Recently I’ve been going through a bit of a reading drought. I’ve got a stack of books next to my bed, and a fantastic library just up the road, but for the past few months, all the books I’ve read have been a bit ‘meh’.

And then I picked up this:

It’s the second in a series, and while I liked the first one, I’m absolutely LOVING this . There’s nothing like a good book.

On April 2nd 1912, the Titanic underwent its first (and only) sea trials. These trials had originally been scheduled for the day before, but had to be delayed due to bad weather.
During the trials, which lasted twelve hours, Titanic travelled more than 80 nautical miles around Belfast Lough and out into the open sea. A number of tests were performed including an emergency crash stop – which took 3 minutes and 15 seconds. At around 7pm that evening, the ship was declared seaworthy by Francis Carruthers, the surveyor. As we now now, this was not entirely accurate, but maybe we shouldn’t judge – I’m guessing there weren’t many icebergs lurking around the coast of Ireland.
I’ve always been fascinated by the story of the Titanic, so much so that in 2011 I set my first Friends Forever book, The Time Spell, on the ill-fated ship. Countless other books have been inspired by the tragic voyage of this ship – a voyage that began 104 years ago today!

(This post first appeared on WWW.girlsheartbooks.com)

Last month I wrote about collecting beads and diamonds when I was a little girl. (Pay attention at the back)
When I was eight though, I moved from London to Cork, and as anyone who’s ever been to Cork will tell you, they do things differently there. In my new school no-one was interested in my collections – and one girl called them ‘a box full of broken necklaces’ – true but harsh!
In Cork, all the girls collected ‘scraps’ – small coloured pictures, which they stored between the leaves of a book, and spent all of playtime swapping. This was tough on me, as the other girls had spent years building up their collections, and I didn’t have a single scrap to my name. I was feeling very lonely and isolated when a lovely older girl called Ellen O’Driscoll, gave me her huge collection of scraps – to keep! Armed with a whole book of beautiful scraps, I immediately belonged, and spent many happy hours swapping my treasures.
Two years later, I left that school, and I never saw Ellen O’Driscoll again – and my precious scraps got lost in the move. Fortunately, I still have friends, and when I told the lovely Sarah Webb my scrap story, she tracked these down and sent them to me.
Now who’d like to swap?

Originally published on www.girlsheartbooks.com

When I was a little girl, I loved to collect things. When I was seven, I lived in London, and all the girls in my class collected coloured beads. Even though they were simply remnants of broken jewellery, to us they were treasures.
Here’s my bead collection – complete with antique tin.

At playtime, my friends and I huddled in the corner of the schoolyard, furiously swapping our treasures, trying to get the best deal – (probably good training for negotiating with publishers in a later life!)

Sometimes we swapped ‘diamonds’ which were even more precious. My diamond collection still survives, and here’s a pic. (The dome-shaped diamonds, like the orange one in the photo, were called cabbages – I have no idea why.)

I spent many happy hours swapping beads and diamonds, but when I was eight, I moved to Ireland and everything changed – but that’s a blog for another day.

(This post first appeared on www.girlsheartbooks.com)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas – with lots of time for curling up in a corner with a good book.

Also wishing all my friends and readers a happy, peaceful New Year.

May all your dreams come true in 2016.

xxx