Hello again, Reader. Are you as surprised as I am that it's almost May already?

I'm currently rather busy, editing book two in my Urban Fantasy series, while also working on a cover and final edits for book one. Add to that an application for a 'Writer in Residence' program I'm very excited about and all the usual things life throws at you... and I'm almost surprised I've not missed a month.

And I'm still writing every day! You can keep track of my progress on my website.

The days are getting longer, if not noticeably warmer yet in the UK. We had a few nice warm days, which tricked the local wildlife into coming out of hibernation just in time for a frost. As such, we now have a family of mice in the garage.

And if you're thinking 'just get a cat', we have one. She's an absolute terror to the mice outside, and has even brought a bird inside to release and chase where she knows it can't get away... But when there are mice right under her nose?

She'll watch them. It's as if she doesn't see them as being the same as the ones outside. So it's humane traps, and a safe release a fair distance away so they have a fighting chance of not ending up as her lunch anyway.

We're not ruling out that she's bringing them in, either, because she wants us to have the fun of the hunt too.

Space News

The Sounds of Mars

Listen closely to sounds from Mars, recorded by NASA's Perseverance: the rover's mechanical whine and click in a light Martian wind; the whir of rotors on Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter; the crackling strike of a rock-zapping laser.

An international team of scientists has done just that, performing the first analysis of acoustics on the Red Planet. Their new study reveals how fast sound travels through the extremely thin, mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere, how Mars might sound to human ears, and how scientists can use audio recordings to probe subtle air-pressure changes on another world - and to gauge the health of the rover.

Source: NASA Mars Exploration Program

Other Books To Check Out

Please note that if you subscribed to either my Sci-Fi or Fantasy mailing lists, I'm combining the two together now. This means you will get slightly more frequent content, but I hope that it will still be exciting and relevant to you.

Speaking of which, I'll also be highlighting a few other books from independent authors like me. Sharing links to one another's work like this is a great way to spread the word, and I've found a few new favourite books from emails like this.

I hope you'll give them a try!

Strange News

Fae News

And Finally

Here's Lola, mouser extraordinaire, looking for the mouse we released into the wild an hour ago.