March 2016: Octopus is released

‘I done it! I done it! I done it!’ as Bertha exclaims in my new novel, Octopus . And I have. It’s finally been released. It took me longer to write than I expected it would—twice as long as I’d planned, in fact—but our young Victorian detective’s second outing is now available to buy at all major online book stores. Phew! We’ll be celebrating its release, of course, with a glass or two of champagne: the wonderful Malane, who designs and maintains this website for me, Lara, my proofreader extraordinaire, Elaine, who helped me flesh out the novel’s northern character, Mr Willoughby, and yet another Elaine, who snapped me and managed to make me look presentable in my gorgeous new author photo.

It’s a double celebration, for the release date, March 1st, also marks the third anniversary of this website. Three years ago we started off with one published novel and one in the pipeline, and a website with six-or-so articles and a measly handful of pages. But we were determined that this should change, and if you visit you’ll see that it has.

Now the nail biting begins in earnest as reviews start to roll in. Will my loyal readers take it to their hearts? So far two of them have, and thank you both of you! And how will the LibraryThing Early Reviewers who are new to my work respond? It truly is nerve-racking! You might think—this being my fourth novel—that I’d be over such anxieties by this point. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since I try something different with each book, I’m never quite sure how it will be received.

In other news, the Crime & Thrillers reading group I attend has suffered a major setback—we’ve lost the group’s leader, Alice King, who has been redeployed to one of Southwark’s other libraries. Alice, who has an unparalleled knowledge of crime fiction, has steered the group for a number of years now, and has introduced us to a great many authors whom we otherwise would never have seen. She’s also responsible for us reading The Moonstone—from whence Octavius Guy springs—and The Woman in White. She will be sorely missed.