Lovely NetGalley reviews for #AnItalianIslandSummer @AvonBooksUK @BlakeFriedmann

It’s always nerve-racking when the first NetGalley reviews appear for a book so I’m thrilled that An Italian Island Summer’s first few are great. Phew! Here’s one I particularly like, from Reviewer 687577. The image is below but for ease of reading on devices, I’ll copy and paste the body of it here:

Sue Moorcroft writes so skilfully that she transports you into the story and the characters and setting jump off the page.  The relationship between Alfio and Ursula positively sizzles, and both their backstories and families make for an interesting and heart-warming read. As always, Sue doesn’t shy away from bringing the darker side of relationships into her stories, although the overall theme is always an uplifting one. Sue’s books are too good to rush. I always like to take my time reading them, taking in the scenery, getting to know the characters, enjoying the story unfold towards its delicious, satisfactory ending.  A really enjoyable read.

Huge thanks to Reviewer 687577 and other NetGalley users who are leaving positive reviews.

An Italian Island Summer will be published on 25th May 2023 in paperback, ebook and audio. Preorder it here.

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A White Christmas on Winter Street – publication day!

The cover of A White Christmas on Winter Street

Every publication day brings fresh joy. It’s the reward for many months of work and worry, edits and head-scratching. Something that began with an idea and a page of scribble appears on supermarket shelves with gold foil and shiny touches. It has my name on the cover.

At the risk of sounding like an Oscar winner, I’d like to thank everyone involved: my agent Juliet Pickering and everyone at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency who will be trying to sell it on to other markets; and editor Thorne Ryan and all at Avon Books UK. This latter includes marketing and publicity, sales, the typesetter, the proofreader, the copy editor and no doubt others that slip beneath my radar. To write a book takes one person but to publish it takes a team.

And, of course, I’d like to thank everybody who buys the book or borrows it from a library, who posts a review (especially the nice ones), tells their friends about the book or talks about it online. Readers are everything to a writer.

Here’s the blurb for A White Christmas on Winter Street, which is available from today:

When Sky Terran returns to the village of Middledip after losing the job she loves, she anticipates a quiet Christmas getting used to her new life. However, the annual street decoration competition is coming up and this year, the residents of Winter Street are determined to win.

As she is pulled into the preparations, Sky quickly grows to love the quirky, tight-knit community she is now part of. Including the extremely handsome Daz, who soon becomes more than just a friendly neighbour.

But when Daz’s ex turns up determined to win him back and it seems he might not be the man Sky thought he was, she remembers how much allowing people into her life – and heart – can hurt. As the snow falls, will she and Daz find a way through – and help win a Christmas victory for Winter Street?

A White Christmas on Winter Street is available for preorder now

The cover of A White Christmas on Winter Street

It’s only a month until A White Christmas on Winter Street hits bookshelves and reading devices!

I’m excited that soon readers will meet Sky Terran, who was fostered in Middledip village, where she discovered what a real Christmas could be. After her friendship with her erstwhile foster brother Freddy implodes, she returns to buy the tattiest house in the village. It’s unfortunate that Daz Moran had his eye on The Corner House for a business opportunity that would give him his own fresh start…till Sky outbid him.

Overflowing with Christmassness and joy, but also tricky family history and themes to reflect upon, I loved writing A White Christmas on Winter Street. If you think you might enjoy reading it you can

preorder it now.

Preorder A White Christmas on Winter Street here

HOLT Medallion – finalist

I recently received a lovely email from the Virginia Romance Writers to say that Under the Italian Sun has been selected as a finalist in the Holt Medallion Contest!

The list of all finalists can be found here, and my category is Novel with Strong Romantic Elements.

The HOLT Medallion Award was named for Virginia Romance Writers’ first president, Cynthia Holt, and is also the acronym for Honoring Outstanding Literary Talent. It has been awarded annually since 1995.

A panel of romance readers select the winning books in the twelve categories. They look for a good read, a book they’d buy and an author they’d follow. The aim is to reflect the actual marketplace. I’m delighted to have my book shortlisted on this criteria!

The winning authors are awarded a pewter medallion featuring a Dogwood blossom, the Virginia state flower, in a laurel wreath on the pages of an open book, a heart, and a scroll with the inscription “HOLT.”

HOLT Medallion Winners and Award of Merit Finalists will be announced on June 4 2022, so cross your fingers for me!

Writing Romantic Fiction at Swanwick, Writers’ Summer School @swanwickwriters

This August, I’ll be enjoying a week at Swanwick, Writers’ Summer School – and leading the Writing Romantic Fiction course.

