Hello my lovelies!

I’m thrilled to let you know that A Cornish Christmas is out today. As you’ll know this is the novel-length version of The Postcard. My magical Christmas story about the enduring power of a mother’s love, inspired in no small amount by my own dear mum.

The longer version was a real joy to write for my publisher’s Bookouture – incidentally they were just labeled Britain’s hottest digital publisher by Publisher’s Weekly! So wonderful to part of this team – I had so much fun revisiting the characters, discovering new ones and really bringing my fictional seaside village of Cloudsea to life.

If you’d like to get a copy it is available today from all the major retailers, including Amazon, iBooks, Barnes&Noble and Kobo – in ebook and paperback.

Thank you so much to all of you for your support for this book, readers truly make this author gig the best one in the world. A massive thank you to all the wonderful bloggers who have already reviewed it ahead of publication – it means the world!

How the story came about

I’m not sure if anyone knows the back-story but I wasn’t really meant to write this book originally. The story came about in November 2014 while I was driving to work. I was meant to be working on a very different novel for NaNoWriMo, one that rather uncharacteristically I’d developed an outline for and everything – which meant, of course, that my rebellious side showed up and decided it would much prefer working on something else entirely. Something I hadn’t planned for at all. It was day three of Nano and all I could think about was this really half-formed idea about a postcard from beyond… which was enough nonetheless to get me all excited and distracted.

So I phoned my Mum for her advice. Give up on the idea or give it a go? Her words were, ‘If you feel that passionate about it…it’s important, it means you have to go for it.’ So I did.

I’ve never worked on something that fired me up quite as much, whole chapters flew out of my fingers, I couldn’t type fast enough. All I did was eat, breathe, and sleep the book for weeks, working late, getting up early, stealing time at lunchtime during my job as a journalist, turning into a full-on hermit on the weekends locked in my study – while friends and relatives tried to send out search parties, it was the most fun I’ve ever had writing. A vast cry from the book I’d written months before, where my fear had swallowed me whole. I’d enjoyed writing what would later become The Summer Escape but doubt had been with me the whole time. With The Postcard, I didn’t have time to be afraid – I had a deadline dammit, which I’ve discovered is a great thing for getting books written.

The Postcard, turned out to be my first self-published book, as I decided to just go with the momentum and self-publish it a few months later, which launched me on this crazy awesome path of being an author along with The Summer Escape, which my best friend had dared me to write seven months before, which led to me getting picked up by Bookouture and getting a traditional publishing contract for three novels a year later … it just goes to show, sometimes you’ve just got to take that stab in the dark and listen to your mother – and your BFF – and just go for it.

Have you ever done anything sort of against the plan and it turned out so right? I’d love to know! Let me know in the comments. And if you do pick up a copy of A Cornish Christmas – thanks so much!

Happy Friday! Here’s to going against ‘the plan’ and not ignoring crazy, fun ideas … as who knows where they may lead, who knows where you’ll be afterwards? Have a fantastic weekend.

XOXO

Uncategorized