February 22, 2026

Does social media affect writing time?

I’ve blogged a couple of times about the positive impact of social media for authors, in terms of book marketing, but in today’s post, I’m going to look at the impact on writing time, not marketing time.

In case you’re confused, writing and marketing are completely separate aspects of the book publishing journey. Both are equally important, if you wish to be a published author. As a person, I’m quite an introvert. I have a limited amount of social energy and after expending it, I need to recharge in solitude for a long time. If given a choice about whether to go out to a party or stay home, I would rather choose home. As an author, it’s hard to market your books if, like me, you are an introvert. I don’t tend to seek out live events such as book fairs or signing events very much, preferring to put more resources into selling books online instead. This is for a few reasons, not just my introverted nature: doing book fairs and signing events as an indie author means that I need to keep a ready supply of copies to sell, and I just don’t have the space; I’ve also found that I make more in royalties from online sales than I do in profit from buying my books at an author discounted rate and selling them at full retail price. Plus, in between having a full time day job and managing childcare, that leaves only weekends free to do book fairs, and I’d rather spend my free time with my family instead.

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Posted by on February 22, 2026 in Biography and tagged , , , , , .

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February 14, 2026

How to make easy keto chocolates for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day horror lovers…or should I say, Valloween? Today I’m going to share with you my special recipe for how to make super easy keto chocolates that you will love so much, you might just devour all of them in one go. Here, I’ve made mine shaped as hearts, skulls and gravestones to match my collection of ghost stories for Valentine’s Day, Love you to Death, but you can use whatever shape of silicon moulds that your sweet, spooky wee heart desires. Ready to get chocolatey? Here goes:

Ingredients – you’ll need:

Cacao buttons

100% cocoa powder

Honey

Peanut butter

Silicon moulds

Leilanie’s spookily slimline chocolate recipe:

  1. Melt 20 cacao buttons in a milk pan (takes about 30 seconds on high heat).
  2. Turn off the heat and add half a teaspoon of cocoa powder. You can add more if you prefer your chocolates very bitter.
  3. Add half a teaspoon of honey (or a full teaspoon of you want your chocolates to be very sweet).
  4. Mix in a heaped teaspoon of peanut butter for taste and texture (optional, but I like it).
  5. Put the mixture in your silicon moulds and leave to set for 15 mins at room temp or 5-10 mins in the fridge, if you can’t wait to devour your treats.
  6. Easy peasy! Enjoy your low carb Valentine’s Day chocolate treats minus the guilty conscience!

Posted by on February 14, 2026 in Events and tagged , , , , , , .

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February 12, 2026

Friday the 13th and Valloween: a horror author’s trip down memory lane

Hey, horror lovers! What a treat we get this week to have Friday the 13th followed by Valentine’s Day. The last time Friday the 13th went hand in hand with Valentine’s Day was back in 2015. That was so many moons ago. In fact, for me, an entirely different world. Back then my hubby and I were living in London. My debut poetry collection, A Model Archaeologist, was undergoing final edits by my editor, Les Robinson at Eyewear Publishing, before being launched in June 2015 at the Rugby Tavern in Holborn, London, as part of the 20/20 collection of upcoming poets. In fact, I wasn’t even a novelist at that point, as that was four years before my debut novel, Gods of Avalon Road had even been published by Blossom Spring Publishing, which happened in October 2019.

Ah, how time flies!

Back in 2015, I couldn’t have foreseen how my career as a psychological horror novelist would unfold. As of February 2015, I only had 4 short horror stories under my belt: 2 under a pseudonym in Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine and in Sex and Murder Magazine (I will probably republish these at some point in a collection), 1 under my own name in Blood Moon Rising Magazine, and another that I self-published as a novella. The latter two, The Woman and the Stiff, and Zombie Reflux have been re-published in my collection of strange and macabre short stories, Diabolical Dreamscapes. 

Fast forward from February 2015 to February 2026, and I am the proud author of six ghost books and psychological horror titles that are perfect for this Friday the 13th and Valloween holiday combo. How perfect, since there won’t be another Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th in February for another six years, so here are my six books to help you celebrate:

Gods of Avalon Road, my debut novel, is an occult urban fantasy book with plenty of pagan debauchery and ritual sacrifice.

Buy Gods on Amazon UK
Buy Gods on Amazon US

All three novels in my award-winning Belfast Ghosts trilogy – The Blue Man, The Fairy Lights and Matthew’s Twin – have elements of dysfunctional paranormal romance, perfect for Valloween.

