Great excitement – the first two titles in my Austen addicts trilogy have both entered the ebook Top 100 chart at Waterstone’s! So, if you want to celebrate the upcoming 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s first publication, bag yourself a copy of A Weekend with Mr Darcy and The Perfect Hero and indulge yourself in a little Austen magic!
“There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” That’s what Ratty said to Mole in Kenneth Grahame’s wonderful novel, The Wind in the Willows, and we’ve been putting this to the test over the last week with two fabulous boat trips! Chichester Harbour is a favourite place of ours and we spend a lot of time there over the summer months with Roy painting on the beach and me and Molly walking along the coast path but something we’ve never done is a boat ride so we took ourselves off to Itchenor last week.
It was a dazzlingly bright autumn day and it was so lovely to be out on the water. But did you know that you’re not immune from junk mail even if you live on a boat? Here are some chaps delivering flyers!
Despite the warmth, there was a gentle reminder that it was really autumn.
Then, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we took another boat ride at Henley on Thames – home of the famous regatta.
There are some pretty amazing houses along the Thames. Here’s one I’ve got my eye on!
And we were lucky enough to see actor, David Walliams, doing his swim of the River Thames.
I think Ratty was right - there really is something very special about boats!
Now, it’s back to work. My edits for The Runaway Actress are about to land and I’ve just made a tentative start on a brand new novel - The Aphrodite Touch. More about that soon…
Thank you so much to everyone who entered my competition to win a signed copy of my new novel The Perfect Hero and a Jane Austen-inspired goody bag. The winner, Catherine from Dorset, was picked at random by bestselling author, Miranda Dickinson. Congratulations, Catherine!
Sorry if you’ve not been successful this time but do keep an eye on the website as there will be a new competition soon!
And don’t forget, you can still bag yourself a copy of The Perfect Hero. It was chosen as a ‘Summer Pick’ in The Sun last month and you may have seen it featured on Channel 5′s The Vanessa Show. It’s currently available on Amazon for £3.93 and the Kindle version is just £1.99 and it’s also is on promotion at large Tesco supermarkets across the country together with A Weekend with Mr Darcy.
This week, my lovely writer friend, Melanie Rose, and I visited Loseley Park in Surrey. It was used in the BBC 4-part adaptation of Emma where it played Mr Knightley’s home, Donwell Abbey, and it also had a starring role in the recent Andrew Davies adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. So it was very much a Jane Austen-themed day!
It has one of the most beautiful and romantic gardens I’ve ever seen. Here I am cuddling up to a Gertrude Jekyll rose bush!
But Loseley wasn’t the only film set I visited this week. On an evening walk with Molly, Roy and I managed to walk right through a film set! Quite close to us is a beautiful eighteenth-century farmhouse by a canal and it’s very popular as a film location – Bridget Jones’s Diary, 28 Weeks Later, and The Children of Men have all been filmed here, and we spotted David Jason there this week - filming The Royal Bodyguard which is to be shown on TV at Christmas.
As if this wasn’t enough excitement, I then visited the lovely Ashdown House where my writer friend, Nicola Cornick, gives guided tours when she isn’t writing her wonderful historical novels. Here we are, windswept on the roof! The views over the parkland are stunning.
Don’t forget, this is the last week you can buy my three fantasy rom coms on Kindle for just 86p each. And it’s also your last chance to enter my competition to win a signed copy of The Perfect Hero and a Jane Austen goodie bag!
We’ve had a very mixed week weather-wise in the UK but, on Friday, the sun came out and it was glorious. The fields were gold and green, and there were masses of sloe berries in the hedgerows. I love their deep blue bloom.
We visited one of my favourite villages – Turville. Tucked away in the rolling Buckinghamshire countryside, Turville is a hidden gem with pretty cottages and a rather famous windmill that was the home of the Potts family in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The village has also had a staring role inn The Vicar of Dibley, An Education and The Shell Seekers and it isn’t hard to see why beacuase it really is the perfect English village.
I have a weakness for roses and here are two beauties I spotted in Turville. Aren’t they glorious?
There are few things more quintessentially English than a country cottage with roses around the door!
I adore old houses especially big, old country houses and I’ve set quite a few of my books in them too. So, this week, on a perfect summer’s day, I met up with fellow author, Melanie Rose, and visited Hatchlands Park which lies deep in the Surrey countryside – just a stone’s throw away from Emma Woodhouse’s Box Hill.
Hatchlands has the most amazing collection of keyboard instruments and we saw one that had once belonged to Marie Antoinette. We marvelled at the collection before walking across the parkland and having tea and cake in the stable courtyard. This part of the estate reminded me of my book, A Weekend with Mr Darcy, and my hero Dan Harcourt who lives in a room below a clock tower.
It was a lovely summer’s day and it thoroughly recharged the batteries and I now have all sorts of ideas for the latest country house in a new novel of mine …
I’m delighted to announce that you can now download and read my three fantasy rom coms on Kindle: Flights of Angels, Three Graces and Unmasking Elena Montella. These three books have only been published in Germany so far where Flights of Angels was made into a film in 2008. But this is the first time they’ve been available in the English language. And there’s a special offer for August – all three books are available for just 86p. Happy reading!
I adore animals and I love writing about them too. I’ve written about dogs, horses, chickens and – most recently – cats! If you’d like to read my latest short story featuring a very cute cat, take a look at the August edition of Your Cat magazine. You can watch a video about the magazine here.
I’m delighted to announce that I’ve just published two books on Amazon Kindle. The first is my fantasy rom com, Flights of Angels. As some of you know, Flights of Angels was published in Germany after fierce bidding between five publishers. It was also made into a film in 2008. This is the first time it’s been published in the English language and I hope my readers think it’s worth the wait!
As an added bonus, there is also a collection of short stories called One Perfect Week. It’s all very exciting and I’m absolutely delighted with the covers designed by my talented husband, Roy!
Click on the covers to read more – or visit:
Saturday was a very special day for me because I had two talks in Hampshire – the county of Jane Austen! The first was at the West Meon Festival. West Meon is a gorgeous village in the heart of rural Hampshire and the church was decorated with bunting and there was coffee and cake for everyone.
I have never given a talk in a church before and I have to say that I was a little anxious that I might have to speak from the pulpit! Fortunately, this wasn’t the case and I was given a magnificent seat on a small stage in front of a beautiful altar.
Then it was on to Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton. I was so honoured to be speaking about my Jane Austen trilogy at the very home of my idol. The room was packed and there were dozens of questions for me to answer at the end and the biggest queue for a book signing I’ve ever had! I have to say that Austen fans are the loveliest people ever!
Now it’s back to the desk where I’m cooking up a lovely surprise for my readers. Keep in touch to find out what it is later this week …
