May 8, 2012
Have you seen the Top 3 Best Sellers in the Sunday Times and every other chart this week? Have you noticed those dump bins of mysterious grey paperbacks at the entrance to Sainsbury’s? Have you seen people raving and sighing and being Totally Outraged on social media sites?
All over a novel?
A romance novel?
Okay, I’m willing to stir up a debate here but the 50 Shades series seem like romance novels to me. I’ve only read the first, which I found amusing and mildly titillating in equal measure. If that’s a crime, please feel free to report me to … whoever.
What really amazes me is how what is, effectively, a very hot and kinky romance novel, has gone mainstream at all. Controversial books, usually involving lashings of s*x have hit the best-sellers in the past, of course, but 50 Shades is one of hundreds, probably thousands, of books of that genre out there.
Many of my friends have read it and are astonished that such books exist, yet of course, BDSM romance is a very popular romance genre in the US – so what’s new?
Could it be the Twilight fanfiction origins of the book? Clever media marketing? Is 50 Shades a ground breaking work by a genius? Or like, Bridget Jones, simply the first of an established genre, to catch the world’s attention?
And will the charts now be flooded with very hot romance in the UK and USA?
It makes me smile when people who don’t read a lot of romance tell me my own books are ‘very racy’. One chap (admittedly of 75) asked me at the weekend ‘do women really want to read such naughty stuff? Well, going by 50 Shades, the answer clearly a resounding ‘yes’ – and a hundred times naughtier. 
If you’re outraged by 50 Shades, as you’re perfectly entitled to be, may I suggest you avoid the entrance display at Sainsbury’s and hope it all goes away. It may well be flash in the pan but I rather hope not. That book has made it okay for me to discuss hot romance with people who I’ve previously only chatted to about gardening and house prices.
And if you’re looking for something a little hotter and a little darker than my usual books, may I also suggest you try Fever Cure? There aren’t any trips to the hardware store in it, and no eye rolling or lip biting… but I think you might enjoy it.
It’s available in the UK, US and further afield as an e book – and from June 5th in print.
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7:02 am |
May 3, 2012
I’ve finally come down (a little) from being able to announce the news about Miranda’s Mount. The e book’s out on October 1st and I’ve now sent off the ‘tweaked’ manuscript to my new ed. There wasn’t much to do, happily, and I really enjoyed making the changes so fingers crossed.
I don’t have a blurb or cover yet and it’s going to be fun to see how the Piatkus Entice marketing department present the book.
I don’t think it’s too much to reveal that it has a heroine called Miranda (quel surprise) and a hero called Jago St Merryn.
I love choosing names for characters, and I have to get the name right or I can’t seem to carry on with the story. The name defines the character and I spend quite a while finding the right one. Some slip into your mind instantly, others can take a few chapters. You know when you’ve found the perfect name.
Now, I admit Jago is a pretty exotic choice for a hero but the book is set in Cornwall and he needed a very Cornish name that was distinctive and slightly .. odd. I searched baby names on the web for quite a while and checked out maps for the surname. I came across Jago and it seemed right – unusual, old-fashioned, with a tiny hint of sinister (reminds me of the villainous Iago from Othello.) I was totally hooked when I found that Jago can also mean : usurper, because that’s so perfect for his character.
Miranda came to me instantly as she is the driving force of the book, which is set on an island castle that gets cut off by the sea at high tide. I love the name, it reminds me of the fabulous Miranda Hart and of course, of the Miranda from The Tempest.
However, before Miranda’s Mount, I have two books coming out in the first week of June:
Just Say Yes will be available in print and e book in the USA.
And a print edition of Fever Cure is going to be published and available worldwide from some stores and Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble etc
There’ll be much more on those in a week or so.
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7:48 am |
April 27, 2012
I think it’s okay now to share my good news: I’ve signed a two-book deal with Piatkus Entice and the first novel is out in October 2012.
It’s called Miranda’s Mount and it’s a warm and funny contemporary romance, a bit longer than my previous books and I hope you’re going to LOVE IT!
Sorry – a bit over excited…
The book’s not on Amazon or other sites yet but there’s more about the imprint here on the Piatkus website and I’ll share more details as soon as I have them.
