Roisin Meaney's Blog, page 8
October 16, 2015
Publication dates
Well, I’ve been asking around, and so far I’ve found out that Australian readers should be able to pick up a copy in their local bookshops on and after November 24, or from Booktopia.com.au from the same date. Canadian readers will get it from Amazon.ca from December 8. If you’re in the US, Amazon.com have the kindle edition right now, and the paperback will be available on January 1 here. (Seems a shame that they’re not releasing it until January – I’ll have a word with my publishers and see if that can be brought closer.) So wherever you are, I do hope you can find it – it might even turn up in a library or thrift store near you!
In other news, my voice has gone, six days before the launch – I may have to do my speech in sign language!! Interesting times!
Roisin xx
October 10, 2015
One week to go….
So it’s finally (nearly) here! I’ll Be Home for Christmas is one week away from hitting a bookshop shelf (or internet site) near you – and the great news is that this one will be joining Two Fridays in April on Australian bookshop shelves too! I’m delighted that Hachette Australia are taking a second book – particularly as the story features Tilly, who is travelling from Australia to Ireland for Christmas: and the cover they gave it made me smile: a beach scene for a Christmas book!
Apparently readers in Australia (and maybe further afield?) who might not find it in their local bookshop can purchase the book or the e-book online from Booktopia.com.au. The Irish cover is still showing there but I’ve been told it will soon be changed. My fingers are tightly crossed that this one goes down well; this is always an anxious (ie terrifying) time until the reviews come in … but please do get in touch and let me know what you think – all feedback is valuable.
In other writing news, I’ve begun working on the next (number thirteen – eeek!) which has a school 20-year reunion as its theme, and which features two sisters who ended up in the same Leaving Cert year, and whose lives have taken very different turns to the ones they’d envisaged as schoolgirls. Early days yet, but so far so good. It’s always a relief when you feel you’re getting to grips with a book, when you begin to bond with the characters and they start to shape the course of the story…and I feel I’m just getting to that stage with this one now. Watch this space!
On the home front, my lovely 87 year old mother got a knee replacement in August – she’s been crippled with arthritis for the past two years – and so far so good. She’s getting the second one replaced in November, so hopefully all will be well. She’s a born optimist, and is coping with this challenge bravely, bless her.
Hope you’re all well and happy, and have enjoyed summer (or winter, if you’re reading this on the other side of the equator!) Summer in Ireland this year was certainly …. interesting, which is putting it kindly, but so far autumn has been lovely, so we’re living in hope of a mild winter. Always a lot of guesswork involved with our weather!
Best
Roisin xx
September 7, 2015
Newsflash!!!
Puff pant – no time for a proper post, just a quick flash of the new cover! Isn’t it smashing? Publication date is October 15 – Christmas is coming early this year!!
Roisin xx
August 5, 2015
Paperback! (Small is Beautiful)
Hello everyone – I promise I’m not going to mention the DIRE phenomenon that is the Irish summer of 2015. Nope, not a word about the grey skies, daily torrential outpourings and typhoon-like gales, and virtually complete absence of sun. (Deep sigh.) Instead, I shall direct your attention to a much happier topic – the arrival yesterday of my box of advance copies of the wonderful thing that is the paperback version of Two Fridays in April! And here they are in all their beauteous glory:
The eagle-eyed readers among you may notice that while the cover hasn’t changed in essence from the trade paperback incarnation which appeared in March, it’s been given a pinkish hue, just to ring the changes a little I suppose. Will be heading into the local bookshops tomorrow to sign whatever copies I might find there…..and in September I shall be taking a trip across the border into Northern Ireland to spread the news about the books in libraries in Belfast and Carrickfergus – more details closer to the time. I was delighted to be invited there, as it’ll be my first time ever in both places, and the fact that I’m going in my capacity as a writer makes it doubly special. Looking forward to meeting a whole new gang of readers! I’ll be coming home via Donegal – specifically Letterkenny – where I’ll do another library visit and I’ll also meet up with a class of Transition Year girls to chat with them about all things bookish – will be a lovely trip all told (although I’ll probably be heartily sick of driving at the end of it………….)
What other news? I’ve handed in my second draft of the upcoming book, the third in the Roone series, whose title I am at last allowed to reveal……drum roll…….I’ll be Home for Christmas. Hope you like it. I do – although every time I opened the manuscript to work on it, and I caught sight of the title, I started to hum the song, and now I’m rather allergic to it. The song, not the book. I’m quietly pleased with the book. Hope you will be too, in the fullness of time. Should be published around mid October, but I’ll give a more definite date as soon as I know. Should be seeing a cover for it soon, dying to see what they come up with – and I will of course flash it here as soon as I get the green light.
