Suddenly Christmas has not so much crept up, as leapt out and surprised me totally. Mind you, it does that every year! I really should have been warned by the amount of lunches and parties I found myself attending.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Society of Authors regional Christmas lunch at Ferndown Golf Club on 6th December and also the Romantic Novelists' Association regional Christmas lunch on 13th December at the Concorde Club, Eastleigh. It's always great to meet up with other authors and find out what they've been getting up to. It's also heartening to find so many authors are still getting books published on a regular basis, despite all we hear about the difficulties of getting into print.

I was gratified to find myself looking out from the pages of the Bournemouth Echo on two separate occasions recently. The first was a piece about the publication of High Infidelity in 'What's On Books,' on 16th November and the second was on 8th December when there was a whole page dedicated to 'Dorset Writers' Top Festive Reading,' and it was wonderful to be included in that. Under the heading, 'Pam Strikes Again,' I was also mentioned in Members' News in the January issue of Writers' News.

The blurb for the new book A Blessing in Disguise, due out in 2008, has been sent to publisher Hale for approval and, despite Christmas threatening to overtake me, I am already several chapters into the next novel.

I wish you all, and for myself, too, a wonderful Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.