Welcome to In the Margins for December 2026

Hi there

Meet my new friend. I saw her in the supermarket reduced to less than the price of a cup of coffee and I couldn’t bear to leave her on the shelf so I brought her home with me. Namaste!

Lots of exciting things in this edition of In The Margins so keep reading.

Book News!

The big news this month is that Late in the Day has been published and it seems to be going down wellwith readers so far. The ratings average suggests that readers are enjoying it and there are some lovely reviews, not least from The Margin Club early readers. Thank you to you all.

I am thinking of running an online bookclub session for the book with me answering readers’ questions on a Facebook live event. If you have any questions about the book (or anything to do with my writing) then please message me on imogen@imogenclark.com and I’ll include your question if I run the event.

Other big news this month is that I have the new cover for the nexy Izzy Bromley book, The House Sitter, which I am revealing here to you, my loyal readers before it hits social media. I love it and I hope you do too. And who is Gerald, I hear you cry? Well, you’ll have to wait and see!

I don’t have a date for publication yet but please watch this space as you’ll be the first to know when I do.

What am I writing?

I am coming up to the end of the Imogen book which will be out around October 2027, working title We Were Three. As ever, I have no idea how or when I will end so I’ll just keep writing until I get there! At the moment I’m in Cambodia in 2005 and the research is fascintating. Anyway, more of that in due course.

This month I have also completed the proof read of Between Us which will be published in January 2027. I imagine that it will be avaible to pre-order soon and I am waiting with bated breath to see a first iteration of the cover. I’ll let you know when I know.

Where have I been?

Well, if the temperatures have been anything to go by, I could have been on holiday all month! We have been having a few heatwaves here in the UK which aren’t universally appreciated but I do enjoy the heat.

I was in London for one of them and got up early each morning to go and sit at a picnic table overlooking the River Thames to write. It was fabulous and made me think that I should leave the confines of my little office to write more often. Whilst I was in London I also went to the Frida Kahlo exhibition and to the National Portrait Gallery. Photos are on my instagram page.

I also went to see Lily Allen in her West End Girl tour which I very much enjoyed and went to Swansea to see Physical Education by new writer Jonathan Houlston (also my daughter’s boyfriend!) which was fabulous too. Five stars from The Guardian is no mean feat. On the way I called in at Gloucester, a place I’ve never been to before to visit the cathedral. Again photos on my instagram page.

And then there was my wonderful launch night for Late in the Day at The Grove Bookshop. It went really well. Mike, who interviewed me, had thought of angles that hadn’t occured to me as I was writing. It felt a little bit like English A level – what did the author mean by . . .? There are some signed copies for sale in the shop so if you’d like one just pop by and ask.

Other highlights included my husband’s co-directing of a production of The Addams Family. This little yellow bird (see below) sat in our kitchen for a while. It was only when I saw the show that I realised he would have his head wrenched off by Wednesday Addams every night for a week. Poor little thing!

I also went on a workshop to learn how to make a hand tied bouquet and decided that I needed bigger hands!

What have I read?

Some cracking books this month. I devoured It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell almost within hours of it coming out. Jane Trevally finds a stray dog but when she returns it she realises that she’s been to the house before – the man living there tried to kidnap her. Now, twenty-five years later another girl has gone missing and Jane turns PI to investigate. This is classic Jewell – fabulous chararcters, a great mystery to solve and wonderful writing to boot.

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom was such a heart-warming story. Frankie Albom is sent to America on his own with a guitar and six very special guitar strings. He is only nine. Through various twists and turns of fate he becomes a musician and plays with most of the best known musicians of the time. It reminded me a little of Forrest Gump in the way that the author interwove his fictional characters with real ones. It was a lovely gentle read and just what I needed.

The Calamity Club by Kathry Stockett is a long book but without a wasted word. Set in Mississippi in 1933, we meet Meg, eleven, whose adored mother goes out and never comes back. Meg is put in an orphanage where she waits, certain that her mother will return. There she meets Birdie who is trying to earn enough money to keep her family afloat. The two become firm friends until Meg is adopted and Birdie starts to realise that all is not as it seems in her sister’s life, not in Meg’s. The book is delightful, the female characters all formidable and the narrative voice is charming. A joy all round.

Finally, The Night Stairs by Erin Kelly is a gothic mystery set in a catholic girls boarding school that has a strange past. Not only did a girl die in unexplained circimstances twenty years before but the school has been struck by ‘the spins’ a odd kind of mass hysteria which the head mistress wants to keep quiet at all costs. Now, with the future of the school in question, the spins are back and the mystery of the dead girl is about to unravel everything. With a complicated timeline and plenty of twists this was an intriguing read.

And that’s your lot for this month. Don’t forget if you have a question for me about Late in the Day then email me on imogen@imogenclark.com and I’ll add it to my list. Also, remember that my books make great book club books and if you’d like to read Late in the Day (or any of my books) with your book club then there is a set of questions for each book to get your discussions going on my website HERE.

So, until next month, happy reading.

Best wishes,

Imogen.