I’m appearing in part two alongside writers Judy Astley and Kay Burleigh (yes, the one from the telly!) Part one features the amazing storytellers, Penny Vincenzi and Penny Jordan, who have apparently sold 80 million books between them. Phenomenal!

We’re going to be talking about how to bring all your life experience to your work.

You can find out more on the Guildford Book Festival website.

Really look forward to seeing you there!

Now I don’t want to give too much away but I can tell you that at St Jude’s this term: Gina really can’t decide whether she loves or hates her new boyfriend (does that make him the Marmite boyfriend?)… Amy is still trying to track down her real Mum but is frightened of what she might find out… and Niffy’s got family problems of her own. Then there is Min: exams are looming so she has just about locked herself in the study. Help!

What every girl needs is to grab a dress and a pair of sparkly shoes (just like the ones on the cover) and dance their problems away at a truly unforgettable party!

I like to say that the St Jude’s series is for teenagers of all ages. I know that I have a wonderful time channelling my inner teen (and remembering so many cringeworthy teenage moments) when I am writing the stories. I really hope you enjoy the new story!

Find out more on my Secrets at St Jude’s website and watch my behind-the-scenes video here!

I am very proud to be supporting the fantastic breast cancer charity Breakthrough. On September 10, I’ll be taking part in Breakthrough’s sponsored trek through lovely Perthshire to raise funds for research, education, prevention and support for sufferers. As we all know, breast cancer is far too common. It is still taking too many good people away too soon.

If you’d like to join me on the trek, you can find out more right here.

Apparently it’s 16 miles and not too steep, so with a little bit of training we’ll get there… hopefully. Or like Annie and Svetlana we’ll be lost in the hills and have to consider eating our handbags to survive.

If you can’t make the trek, you can get your cards out right now, my lovelies, and sponsor me here.

Yes, I put on a cocktail dress and hiking boots just to make you smile as you part with your pennies.

This is such a worthy cause and really no donation is too small (or too large!)

As an added incentive, everyone who sponsors me will be entered into a draw. If you win, you will have a brand new character in the next Annie Valentine novel named after YOU (or you can nominate a friend… or maybe I could use your ex’s name for someone eeeeevil). So come on, what are you waiting for?!

No, I’m joking, really…

I’ve got two Sports Days this week. First, Son (13) who was running the race of heros: the 800m. The afternoon before he’d done the race of masochists: the 1500m.

The best thing about watching my son run is that he is always delighted with his result. He is not the fastest, but he has trained like a mad thing and worked himself up from middle of the pack to Contender for the Bronze.

In both his races, he was nudged back into fourth place, but he was still grinning from ear-to-ear, delighted with his result and a new ‘PB’ time. I’m such a sports dunce, I didn’t even know that meant ‘personal best’.

When I was at school, I was rubbish at running. I remember getting so tall one year that my arms and legs were completely out of my control. I began a sprint but then lost it and fell on my face. In front of all the parents, so mortifying!

In my teens I managed to get into the high jump one year – even more mortifying because we had to take off our school skirts and jump in our blue school knickers! I blame this horror for completely putting me off so that once again, I came last.

But I do enjoy all the sporting drama from the safety of the spectator stands: the injured racer hobbling off with cramp; the girl who came third brushing tears of disappointment from her face then collapsing into Dad’s arms; some hunky high jumper showing off his grazed shoulders to gorgeous blonde; the house relay races, everyone in a frenzy of cheering; the tug-of-war and all those desperate, last moment bids for glory at the finishing line. The tragedy of being ‘pipped at the post’!

‘Pipped’? Surely ‘robbed’ would express it better?

Yes… think I feel a really good story coming on now.

My second Sports Day with Daughter (9) is tomorrow. She’s really fast. But last year she came second. This year she is absolutely determined to win. I’m trying to play it down for her. I want her to try but I don’t want her to crumble if she doesn’t quite get there. I’ve told her she’s a wonderful runner and she’s to think of herself as a gazelle, running fast, running strong and beautifully. She’s not worry about the result.

She listened carefully to all my earnest ‘it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part’ spiel, then little puzzled look on face, she asked:  ‘Mum? What’s a gazelle?’

I promised I would tell you a little more about The Jewels of Manhattan, so here we go.

I am very, very excited about this story, which comes out in November, because it’s something a little different.

It’s about three sisters who move to Manhattan with wonderful plans and when their dreams don’t come true, they commit a jewel theft.

But with so many complications! Two sisters don’t want to take part… in fact the theft sort of happens by mistake and then…  there is one seriously sexy detective on their case.

I have had a ball writing this story. It’s a little edgy, it’s set in a sometimes glamorous, sometimes very real world, it’s full of tingly suspense and very funny in places too.  I think of it as a romantic crimedy.

I wanted to write around the question: what drives someone to steal? Would you steal because the opportunity was there? Would you steal for love? Would you steal to protect someone? Or are you so honest you would never steal at all?

My fictional sisters Amber, Sapphire and Em, come from the Texan countryside – their Daddy was a rancher. This is because my real-life sisters and I grew up on a farm, so I wanted a little flavour of that in the story.

I decided to make the girls Texan because I have a wonderful friend from Houston and I just love all the unique and colourful phrases she comes out with: ‘You can put your boots in the oven but it don’t make ‘em biscuits’… ‘there’s no back door out of this Alamo,’ and ‘Oh my gosh, you will be discussed.’

I had to use a little of that.

Amber and Em are very sassy modern girls, chock full of ambition, trying to make their way in the world. They’re in their early 20s desperate for life to begin. Amber works in finance and Em’s an aspiring actress.

