GREAT STUFF! And name my next HERO!

This week has been FULL of great stuff and I hope you don’t mind me sharing (well, if you do, stop reading now)!

On Thursday, I got my first ever box of books. Oh, I’ve got books in the post before of course – yes, I’m a book-buying addict, but this was the first time the books in question had MY name on the cover. I’ve heard authors talk about this feeling before and hoped that one day it would be my turn.

It was as EUPHORIC as I imagined. Here’s a picture of me holding the first copy. I’m standing at the front of our supermarket because I rocked up with my box of books and demanded hubby stop what he was doing and take a memory-making photo of me opening the box. (sorry for making you turn your head, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to fix this).

And here’s a photo of the whole lovely box (also unfortunately on its side):

But what is possibly even MORE exciting than this is that I started hearing of people READING my book. Eek!!! But so far the response seems okay – I’ve received some excellent reviews on Goodreads and am hopeful for more.

However possibly the best endorsement ever was my Mum starting and finishing my book TODAY! She said she loved it, and she SAID she wasn’t just saying that. My Mum’s been there since I started writing at seventeen and it’s unbelievable that she’s finally reading my BOOK.

Jilted will be in shops in Australia and New Zealand June 1st but it’s already available for pre-order on many online bookstores, including for Kindle on Amazon.

Now for the REALLY fun stuff. I’m currently daydreaming my next rural-set romance and while I have the heroine’s name – Faith – and the hero’s nickname – Monty (cos his surname’s Montgomery), I need a good male name for my hero. He’s a hard-working Aussie bloke. His parents lost the family farm when he was a child and he’s working hard as a builder or a cray fisherman (I’m currently deciding this) to save money for his farm again.

Any ideas? Will was going to be his name, but I’m not sure it a hundred percent suits him so I’m looking for more suggestions. Anyone?