Special promotion for An Academic Affair

An Academic Affair is on sale for 99 US cents from 13 February (that's midday on 13 February for South Africa and the UK) until 16 Feb. It's a quick read, telling the story of how Leigh, a lecturer in Cape Town, falls for a colleague she doesn't really know. Bad idea, Leigh!

Find it on https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MJZHKG6/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3.

Top 6 Books

Here are my top six books of all time. What are yours?


Liane Moriarty – Big Little Lies
Such a clever writer, able to convey the nuances of a dozen different characters while simultaneously telling a gripping story.

Margaret Atwood – Cat’s Eye
Everything she writes is excellent, of course, but I loved this one the most. Her depiction of schoolgirl friendships is excellent.

Mary Wesley – Harnessing Peacocks
Her characters are always quietly but completely rebellious. In this case, Hebe runs away from home when she falls pregnant, and makes a living in a unique way.

EM Forster - A Room With A View
The most romantic story ever.

Elizabeth Gilbert – The Signature Of All Things
Astonishingly accomplished story-telling about a woman botanist in the nineteenth century.

Alice Thomas Ellis – The Summerhouse Trilogy
Yes, reader, I cheated. The erudite author always combines surprising characters with weighty themes in shortish but enchanting reads.

Jilly [really] Moves On

But - what's this? Another book? Well - yes! The novellas I wrote last year, before I'd learned how to publish. Jilly Moves On is my first newly written, full-length novel, and I'm so pleased it's out. Thanks go to my parner in crime and life, William, for being editor and proof-reader rolled into one. "I'm not going to be NICE," he warned me. Quite right.

Thanks also to Drop Dead Design for the cover, which I thought depicts freedom and independence in an attractive way.

Free novella

Reality Show is currently free on Amazon, and will be until Monday the 21st. It's an ebook only, and it's reeeeeally short, but I hope readers enjoy it.

It's all happening...

Had a busy start to 2019, with all three novellas now published.

As I announced last time, the first one published was Reality Show (Michaela watches her husband on TV as he takes part in a show, and learns some painful truths about her relationships, and about herself). There's also Not For Ever (two sisters struggle to relate to the men in their lives, with some comical and some serious results) and An Academic Affair (Leigh works at a South African college and finds herself attracted to a colleague).

Thanks go to Amber Feldkamp at The Book Cover Designer for the cover of An Academic Affair, and to Kristyn at dropdeaddesigns, also via The Book Cover Designer, for the cover of Not For Ever.

By the way, Reality Show is available from midday on 17 January, until 21 January, for the special price of $0 - yes, absolutely free! See the Kindle shop.

New novella - Reality Show - is out!

I'm very excited about my new novella being available, finally! There is so much to learn about the publishing process, and I had to wrestle for ages over some (probably very minor) technical issues, but finally got it done.

Thanks very much to Beti Bup for the cover design (http://thebookcoverdesigner.com/designers/betibup33/). The main character, Michaela, has a tough time in this book, so I was glad to find an image of a young woman who looks less than thrilled with life, but determined.

Now I'm working on the other two novellas. I'm putting them all in Kindle Select, which will make it easy to construct some special offers in the next month or two, so look out for those.

Hey, it's 2019! Best wishes to all readers.

I took the pic below on New Year's Eve. I hope it's symbolic of the year to come: beautiful, and full of promise.

I'm busy finalising a novella, Reality Show, and plan to publish in the next few days. So exciting! Joanna Penn of www.thecreativepenn.com says that selling on Kindle Select is a good idea if you're a brand-new author. So I'm going to follow her recommendation. Joanna Penn is wonderfully knowledgeable - I thoroughly recommend her books and website for all aspiring authors.

I'll be back soon to announce the book's release.

Cathy Williams: Warm Writer

Hello, InterWeb! - That's what Graham Norton calls you, and if it's good enough for Graham, it's good enough for me.

I'm sitting in the woods in southern Africa, planning to publish a few novellas quite soon. I've left my job, the end of 2018 is approaching, and Christmas is approaching. Change is in the air! There's even a full-length novel in the works, the first draft of which should be finished as the year draws to a close.

The genre? Funny you should ask. My intention was to write a few romances. And then I found that I simply couldn't make my stories fit the romance genre. Instead, my characters ended up letting each other down, making fools of themselves, splitting up... Oops. Not what romance readers want to read about! But I had to let my characters do what they wanted to do. So let's call them "contemporary women's fiction", okay?

Right now, InterWeb, December in Africa can be warm. And since our house faces south, instead of north, which sensible houses in Africa should do, parts of it become very warm. Below is a photograph that illustrates this point.

When candles begin to hurl themselves from their candlesticks - as the one on the right has since done - then I think you can safely label your living room as Very Warm Indeed.