Way out west

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I hate fireworks!  Well, I hate suburban fireworks.  Where we currently live, there isn’t a fireworks night but a fireworks season which begins in mid-October and goes right through until the end of January.  It’s unbearable!  So, in order to escape the very worst of it, we ran away to the Welsh coast for a long weekend and it was bliss!  And just look at our local walk:

The coastal path is so beautiful and I even spotted a few red campions!

I often complain about walking my dog in the London suburbs but at least we don’t have signs like this:

Now, it’s back home and there are rewrites to do for The Runaway Actress and also a house to pack because – at long last – we are leaving the noisy London suburbs and moving to rural Suffolk.  I can’t wait although the day itself is bound to be stressful with dog and hens in tow!

Austen Addicts top Waterstone’s Chart!

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I’m delighted to see A Weekend with Mr Darcy and The Perfect Hero are the bestselling ebooks in Waterstone’s Romance chart this week.  It’s so exciting to see them together and I hope that you all enjoy the third book too.  Mr Darcy Forever has just been released on Kindle as an ebook exclusive.

I can’t tell you how much fun it was to write this trilogy and it means the world to me to see them doing so well especially this week as it is 200 years since Jane Austen’s first book was published.  Happy Birthday, Sense and Sensibility!

 

Mr Darcy Forever

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Thank you to all my lovely readers who helped to give my new book, Mr Darcy Forever, such a fabulous launch yesterday.  It’s shot up the Amazon Kindle chart and features in three different genre charts – a great start!

I’ve had a lot of emails from readers about the new book and I’d just like to explain – at the moment, Mr Darcy Forever is exclusively published in ebook form.  It’s available to readers all over the world excluding the US where it will have a paperback and ebook release (with a brand new cover) in April 2012.

Mr Darcy Forever is the third in my Jane Austen addicts’ trilogy and I’ve been delighted with the recent success of the first two books.  Last week, A Weekend with Mr Darcy sold over 1,000 ebook copies and it’s been in the Amazon Kindle Top 100 chart for two weeks.  The Perfect Hero is doing well too and is in the Top 20 Waterstone’s ebook chart.  It’s lovely to know that there are so many Austen fans out there!

If you’d like to know more about the book, take a look at the Mr Darcy Forever page where you can read an excerpt.  The book is set in two stunning locations – Devon and Bath – and I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures.

Mr Darcy Forever

You are cordially invited to a book launch…

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This Friday, I’ll be launching the third book in my Jane Austen addicts’ trilogy – Mr Darcy Forever. It’s going to be published on Kindle as an ebook in the UK and paperback publication is following in the US in April 2012.

Mr Darcy Forever is about two estranged sisters who meet at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath but can the magic of Jane Austen help to bring them back together again? 

The first two books in the trilogy – A Weekend with Mr Darcy and The Perfect Hero – have both been topping the Waterstone’s and Amazon Kindle charts and I’m delighted to be releasing the third book in time to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s first publication, Sense and Sensibility.

So, please come and join the online book launch on Friday 28th October.  It’ll be taking place at my Facebook fan page and, if you ‘like’ the page and leave a message, you’ll be entered into a draw to win a signed copy of the US version of A Weekend with Mr Darcy (that’s the cover with the famous legs on it!)

See you on Friday!

Thank you, lovely readers!

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I would just like to say a HUGE thank you to all the lovely readers who have been buying A Weekend with Mr Darcy.  It’s been in the Waterstone’s Top Ten ebook chart and … drumroll … has just entered Amazon Kindle’s Top 100.  I am absolutely thrilled to see it there and I hope all my new readers enjoy it.  Don’t forget, it’s part of a trilogy about Jane Austen addicts and The Perfect Hero is the next in the series and has been steadily climbing the charts too.

To celebrate this wonderful news, you can now buy Three Graces for under £1 too.  This is a rom com with a touch of magic and was published in Germany in 2009.  It’s one of three ebooks published on Kindle over the summer and feedback has been brilliant.  I’m so thrilled you’re all enjoying them.

