The best Compliment ever!

Little Angelic Rose

@LilAngelicRose

"This is, without doubt, the best Regency romance I have ever read, short of ‘Persuasion’. A wonderful story with that delightful Austen feel yet completely Ms Black."

This is the best compliment I have received on one of my books, certainly for The Matfen Affair, which is the one Little Angelic Rose is talking about. Can't tell you how much it pleased me! I went to bed last night and thought about what I'd written, how the storyline developed, and drifted off into dream land no doubt with a satisfied smile on my face.

It also encourages me to get on and finish Viking Wedding! There isn't far to go now, definitely into the last quarter of the book, and if I make a relly good effort, I can finish it very soon. I've been checking and re-checking as I go along, so there won't be too much editing to do.

Almost Christmas

No doubt because it is almost Christmas the internet is abysmally slow these days and used as I am to a fairly fast system, I get irritated when things don't load or behave as they should, so I shall not be spending long  on my pc today. Every shop I've ever purchased anything from in the last millenium is sending me adverts - every day - and no doubt the same is true for every shopper - and we wonder why the internet is slow....I posted some pics to myself sometime last week and they have yet to arrive in my in-box, so goodness knows what else I may be missing. 

I shall post instead the new cover I'm using for the Matfen Affair. I started to dislike the one I had for no very good reason;  I couldn't say exactly what I disliked about it, but perhaps I've used it for too long, or it was boring to begin with or simply too similar to the Gybford Affair. Well, it is quite distinct from it now!

I enjoyed a blog about the secret writing rules this morning and decided to post a link to it -
http://annerallen.com/2017/12/secret-writing-rule

What I should be doing

This good weather is doing nothing for my writing. It is so tempting to be out with the sun on my back that nothing, absolutely nothing is getting done as far as editing Banners of Alba is concerned. Nor am I getting much promotion done for the simple reason that by the time I do come indoors I am so tired with the fresh air and activity that I slump in front of the tv and watch all the stuff I recorded over the last few days. I am also romping through L J Ross's books about DCI Ryan all set in the north east around Durham and Newcastle. 

I should be promoting The Matfen Affair, which became available on Kindle mid February for the princely sum of £1.20. It is a happy tale of Leigh Fenwick, who travels to Matfen Grange  to be bridesmaid to her cousin Lucy and encounters a ghost. 

https://tinyurl.com/zvl7s2c  (US)

https://tinyurl.com/z246enk

The Matfen Affair

 The Matfen Affair is now published on Amazon Kindle and I wish it God speed. February 16th was my dad's birthday, so hopefully that publication date will bring me luck as I announce my new book!

 This one was fun to write. Leigh Fenwick lives in Northumberland, far away from Lady Jersey and her London Society cronies, but a wedding is still a big day in any girl's life. Visiting Matfen Grange as bridesmaid to her cousin Lucy, Leigh is sidetracked by a wayward ghost, the bridegroom is injured on his journey from Cumberland and the bride returns home after only one day of marriage. Cousin Bertram decides Leigh is exactly the girl for him, but Leigh is focused on someone else....

There is a Matfen Hall  close by the village of Matfen in the Tyne Valley in Northumberland, but as far as I know, the hall has no family or history such as I have described within these pages.

New tasks

The New Year is a good time to turn over a new leaf. (Isn’t it easy to fall into clichés?) I mean that I want to set up a good regime of work again, because if the Christmas holidays do nothing else, they seem to butt into everyone’s working habits. I’ve done virtually nothing for a fortnight now, but from today – things will be different!

So much to do. I’m learning all the time, and there are so many changes coming along that it is hard to keep up. This month my long time independent publisher Write Words, Inc will close its doors after 17 years and leave two of my titles homeless. 

I’m deciding whether to publish myself or canvas for a publisher for Banners of Alba and Dark Pool. How much do I want to re-edit them? They were my first books published, and I could probably improve them. Dark Pool in particular has never had much success, so perhaps a change of title and a new cover is in order there.

Certainly I shall do nothing with them until I have The Matfen Affair published, but other tasks will probably include trying to get Amazon to remove all traces of the old version, particularly the paperback of Banners – still for sale at the ridiculous price of £33. I’ll need to alter the book page here, too. There’s nothing worse than an out of date book page!

I'm also having another go at mastering Goodreads. In the past I have found it the most difficult website, but I really should have a presence there.

Christmas Eve

The wind is howling outside and grey clouds scud across the sky.
 I really would prefer to stay indoors this morning, but I think Tim is going to want his usual walk. No peace for the wicked, then.

So it is here at last. Christmas Eve. We've taken the pork joint out of the freezer and we'll collect some fresh vegetables from the local Co-op which is our closest supermarket, well within walking distance. Then I think we might hunker down until these winds have passed by. These days cold winds make my eyes tear, and I feel such a fool walking around muddy fields with tears streaming down my cheeks. 

What is it about Christmas that brings out the nostalgia? I've just finished re-reading Georgette Heyer's The Civil Contract and thoroughly enjoyed it, though I think if she was writing today she might struggle to persuade the younger half of the population to read her. She has her established fans, I know, but do new readers take to her stories?

I've begun a re-read of The Matfen Affair and in the first two chapters alone I'm astonished at how many changes I've made. Often it is just reversing the order of sentences so that it reads more gracefully, sometimes I see repetition and remove a phrase. Sometimes I'm adding in tiny details that help the picture become more visual or bolster the characterization. So I failed in my aim to get it published for Christmas, but hey! I'd rather have something really good go out a few weeks later than rush what already exists into print.