Now, I know I said in my last post that I don’t mind working weekends but the last two have been the exception.  Yesterday, I had a trip to the National Portrait Gallery to meet the lovely author, Jane Odiwe.  Jane writes Austen sequels and I love her novel, Willoughby’s Return.  We met in the gorgeous gallery shop and then visited the tiny portrait of Jane Austen by her sister, Cassandra. 

It was then on to meet another Austen author, Amanda Grange, whose books, Darcy’s Diary and Mr Darcy, Vampyre are huge bestsellers and thumping good reads!  Here’s a pic of us all.  We all share the same US publisher, Sourcebooks, and it was really lovely to meet up at last.

Another weekend treat was seeing a true hero of mine in concert - Chris Isaak!  I’ve been a huge fan of Chris’s for years and love his music.  He was performing songs from his new album, Mr Lucky, and lots of the old favourites too like San Francisco Days and Wicked Game.  As readers of Molly’s Millions might remember, my hero, Tom Mackenzie, is a big Chris Isaak fan too!

Here he is in his fabulous glitterball suit! 

We’ve just returned from a wonderful week in Lyme Regis.  This was a special research trip for my current novel – The Illustrated Darcy - the second in my series about Jane Austen addicts.  We were staying in an apartment on the harbour front and had our very own view of the famous Cobb.

My novel centres around a new film production of Jane Austen’s Persuasion and it was fun to explore the settings of previous film adaptations.  Here I am on the very steps that Austen’s characters would have descended as well as the lovely Rupert Penry-Jones who played Captain Wentworth in the most recent adaptation.

Lyme is rich in literary history and, if you want to find out more, book yourself on a tour with the wonderful Literary Lyme.

It was a real treat to be able to walk along the Undercliff each morning and to follow the River Lim to Uplyme.  The bluebells were just beginning to open and there were primroses and violets along the paths and – everywhere – the incredible smell of wild garlic.

One of my favourite places to walk is Stonebarrow.  The sheltered footpaths above the sea always remind me of a Rosamunde Pilcher novel.

Here I am at Stonebarrow with my trusty copy of Persuasion.  Alas, I didn’t meet any Captain Wentworths in Dorset but I had plenty to write about my own wonderful heroes.

And I even managed to do some writing on the beach at Charmouth.  It’s always great to write in situ but it was absolutely freezing.  I really did suffer for my art that afternoon!  Still, I got my scene.

And no trip to West Dorset would be complete without a visit to the Donkey Sanctuary where you can get up close and personal to the residents!  I dropped by their wonderful shop to let them know that the sanctuary has a special place in my romantic comedy Molly’s Millions. 

Here’s me with the gorgeous Little Pippa.

There was, however, one distraction with being based in Lyme and that was the proximity of some very nice shops!  Book shops, boutiques and bakers were a particular weakness and one boutique I fell in love with was Frills which is definitely worth a visit if you want to find something a bit special and – if you go – look out for my books as they’re going to stock some lovely holiday reads soon!

If you’d like to see some of my hubby’s beautiful paintings from the trip, visit his blog here.  I love those lasers!

Yesterday, I had the very great pleasure of speaking at my first literary festival in Haringey.  It’s been running for two years now and I was invited to speak at the Marcus Garvey Library on behalf of my lovely publishers, Allison & Busby and Magna.  Everyone was very welcoming and there were drinks and cake and lots of questions from a lively audience.  I was also asked to do a short film about my book, Molly’s Millions, which will be uploaded onto the library system.

Back to the desk now …

Life as a romantic novelist can sometimes be incredibly busy especially around Valentine’s Day.  Yesterday, I was talking about romance on Radio Oxford and then I spent a lovely evening with my Let’s Talk About Love friends at Waterstones in Windsor where we were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd and made very welcome by the staff.  There were plates of heart-shaped chocolates courtesy of Hotel Chocolat and a fabulous display of our books including the glorious golden paperback of Loves Me, Loves Me Not in which Janet Gover and I have short stories.

The anthology has been getting lots of wonderful press coverage - it’s Heat magazine’s top read this week with a five-star review, and it’s People’s Friend ‘Book for February’, saying that my story “set in the Egyptian rooms of the British Museum, will restore your faith that romance can blossom in the most unlikely places”.

