An abundance of good things

There’s been some good things happening in the past week or so…

First up, the UK edition of As Darkness Falls has now been released and is available in UK bookstores and online booksellers. So, a warm welcome to intrepid UK readers who find their way over here to the blog! The only UK review I’m aware of so far is at lovereading.co.uk, where it is listed as a ‘Debut of the month’, with some very positive comments. Let’s hope other reviewers and readers enjoy it, too!

Secondly, on Friday I signed and posted off the contract for two more books, so now it’s all official! The third and last book in the Dungirri series will be published in September, 2010, with the first book in a new, loosely-linked series, to follow in September 2011. I’ve been very impressed by the professionalism, support, and enthusiasm for my books from everyone at Hachette, so it’s a special pleasure to be committing to publishing another two books with them.

Last week I also accepted an offer for publication of a short story – ‘Dear Ruth’ will be in the Woman’s Day magazine, sometime around January. It’s a short glimpse into the back story of a couple of Dungirri’s characters… It was fun to write, once I came up with the idea, so I hope readers will enjoy it!

Next up, it was my birthday on Sunday. When it comes to birthdays, my inner seven-year-old is alive and well 🙂 I had a lovely day, with some knitting, some weaving, lunch in town with Gordon and some friends, and Gordon’s home-baked lemon tea muffins for afternoon tea. Delicious!

So, what’s coming up? Writing, writing, and more writing… book 3 isn’t quite as advanced as I’d like it to be at this point, so I have some catching up to do. However, I’ve managed to work through a problem I was having with it, so hopefully it will be full steam ahead from now on.

And what’s coming up for my readers? Well, due to a snafu experienced on my newsletter email list last month, as a result of which some subscribers got multiple mailings (much to my embarrassment!), I’ve promised the list that there will be a subscriber-only giveaway this month. I’m still finalising details, but I’ll be posting out the information to the list, I hope in the next week or so. If you’d like to be in with a chance, hit the ‘newsletter’ link on the menu bar at the top of the page, and subscribe to the newsletter. (It’s free, I won’t sell or giveaway your email address, and I send on average less than one newsletter per month.)

For those not wanting to subscribe, I have it on good authority that there’ll be a chance to win my books coming very soon at a book reviewer’s blog – stay tuned for more details!

Now, just to finish this post on a delicious note, here’s a photo of my birthday afternoon tea treat:

Lemon Tea Muffins