Starting a new novel …

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is a wonderful adventure.  There is always a sense of hope and anticipation and ideas tumble around your head until they force you into submission and then you become a typing machine!  I’ve just completed the rewrites for my new rom com, The Runaway Actress.  It’s due out in April and I’ve been told that it’ll have a fabulous new-look cover which I can’t wait to see!  And I’ve just begun the new novel … 

The Aphrodite Touch is about a Plain Jane who suddenly becomes irresistible to men after she makes a wish on a statue of Aphrodite – the goddess of love – whilst on holiday in Greece.  I’ve written the first three chapters although these are bound to change as I get to know my characters.  I’ve also got loads of unorganised notes and I keep adding bits here and there so it’s all a bit of a jumble at the moment but a very happy one!

It’s been great to have this distraction with the turmoil of our impending house move.  We’ve had so many delays and it’s been very disruptive and stressful but I keep thinking of our little country cottage and picturing our first Christmas there…

Moving house makes you realise all the things you’ll miss about living somewhere and, although I won’t miss the suburbs, I will miss the beautiful Chilterns and the Thames Valley so we’ve been out and about visiting some of our favourite places and enjoying the October sunshine.  One fascinating place we visited recently was the Natural History Museum in Tring.  It’s a fascinating building and collection.

And, on the pet front, our dear spaniel, Molly, is back to normal having survived a second operation to remove two more tumours.  She’s been through so much in the last couple of months and we’ve been told that it’s unadvisable to put her though any more operations in the future as we nearly lost her both times.  Her belly looks like a jigsaw but she’s made a full recovery and even ran around the garden with a tennis ball the other day.  Such a relief to have her back!  And she’s delighted not to have to wear the bulky bucket collar anymore!

Remembering Dolly Clare

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Very sad news this week – one of our dear ex-battery hens, Dolly Clare, died.  She’d been ill for two weeks and, although we thought she was going to pull through at one stage, she went downhill rapidly.

When we brought Dolly home in February, she was thin and pale and rather threadbare:

She didn’t know what to make of her new free-range life but she soon blossomed and became a real beauty with pale golden feathers and a sweet, inquisitive nature.  I loved the way she’d follow me around the garden, her little ‘bawps’ letting me know she was nearby.

She loved wending her way through the flower beds:

and sneaking into the kitchen:

and enjoyed a yoghurty treat:

and she loved pecking around after the rain, not caring if her beak got muddy:

She also adored her afternoon corn and would gobble it so fast that she would invariably sneeze!  In fact, we made a video of her and it’s been viewed over a thousand times on Youtube!

I’m so glad to have met Dolly Clare but I feel that her 7 months of freedom were all too short and I wish that she’d had longer with us.  Unfortunately, ex-battery hens often have a short life-span because they are worked so hard for the first 18 months of their lives – their bodies used up by a demanding industry.  That’s why it’s so important for us to choose free-range eggs when we shop and when we eat out.  We must always ask questions about our food and demand high-quality animal welfare and support organisations like Compassion in World Farming and The British Hen Welfare Trust.  It’s the least we can do for the extraordinary animals that we share this world with.

Rewrites, moving and unwell pets …

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I’m in the midst of rewrites at the moment for my rom com, The Runaway Actress, which is going to be published in the UK in April.  I’m very excited about this novel – it’s about a famous movie star who swaps Hollywood for the Highlands in an attempt to find out who she truly is.  It’s been enormous fun to write and I can’t wait until it hits the shelves in 2012.

It’s been rather chaotic here over the last couple of weeks.  Not only are we attempting to move house and being thwarted each and every way we turn but two of our pets have been ill too.  Our dear spaniel, Molly, had a tumour on her spleen and had a big operation to remove both.  We nearly lost her and she looked so unwell, dear girl, but she’s making a really good recovery.  But more bad news followed and the vet discovered a lump which has to be removed so another operation is awaiting her.  

And our special hen, Dolly Clare, is unwell too.  We have some medication for her but she’s lost a lot of weight and is very fragile. 

So, anxious times here and not a great environment in which to write but stories don’t write themselves so one has to do one’s best and just get on with it.

In the charts!

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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!

Messing about in boats

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“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…

Competition winner announced!

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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.

Film sets galore!

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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!