to understand the next book, and most of the changes were to do with tightening the language and smoothing off a couple of rougher edges in the story. There’s no big changes other than that (I have also changed the name of the detective from Erica Stone to Erica Sands because Storm had another author with a similarly-named detective and didn’t want to confuse things.)

I guess the easiest way to settle the question is to say I’d be delighted if you did want to re-read it, but understand if you don’t. There’s a lot of books out there.

You can see the new cover for The Cove, and pre-order it here:

https://t.co/nXouDaWoM2

You can also request it from today on Netgalley if that’s your thing, for which you can follow this link:

http://netgal.ly/betRdw 

Final point. Huge thank you to everyone who ordered Little Ghosts over this weekend when it was on special price, and to those that have left such positive reviews so far. It got into the top twenty in the UK Amazon store, the top thirty in the US, and top ten in various other stores around the world such as number 2 in Kobo Canada. All very exciting, and I really hope all those new readers enjoy it! If you’d like to leave a review on Little Ghosts on Amazon, you can do so here:

https://readerlinks.com/l/3402197

Date: November 5th, 10:32pm (everyone thinks I’m asleep!)
Age: eight years, five months, thirteen days (nearly exactly eight and a half!)
Dear Diary, I saw Daddy do something weird again. I mean, worse than weird. I shouldn’t even write it down here in case he finds this. But I need to tell someone. I’m so, so scared…

Six months later. After the sudden death of her husband, Christine Harvey would do anything to give her precious children Molly and Ryan a fresh start. The huge clifftop house she’s hastily purchased has the most breath-taking ocean view she’s ever seen. Surely here they can someday be happy again?

But Christine had no idea that her family’s new dream house is right next door to where a child was abducted and murdered. And nobody told her that the father – who was the main suspect in the police investigation before it collapsed – still lives there.

Everyone urges her to move on, but Christine can’t stop thinking about that child. Fearing for the safety of Molly and Ryan, she frantically delves deeper into the old case, looking for anything that will give them some answers.

But some secrets are best left buried, and as the behaviour of their new neighbour grows increasingly unsettling, Christine wonders if digging up this one was the worst thing she could have done for her family…