Have a great weekend – I will!
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10:43 am |
April 26, 2012
That wasn’t a very succinct headline, was it? But I’ve got a few things I’d like to share this week – a real mish mash but all good. Actually I have so much stuff to share over the next few weeks, that my head’s spinning but I’ll start off with two items: a talk and reviews.
First, if you’re in the UK – specifically the West Midlands, I’m doing an author talk with Nell Dixon on May 29th 2.30-3.30 at Brownhills Library in the West Midlands. It would be lovely to see you, and if I once knew you, you might even remember me. The talk is free of course and for more info, please call 01922 650730.
This visit is special to me because I was born and went to school in Brownhills, and my auntie used to be the librarian there years ago. I still remember visiting her and being fascinated by the old twirling card system and of course, there were thousands of books!
Back to 2012, I was thrilled when my US publisher, Sourcebooks, sent me through two fab reviews – a 4 star one from RT Reviews (whew!) and one from Publishers Weekly. They are for Just Say Yes, which is being re-released on June 1st in print and e-book in the US. Positive reviews are always very gratifying but to get them from two such major US publications is, as you might say, awesome (and yes, a big relief too!)
Here’s the one from PW:
Ashley (Carrie Goes Off the Map) delivers a frothy chick lit commentary on love and spectacle. Lucy Gibson barely knows Nick Laurentis—aside from in the biblical sense—when he proposes in front of 10 million people after winning a British reality TV competition. An overwhelmed Lucy declines, and media hell ensues. Lucy’s closet friend, Fiona, spirits her off to a cabin she owns in a seaside town outside London where Lucy meets Josh Standring, who owns the nearby cabins. To spare Lucy the nightmare of further media exposure, Fiona tells Josh that Lucy is a merchant banker who has suffered a minor meltdown. Josh has a girlfriend and Lucy has just about given up on love, but the two are drawn to each other. Will her real identity scare him off? While the ending is far from unexpected, it will charm Ashley’s existing fans—and new ones. (June)
The four star RT Review appears in the June issue of the magazine but one of the things they wrote about it is: delightfully unpredictable and entertaining from start to finish.
Right now, I’ve almost finished the edits on the New-Book-That-Cannot-yet-Speak-Its-Name which is good as the deadline is looming. As I’ve kept rattling on about being able to share the details very, very soon, I won’t do it again because no one will believe me but I’m hoping it will be er… soon. Otherwise I’ll explode with the tension.
PS I’m going to confuse everyone, including myself, in a week or so when I try to luanch two books I have out on the same day in different formats and countries with different publishers. Yeah, baby…
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4:28 am |
April 23, 2012
I was lucky enough to be invited to a book launch in Cambridge last week for the launch of Rosy Thornton‘s latest novel, Ninepins. I have to say it was one of the best attended launches I’ve ever been to and I’m glad I got my signed copy first as Heffers sold out. There was nice wine too and mini pork pies – which I was also first in the queue for.
Rosy and I ‘met’ in 2004 on the BBC Drama messageboard as fans of North & South and we both started writing fiction at the same time and both got our first deals – with the same publisher – within two weeks.
Her ifth novel, ‘Ninepins’, is published by Sandstone Press.
NINEPINS is an isolated former tollhouse in the Cambridgeshire fens. There live single mother Laura and her twelve-year-old daughter, Beth, in the carefully controlled cocoon that Laura has built around them. But Beth is brittly asthmatic, lonely at school and increasingly distant from her mother. And into their lives like a brisk fen breeze comes Willow, a seventeen-year-old care leaver with a mysterious past, together with her social worker, Vince. Laura must decide: what does she want of Vince, and he of her? Is Willow dangerous or vulnerable, or maybe a little of both? And are all Laura’s painstakingly constructed certainties about to come tumbling down like ninepins?
The novel is available as a paperback and will shortly be out also in e-book format.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninepins-Rosy-Thornton/dp/1905207859/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333958417&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Ninepins-Rosy-Thornton/dp/1905207859/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334827236&sr=1-3
http://www.sandstonepress.com/title/ninepins/
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9:44 am |
