Happy Easter! As we progress towards April, I bring the news that I’ve reached 49,100 words in the novel known until now as Pitkirtly XXVII. It has been harder than usual to think of a title for this one, partly because my initial idea for the storyline was based around roadworks, which turned out not to be very inspiring either for a title or for a cover design. I started with ‘The Way to Dusty Death’ and a picture of a workman’s shovel and a hole in the road which I have to say suggested a somewhat grimmer novel than the ones I usually write, then I lost interest in the title for a while in my rush to get on with the writing – something that often happens, I’m afraid!
Now that it seems that the end is in sight, I’ve spent a bit of time wrestling with title options and trying them out on cover designs. Some of the best ones were already taken, and although titles aren’t generally copyrighted, I prefer to try and come up with a unique one. So I had to discard ‘Fatal Return’, ‘Unhappy Return’ and a couple of others for this reason. My latest effort at a cover is shown below, and just to whet everyone’s appetite I will also paste in a bit of the action here.
As occasionally happened, Jock’s imagination ran away with him and he produced several ideas about what had happened in the Alps.
‘Maybe she crawled to a friendly goat-herd’s mountain hut and lived with him until her memory came back. Or until he died of some goat-related disease.’
‘A friendly goat-herd?’ said Amaryllis faintly. She sent a quelling glare round the group. ‘The first person to yodel will be thrown out, never to return. And struck off my Christmas card list.’
Cecilia Peartree - woman of mystery 