What better way to start the new week than with a 5* review for WHEEL OF FORTUNE?

'This was a great start to the Tarnished Crown series, it had a strong historical feel to it and I loved the mystery of this novel. All of the characters felt like they belonged in this time-period and left me wanting more. C.F. Dunn has a great writing style and I can’t wait for more from the author.'

Reviews are vital for both author and other potential readers, so thank you to anyone who takes the time to read and review a book; your effort is greatly appreciated.

I’ve said before that poetry has a way of getting under my skin in a way few other art forms - except music - can do. It also informs and inspires my writing, no more so than the poetry of the seventeenth-century Metaphysical poets John Donne, George Herbert and Andrew Marvell, introduced to me as an A-level student and never forgotten.

The following wonderful poem by George Herbert is one of my favourites, and features in Rope of Sand - the third book in The Secret of the Journal series. This tender, wistful poem accepts the inevitability of death, but chooses to frame it as Life.

The word genre is flung about like there’s no tomorrow. Ask many authors what genre they write in and some will come back with a definitive answer. ‘I’m into romance’ one might beam, while another will sweetly reply ‘I like crime’. Some writers find defining their genre more difficult because they write in multiple genres or are ‘cross-genre’. So, before even thinking about a story, how do you go about finding what genre you want to write?

I've always enjoyed poetry and found in it the ability to touch the soul in a way other forms of literature might not, stripping life of the fluff and baggage that obscures human experience and lay it bare. Poetry has the ability to stir emotions, make me laugh out loud, probe my conscience, expose my inner thoughts.

The Northamptonshire poet, John Clare, wrote about the landscape he knew and loved, but was never shy of the rawness of rural life, as revealed in his poem Winter Fields.

Ever wondered where ideas for stories come from? Ever thought about the difference between story and plot? If so, you won’t be alone. In this brief post, I take a look at the point of plot in a novel and why we can’t do without it.

It’s here, we’ve made it! I’m grabbing a few minutes and putting my feet up until the midnight bell welcomes in a new year.

It has been a busy twelve months - with research trips, speaking events and the release of Wheel of Fortune through Resolute Books - and with the second book in The Tarnished Crown series - due to be published in spring 2024 - I expect this year will be equally full-on.

Have you ever wondered why we sing carols? I am drawn to those that spin me straight back to the medieval and Renaissance past. But where does the tradition of singing songs at Christmas originate and what do they mean to you?

There are few things that conjure Christmas quite like the smell of baking and a warm kitchen. It goes back to my early childhood in Lincolnshire, where the warmest part of the house was the kitchen, my mother and grandmother allaying the Siberian chill sweeping across the frozen landscape, with the zingy scents of citrus and complex spices redolent of a past of which I was not yet aware.