A nice surprise!

 It's always so lovely to find a new review on Amazon. 

Most of my books only have a few reviews but every single one of them is genuine and not a paid-for service. 

So check out Invisible now. 

First Review In

I'm thrilled by the first review for Invisible. And it has two lots of 5 STARS as well!!!

To read the first chapter, click above. 

Come talk to me about my latest book releases.

Tickets can be purchased here or via Facebook.

 

New year, old me...

Well 2025 has started with a roar and I'm working as hard as I ever do. But more news on that later. 

 Here's the first new book for this year. I hope you enjoy it. You can find it on Amazon here. 

Time flies - whether you're having fun or not...

Time is elusive. I've always known that.

Even as a young child I was aware of how it slipped away from me. Perhaps that's because I've always had so much to do, so much I wanted to achieve.

More than half a century later, I feel no different. There is still so much to do, so much I want to experience and even less time than there was before, to achieve it in.

I'm impatient for new experiences, to stand on fresh ground that my feet have never before trodden, to meet new adventures and to go to bed drunk on a day well-lived...

But for now my reality is the same as it is for many mothers in the UK - go through the kids' old school uniform, sort through last year's clothes, and prepare for the coming school year. So humdrum. So necessary.

Yet the internet and social media is full of slogans that urge us to live for the moment, to cast of the shackles of domesticity in favour of adventure. Excuse me whilst I just step over this pile of dirty laundry and be on my way to the mysteries of Machu Picchu... No? So let's get real then.

Chores have to be done, responsibilities have to be tended to. And then, maybe, just maybe, I can find a time to fit in all the spirit-enhancing stuff I'd like to do. And let's face it, you are probably in the same scenario as me. Are you going to cast aside your family and go off on a Shirley Valentine adventure? Thought not, appealing as that might be.

So, back to the drawing board, or in my case the newest chapter of my current book and next scenes in the screenplay. And it's not so bad. As a writer I can live vicariously through my characters. And boy, do they whoop it up!

So if you're feeling in need of adventure, you know where to turn. Try one of my books today.

Happy reading.

When your home life takes over...

We are now just over the 24 hour mark with no working boiler.

Yesterday was a living nightmare with water pouring out of the boiler, three shivering children and an aged dog on the brink of collapse. The corgi engineer actually said he couldn’t believe it when he saw it; that the flooding was the worst he’d ever seen.

Added to that, I have a terrible cold. The estimate is that it will be around 2 weeks before we can have a new boiler fitted.

The timing of this is strange and has almost transported me back through the decades. There’s a lot going on at the moment in my personal life (little of it good) but this intensity of cold has served to remind me of when I lived with my mum and dad up in Glasgow.

So I know we’ll survive. We’ll get through this. It isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, or that ever will happen.

Back then I knew things would get better.

And they will again, this time.

A whole new year to fill up with good fortune and sheer determination!

Being born in Scotland, I have a real 'thing' for New Year that, quite frankly I don't feel for Christmas.

Sure, Christmas has the tinsel, the trees, the presents, the 'goodwill to all mankind', but New Year has the glamour, the excitement, the sheer 'ride the future by the seat of your pants' appeal, that Christmas can never have.

So imagine my excitement to find this newest review on Amazon today:-

"5 Stars : Brilliant and Brutal Coming-Of-Age Story

Split Decision, essentially a coming-of-age novel, is both brilliant and brutal – brilliant in its execution and brutal in the sensitive subject matter it explores. The decision Natalie makes impacts on many and she is not the same person at the end of the story as she is at the beginning… It is the second book that I have read by the author Carmen Capuano, the first being Ascension, a dystopian thriller. Although the subject matter is completely different, I found the story just as engaging and thought- provoking.

The plot begins in a shoe shop where best friends, teenagers Natalie and Stacey are shopping. The new pair of shoes which Natalie purchases – in a style which is way out of character for the sensible teenager, can be viewed as a metaphor for both her step into adulthood and what subsequently occurs. Natalie is soon called upon to make a split second choice and her decision heralds a chain of unexpected and shocking events.