Right, I think that’s quite enough news for one blog post. Now to get back to enjoying the Irish summer…….
What? I said I wouldn’t TALK about it.
Roisin xx
July 18, 2015
The Home Stretch
Oh boy, sorry for the long silence – didn’t realise how long it had been until I checked the date of the last entry. In my defence I’ve been working on the edits for the Roone Christmas book (nearly there, another week or so) and I’ve also squeezed in a sneaky week-long break to the sun. Temperatures were in the mid-thirties – phew! Although I hate to complain about the heat, since we’re usually so starved of it in Ireland, I did feel a bit wilty now and again! There was a swimming pool in the complex where I was staying, and a beach within walking distance, but both were too warm to be truly refreshing – I’m used to the chilly Atlantic when I swim, and unless I GASP with the cold getting in, it doesn’t feel like a proper dip! Pity about me. Anyway, I’m home now and back to work, and it’s nearly there. Haven’t got a publication date yet but I do have one for the paperback version of Two Fridays in April, which has this lovely pinky version of the bigger size cover, and which will hit shelves in or around August 6 (do let me know if you spot it in your local bookshop): 
And now I must get back to the edits – my dear old mother was 87 on Wednesday and we’re all heading out to dinner this evening, so I need to get my page quota done before that. Hope you’re all having a lovely summer (or winter) and hope you get an occasional look at the sun, at least! Take care, Roisin xx
May 5, 2015
And now for my next trick . . .
Greetings, everyone – hope you’re all in fine fettle and looking forward to the summer (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere). I’ve been busy since I last wrote, mainly writing the next book, but also training hard for the half marathon event in the annual Great Limerick Run, which happened last weekend. The good news is that I didn’t expire, but boy did I feel every one of those thirteen miles…and I have to confess that the last three were a mix of brisk walking and slow running. I seriously ran out of puff – and it didn’t help that the rain came down in sheets and totally drenched us. But I made it across the finish line in 2 hours and 8 minutes, which was roughly what I’d been expecting, and duly collected my medal. (Think the half marathon boys got the pink ribbon too – nice equality there!!) And then I had a medicinal glass of red wine at the nearest hostelry, where a few runner pals had gathered. (MEDICINAL.)
But back to the new book. It’s pretty much there – I’d say I have less than 10 pages to go – and then I’ll go back to the start and trawl through it again, tidying up any messy bits and making sure it all gels together properly. Then it’s off to my editor and a few weeks of a break before the verdict comes back. It’ll be lovely to have the break – feel like I’ve been writing since the year dot! This next one, to remind you, is the third story set on the island of Roone, and it takes place in the middle of winter – it spans eight days around Christmas – so it’s very different in flavour from the other two midsummer Roone ones. Hopefully you’ll like it! It should be hitting shelves around October/November – and of course Two Fridays in April will be putting in an appearance in September as a smaller size paperback (also available in Tesco in this size), so it’ll be all go in the autumn.
Right, better get back to it – this won’t get those last pages done and dusted! Look after yourselves, thanks for your lovely messages and feedback; you honestly don’t know what it means.
Roisin xx
March 26, 2015
Bestseller!!! Exciting!!!
Yoo hoo everyone – been mad busy since Two Fridays in April hit the shelves, but all good. I took myself off to Lanzarote if you don’t mind for three weeks of work on the next baby (more later). My timing was a bit weird, I left Ireland the day after I spotted Two Fridays for the first time on the bookshop shelves of Limerick, but I did what I could from Lanzarote to shout about the book on social media, and I wrote pieces for a few book bloggers, and I generally kept annoying whoever I could about the new book. Well, the great news is that Two Fridays went straight into the Irish top ten at number nine after less than a week of sales, and it currently stands at number five, and is still going the right way (seven last week), so fingers crossed, and huge thanks to all who helped to get it there! I was barely home from Lanzarote before I was invited onto the TELLY for the first time, the Ireland AM programme on TV3 wanted to interview me about the book. I was really nervous beforehand but thankfully the interviewers were lovely and didn’t ask any hard questions – will post a link here in the hope that you can access it if you didn’t catch it live:
http://www.tv3.ie/ireland_am_video.php?locID=1.65.74&video=91450
– and I had hardly recovered from that before I was invited onto Arena, RTE Radio I’s arts programme, to talk about the book all over again, so I was thrilled, and that also went fine. Here’s that link:
So I’ve just come down to earth after all the flying around – was also whisked around the bookshops in Dublin by Ruth, one of the sales people at Hachette, to sign whatever copies of Two Fridays they had in stock – and now I’m back at the laptop and about to return to my new baby, which is about three quarters grown. It’s yet another return to the island of Roone: I just can’t seem to stay away from that place. It’s coming up to Christmas, so the tourists have pretty much gone and the island is left to the locals – but storm clouds are gathering on the horizon, and a stranger is on the way who will bring about some changes….it’s got a title but I’m sworn to secrecy for the moment. As usual, you will be the first to hear when I get the green light!
