One Year On

My second novel Cursed – book 2 of the Soulseer series is due out on Thursday and I can’t really believe it’s been a year since the launch of Marked. You could say a fair amount has happened during that time. Some I have may have mentioned before but here’s a brief recap.

I had my launch party in June on the rooftop terrace at Carmelite House, the home of Jo Fletcher Books, and fortunately the weather gods were kind. Being able to stand looking out over the Thames with a glass of wine was wonderful and made the evening quite special. The Quercus summer party was held about a month later at the same venue and I got to meet quite a few Team JFB authors I hadn’t met before and caught up with a few that I had. Again the weather was good though it did get a bit chilly when the sun went down.

Nine Worlds was my first conference of the year and I was on my first ever panel. After all the years of me sitting listening to other authors it was my turn and although I was pretty nervous it was a great experience.

FantasyCon was my next venture out and I was on one of the three opening panels of the conference. It was in the main auditorium so rather daunting but I think it went quite well. I was on the panel with Pete McLean, who I’d met at breakfast that morning for the first time. He’s another debut author who writes about demons and angels so we got on like a house on fire.

I also got to meet Olivia the new publicist for JFB who took over from Andy. She’s lovely and I knew straight away we’d get on.

Marked came out in the US and Canada in October and so did the German translation, where they did something rather snazzy with the cover. No virginal white for the German publisher; they used the same design but in pink. Sounds dreadful but actually looks rather good. Apparently there is another translation deal in the pipeline, but unfortunately until it’s been signed off my lips must remain sealed!

The big and very sad news was that my editor, the lovely Nicola Budd left Team JFB in January to spend more time doing her artwork and also pursue a career in teaching. I miss her very much but wish her all the best in her new vocation. I’m sure she’ll be brilliant. As she was the wonderful person who first saw something in my manuscript and rescued it from out of the slush pile, she finished editing Cursed and is also having input into the third book Bound. Bound is with Jo as I type so hopefully I will soon have that back to make any changes before we go through the editing process. Hope she likes it!!!

Before Nicola left she introduced me to her replacement, Sam another lovely young lady and we’re already building up a good working relationship which is nice.

In February I did the famous – or is that infamous? – Valentine’s Blogs and the penny finally dropped that I write romance! Still finding it hard to get my head around that one, but since everyone I know who’s read Marked, and now Cursed (I did give a few people advance copies) has been saying “Yep – definitely romance” I can hardly argue. To be honest when I was writing it I never gave it a thought. I blame Jamie and Jinx – they muscled their way in and just plain took over. Blasted daemons, you can’t trust them with pretty, young women!

So now we’re on the run up to Cursed and I’m feeling a little excited. I really enjoyed writing it and see what my characters would get up to. Lucky has certainly grown into a real daemon princess and proves to be a bit of a scrapper when she has to be. As for Jamie and Jinx, well they’re still jostling for her attention. Darn daemons!

Anyway on Thursday evening I will be popping open another bottle of bubbly and hoping some of you lovely people out there who have read Marked will give Cursed a go. If you liked Marked I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. At least I hope not!

Cheers!

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