It was when I was interviewing women for my book Daughters of Spain that I first heard about the massacre on the road between Málaga and Almeria in February 1937, early in the Spanish Civil War.  I was so astonished with what one woman had to tell me that I broke off my research and began writing my first novel,SPANISH LAVENDER.  It is the story of Elizabeth, an English woman who decides, against all reason, to stay in Spain while her family flee, with the rest of the ex-pats living there at the time, to Gibraltar.  She finds herself journeying with other refugees to Málaga but instead of finding safety, she finds a city abandoned by the people supposed to be protecting it, its people dying of starvation, its buildings in ruins and in imminent danger of attack.  She meets a young Spaniard, who befriends her and they fall in love.  Together they decide to join the exodus of men, women and children who are trying to reach the Republican zone in Almeria.  On the way they are bombed by cruising battleships and Juan is injured.  In the ensuing chaos Elizabeth and Juan are separated and, believing he is dead, she escapes to England.  It is not until seventy years later that her granddaughter uncovers the truth of what happened to Elizabeth's lover.


Essentially a love story, SPANISH LAVENDER is available in paperback and in all ebook formats.

Two years ago I gave my novel Between the Sierra and the Sea to a vanity publishing house to publish.  They did not style themselves as vanity-publishers, rather they talked about co-operative publishing where the author and the publisher shared the costs - my share was exhorbitant.  Nevertheless, as I was having difficulties finding a regular publisher I decided to go for it.  At first it seemed to go well but then the royalties dropped and eventually dried up altogether. However by then I had discovered the world of self-publishing.  It was no longer as difficult as I had originally believed and I realised what potential was out there - the tools for self-publishing are cheap and easy to use.  I had also found that many of the things that I could do with my self-published books were not available to me to use on Between the Sierra and the Sea.  For example I could not reduce the price of the ebook version; I couldn't offer a free sample; I had no control over the translation rights.   I still had to try to market the book because the publisher wasn't interested in doing it, but without all the tools that were available to a self-published work,  It was frustrating so, using the lack of sales as a justification, I asked them to withdraw the book.  This they agreed to do - after all they had already been handsomely paid - and the book was back under my control.
After some editing I have now republished the same novel under the name of Spanish Lavender and it is available both as an ebook and in print.  I hope that the sales will now improve, at least of the ebooks.
Amazon Kindle
Smashwords
www.amazon.co.uk