And check out one of my new publicity shots – just taken yesterday so I haven’t seen the others yet, but the lovely photographer, Vig Gleeson of Wonder Works Photography (http://wonderworks.ie/) sent me this as a taster:
Must say I really like it, if that doesn’t sound too big-headed! I told Vig not to spare the airbrush, so I’m sure she helped it along! And now must head back to Roone and get that word count up……
Be good! Keep in touch, love getting your messages!
Roisin xx
February 27, 2015
The Eagle has Landed!!
So at long last I took delivery of my author advance copies of Two Fridays in April; two sneak-peek copies earlier in the week, direct from the publishers, and my official box of books from the printers this morning: GREAT feeling seeing it ‘in the flesh'; even though this is number eleven, it’s still as thrilling to hold it in your hands for the first time as it was holding my first baby, The Daisy Picker, back in 2004. The past week has been a flurry of pre-publication marketing thingys and setting up interviews and getting my new haircut to go with my new book (OK, that last one was sheer coincidence!) Here’s the box that arrived this morning:
– and here is the book, in its rightful place on my ‘wall of fame':
– and in other very exciting news, I’ve been invited onto TV3’s Ireland AM programme on March 24 to talk about the book! My first telly interview as a writer! And a local shoe shop, Greene’s Shoes in the Crescent Shopping Centre in Dooradoyle, have kindly sponsored me a pair of shoes to wear for my telly gig!
So it’s all go – and in the meantime I’m ploughing away with the third Roone book, about a third of the way through and going well. The title has been sorted but I’m under STRICT INSTRUCTIONS not to say a word for a long time! Wonder will I manage to keep my gob shut!
And now I must dash, off to Lanzarote on Sunday for a three week writing break – just me and the laptop, and my running shoes – so I’ll miss seeing my new baby when it hits the bookshop shelves here, but I have a small army of faithful friends who have promised to let me know the minute they spot it! Do spread the word – I’d be delighted, and most grateful.
Hope everyone is well and happy. Remind me to tell you about the stuff I’ve been doing in connection with the random acts of kindness movement – no time now. I’ll leave you with the dedication page of Two Fridays in April, and I will tell all when I get a chance:
Roisin xxx
January 23, 2015
Cover, finally!
Here we go – hope you like it! Out March 5, won’t feel it now! xx
January 21, 2015
Beavering away . . .
Yoo hoo everyone – apologies for the looooooong silence since my last post; I’ve been working frantically to get Two Fridays in April all done and dusted, bit complicated timeline-wise so lots to keep an eye on – and finally it’s passed out of my hands for the last time as a manuscript. Next time I lay eyes on it it’ll be a real live BOOK!! And I can reveal that the official publication date is March 5, so it should be appearing in an Irish bookshop near you around that date – or if you’re from further afield it’ll be popping up on Amazon and other online selling places. Dying to see it in its finished state – sadly I’m still waiting for the go-ahead from the publishers to reveal the cover, so for the moment you’ll have to take my word for it that it’s lovely, and the minute I’m allowed I’ll flash it up here, promise.
No rest for the wicked, though: I’ve already plotted and started the next – and I hope you’ll be pleased to hear that I’m following on from One Summer and After the Wedding and taking my third trip to the island of Roone (just can’t stay away). The difference with this one is that it’s set in the middle of winter – around Christmas actually, and it’s due to hit the shelves in the autumn, my first time to have two books out in one year. I’ll be ready for a nice long holiday after all this writing!
In other news I’m back at the running lark – and this time I might even stick it out. I started in November and have been following weekly schedules that Patrick, a running-mad friend, has been setting for me, and so far so good. I’ve worked my way up to 6 mile runs, and in a few days I’ll be taking part in my second official race. The first was on St Stephen’s Day and was a 5 miler (I think I came 4th last), and this next one is 6 miles. I’m working up to a half-marathon in May, already registered for it so I can’t back out – having slight palpitations at the thought of running over 13 miles without stopping, but I’ll give it my best shot!
Now it’s late and the bed is calling – I have a 3 mile run to do in the morning – so I’ll say goodnight, and hope 2015 is treating you kindly thus far. My two resolutions for this year are to commit more random acts of kindness and to succeed at the running. Fingers crossed on both fronts, particularly the first. We need more kindness in the world…….
Roisin xx
