January 3, 2021

First lines aren’t the only thing that make me want to read a book but they are powerful. I love lines that give me heart palpitations. Lines that make me sit up a little and smile. Lines that dance around the corners of my mind long after I’ve closed a book. Here are some of my absolute favourite first lines.

January 17, 2019

I’m starting a new role at the beginning of February (still in the Caribbean) and as we dance into the unknown and take a leap into the future it has me thinking about writing when life around you is changing and uncertain. Here are some of my tips for writing when circumstances change:

January 10, 2019

It’s a New Year! All these new ideas swirling in your head! Each of them begging to be written and somehow brought to life. There’s not enough time in the day to write every idea you ever have – we all know this in because in some shape or form, we’ve all tried to at one point. So how can you deal

February 24, 2017

I love books. I love reading from libraries and I love getting them from book shops. As any bookworm will tell you, this is a costly obsession. That’s why I want to share some fab offers with you that I found around the internet this week! Don’t ever be afraid to go into your local library […]

January 2, 2017

I love new year now is the time for vastly overestimating ourselves! now is the time for dreaming big with reckless abandon. There aren’t a lot of times in life that you’re allowed to promise yourself much more than you know you can deliver i like to think we get to see the inner workings […]

October 8, 2016

So as some of you might know I write YA. Recently I wrote a YA Fantasy about a hard of hearing teenager whose brother is kidnapped. She grabs a horse and sets off after him because she is a BAMF. Along the way she meets a lot of new people. One thing I’ve been thinking […]

October 3, 2016

Who to query is one of the most personal things you can decide! It’s like deciding who to be friends with or who to have a staring contest with or who to share a house with only not because this friend is also somebody you’re doing business with and they’re going to be your champion so […]

June 24, 2016

I read books because books have always brought me joy. I am privileged; privileged that I could read before I could do much else as a child; privileged to have parents who were great readers themselves. I was the kid of read the entire children’s library in school twice and then they let her read […]

May 29, 2016

A few weeks ago, maybe a month even, I happened upon author, extraordinaire, and genuinely kind human being Tommy Donbavand thanks to the power of twitter. The thing about Tommy is he’s battling cancer right now, like genuinely as I type this the game is afoot. I know this because he blogs about it every single day — […]

May 18, 2016

They say you should never judge a book by it’s cover but there is something appealing in doing just that. Only to books. Only in the depths of night. Only when the fancy takes me. I like to look at the trends of book covers in YA and think about what it means. Every year […]

May 6, 2016

I go through phases with food. I think I go through phases with books too. One time for about an entire month all I survived on was crunchy nut clusters. Another time for no real reason I became obsessed with eggs. Baked potatoes were on the menu for a while, then for a while only […]

January 27, 2016

TY for everyone who took part in my 2016 kind of unexpected but totally fabulous planner giveaway! Remember you can still download it for free because everyone’s a winner digitally! The winners are Carla Domingo & Fatimah Mardhiah Omar! Congrats guys! I’ve emailed you so we can get the physical planners sent to you. Why to walk [&

January 13, 2016

Want a free 2016 planner? I’m giving two away! Enter my giveaway here by 26 Jan 2015 to win the planner that will change your year around! This is a little like asking whether writing is worth it or what is the meaning of life or sausages or cakes with those little icing flowers on […]

July 18, 2014

Not too long ago, somebody on the internet took something that a myriad of people love and crumbled it into ashes. “but, Mia, this happens a lot on the internet! people have opinions!” Yes they do. The scoop isn’t that it happened. Opinions are as common as typos on the internet. The scoop isn’t even that […]

July 2, 2014

To day we are helping celebrate the release of the squishiest cutest novella I know — Taming Fate by Amallia Dillin!! Now, Amalia is a great friend of mine so obvs I think she is amazing, but other people on book places have also praised this novella including scired77 who said: “I highly recommend Taming Fate. The […]

February 20, 2014

My dear buddy, Amalia Dillin, has another book out soon! It is called Honor Among Orcs and doesn’t it look fabulous all here on my blog? The font especially appeals to me because it is a really nice serif, but the author name itself is in a sans serif telling you this is a new twist […]

August 22, 2013

To win the world, Adam will defy the gods, but his fate rests in Eve’s hands. The fabulous Amalia Dillin’s next book cover is out today! Time for another closeup! What do you think? I happen to organise my bookshelves by colour so it is very fortuitous that this matches book #1 so well! Lightning […]

August 13, 2013

You may remember recently I wrote a post about typefaces on covers, and how I think they are important. Well, today, we get to take a closer look at one of the covers I featured in a series I have decided to call CLOSE COVER CLOSEUP! How fabulous! Tempting Fate came out yesterday and look how snazzy […]

July 7, 2013

It’s funny how sometimes we can’t deal with the end we’re given. Like it conflicts so much with the way we consider the world that there’s no way to think ourselves through such an ending.  It’s a cognitive impossibility tangled in a conundrum. It’s an equation that my heart cannot solve. Sometimes, when I can&#

June 26, 2013

I was reading a book review recently of a piece of storytelling that I thought was divine. I read it in a single afternoon, surprised by how much I enjoyed the content. This particular reviewer was also surprised. They used a great many exclamation marks to make it clear they thought this story was going […]

February 18, 2013

I’ve been thinking a lot about reader experience lately, and how it can relate to what and how people read. Do we read differently if we read more? I think a lot of people think we do, but maybe there are arguments for either side: Side One — Greater XP points: On the one hand, […]

January 28, 2013

It’s been a long while since I’ve actually just said hello to people wandering around the interwebs and falling into the bottomless pit of literary jam & toast. So! I’m taking part in a super speedy blogfest that will let us exchange info and get to know you guys! In the spirit of things you […]

January 7, 2013

I recently reordered my bookshelves by colour because honestly I was getting a little bored of the alphabet and so many of them are such brilliant shades. It took longer than expected (because, unlike with the alphabet, I didn’t know how many colours I needed to account for), and I ended up with at least […]

June 12, 2012

Anyway, all this infographic really serves to say is THIS IS SOMETHING I THOUGHT OF and this is also what happens when you leave me alone for too long, I have ideas, and they are brilliant for all of the twenty minutes I follow them through and then I realise they are pretty redundant. Haha. I’ve […]

April 4, 2012

We don’t do many book reviews over here do we? Mmm? I think, usually, well first off I am totally not a pro at reviewing. I don’t have le words. Hilarious. When I love a book mainly I am just reduced to single word sentences like, “ASDFGHJKL” and “AHHH. FEELINGS.” So! Mm! This is a […]

January 25, 2012

Seriously. Bath readers will never abandon the book. We are finnnee, at least for the moment. I mean, when they invent a waterproof eReader things will get interesting but until then! Stay safe! Any other issues you’ve noticed with either type of reading platform? I find when reading in bed? If I drop a book […]