I was absolutely shocked and delighted the other weekend when Strictly Pro Champion Dianne Buswell used my original song for her Instagram video montage - as such I decided to head into the studio to record an official, more polished version of the track!
Chris & Dianne shared the new version of the track on their podcast Winning Isn’t Everything - and Dianne even sung along throughout!! Cue me fangirling!!! Check it out at around the 50 minute mark:
The reaction from Strictly fans has been sooo lovely with one even making their own montage to the song which was just gorgeous! Thank you Chris & Dianne for sharing, this has been such a joyful moment that I shall never forget! :)
I am SO EXCITED that the little acoustic song ‘Anything Is Possible’ that I wrote for the 2024 Strictly Come Dancing winners Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell was featured on episode 7 of their awesome podcast Winning Isn’t Everything.
I am such a superfan of these two and their Instagram videos throughout their Strictly journey gave me so much joy and happiness - so the fact I was able to give a tiny bit back to them meant everything to me! Dianne even said the song gave her goosebumps and a little tear in her eye! Now that is a quote I will treasure forever and ever!!
Listen at around 45 minutes in to hear the song and Chris and Dianne’s reaction. :)
My new country track "Get To Heaven" is out now on all major streaming platforms - please do give it a listen (or even a cheeky little share if you're feeling generous!)
This is a song about regret. It was actually based on the father character in one of my YA novels - a one hit wonder who is clinging to past glories and messing up his relationship with his teenage daughter in the process. But also, I guess it's more than a character in a book. It's reflective of this period of my life in general. Getting older, feeling a little wistful, a little lost and like time is simply passing too quickly.
I hope people will connect with it and that if you're also feeling this way, it makes you a little less alone with those feelings.
Thank you so much to Mayfield Records for helping to bring this track to life for me - I can’t wait to hear what people think!
I am soooo excited that K-Pop royalty Red Velvet’s recent stadium tour will be screened in cinemas worldwide this month, and that the movie features my track You Better Know (co-written with the amazing Kanata Okajima and Pontus Persson)!
This is the song that keeps giving and giving and I can’t wait to be able to see it in the Odeon cinema in Kingston next week eeeek! I really hope all the fans across the world will enjoy hearing the song as part of the setlist!
I am so excited to announce that my debut YA novel Reasons To Love A Nerd Like Me is turning 10 years old this year - and as such I have decided to re-release a brand new and improved version, chapter by chapter, featuring extra bonus material!
This is the book that started my whole writing career and I still love it so much, even all these years later! If you’d like to read along then you can check it out on Wattpad or on my Substack!
Huge shout out to @cookiesemfuba for the beautiful new cover design - I can’t wait to dive back into Scotty and Vincent’s world with you all! :)
Mega excited that my 2013 EP Delicious Sessions recorded and engineered by Ed Moris at Delicious Digital is now available to stream on Spotify! Featuring the beautiful talents of Matt Blackwell on piano, Chris Ricketts on guitar and Ellie Wyatt on strongs.
This is a collection of reflective songs, written in my twenties, that I am still mega proud of all these years later.
Hope you'll enjoy revisiting the tracks as much as I did! Let me know which song is your favourite!
Super excited that a track I wrote with my best pal Sazzie McIntosh and producer Charlie Kaye has been featured on the show Selling Sunset (mine and Sazzie’s fave show ever haha)!!
The track is called Bye Bye and the instrumental is featured on Season 8, Episode 10, 23 minutes in (underneath Chrishell talking eek!) - listen to the full track on Spotify below:
It has always been a dream of ours to have a song placed on this show, so this is definitely a bucket list moment! Thank you to BMG for making it happen!
A huge thank you the the lovely Kairen Kemp for interviewing me not just once but twice for her Radio Reverb show and for BBC Upload!
It was so lovely to meet up in Brighton for a detailed chat about my career from songwriting to being an author to singing with Barry from Eastenders (because of course I had to tell that story on the radio ha haaa!) Kairen was so warm and engaging - this is definitely one of my favourite interviews I’ve ever recorded!
Listen back HERE to my Radio Reverb interview - also featuring plays of my original tracks.
Listen back HERE to my BBC Upload interview (starting at 1 hour 30 mins in)
Thank you for the opportunity Kairen - hope we can do it again in the future!
Super excited to announce that The Songs You’ve Never Heard has now been released in Poland with Harper Collins Polska - and just look at this brand new cover design, it’s absolutely stunning!! We have been so lucky to have such amazing covers for the book that really capture the story, thank you so much to the design teams.
Really looking forward to meeting new Polish readers, please let us know what you think of the story and accompanying album! :)
Super excited to share a new song release by Hong Kong artist Steven - Over You was co-written with my super talented friend Mayu Wakisaka and producer Yip Yu. Check out the cool and sultry music video below (which totally makes me want to do late night karaoke):
It was so much fun to channel our mutual love of Carly Rae Jepsen with this one! Good luck with the release Steven, fingers crossed for a great reaction from the fans!
Super excited to announce my solo song “Misunderstood (Acoustic)” is now available to stream on Spotify and other music platforms - click HERE to listen on Spotify!