I love Swanwick. There’s always a wealth of courses and sessions and a host of writers to chat to over meals or in the bar. I use it as a writing retreat but love the evening speakers and winding down at the end of the day with a mindfulness session. You can find out more here, and take a look at this year’s programme here.

I should have been delivering the Writing Romantic Fiction course last year, but Covid got me, so I was delighted to be invited this year instead.

Here’s the course blurb:

Swanwick, Writers’ Summer School website

Who reads Christmas books? #AmReading #AmWriting #RespectRomFic

When I decided to write a post about Christmas books, I first solicited feedback from two large, active readers’ groups on Facebook. I asked: ‘If you read Christmas-themed books, whether they’re romance-at-Christmas or crime-at-Christmas, can you tell me why?’

Overwhelmingly, the most popular answer was:

• ‘I love Christmas books!’

Almost as popular was:

• to get in the Christmas mood and/or feel immersed in the season of goodwill.

Others included:

• reading Christmas books is a part of the run-up to Christmas, a tradition
• many Christmas books have happy endings, increasing the positive feelings (this possibly isn’t true of crime-at-Christmas)
• to reflect on the spirit of Christmas
• to ‘live’ the sort of Christmas the reader would like to have, but doesn’t, including having a vicarious Christmas if spending the season alone
• escapism – Christmas books tend to focus on what’s important: family, charity, hope and community, rather than commercialism
• Christmas books are frequently uplifting
• they heighten the romance of the season.

Stanley Unwin said: “The first duty of any publisher to their authors is to remain solvent,” so it’s not hard to see why publishers publish Christmas books. Christmas stories sell in large numbers. Most of mine have charted in the Official UK Top 50, UK Kindle Top 100 (one went to #1) and some the Top 20 Mass-Market Fiction. Magazines, newspapers and websites include them in Christmas gift guides. The season is short but intense.

I write Christmas books, and not just because they sell. (Here comes the writing bit.) I think my ‘plotty head’ recognises the possibilities arising from the heightened stakes of a book set at Christmas time.

I view it like this: during the festive season, good things seem better and bad things seem worse.

Let’s take an example of ‘good’ – a couple getting engaged at Christmas. Their wonderful news only doubles the celebrations; they meet more friends and family at Christmas and each time make their announcement, show off the rings, talk about future plans. A Christmas engagement is memorable and romantic, bedecking Cloud Nine with glitter and fairy lights.

On the other hand, how bad does it feel to get a redundancy notice in the week before Christmas? The good time had by others highlights the plight of the character who’s lost their job and money woes leap into hard focus. How will the Christmas credit card bill be paid, the Christmas food bill, the tickets for the latest Christmas movie or fuelling the car for Christmas visits across country? The January pay packet may be the last for a while. Family members are about to be let down just when they were expecting to be flying high.

This heightening of stakes makes my plotting life easier. Contrasts between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ are greater (hence Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol to bring attention to the plight of the poor), conflicts are tougher, celebrations more joyous, goals more important. A bad Christmas experience can taint Christmas forevermore… unless a novelist comes along to weave into the story a reason to enjoy Christmas again and for scars to be healed.

For me, writing Christmas books has an unexpected benefit – I’m part of so many Christmases! People read my books to get in the festive spirit and gift them to each other (there are few things easier to wrap than a book). If someone messages me with a request to buy a signed copy they often ask, ‘Do you mind?’

No, I don’t mind – I’m delighted! It’s a privilege to be, in a small way, part of Christmas. 

#Bookbargains for August – UK, US and Canada

I’m not sure why I haven’t thought of putting special offers on my books on my blog before. It’s always nice to know about bargain books, isn’t it? Some of these offers end on 31st August so you’ll need to be quick!

Under the Italian Sun on is down to 99p on UK Kindle. Grab your chance to travel to Italy with Zia and discover all her family secrets.

