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Bonjour!

Comment allez-vous?

I’m afraid I’ve been a bit of an absent blogger these past few weeks, but I have some very good reasons – honest!

Firstly, I went to Paris. Fell in love with Paris and am now learning to speak French. (For when I move to Paris and rent an apartment in Montmartre with my imaginary Parisian lover!)

Secondly, I’ve been mad busy with the day job – devising and editing kids’ books. Recently I’ve been working on a romantic, feel-good series for girls, an action adventure series for boys and a post apocalyptic series for teens – so it’s certainly been varied. Some days I get home from work and I don’t know whether to read love poetry, go capture some baddies or build myself a bomb-proof shelter!

I have also written 40 pages of my new YA novel, Finding Cherokee Brown, which has been a bit painful as it’s about bullying and I’ve had to write some horrible scenes. However, the book is all about how the victim turns the tables on her bullies (in quite spectacular fashion) so I’ve got all the kick-ass scenes to look forward to now. (Some of which I have decided to set in Paris so that I can go back there for research purposes.)

AND, I’ve been busy promoting my first YA novel, Dear Dylan. AND, it’s going really well.

I actually turned down a two book deal to publish Dear Dylan myself so I knew from the outset that I was taking a massive gamble. There is still a lot of snobbery when it comes to self-published books in this country and most newspapers and magazines refuse point blank to review them – even if the author has had previous books with mainstream publishing houses as I have done.

The exciting thing about Dear Dylan is that so far (touch wood) I seem to be getting around the narrow-mindedness.

Firstly, the book has made it to the long-list of the Young Minds Book Award and now it is getting some great reviews on various book related websites. As an author it is so heartening to realise that you don’t always need the weight of a major publisher behind you – that reader power still counts for something. And it has been amazing to discover the wealth of brilliant book-related websites out there – especially for Young Adult fiction.

My Writing Home is going to be undergoing a bit of a makeover soon – I’ve just picked out some very groovy new wallpaper! – and one of the features will be a list of links to some of these book sites. But until then I will post links to the sites that have reviewed Dear Dylan and they in turn will lead you to many more.

I’m off now to practise my relative pronouns. Till then, au revoir mon petit pois…

Links to YA sites who have reviewed Dear Dylan:

I was a Teenage Book Geek

So Many Books, So Little Time

Chicklish