Category Archives: Jeffrey Deaver

New Desk, New Computer

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I finally did it; I went shopping for a new computer and actually bought one. I did all the research, as you do, and ended up choosing a desktop instead of a laptop. I have my iPad, which I use a lot, and so it seemed better to buy a nice big screen, well big for me, with a nice white keyboard.

The stand hardly takes up any room on my – also new – desk, and the keyboard sits nicely under the monitor when not in use.

One thing I’ve had to get used to again after a long time without one is the mouse. My new desk is white and the mouse needs to sit on something with some colour on it, to work. I am keeping a notebook open beside me, with a pen, and the mouse works nicely on the page I’m not making notes on.

The corner in our room where I’ve set up my new little writing space is a bit dark, but I’ve found that the glow of the big screen sheds enough light to make it easy for my eyes to see everything I need to.

I’m writing my novel The Naked Ladies Writing Group over on my writer blog www.RachelGraceWrites.com (you can click on that to take a look if you like) and now I have a new computer I’ll be pounding the keys with even more enthusiasm. I can’t wait to write the next chapter. This week I might put a taster chapter up here in my personal blog, to see if anyone might like to check out the story.

Tomorrow, I’m off on an adventure with some great family members. But as soon as I get home, you’d better believe I’ll be playing on my new word maker – I mean computer.

Now it’s time to read then go to bed. I’m reading The Goodbye Man by Jeffery Deaver and I like it but it’s definitely not my favourite of his books, so far. What are you reading?

It Always Takes My Breath Away

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books carte blanche

It always takes my breath away, that moment when I pick up the book I’ve chosen to read next and the first line gets me. It is so much like meeting someone and instantly knowing you and they will be friends or lovers or for that matter, enemies. That quickening, the slow deep breath I take after unconsciously holding my breath as I open that book and find the first page. It happened to me this morning, over my first coffee of the day. I picked up Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver and held it, feeling definite stirrings of scepticism. The New James Bond Novel, it says on the front cover, which is all white with a waft of brown smoke, red lettering overlaid. I’ve never even read an Ian Fleming Bond book. I have read plenty of Deaver books, though. I love the dynamic, intelligent, human writing of Jeffrey Deaver and that’s why I picked up this book at a local second hand book shop.

He had me at the first line, but reading it again, I can’t really tell why; just that the way he puts words together gets me excited. I can tell, already, that I have chosen well. I’m going on another, very human adventure with Jeffrey Deaver. He’s going to show me a world of characters and places I’ve never visited and never dreamed of placing together, in my mind or on the page. He won’t let me down, and he never has. It’s no wonder we readers become so attached to our favourite writers, they give us such rich gifts. We feel as though we journey with them through the pages of their books, we feel so deeply all of the emotions their stories stir in us, only tearing ourselves away for a bathroom break or to slap some food together.

Time now for me to make another cup of coffee, have some breakfast, check my emails, check Facebook, write some of my own book. I know that at the end of all of this, Carte Blanche will be waiting for me, with some lunch, with my mobile switched to silent, with my laptop closed and silent. For an hour or so, I will pour myself into that other world and I will live inside that book.

Happy reading.

Rachel