The author does an excellent job of depicting the trials and tribulations of the teenage years and how they effect existing and new relationships: a time of burgeoning sexuality, when we strive to forge our own identity, sometimes putting us in conflict with our families who find it difficult to come to terms with their offspring entering adulthood. The balance between protecting their children whilst allowing them the freedom to grow is often a difficult one and I felt that the author touched on this in a sensitive fashion. I certainly identified with Stacey and Natalie from memories of my own teenage years and recognised how easily events could take the path they did.

The characters, the young people and the adults, were all very believable and the author is to be congratulated on using the events to illustrate their personal growth and changing family dynamics. The plot is cleverly and expertly written and certainly had me guessing and questioning my own preconceptions and prejudices."

Tina Williams - FB A Reader's Review.

Thanks to all my readers who have chosen to buy my books either for themselves or as presents for others - you have made my year. xxx


And for 2018 - Happy Reading!

Here's a new first...

Some of you may already know that I'm a little bit of a technophobe, so when I was asked if I could be interviewed on a podcast, my anxiety levels rocketed.

However, it turned out to be a really relaxing thing to do, after all, all I had to do was talk. I didn't have to worry about the strange gurning my mouth would be doing when I spoke, nor whether my makeup was melting into my face.

What I hadn't counted on though, was my dogs going berserk in the middle of the recording when the postwoman knocked in the door. Luckily the interviewer was such a pro [thanks Michael de Groot from @stayingaliveUK] that it was edited out, post-production.

So here is the podcast in all its glory.

PODCAST



Happy listening!

Work has never felt so good.

The last few days I have been inundated with information about my latest writing project, a very gritty, contemporary screenplay. So much so, that it's been hard to concentrate on anything else.

Working on something that demands so much of my conscious mind, as well as the entirety of my subconscious mind [or so it seems] can be hard, demanding work. Luckily I love what I do.

So apologies if you don't hear from me much over the coming weeks, as I'll be fully immersed in the dialog and unfurling plot, but I will try to keep you updated with snippets as always.

Until then, happy reading! x

Benidorm revisited...

In light of the fact that I have just booked a holiday to Spain, I thought I'd remind you of what happened the last time I was there.

So make a drink then settle yourself down for a read...

I have just returned from a holiday in Spain. Am I calmer after the break, more relaxed, less wound like a coiled spring? Probably not. For the truth is that the moment you are home, yes, literally that moment, it becomes clear how much you have to do just to get back on track with everyday life. All the lounging about and dipping into sun-dappled pools is nothing more than a memory and even that seems distant.

Add to this the fact that there were elements of pure fiasco during the holiday and I have to wonder if all the frantic organising was even worth it.

It certainly started with an adventure. I had pre-booked [and pre-paid] airport parking as that seemed like a sensible thing to do. But as I approached Birmingham Airport it became clear that Car Park 7 had no road signs leading to it, unlike numbers 1-6.

Not owning a sat. nav. anymore, [if you want the ludicrous story of how that was lost, you will have to go back to a blog post from about a year ago] I resorted to reading the directions I had printed out. Let’s just say I drove around the same island five times, each time taking a different exit, only to return defeated.

By this time my blood pressure was up, the kids in the back were starting to ask when the plane took off and would we be on it, and I was still none the wiser.

The time was fast approaching 5am when we were due to check in for our flight, and everywhere seemed deserted. There was no one around to even ask where I should have been heading.

In desperation, I pulled in to Car Park 1 and pressed the button on the intercom for assistance. I explained that I was lost and needed help to find Car Park 7. Unfortunately the disembodied voice didn’t seem to know where that was either! There followed an interminably long wait whilst he consulted a map and finally delivered the sage advice that I should, “Go back to the roundabout and pick up the signs for number 7.”

Defeated, I had to reverse the car out of the one-way system, invoking incredulous stares from the other motorists and head back to the same island I had already been around five times!

Since most of them led to other car parks, I chose the one route which didn’t and followed it for some time in the hope that it would be right. Guess what? I still didn’t find the car park I needed. I returned to the original roundabout. The time was 5:30am and I was in a cold sweat.

