Nearly every crime book will make use of red herrings, particularly mystery books. But did you know that red herrings can be used in any genre? And when used well, they create the set-up for a delightful surprise twist at the end. By definition, a red herring is a deliberate misdirection designed to mislead the…
Articles from July 2026
The joy of rereading favourite books
I wrote a brief post about rereading back in 2017, after reading an article that was rather disparaging about people who reread books. This time the article that popped into my stream was about how rereading a book is a powerful thing (my side of the fence!). The article talked about the psychology of why…
Sunny side up
How do you like your eggs? I have two favourites: poached and fried sunny-side up. To get the perfect eggs each time I have hacks which work brilliantly. Today I thought I’d share my trick for sunny side up. Before I get to the hack, how do you eat your fried eggs? I like mine…
My link to Mary Poppins…
is that I was born in the same town as P.L. Travers (born Helen Lyndon Goff in 1899) – the author of Mary Poppins. Yes, she was Australian! She moved to England at the age of 24. I learnt of this when I was a teenager and was thrilled that she also came from my…