
Published by Manatee Books
Available in ebook (24 January 2019)
264 pages
About the Book
Alice has landed her dream job, searching the Misterley Manor archives for tales of the elusive Gilbert Fox-Travers – life should be perfect, if only she could untangle her complicated love life…
Caroline is desperately trying to keep Misterley from falling down around her ears, and it’s a tough enough job without throwing a stroppy teenager, a difficult ex-husband and a cantankerous father into the mix.
When disaster strikes, Caroline and her family must pull together to save her beloved family home…Can Alice uncover the mystery of Gilbert Fox-Travers in time to save the Manor?
A Day in the Life of An Author
by Liz Taylorson
- Get up. Feed cats, chickens, children in that order. Wave husband and children off to work and school. Have a cup of tea. Dishwasher on, laundry in, beds made. It’s a beautiful day, I’m brimming with energy. Time to work!
- Check social media and the news to make sure that I’m on top of what’s going on in the world before I settle down to write for the morning. Aim for 2,000 words before coffee; manage about 1,000 and a few posts on Facebook – do they count?
- Break for Popmaster with Ken Bruce on Radio 2, and a cup of coffee. Fail miserably to answer any of the sensible questions, but manage to remember that Grandma, we love you … was by St. Winifred’s School Choir.
- More writing. Inevitably involves rewriting most of what I wrote before Popmaster (and occasionally bursting into the chorus of Grandma, we love you … because it’s now stuck in my head).
- Reach a dead end with the writing – in chapter 3, if Jeremy has only just met Anthea, how on earth can he believably know about her ex-husband’s poodle with the broken leg?
- Realise that it’s time to go for a run. Try and come up with a reasonable excuse NOT to go for a run. Fail. Run.
- Whilst running, come up with the perfect answer to how Jeremy knows about the poodle. I’m on top of the world! I can run for miles!
- Five minutes later, collapse in sweaty heap, unable to remember the elegant solution to the poodle problem. In fact, just about the only thing I can remember is the chorus of Grandma, we love you … and that doesn’t help.
- Lunch, sandwiches whilst I watch the lunchtime news which inevitably makes me miserable or angry – or both.
- Sensible, non-writing jobs after lunch. Cleaning, errands, e-mails, until the kids come in from school, then run around after kids or, if I’m really lucky and they’re doing homework (or they’re pretending to do homework), I might get some more writing done. I will undoubtedly drink more tea.
- Tea time. Usually three different meals at three different times depending on what clubs and social events we all have in the evening. Load the dishwasher, sort the recycling and drink more tea.
- Once the chaos subsides I try to sit down and read something stimulating or watch some uplifting film or television programme. Inevitably I end up spending an hour on social media chatting about Grandma we love you … or asking some writer friends what they think about the potential solution to the poodle problem whilst watching repeats of You’ve Been Framed. Drink more tea (decaf so that I might be able to sleep).
- Go to bed and read because I don’t feel even slightly sleepy. Get woken up by husband five minutes later to complain that I have fallen asleep reading again, I’m snoring, and I’ve stolen all the bedcovers. The last thing going through my mind before I finally drift off to sleep is the gentle strain of “Grandma, we love you …”
***
My thanks to Tracy Fenton for the invitation to take part in the tour and to Liz for providing such an entertaining guest post. Even if I do now have that blimming song going round in my head…..yes – I am old enough to remember it and I hated it then!

About the Author

Liz has always surrounded herself with books.
As a child, she was always to be found with her head in one and she still has a bookcase full of her childhood favourites to this day. (She once read The Lord of the Rings thirteen times in a row, cover to cover!). All through childhood and adolescence she wrote – mainly historical romances involving impossibly perfect heroes. All this reading and writing led to a degree in English Literature (and another book-case full of books) and then a job as a cataloguer of early printed books for a major University Library.
Children (and then cats and chickens) interrupted her bibliographic career, and having given up library work Liz started writing fiction and hasn’t stopped since, joining the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme to try to learn how to write novels properly in 2015. She has also written some short stories, with one “The Second Princess” winning a competition in Writing Magazine which led her to think that maybe publication wasn’t a pipe dream after all.
The publication of her first novel, “The Little Church by the Sea” published by Manatee Books in November 2017 is a dream come true.
What a brilliant Day In The Life post,it made me chuckle!
Me too Yvonne! 🙂
Loved the Day in the Life post – made me feel quite normal!
Haha, it was very enlightening! Have to admit whenever I’m on a day off from work, Popmaster is one of my favourites too.