This time I pulled into car Park 5 and up to the intercom barrier. I pressed the button and waited. “Look I’m lost. I have paid for Car Park 7 but I can’t find it. I have been around and around… and if you don’t help me I am going to miss my flight and …”

I was cut off by a bored voice. “Oh, it’s you again. Didn’t you find it then?” Now don’t ask me why it never occurred to me that it would be the same man from Car Park 1, but it didn’t. Then to have him state the blatantly obvious was almost too much for me. I felt steam coming out of my ears. Very slowly, one vertebrae at a time, I felt myself turn towards the little camera that regarded me so intrusively. Behind my eyes I saw an image of how I must appear to him and I sharpened my gaze.

Before I could say anything I heard him clear his throat and say anxiously, “Wait there. I will get a supervisor to direct you.”

Wait there? Where did he think I was going to go? Round and round the roundabout on a pleasure jaunt, whirling suitcases and children from the car window in wild abandonment, in the hope that some of them would land close to the terminal and might actually make it to the plane?

Finally a supervisor arrived. It took only a short conversation for him to see that by now directions were going to be lost on me. He opened up the barrier and let me park, for which I will be eternally grateful.

By the time we got to the duty free shops, all my previous cares had been forgotten. Almost. Gleefully, my ten year old daughter and I sampled the perfumes and the make-up, drawing on our hands thick lines of every colour available.

Now lots of cosmetics claim to be waterproof… but few actually are. In the toilets, I lathered up my hands and worked at the smears of green and blue and red, rubbing and scraping at my skin. The make-up refused to dissolve and wash away but it did move, smearing itself over both hands, so that it looked like I had been bare-knuckle boxing with Mike Tyson. Again and again I washed my hands, each time more frantically than before, cursing under my breath so that I must have looked more than a little like a modern-day Lady Macbeth. All that was needed was for me to shriek, “Out, damned spot!” and I might even have got an Oscar.

So as usual we ended up making a frenzied dash for the plane, with me trying in vain to hide my monstrous looking hands from everyone. I took solace in the family pack of chocolate raisins I had bought for the journey, doling them out for myself and the children.

It was a turbulent flight, particularly noticeable when on one jolt, I dropped several of the sweets and they clattered softly to the floor. Embarrassed, I tried to pick them up and dispose of them – no mean feat when the seating space seems to have been modelled on the dimensions of mankind from the 1950s, when men were trim and women had waists, but I got most of them up.

It was only when I uncontorted myself that I discovered the people across the aisle were watching me in fascination. It seemed they thought I was so panicked about the turbulence that I had adopted the safety ‘brace’ position.

Safely ensconced in my seat once more, I hoped that I had finished providing them with free entertainment. But I’m afraid the show was not yet over. It was only when I stood up to go to the toilet that I realised not all of the chocolate treats had fallen to the floor. Some had slipped onto my seat, becoming effectively squashed and melted under me.

Do you have any idea what a few squashed chocolate buttons and raisins look like when congealed to the seat of your jeans? Mortified, I blazed a trail to the toilets, cheeks crimson and with the sound of my children’s guffaws still ringing in my ears. I may never live that memory down.

I had booked a hotel in Benidorm because of the dates we needed to have and the price I was happy to pay, added to the fact that I wanted a hotel which was close to the beach and which offered nightly entertainment. Now at this point are you all shaking your heads? I thought so.

And to be honest Benidorm was everything people say it is. But it is also beautiful, with long sandy beaches where the sea is both warm and crystal clear and fish swim unafraid around your toes.

Cloistered within the walls of our hotel by night, there was none of the anti-social behaviour that might have been acted out on the streets and many clubs and bars of the town, but there was still that flavoursome sense of excitement, that in the warm air, scented with exotic flowers and coconut suntan lotion, anything might happen…

I even managed to convince myself that I could look as enticing as Halle Berry famously coming out of the sea in one of the James Bond movies, so I tried it. Hair slicked back by the tide, bikini rucked up to cover my most wobbliest of bits, I emerged, white and short limbed from the foamy waves.