I also have a live video which you can watch below:
This has been my first solo song out for years and the warm reaction has been so touching - watch this space for more original solo songs in 2024! :)
You Better Know (written with the incredibly talented Kanata Okajima and Pontus Persson) is the K-Pop cut that just keeps on giving! This track has become a solid fan favourite and has been performed on Red Velvet’s new promo concert video on Youtube - You Better Know starts at 10.54:
Thank you so much to all the beautiful Red Velvet fans who have kept this song alive after all these years! So proud to be part of this amazing video and wishing our Queens all the best with their new album release!!
I am excited to announce I am releasing my first solo song for many years - “Misunderstood (Acoustic)” which I recorded earlier this year at Mayfield Studios with the very talented Matt Brook.
This is a track that I wrote a while back about being a very hyper-sensitive person and how that can affect the relationships around me. Sometimes having such big feelings can be both a blessing and a curse, as the highs are very high, but the lows can be very low. I think a lot of creative people can relate to this and will hopefully feel seen in this song.
Although this is a biographical track, I actually found it fit perfectly with the character of Prentice in my YA novel “One Song Wonder” that my agent is currently pitching out to publishers. I dare not say too much until someone takes on the book, but Prentice is the father of our teenage leading lady and quite a difficult guy, although his heart is always in the right place. I guess I must be getting old now I’m connecting more with the parents than the teenagers of my books! 😂 But my dream is to release an album of new tracks to accompany this story in the future… fingers crossed! Until then, please do enjoy this little sneak peek of the project which will be out on all streaming services on December 15th.
I’m so excited to share the cover for the Brazilian edition of The Songs You’ve Never Heard which is being launched this week at the Rio De Janeiro Literary Festival.
Thank you so much to the publisher Livros Das Alice for championing the book to your Brazilian readers, and for making such beautiful promotional packages. I am absolutely thrilled for new people to discover our booksical!
I was so thrilled to find out that “The Songs You’ve Never Heard” was shortlisted for The YA Book Prize 2023 and this week I got to attend the awards ceremony in beautiful Edinburgh alongside the other amazing shortlisted authors.
Over the course of the event I got to speak on a panel, give a live reading, do two book signings and meet lots of talented and lovely new people! It was such an amazing event - please check out my diary entry for the full account!
Thank you so much to everyone behind the scenes who made it happen and to everyone who came out to celebrate UK YA. It is definitely a day I will never forget as long as I live!
More exciting news for The Songs You've Never Heard - we have recently sold the screen rights to Carley Smale at Integral Artists who will be adapting Meg and Alana's story into a musical teen movie!
Both Ellie and I are super excited as we always dreamed that one day our little booksical might make it to screen, and I am so excited for Carley who is an amazing screenwriter and teen movie expert to lead this project.
We will keep you posted on developments - huge thanks as always to our agent Gill at Bath Literary and our publisher Sweet Cherry Publishing!
I am so excited to announced that The Songs You’ve Never Heard has been shortlisted for The YA Book Prize 2023 alongside many other absolutely amazing titles.
I have followed the YA Book Prize for many years and to be part of such an incredible line-up is an honour and an absolute dream come true! I will also get to attend the awards ceremony in Edinburgh in August and join this celebration of UK YA in person.
The Shortlist was also promoted in The Bookseller this week and made the front cover - talk about exciting times!! I can’t wait for more readers to meet Meg and Alana through the prize, and for more people to discover our ‘booksical’ for the first time!
This weekend was the official date for World Book Night and it has been absolutely amazing to see readers up and down the country diving into The Songs You’ve Never Heard in celebration.
Copies of the book have been available in various libraries and mental health support networks - there was even a Pizza And Prose Party being held which looks so much fun!
Thank you so much to The Reading Agency and Sweet Cherry Publishing for making this possible - it really is a “pinch me” moment to see so many people enjoying Songs and I hope that we can encourage some curious new readers to keep picking up new books!
I am sooo excited that The Songs You’ve Never Heard has been picked as a title for The Big Eurovision Read Campaign in association with BBC Arts and The Reading Agency.
These 12 titles are all music based stories and will be featured in a pop-up reading den as part of Liverpool’s Eurovision celebrations in May. As a HUGE Eurovision fan who has tried many times to get a song on the show, it is a dream come true to be part of this campaign and part of UK’s Eurovision celebrations in some small way. And with books by authors such as Nick Hornby, Terry Pratchett and Stormzy on the list, Songs is in VERY good company!
I look forward to posting more updates very soon! :)
Quick bit of news I simply had to share with everyone - the incredible and multi-talented Carrie Fletcher has mentioned The Songs You’ve Never Heard in her latest book haul!
Holding up one of our proof copies, she said the storyline of Meg having a famous older brother “felt familiar” and that she was putting the book straight to the top of her reading list! She also checked out mine and Ellie’s bios, reading about us both being songwriters ourselves and saying we clearly knew what we were talking about (a quote I will use forever)!
I have been a huge fan of Carrie’s music and writing for many years and adored her performance as Cinderella in the West End, so I am absolutely thrilled she loves the sound of Songs!
To watch Carrie’s full Instagram video at her book account “Prattle and Pages” CLICK HERE - Songs is mentioned around 9 minutes in!
