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.

As a former English Lit student, how proud was I to get this email?!

Dear Carmen,

I chose English literature as my subject, and my topic is a bit complicated: How has the portrayal of London changed in English Literature from the 19th till the 21st century, especially in the eye of Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist, Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway and Carmen Reid: The Personal Shopper?

I am honoured!

Many of you lovely people have been dropping me a line to say how much you’re enjoying catching up with Annie again in How Not To Shop. Here are just a couple of messages.

Carmen…….just finished reading “Did the Earth Move?”, I have read all your others as well…..I must say, they are brilliant. The characters seem to weave their way into my psyche all day long until I can pick up the book again and see what is actually happening. I hate for them to end, like losing a friend. Write faster! I will be going through withdrawal! Mary R.S.

I have just come back from a week’s holiday in Scotland and although the weather was wet and windy I loved it. mainly because i spent the week reading first “the personal shopper” and then I rushed to Aberdeen to buy “late night shopping” i finished them both and am now a HUGE fan and can’t wait to read more. Thank you for making my holiday so fantastic i literally couldn’t put the books down. Thank you Heather x

(Heather, trust me, I felt your rain pain. I always tell people to holiday in Scotland in May, June or September. That’s when we get our good weather. July/ August is monsoon season on the west coast!)

Too much to do! The writing, obviously, which I try to do first every day, because otherwise where would we be? But now I’m getting that booking the summer holiday anxiety. Where will we go? What will we do? How can we avoid paying everything we’ve earned for an entire year?!

People are beginning to ask: ‘where are you going this summer?’ Soon will come the sympathetic: ‘Oh, you’ve not booked yet?!’ I’ve been on the websites and it is completely obvious that all the good places, everywhere in the entire world, are already gone!! It’s not even May! Not quite.

And I already know I’m going to look up Greece, California, New England and Italy – all the places I’d really like to visit – and then my family are going to wear me down about holidaying in Britain because they want to take the dog!!

My desk is now a mess… I’m stressing because this is just not how I like my desk to be at all. I like an oasis of minimal tidiness and order. But if anyone can spot my mobile phone charger, please let me know. It’s in there somewhere, I’m sure of it!