The film score which was playing in my head, stuttered and died as I caught my big toe on a rock concealed under the water. Pain shot up my foot and I stumbled, feet flailing under the water, trying to find purchase and finding only the rock. Again. I went down like a lead balloon, hair straggling over my face and inhaling a great lungful of salt water.

But this holiday also provided a number of firsts for me. I had never taken the children abroad on my own before and it was a bitter-sweet experience. I sat alone watching the nightly entertainment, my teenage son off messaging his friends on Facebook and my daughter playing with new friends, and although the shows were on the whole very good, I felt I cut a rather pathetic figure, there on my own. This was highlighted during one of the acts, when a comedian picked on me as being clearly alone in a swarm of huge family groups and asked what my name was, where I was from and whether I was married or not.

Reluctantly giving the answers, I was dismayed to be asked more; how old was I and did I have children? Giving the answers as I did, starkly and without embellishment, I almost felt like I was on a game show dating site:- ‘And now here’s Carmen, all the way from the Midlands, give her a cheer! Carmen is single, 48 and has three children!’

So when the Adele tribute singer came on, perhaps you will forgive me for shedding a quiet, surreptitious tear at my aloneness.

In general though, the entertainment was really good and my thanks go out to JJ Jones who was the Neil Diamond Tribute and to Andy, the Rod Stewart tribute, who were both photographed with my newest novel, Split Decision. [See earlier posts]

In particular I must mention the fact that JJ Jones donates all proceeds from the sale of his CDs to a charity in remembrance of his daughter.

But my most enduring memories of this holiday? Well apart from the looks of purest joy on the faces of my children, it would have to be sitting on the balcony with the strains of Spanish music played on an acoustic guitar, filtering up from below. The music seemed to play with the noise of the passing traffic like a cat with a mouse, sometimes feigning passivity, at other times being assertive, taking control and bending the other noise to its will.

Spain is the land of my grandfather, the origin of my name and so perhaps it is a part of me in a way that I almost can’t define. Looking at my children, I now think it may well be a part of them too.

Sleep, perchance to dream...

I am sleep deprived. Seriously sleep deprived. During the last week I have had on average two and a half hours of sleep per night. I am like the walking dead.

And yet the creative side of my brain refuses to quit. What little sleep I do get is peppered with dreams, and not strange and near hallucinogenic ones, but indeed lucid, coherent and cohesive, fully-joined up dreams. A few of them have been exciting enough for me to have jotted them down in my 'ideas for future novels' book.

I can barely string a sentence together I'm so tired, and on more than one occasion I have attempted to make coffee without first boiling the water...and yet the creative side of my brain is awash with ideas. Now if only I could sleep enough to get the energy to start writing some of them up...

In the meantime, why don't you take a look at some of those I have already written, just click on the link to Amazon on the right.

Happy reading!

It's hotting up!

Whatever he sees in my face seems to please him, and he bends his face closer to mine. For a long moment I think that he will kiss me. Here, in front of all of his friends. But at the last second he moves his lips to my ear, whispering so that only I can hear.

“We’re gonna have some fun, you and me,” he promises and my heart thuds its response.

Taken from the latest chapter of the book I'm currently writing and things are getting HOT. I wish I could make her turn and run away from this monster, but then again, there wouldn't be a book to write if I did!

Happy Reading!

But you see, you do already know me...

Think you've never really read anything I've written? I'm willing to bet that you're wrong... because I'm the hidden face behind lots of articles and advertising copy in a variety of places, many of which would surprise you.

So if you haven't done so already, now that you've discovered you know me so well, it's time to pick up one of my books.

Happy Reading!

A read for those who are not faint-hearted

Goodness me this new book I'm writing is shaping up quickly! And it's certainly not one for the squeamish or faint-hearted.

Because of the sensitive nature of the book, I am unable to post the more adult sections so here is a little bit of where it's currently at:-

“I’ve done it Mum,” Sarah said into the phone.

“Does he know?”

“No. Not yet anyway. Unless John and Saranne have phoned him and told him.” It was a possibility, although she thought it unlikely that they would choose to be the ones to break the news.