Download Under the Italian Sun for 99p here

~~~~~~

A Summer to Remember is also on Kindle promo.

Download your copy of A Summer to Remember for 99p in the UK

Or for 99c in the US

Or for 99c in Canada

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Good old Starting Over, the first Middledip book, has joined the 99p offering.

Download your copy of Starting over for 99p

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Summer on a Sunny Island is also on promo in the UK.

Download your copy of Summer on a Sunny Island for 99p

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Just for the Holidays is available for free download for Kindle Unlimited customers.
Download your copy of Just for the Holidays free on Kindle Unlimited

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And, lastly, One Summer in Italy is free on Prime Reading!

Download One Summer in Italy free on Prime Reading or get the ebook for £2.99

HAPPY READING!

#UnderTheItalianSun is 99p in the Kindle Monthly Deal! @AvonBooksUK @BlakeFriedmann

Just to let you know that Under the Italian Sun is a Kindle book bargain, this month, and can be downloaded for 99p.

It’s already been to #28 in the paperback Official Top Fifty in the UK, which made me very happy. HUGE thanks to everybody who bought it and therefore put it there.

If you’d prefer to read Under the Italian Sun on your Kindle and grab a summery ‘escape through the pages’ to a sunny plateau above an Italian vineyard, then now’s the time to buy.

Download Under the Italian Sun for 99p here

Enjoy your journey to a place full of secrets and passions – happy reading!

I have a new two-book deal with Avon UK!

I’m really thrilled to be able to announce that my next two novels will be published by Avon UK, part of HarperCollins!

These things take a while for all the T’s to be crossed and I’s to be dotted, so I’ve been sitting on the news since mid-August, when I went down to The News Building, standing right next to London’s Shard and just as impressively glassy (though not quite as tall).

I met Eleanor Dryden and some of the energetic and enthusiastic Avon UK team. They’d decorated the room with hats, as the heroine of my novel, Ava, is a milliner, and made chocolate cake and bought biscuits. (They had me with that cake.)

My lovely agent, Juliet Pickering of Blake Friedmann, came to the meeting, of course, and asked all the questions I didn’t think of, but as Eleanor unrolled Avon’s plans for my books, and for me as an author, I found myself realising that I’d found my new home.

Avon wasn’t the only publisher in the frame but Eleanor and her team were the ones who said everything I wanted to hear so, in the end, after a whirlwind couple of weeks of trying to compare offers that seemed impossible to compare, the decision made itself.

Here’s a little about the books in the deal (titles to be decided):

Book 1

Set in London at Christmas time, the story’s about things being difficult for Ava’s millinery business, revenge porn, Sam having all the trappings of success but little defence against his mother’s illness, and whether it’s obligatory to like Christmas. Due out around September 2016.

Book 2

In contrast, a summer book, set in France, where Leah, who has remained determinedly single and child-free, finds herself looking after her sister’s family while her sister’s life detonates. I’m about halfway through the first draft and the finished article is due out in Summer 2017. (I would be further along with this book if my research hadn’t led me down a blind alley. Every book seems to go through this phase, when I have to do  relationship counselling between my plot and my research.)

On the way home from the meeting, I stopped for a private celebration. Yes, I drank them both!

I’m not even ashamed. 🙂

What do I do when I finish writing a book?

Finishing writing a book is an odd feeling. For one thing, I know the book isn’t actually finished. I’ve completed the major edits and returned the book to my agent but I know it needs at least one more polish and probably tweaks. And that’s before a publisher has even got hold of it …

Still, it’s a milestone, a feeling of accomplishment and lightness that it’s off my hands for a week or two. I’m not the kind of writer to grab the opportunity for loads of time off (not sure why) and I am the kind of writer to have left a lot of other jobs while I got my edits done. So here are the post-edit headlines:

• I tidy my study. To be honest, there’s not that much difference to be seen, except the timeline is no longer lounging seductively across a drawer while I obsess about it and there are no longer any notes hanging in the copyholder beside my monitor. There’s a little less on the floor.
• I do my annual accounts. I hate doing my accounts. Seriously hate it. I hate it so much that I had to eat two packs of Quavers in one afternoon to get me through. At least I didn’t cry, this year. (It’s not that I can’t do them – I used to keep other people’s books. I. Just. Hate. Them.)
• I understand why people who have jobs they hate hang out on Facebook.
• I work through my ‘to do’ list, which includes booking two holidays to Malta. Yes, two! For me! In one year! Whoop! I did this before I’d got to the bottom line in the annual accounts, but I’m not cancelling.
• I look at booking a ticket to the London Book Fair.
• I add some more things to my To Do list while I think of them.
• I relax. It’s a nice feeling to know that a huge project is coming to the end. Two, if you consider the hideous accounts.
• I go on with the course I’m adapting from Love Writing and think about the novella I’m to adapt for My Weekly. (Oh look – two more big projects!)
• I look forward to a complete weekend off.
• I begin to wonder about whether my agent will like my revisions. I feel slightly anxious, and not so relaxed.
• I think about the next book. I think I want it to be set in summer. Writing a Christmas novel and a Christmas serial this year has fried whatever Christmas spirit I have. (Not a great deal.)
• I consider having lunch with my gym friends and don’t feel guilty, even though I’m having dinner with them this evening.
• I hang out on Facebook and Twitter more than usual, mainly to whine about having to do my accounts.
• I read a lot of articles and watch podcasts about writing/publishing that have been stacking up. This is helpful but not, you know, actual work …
• I look at my website and decide what needs updating.
• I feel good.