Thanks to Wimbledon, we haven’t been as busy as we would like this week. We love tennis and it’s only for two weeks, so I think we have done surprisingly well, considering. Today is the men’s final, between Novak Djokovic and Cam Norrie, the latest heartthrob. We must down tools for that!

In an effort to maintain fairness, we have tried to share the time we have left between as many projects as possible. This, we thought, we at least reduce the tennis guilt a little.

Consequently, I have been running around like a headless chicken, bringing a totally new meaning to multi-tasking!

This week:

Promotion: posted Bad Moon, accompanied by review on Thursday

Reading: The Clockwork Girl. Just a few chapters but still…

WIP: working on the ending now, getting excited by the minute!

Posts:  several in the pipeline, will try to finish these over the weekend

Gardening:  can only manage the watering this week, unfortunately

Housework:  are you kidding!

Paris, 1750.

In the midst of an icy winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, chambermaid Madeleine Chastel arrives at the home of the city’s celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter.

Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose: to discover the truth of the clockmaker’s experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom.

For as children quietly vanish from the Parisian streets, rumours are swirling that the clockmaker’s intricate mechanical creations, bejewelled birds and silver spiders, are more than they seem.

And soon Madeleine fears that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the very heart of Versailles…

An intoxicating story of obsession, illusion and the price of freedom.