A look inside The Great Glacier Hotel Heist

 I've been so busy working on Watts and Whiskerton book 4 (publishing in November this year) that I didn't realise how long it'd been since I posted anything here. I haven't even shown you what to expect from book 3! So here's a peek at the insides of The Great Glacier Hotel Heist!

Watts is excited to on his first ever family holiday, and especially thrilled that Pearl has been invited too.

They are visiting the Great Glacier Hotel and Ski Resort. Here's a map of the hotel. This will help eagle- eyed detectives to solve the case.

Sadly, Pearl has injured her paw but she doesn't let that slow her down when a mystery arrives. It turns out that the president of Trotskovia is staying in the hotel to transport The Ice Crystal, a priceless necklace, back home with her, But when a jewel thief strikes and the necklace is stolen, Mr and Mrs Watts find themselves under arrest!

And then the president goes missing!

And a snowbeast is seen in the grounds of the hotel!

It's up to Watts and Pearl to find out how all of these curious events are connected and capture the jewel thief. Can they do it? Of course they can. But can they ski? Well...

The Great Glacier Hotel Heist is available to buy now. Ask at your local bookshop, or wherever you like to buy your books, and don't forget you can borrow it from your library too.

If you'd like a more summery adventure why not try Sabotage at the Fete Cake Bake. Featuring teamwork, baking disasters and a thief! Can our budding detecives solve this cake catastrophe and earn and a first class ribbon for baking too? 

You can read more about it by clicking here.

Or Buried Bones and Troublesome Treasure. Featuring a budding detective duo, dinosaur bones and a museum break in. Can Watts and Pearl work out what's been going on?

You can dig up more dirt on that mystery here.

Cover reveal - Watts and Whiskerton book 3

 Hello! This is an exciting day because I can finally reveal the cover for Watts and Pearl's next adventure: The Great Glacier Hotel Heist.

Watts is looking forward to a holiday at the Great Glacier Hotel and Ski Resort. But when they arrive, his and Pearl's quiet vacation soon turns into another high-stakes investigation: the priceless Ice Crystal has been stolen from the hotel safe, and his parents are the prime suspects!

Will Watts and Pearl be able to clear Mr and Mrs Watts' names? And will they be able to catch the real jewel thief? This dog and cat detective duo will have to navigate through heavy snow, suspicious staff, and a locked room mystery. But will they manage to ski, sleuth and save the day?

It publishes next year but is available for pre-order now by clicking here.

Or you can ask your lovely local bookshop to order you one in.

A Christmouse Gift

I've been seeing a lot of really cool painters online recently and it made me want to have a go.  This week I took a morning off from photoshop and dug out my old paintbrushes and some gouache paint, which I've never used.  Using different types of paint is a real learning curve, I'm more used to oils (although I haven't used them in 10 years), but what I did love about gouache is that it dries very quickly.  As someone who smudges everything this is a real advantage.  I also like that you can repaint areas that have gone wrong very easily, which is a must when you're new!  I didn't quite get the thin layers of paint I wanted but this was only my first go and I'll definitely play around with them some more.  The draw of painting for me is the looseness, my book work tends to be very precise and I wanted to move away from that.  All of the finishing details are in pencil because I love the texture of coloured pencils and I can control them far better than a fine brush.

It's only little.

Here are a few of the process shots.  The final image is A6 and I used Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils because I happen to have a box and they're really lovely to draw with.

Sketch and first layer of paint

More paint

That's enough paint!

Details

I seem to have an obsession with drawing mice at Christmas.  I like this one, she's pretty cute.  

Hopefully more adventures in paint will follow.

Advent

Those lovely people in twitter are at it again.  This time they're drawing daily advents and there are many to choose from.  Here's my December 2nd which I particularly like.  I may have peaked already.