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Ali Mercer

@alimercerwriter.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.8K following 101 posts

Here but not here. Often sleepy and mildly baffled. Late adopter. Jotter-downer. Onetime diary keeper. Writes stuff. Sometimes cannot then read it back, especially when have tried to keep secret by using rusty shorthand. Likes tea.

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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
if anybody fancies giving my new @bookouture.bsky.social novel a go - Oxford-set timeslip family mystery full of secrets and lies - it's currently 99p/99c in Kindle: geni.us/B0GZZY1SWRau... & there I am on publication day in the kitchen, where I've done a fair bit of writing down the years...
me holding a copy of my new novel The House of Pearls, (cover shows a golden house at sunset seen through an overgrown pearl-studded archway) - I'm standing in the corner of the kitchen with a big grin on my faceme holding a copy of my new novel The House of Pearls, (cover shows a golden house at sunset seen through an overgrown pearl-studded archway) - I'm sitting at the kitchen table and smilingquote from an early reader review of The House of Pearls - 'completely swept me away... unforgettable' set against an image similar to the book cover - a path leading through a garden towards a sunset sky, seen through an overgrown archway studded with pearlsquote from an early reader review of The House of Pearls - 'I was hooked... fantastic' set against an image similar to the book cover - a path leading through a garden towards a sunset sky, seen through an overgrown archway studded with pearls
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
my new novel #TheHouseofPearls is out from @bookouture.bsky.social today! Available from Amazon here geni.us/B0GZZY1SWRau... and you can order the paperback from all good bookshops. & here I am in the garden before it got too hot (outfit not deliberately chosen to coordinate with book cover honest)
me standing in front of the hops in the back garden holding a copy of The House of Pearls - the book cover shows a golden stone house against a blue and pink sunset sky seen through an overgrown archway studded with pearls - I've got a pearl necklace on and a blue top with little pink and green crossstitch starsme standing in front of the purple clematis in the back garden holding a copy of The House of Pearls - the book cover shows a golden stone house against a blue and pink sunset sky seen through an overgrown archway studded with pearls - I've got a pearl necklace on and a blue top with little pink and green crossstitch starsthe cover of The House of Pearls - a golden stone house against a blue and pink sunset sky seen through an overgrown archway studded with pearls - set against a border of leaves and pearls
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
V happy to see #TheHouseofPearls popping up as reader recommended on #NetGalley ow.ly/EHZF50Z7Wgz! (This is in women's #fiction - also in general fiction.) Out on July 10 from @bookouture.bsky.social - Kindle preorder here: geni.us/B0GZZY1SWRau... (I am still too chicken to read the reviews!!!!)
screenshot of books on NetGalley currently recommended in the women's fiction category, showing the cover of my new novel The House of Pearls (a golden stone house with an indigo and pink sunset sky overhead, seen through an overgrown archway studded with pearls)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Checking page proofs for #TheHouseofPearls! Last chance saloon 😮📖🤔🧐 - it’s out from @bookouture.bsky.social on July 10! And is on Amazon here if a Kindle pre-order tempts you: geni.us/B0GZZY1SWRau...
title page of The House of Pearlspage proof from The House of Pearls listing six previous Ali Mercer bookscover of The House of Pearls: a dreamy old golden stone house against a sunset sky with indigo clouds, seen through an overgrown archway studded with pearls
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
My new book is now on #netgalley! If an Oxford-set multigenerational timeslip story of family secrets and a mysterious old house (with a dash of magic) sounds like your cup of tea - then you can find it here: ow.ly/EHZF50Z7Wgz 🎉✨📙💍 @bookouture.bsky.social #booksky #TheHouseofPearls
cover of new novel The House of Pearls - which shows an old golden-stone house seen through an overgrown archway dotted with pearls - on a background of sunset sky with inky-blue clouds
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Finale of Hacks was SO GOOD! Love it when a telly ending gets it stormingly right (can’t be taken for granted…)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Rain! Big fat splotches on the patio, and the lovely sound of it. Magic as the first snow of winter back in the cold old days. (I’m aware I won’t be saying this next week when heat gives way to routine downpour.)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Just read Cheryl Strayed’s essay The Love of My Life: www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/217... ‘Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it’s one thing and one thing only: it’s doing what you have to do.’
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Also remembered what RiRi said when they asked her if she’d read 50 Shades and it made me smile. Big fat chunk of work to tackle today. There is no try, &tc.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Dew on the grass and birds singing like there’s no tomorrow. Iced coffee jug in fridge. Being up early on a heatwave bank hol Mon has early Christmas Day vibes, but all inverted.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
V excited to share the cover of my new novel, The House of Pearls - out July 10 from @bookouture.bsky.social ! Single mum Elsa inherits a Georgian townhouse in Oxford from her estranged uncle and uncovers the mystery of her family's past. Kindle available to preorder now: geni.us/B0GZZY1SWRau...
image of the cover of my new novel, The House of Pearls, which features a golden stone house seen through an ivy-clad archway dotted with pearls
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
It is so strange (and satisfying) how a story changes when you start writing it.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
ah, The Pitt. So good so far, I think the best post Covid drama I’ve seen (in the way it handles the impact, and how things are in the aftermath)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
… Devil Wears Prada 2 is SO fun and unexpectedly poignant too, esp for one who trained as a magazine journalist a zillion years ago. It’s so much about the painful decline of print and the march of the tech bros (justly lampooned & then dealt with by Meryl Streep)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Finally watched Chernobyl. It is as astoundingly good as everybody said. & as horrifying and haunting as you might expect.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
OK, flashback pic. Taken by my OH. Cafe Flore, Paris, hot chocolate, November 2001 (I think.) Happy.
me younger, big grin, in pale blue polo neck holding a small white china cup of hot chocolate, with other cafe people in the background
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Hurrah! Have summer party to go to (thank you @bookouture.bsky.social) 🥳🎉💃
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Clematis is doing its thing and hopefully at least some of what I planted today will sprout. Also still digging up bits of plastic windmills that my son used to love back in the day. & now wholesomely tired and have freckles.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
