My news at last – signed with Piatkus Entice

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!

RT Reviews and Publishers Weekly & author talk mash -up

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…

Guest author – Rosy Thornton

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.sandstonepress.com/title/ninepins/

Should you read the book – or watch the movie?

April 20, 2012

This is not a gratuitous excuse to post a picture of Michael Fassbender. Honest. However, I will admit I was looking at the DVD of Jane Eyre online, hoping it would come down in price. I want this DVD, I saw it at the cinema and it’s great but I’m also mean.

There’s a review of it on one big site from a student who says that the DVD made her read the book for her university course, otherwise she wouldn’t have bothered as she presumes most students don’t.

Am I alone in being a bit …shocked? It’s hardly a crime but…

Back in the day when I did A levels – even when I did GCSE English, we actually read the set books. Jane Eyre was one of them, along with less exciting stuff like Nine Modern Poets, Father and Son and – yuk – Lord of the Flies and of course, at least two Shakespeare plays. But we did read all of them and studied them.

I love watching TV and film adaptations of books – even if I hate the finished result, I like to see the differences and try and understand why and how the screen version is different.

Call me an old fogey, but how can you study a text at university level without reading it?

By the way, much as 12 Men of Christmas is a fun movie, may I respectfully request that you also read the book 🙂

Work, rest and play

April 18, 2012

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes on our wedding anniversary. We spent the big day at the Wellcombe Manor Hotel, Stratford upon Avon and the next morning I went for a look round the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

Then we headed off with Ms Bennet for a family week in glorious Pembrokeshire in West Wales. If you haven’t visited before, you have to go! It has a rugged, unspoiled coastline with beautiful beaches and lots of stunning castles.

It also boasts Britian’s smallest city – tiny St David’s, which is about the size of the village I live in yet has a purple stoned medieval cathedral and a C13th Bishop’s Palace. It’s definitely a location that will feature in a future book.

Talking of which (note the segueway :)), it’s back to work for me. Most of you know I have some exciting news about a new book (or two!), but I haven’t had permission to post any details yet. I’m dying to spill the beans, but I guess I’ll have to be patient a while longer. But I can tell you that I’ve already got my edits and they involve creating an even greater sense of place in the opening to the book which has a spectacular setting. It’s great to be able to go back to the start of the book with the benefit of hindsight. The edits are only tweaks, really, and I’m really enjoying doing them, knowing I can share the story soon.

Everyone in publishing seems to be at the London Book Fair right now but I’m heading off to Cambridge later for the launch of my writer friend, Rosy Thornton’s new book Ninepins.

I’m meeting up with some writers and book bloggers. I think a book launch counts as work, rest and play. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.