But I also wanted an old fashioned strand, so middle sister Sapphire is a dreamy Grace Kelly-alike who sells antique jewellery. She wishes her life could be like a black and white movie complete with a handsome hero.

The first seed of the idea came from a sentence in a story by my daughter and her friends: ‘Three beautiful girls decided to rob a jewellery shop.’

Ooooh… that just set my mind racing. Why? Where? How? And most importantly – did they get away with it?

My daughter’s story didn’t have any answers (she was only seven!) so I had to go away think, mull, research and plan.

The result of all that thinking and writing is The Jewels. It’s set in Manhattan and Geneva, it’s dusted with snowflakes and sparkles and I really, really hope you’re going to love it as much as I do.

Check out the new cover for the sixth Secrets at St Jude’s book, Party Girl. It’s absolutely brilliant. I love it.  A party in a cover… a party in a shoe! Unfortunately you will have to wait until August 4^th to get your hands on it.

I have been chained to my desk, literally typing my fingers to the bone for you my lovely readers. I’ve just finished Party Girl and put the final touches to the brand new (v v exciting) story The Jewels of Manhattan which comes out in November. Much, much more about that all soon.

Meanwhile, I am really enjoying all my new multi-media ways of connecting with readers.

You can now read Annie’s very own blog at annievalentine.wordpress.com – learn more about summer tights, fake tan and Kate Middleton’s dress sense right here. Annie also twitters @AnnieVshopper plus you can find the real me and lots of other Carmen readers (geddit? Sorry!) on the Facebook author page.

I look forward to catching up with you!

Oooh and here’s a little pic of me talking to some lovely St Jude’s fans. I do love to do a school visit, it’s one way of having a captive audience. (If you’d like a visit to your school email me at carmen@carmenreid.com and I’ll see what I can do).  However, I may have to take some Annie advice re author visit outfits. I mean I never want to be over-glammed for school visits, but grey Mary-Janes… what was I thinking?!

If you’re in need of a feel good read, then I promise New York Valentine will not let you down. Annie is back on January 20th. This time, she goes to New York with her teenage daughter Lana to help her super-glamorous Ukrainian friends Elena and Svetlana run their fledgling fashion business. I had so much fun writing the scene where the fashionistas go dumpster diving in Brooklyn (think very high heels, plus rat, plus an enraged guard dog!). Also, I love Connor’s New York personal trainer: the incredibly pompous and vain ‘Train with Gawain trademark’. He grudgingly agrees to try and put Annie through her paces with near fatal results.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. And have no fear, it is definitely not the last in the Annie adventures. Next I’m thinking taking her to Venice maybe? Or Moscow?! Take care and thank you for the lovely messages posted. If you want to write directly to me, please feel totally welcome. I’m at: carmen@carmenreid.com.

But we’ll all just have to ‘keep calm and carry on’ as best we can. Work from home if you can (obviously I’m lucky here), keep the kitchen really well stocked up, in case neither you nor the lorries can make it to the shops, cover those water pipes and make sure you know where the stop cock is! I am slightly obsessing about pipes after my indoor water feature last year.

However, we have to fight for the right to Christmas Party!  The Christmas bash is a morale boosting essential. Everyone who’s throwing one deserves a medal and everyone who’s going to one needs to give fabulous guest. My new Christmas party outfit is long sleeved sparkly dress, worn with two thermal vests, woolly tights and a pair of sturdy, non-slip boots. It’s a look. Very winter 2010. Take care out there and plan some fun. I’m determined to avoid my annual Christmas nervous breakdown, I may even start wrapping before December 24th this year!

Love Carmen xx

That was wonderful, but the rest of October has been a total pain! At the very start of the month, I got a kidney infection. Horrible, complete with temperature, shaking, wailing with pain and peeing every 15 minutes. If you’ve ever had one before, you have my absolute complete sympathy. If you’ve never had one, just drink an extra glass of water for me, right now!

Since then, I’ve been coping with the after effects of nuclear dose antibiotics and recovering. There were points in the month where I was languishing in bed or on the sofa like a Victorian invalid, wondering if I would ever get better again. (But still typing, I’d just like to add!) I was really exhausted – which just does not work when you have a deadline and two children and all the rest of the shebang. I didn’t feel like eating anything for three weeks, now I’m eating saintly food because the kidneys are healing and the bladder is on a hairline trigger. Just one apple slice too many and I’m dashing to the ladies all over again.

But luckily – I’m definitely getting better and there’s nothing like a health scare to get you cleaning up your act. The one to two (or make that three) glasses of wine every night – over. The six cups of tea per day – same. And this year, I made it right through Halloween without eating one single sweet! This is so shocking that my family still can’t believe it and has hidden the carrier bag of goodies somewhere out of sight, just to be on the safe side.

So, take really good care of yourself, especially as cold, dark, stressful pre-Christmas  days come along.

We went to the Limousin in France which is gorgeously luscious, unspoiled and green. Because I am a sort of bug magnet, maybe even a bug buffet, I got bitten by everything going: one tick, many, many horseflies (ouch!) and then finally a hornet. Now that was one big sting. The beast got me on the side of the knee and I kid you not – a football-sized swelling followed and took days to clear up!

I spent lots of time at my computer writing about New York, which was weird because we really couldn’t have been further from the hustle, bustle and general adrenaline rush that is NYC. But somehow it worked quite well for me.

When we were in New York last year, I didn’t write one single word, because there was too much to do, too much to see and experience.

Now… book news:  The Celebrity Shopper paperback is out next month in a glittery, purple, gorgeous new cover.

New York Valentine comes in January next year. So not tooooo long to wait.

There is now a Carmen Reid page on Facebook, so you can join it and get regular updates. Also, coming very soon, I promise… Annie Valentine’s very own fashion blog. Exciting!