And there’s been more press with articles in The Worcester News and the Eastern Daily Press about the recent film interest in Molly’s Millions.

I’ve also been singing the praises of my favourite novel again – HE Bates’s The Darling Buds of May.  It really is the most gorgeous novel!

Just home from a week in windswept Wales to find I’ve been nominated for the ‘Lovely Blog Award’ – thanks to fellow writer, Rosemary Gemmell, for the nomination.  In the spirit of the award, I’m delighted to pass it on to writer, Debs Carr who has a gorgeous blog full of fun for book lovers.

Also discovered a lovely review of Molly’s Millions at Chick Lit Reviews.  Isn’t it super?

Well, Wales may have been gale-torn but we had a fabulous time.  We met up with artist Naomi Tydeman and walked our dogs on a stunning beach at sunset. 

We also had lunch with thriller writer Scott Mariani at his wonderful rambling home set deep in the Welsh countryside.  I love Scott’s Ben Hope series and there’s great excitement as its now been optioned by Amber Entertainment!

I got lots written whilst away and I’m rapidly racing towards the end of my novel about Jane Austen addicts.  This has been such a fun book to write and has meant many wonderful research trips.  I even managed to sneak a quick visit to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath en route to Wales and had an absolute ball in the gift shop!

This was the question being asked last night at Mostly Books in Abingdon where I joined fellow author Kate Harrison.  The event was sold out and there were lots of writers in the audience who kept us on our toes with plenty of questions.  Thanks to Nicki for organising such a fabulous event and to Gabby from the Abingdon Writers’ Group for chairing the evening.  And the verdict?  Well, we think vampires are here to stay – for a while, at least, but I don’t think Kate or I will be giving our own heroes fangs! 

And I’ve just seen I have a lovely new edition of one of my German novels.  This is my romantic comedy set in Venice about a young woman who’s given a magical Venetian mask.  I love it!

I really will have to think about moving to Chawton one of these days as I’m there so often.  My latest trip was to hear a lecture about Jane Austen’s manuscripts and it was fascinating stuff.  Did you know that our beloved author didn’t know how to use apostrophes properly?  She would send her hand-written manuscripts to the publisher with all sorts of crossings out and errors and they turned everything into the perfect prose that we know and love today.  But I think the highlight of the talk for me was actually being within touching distance of six first-edition copies of her books!

Monday brought a trip to the Isle of Wight to deliver more of hubby’s paintings to Island Fine Arts.  We were anxious about the crossing as there was some heavy rain around but it was fairly smooth, thank goodness, and the sun even came out for us in the afternoon and we drove up to Culver Down where Roy painted and Molly and I went walking. 

Back at home now and my first website competition has come to a close.  Katie Fforde chose the winner out of over three hundred entries and the signed copy of Molly’s Millions and the goody bag are winging their way to Chaitali in Illinois, USA. 

If you’d like to know more about Katie Fforde, have a look at the Writer Top Tens  page where you can also read all about Carole Matthews too!  More top tens coming soon …

I had some lovely news this week – Molly’s Millions is to be published in Turkey.  This is really exciting as I used to teach English at a small school in west London for Turkish students.  I wonder if they’ll remember their teacher and notice her book in the shops!

It was lovely to see Molly’s Millions in the Jarrold bestseller list.  How wonderful to be up there with Maeve Binchy, Stephanie Meyer and John Le Carré!

I’ve just returned from a trip to my home town of Norwich where I had a fabulous evening at Jarrold’s, talking and signing.  So many of my old school friends from Hethersett High came along to support me and it was amazing to see them all again and catch up on all the gossip.  I can’t believe it’s been such a long time since we were all together!

Here I am signing a few books.

I adored all the posters around the store and felt very honoured to share window space with Lauren Child’s Charlie and Lola and Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry!  It really was a very special evening and many thanks to the fabulous Mike Butler who arranged it.

I stayed at a fabulous bed and breakfast whilst in Norwich where everything was vegetarian and environmentally friendly, and I had the best breakfasts ever!  And there was time to see the beautiful Norfolk Broads and revisit some places from my childhood.  Here’s Buxton Mill – one of the many places we used to cycle to.

Now it’s back to the desk and there’s a whole heap of work to get stuck into which I’m actually looking forward to it.  It’ll be nice to see my characters again and find out what they’ve been up to!