Belfast Ghosts trilogy – UK
Belfast Ghosts trilogy – US

Love you to Death, Ghost stories for Valentine’s Day, contains 8 short tales of creepy romance, featuring lonely-hearts who are often unaware that the recipient of their amorous affections are, in fact, ghosts.

Buy it UK
Buy it US

In Diabolical Dreamscapes, a few of the tales feature bizarre romantic liaisons between ghosts, the undead, or the disturbed living and the unwitting deceased. Yep, er, cue graphic scene in ‘Zombie Reflux’…

Diabolical UK
Diabolical US

Anyway, thanks for joining me on my horror author trip down memory lane. Whether you celebrate Friday the 13th and/or Valentine’s Day, I hope you have a disturbingly delicious couple of days, as there won’t be another horror combo like this again until February 2032.

Posted by on February 12, 2026 in Books and tagged , , , , , , .

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February 8, 2026

My week in books

Here’s my week summed up in book photos:

1) Scholastic book fair at work. It’s amazing to know that young people are so passionate about reading; it was incredibly busy in the library. Borrowing books is one thing, but buying paperbacks involves commitment, so this was fantastic to see. Friday was so busy, in fact, that I needed to recruit a team of upper sixth prefects to help out, so that I could manage running the library as usual, and the additional book fair, which was only there for the whole week.

2) February author birthdays library display: an opportunity for me to promote a diverse range of authors and their books. This is a new display topic that I’ve started running this year to help promote books that haven’t been borrowed for a while. For February, authors include Charles Dickens, Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, Judy Blume and John Steinbeck.

3) Book shopping this week: I’m a big Bruce Lee fan, and with Chinese New Year coming up on 17th Feb, it’s a good time to read his latest biography. When I was an archaeology student at Queen’s University Belfast, I studied Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do and became hooked on both Bruce Lee’s martial art, and the man himself. I loved his philosophical approach to life, as well as his modern approach in teaching anybody who wanted to learn his modified style of Wing Chun Gung Fu, at a time when racial segregation was still commonplace. His teachings still resonate today, fifty years after his death.

4) This week was the one year bookiversary of Love you to Death, my collection of ghost stories for Valentine’s Day. Last year was a gamble to see how my spooky romance stories would be received by readers, but the gamble paid off; it has been my most popular seller of the past year. Always what an author wants to have happen: phew!

Posted by on February 8, 2026 in Books and tagged , , , , , , , .

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February 4, 2026

Looking for a spooky romantic read for Valentine’s Day?

It’s only 10 days until Valentine’s Day. If you’re a horror fan, as I am, I’m sure you’ll be thinking that spookiness and romance don’t tend to go hand in hand. But that’s where you’re wrong.

Here’s an excerpt from the titular story in Love you to Death, ghost stories for Valentine’s Day. My collection of 8 short stories is perfect for readers who prefer skulls with their hearts on February 14th.

Posted by on February 4, 2026 in Books and tagged , , , , , .

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February 1, 2026

Imbolc, the power of imagination and the use of interpretation

My blog post today is more of a random rambling than a focused topic, but sometimes life calls for random topics; or at least, I think so. The past week has been a bit of a blur. Storm Chandra at the start of the week, a hospital appointment at the end of the week and all the while, trying to carry on with life as normal.

Even when my writing life is on pause, my imagination always rumbles along, churning out ideas. Some are good, and I save them as tidbits for my writing and others are just nothing more than interesting thoughts as a byproduct of an overactive imagination.

The picture above shows one such byproduct of my imagination. While doing one of my 24 hour intermittent fasting sessions a couple of days ago, I made myself a Himalayan salt tea; it staves off leg cramps and headaches during ketosis by replacing electrolytes. Anyway, after I sprinkled the salt in my mug, I then added the boiled water and watched the salt disperse in the strangest pattern. As a horror fan, it seemed to me to form a rather intense eye staring up at me from the bottom of the mug. Creepy.

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Posted by on February 1, 2026 in Random stuff and tagged , , , , , .

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January 29, 2026

Storm Chandra: time for writing, arts and crafts

Writing time

While Storm Chandra smacked us full in the face here in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, my hubby, son and I hunkered down quite contentedly at home with no work or school to contend with. It’s not the first time that we’ve been hit with an amber warning for ‘danger to life’ amidst wind that causes somersaulting wheely bins, rain that pelts like hail, and flashes of thunder and lightning, but this time we all got a day off from the daily grind.