(villainous and/or perfidious and wimpy)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Ouf, A Woman of Substance is SO much better than the Downton era tosh. This is definitely a time of villainous toffs.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
ok so: feverfew, love-in-a-mist, borage and columbines. Hopefully some of them will make it and fend off the prowling slugs etc.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
😍😍😍 spring doing its thing
tree covered with white blossom
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
I am not much cop as a gardener (oh hello, ghosts of lilac and ceanothus I did in), but I do like how things that appear to be dead may turn out not to be.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
there is something ultimately reassuring about the dynamic of being schooled by Gen Z
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
For those who don’t know - Hacks is SO GOOD and Christina Hendricks is even more of a goddess than I realised (just got to her cameo)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
though my housemaid ancestor did not mess with the aristo sons (bound not to turn out well), but sensibly waited and saved up until she and the coachman could afford to get married. My grasp on the history of all this is hazy, but I think it was at Painshill in Surrey (which is pretty fancy).
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
started watching new adaptation of quintessential rags-to-riches revenge drama A Woman of Substance (Emma Harte: 'The secret of life is to endure') & was put in mind of the little brass bell we have somewhere that was once used to summon housemaid ancestor by her bosses
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I have been told that in novels by women my age (70s-born, 20s in the 90s) the ex-boyfriends are often called Simon.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Rule no 1 of writing is that if you call someone Will and change your mind, beware of ‘replace all’.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
One thing I really, really like about what I do for a living is the luxury of sitting round inventing family trees. Especially the names. Though as I start on my tenth book I’ve totally forgotten which names I’ve already used. (No Alisons, I know for sure.)
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
At the point in writing where it’s a rush of names like people at a party who you haven’t got to know yet
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
It's World Autism Acceptance Day. Cuts coming in to the health element of universal credit will slash support available to #autistic people with #learningdisability who are unable to work, leaving many of the most vulnerable in penury. Which makes me think we have accepted nothing #WAAD
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
When generative AI was but a twinkle in a tech bro’s eye.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Just found (not quite at the bottom of a desk drawer) the Jiffy bag containing the long-ago printed-out MS of what later became my first published novel, which had been returned by an agent who’d rejected it. (And who through zeal or error or both, actually wrote to reject it another 2 times.)
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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Fantastic news in the UK today - the government has apparently ditched its plan to force creatives to 'opt out' if they don't want AI companies training on their life's work. www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog... 🧵 1/4
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
'Enshittification' is not a word recognised by autocorrect [have just introduced it to an 80something having tech headaches]
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
It is one of the pleasanter rules of life that a man carrying flowers must be smiled at.
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
this suggests the collapse in mental health care is one factor behind these horrifying statistics. The collapse affects children's MH services too, where young ppl wait years to be seen, & over-16s who are violent towards their parents wait too. Will govt now act? www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
theguardian.com
Sons were suspects in nearly one in five cases of women killed by men in UK in past year
Figures recorded by Femicide Census in past 12 months indicate highest rate of matricide in 16 years
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I just registered 😊
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
today I met someone very nice who vividly remembered a book I published 12 years ago (and who I haven’t seen in about as long.) which was an out of the blue reminder that books have strange secret lives of their own.
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Taco Bell Quarterly @tacobellquarterly.org · 09/03/2026
You're not going to make any money doing this and no one is going to read it, so you must hope for a secret third thing to happen
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Oooh A Woman of Substance is back, Edwin Fairley watch out!
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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
May (or may not) contain me.
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Dayna EM Craig @narcissistprayer.com · 10/03/2026
I'm in excellent company between these pages standing up for UK copyright protections for authors..
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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
ps You can see the full list of authors involved at dontstealthisbook.com
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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
The UK government is considering upending copyright law to benefit AI companies. Don’t Steal This Book urges them not to. Apart from the list of authors involved, the book is empty, representing the effect the government’s plans would have on authors' livelihoods. 2/3
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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
We urge the government in the strongest possible terms to rule out legalising this large-scale theft. And to AI companies we say: stop stealing our books! buff.ly/cYnU2Mw #DontStealThisBook
buff.ly
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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
...and represents the impact on authors’ livelihoods and the publishing industry that is expected if the government proceeds with plans it has floated that would make it easier to train AI models on copyrighted work without a licence. 🧵
buff.ly
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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Almost 10,000 authors have come together to publish an empty book protesting the theft of books by tech companies to train AI models. Titled Don’t Steal This Book, it is empty of text except the names of the authors involved.. 🧵
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Ali Mercer @alimercerwriter.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
I WROTE A TIMESLIP! V excited to have signed with @bookouture.bsky.social for two more books and v happy to have written a dark twisty multigenerational family drama with secrets, lies, betrayal, heartbreak and a dash of time travel… Here’s the book deal announcement: bookouture.com/bookouture-a...
bookouture.com
Bookouture acquires more novels from authors Alexander, Mercer and O'Shea
Bookouture is thrilled to announce the acquisition of gorgeous women's fiction novels from authors Rose Alexander, Ali Mercer and Daisy O'Shea.
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