“How did it go telling them?” Mary Sweeney asked. She had her eyes closed and scrunched up as she spoke. She could picture her daughter’s in-laws so clearly, and could imagine how shocked they would have been.

“Well it wasn’t nice, obviously. They have no idea what Colin is really like.”

Want to know what Colin is really like? Well you'll have to wait a little while until I finish writing it.

Until then, take a look at my other books, especially Split Decision.

Happy Reading! x

I'm going to give you what you want.

For a long time, as long as I have been writing novels, there has been a story lodged at the back of my head.

I have wanted to write it and I know that lots of you have expressed a desire to read it - but up until now, I wasn't ready to commit it to the page. I am now.

Different to my other books, this one will be very hard-hitting and gritty. But I think there will be moments of mirth, of dark humour in amongst all the tragedy and pathos. And yes there will be elements within it, where some of you might recognise bits of your own lives, your own insecurities, your own worries.

Will you enjoy it? Of course you will. But don't think that it will be easy reading. It will make you think. Will it also make you view your life differently? Perhaps. I know that's something that seems to come through in most of my books, so I guess it might in this one too.

As ever I'll post snippets and keep you informed of progress.

Until then - Happy Reading!

Hot off the page

Here is a little snippet I have just written. It's where Tudie learns how very different things are set to become...

“Oh Tudie!” his mother holds her arms open to me and I let myself be enfolded into her embrace. “Have you heard?” she asks, although from my entrance and the look which is surely on my face, the answer must be obvious.


I nod, for a moment unable to speak.

All three of them resume a quiet mewling. For a few moments I join them unashamedly. Their pain echoes and amplifies mine. With no family of my own they are all I have in the world – them and Grey, and it is he who ties me so firmly to them.

Luckily Tudie is a strong character. She is going to need every last bit of that strength!

Happy Reading! x

Coming Soon

My latest book  [almost completed] is about a woman whose life falls apart after she hears some revelations. Is she like me? No, not at all, but even so, getting into her head space is draining and emotional. That is of course part of the joy and sorrow of writing - you personally bear the pain of every misfortune your character suffers. And then at the end of the book there is no real sense of release... the characters linger for a while. It's like that old saying they used to have in offices which read, "You don't have to be mad to work here... but it helps." You don't have to be insane to write your characters well but... :)

 

I'm not sure when this one will be published, as you know I have a bit of a backlog going on, but I'll keep you posted.

 

Happy Reading!

Here's a review just in from a gentleman called Peter Gagen.

"Recently, at a local village gala in Droitwich Spa, I had the good fortune to meet Carmen Capuano. Carmen is a self publishing new author who was selling her books from her stall. Intrigued, I purchased a book - The Owner Volume one.
I was so taken. I have already read book two on my Kindle and could not resist contacting Carmen to get book three.
The Owner Volume one is the first in a Si-Fi series that starts an adventure that will keep you turning the pages. It's short chapters make for an easy enthralling read. You will want to know about what happens next. Believe me you won't want to put it down.
The story is set in a strange future and follows San and Loni as they move away from their comfortable lives in a 'kept' future. Lives that are very different from ours. It's alive with the discoveries they make, along the journey they take. The story will end with you wanting to know more and get the next in the series. It has me!
(you will have to read the book to understand what 'kept' means - no spoilers here!)"

Thank you so much Peter!

A new review.

Here is the latest Split Decision review which has come in:

"Split Decision is one of the most enticing books I have ever read. I couldn't wait to immerse myself in it every night. An absolutely brilliant book! Thoroughly recommended!"

 

Zena Weeks, Special Projects Manager, England Athletics.

 

 

I'm so glad you liked it Zena! Thank you!

 

I'm all aglow!

I have been working hard on Volume VII of The Owners today and am happy with my progress. 

Even more than that, I am ecstatic about a phone call I just received, which informed me that one of the readers I sold a book to at a recent event, has found the story to be totally engrossing, so much so that she 'can't put the book down'.

Now that's what I like to hear. And remember folks, Split Decision will be out soon. Keep your eyes peeled, you're going to love it.

Happy Reading! x