THREE THINGS ON THURSDAY

Hello, hello, hello, Dear Readers! Happy Thursday to all - just think, only one day until the weekend!

Today's post divides up neatly into three parts, and they are thus:

1) The winners of last week's giveaway of two signed copies of the Things I'll Never Say anthology containing the Shadows on the Moon prequel story 'Stormclouds Fleeing from the Wind' are Barker and Jones Staff and Rachel Balcombe! Well done, you two. Get in touch with me at z d marriott (at) g mail dot com and let me know the postal addresses where you'd like these sent and if you'd like me to dedicate your books, and if so, to whom.

2) It is now less than one week until I shall be participating in this panel at London Book Fair! The Dark Arts panel event will include author and journalist Josh Winning, bestselling author Sally Green and (most exciting of all!) my two friends (also bestselling, award-nominated writers) C.J. Daugherty and Liz de Jager, whom I cannot wait to see. It's my very first appearance at the LBF and I'm slightly terrified, so if any of you Dear Readers are going to be there at the fair, please do come along and give me a wave or a shout.

3) My promised music post! I came up with the idea for this when I was trying to work out, as a sort of mental exercise, my top five songs ever. I couldn't actually do it. I got it down to six, but then realised that they were all bands fronted by guys or guy artists, and that I'd completely forgotten about all the female artists and female led bands I love, which led to me making another list of them. So eventually it was my top twelve songs of all time. Not exactly evidence of a neatly organised brain, but definitely a sign of excellent musical taste, in my opinion. This doesn't include classical or soundtrack/instrumental pieces, by the way - I recommend those all the time in my playlists.

So here (in no particular order) are the top six songs by female singers, artists or female-led bands:



This was a close call. For instance, Midnight on the Water was almost You are my Sunshine by Civil Wars, Sleep Alone was almost Speeding Cars by Imogen Heap, With Every Heartbeat was almost Angels Would Fall by Melissa Etheridge, Blooming Heather was nearly The Only Exception by Paramore, and All I Need was almost Memories (also by Within Temptation).

When I've done the top six male singers, artists and male led bands next week, I'll probably put together a Spotify playlist to make it easier to listen to everything at once and add a few of those alternates in as a bonus. Enjoy, my lovelies!