What does one do when gifted unexpected, and precious, free time? In my case, reading and writing, arts and crafts.

Before I get into that, I’ll mention an article I read a few days ago about whether artists should get paid a basic income, like in Ireland. I doubt writers are considered towards that fund, since it seems that writing is generally considered more of a privilege than a profession; think about how often readers expect to receive an author’s books for free, and you might get the idea. Shouldn’t writers be well paid for their hard work? Society doesn’t seem to think so. To elaborate on my point, let me mention my hardcover books. The majority sell quite well for £18.99 a copy. Of the retail price, I receive about 10% in royalties. Not much of a living, is it? Imagine if writers could apply for a business grant to support their work; this would enliven bookstores with a wealth of fresh voices from diverse backgrounds, rather than the same safe cohort of authors from the same safe socioeconomic backgrounds.

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Posted by on January 29, 2026 in Writing and tagged , , , , , .

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January 26, 2026

Two weeks until Valloween

It’s two weeks until Valloween! I learned about this holiday from my friend, and fabulous baker @cakewizard99 on Instagram so you should check out her fabulous cakes if you’re on IG. If you don’t know what Valloween is, it’s pretty much a creep-tastic replacement for Valentine’s Day. There’s also Summerween in June for those counting down the days til Halloween. Yep, it’s another way to celebrate all things spooky for those who enjoy Halloween three-six-five. That’s a hashtag too, btw.

Anyway, with Valloween looming, I thought I’d share my horror books with a dash of spooky – and a lot of dysfunctional – romance:

Love you to Death = Eight tales of romance between the ethereal and corporeal, all set on or around Valentine’s Day.

Gods of Avalon Road = involving a modern day Londoner and the resurrected ancient Briton sungod, Belenus.

Matthew’s Twin = between an Anglo-Irish witch and a medieval Scottish soldier during Edward Bruce’s invasion of Ireland at Carrickfergus.

Diabolical Dreamscapes = In Zombie Reflux, the main character has a liaison with his ex Nina in a disturbing scene that is better read than summarised (ahem!)

The Fairy Lights = In this Christmas ghost novel, main character Aisling falls in love with Jimbo, who is haunting her house.

The Blue Man = Two best frenemies fight over Johnny, believed to be the great-great-grandson of the sinister titular ghost, The Blue Man.

But, the real life horror story of my recent life is the tragic demise of my favourite skull wine glass, all in the name of my birthday celebration a few days ago. Happy birthday to me, what I’d really love to see, is for readers of my books to leave reviews up, it’s free!

Ha ha, an author’s gotta try, right?

Posted by on January 26, 2026 in Books and tagged , , , , .

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January 23, 2026

Another loop around the sun

Halfway through another decade

One more year, one more birthday celebration. This one marks the halfway point through another decade, with my last milestone during lockdown in 2021. Another loop around the sun, and I’m still feeling full of fun. Yep, I’m going to forget the first part of my age and focus on the ‘five’. I’m still quite playful at heart, something that my child loves, until such a time comes when he may find my childlike spirit embarrassing. May such a time never come!

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Posted by on January 23, 2026 in Biography, Health and tagged , , , .

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January 18, 2026

12 books for 2026

Happy Sunday everyone. We’re just over halfway through January and I’ve nowt much to show for it, ha ha. I’ve had a lazy start to this year, making progress on my current novel WIP at snail’s pace, and barely a dent in my TBR pile.

Actually, there’s good reason for the lack of progress on personal reading and writing projects, since term time at work in secondary education always tends to dominate my time. I’ve been in the swing of editing and giving feedback to the young writers in the creative writing class I teach, as well as busy with work in my library day job.

At least I have built up a significant back catalogue of books to tide me over, while I make time for chipping away at my own writing projects. My latest promo video showcases all twelve of my books, one for each month of 2026. Here goes:

January = Toebirds & Woodlice

February = The Redundancy of Tautology

March = Diabolical Dreamscapes

April = The Blue Man

May = Pseudologia Fantastica

June = The Fairy Lights

July = Matthew’s Twin

August = Love you to Death

September = The Buddha’s Bone

October = The Wabi-sabi Doll

November = Gods of Avalon Road

December = A Model Archaeologist

Can’t go wrong with a mix of ghost horror, psychological fiction and experimental poetry, eh?

Posted by on January 18, 2026 in Books and tagged , , , .

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