Literary sex and Amazon

Something worth keeping an eye on for UK authors is the news released in the Bookseller yesterday that Amazon publishing plans to open a European publishing wing based in Luxembourg. Vicky Griffith will relocate from Seattle in the New Year and start building a team of editors and marketing personnel. There is a thought that Amazon may wish to acquire global English language rights with this move. Big name authors have not flocked to Amazon Publishing, and some US stores have boycotted Amazon published titles because of the required exclusivity on Kindle deals.

There’s an interesting piece I spotted in the in the Guardian by Lee Rourke here on why sex isn’t suited to the pages of literary fiction. I think he is saying it may well be suited to the pages of commercial fiction but I’d have to go and read it again to be sure. Why don’t you read it and let me know? I’ll go and dry my recently washed hair and then trot off up the hill to renew my car tax before I become illegal. and when I come back, I shall put my nose to the grindstone (or in this case the computer keyboard) and try and complete the remaining pages of Victorian Beauty.

Sex sells!

The vanishing snow revealed a dead pigeon, chest-down, wings half folded, in one of our ground cover plants. It has been given a hasty burial. No signs of attack, though we occasionally see a sparrowhawk in the garden.

Watched Rafa's first match in the Australian Open this morning - thank the Lord for red button viewing - and he seems to be almost back to form. I think he has changed his way of moving around the court, and certainly his serve has improved. It may be my imagination, but I see a lot more of the graceful side-steps we associate with Federer in Rafa's approach now.

Splendid party at the weekend to celebrate a neighbour's birthday. Another neighbour reports my book Far After Gold shocked her 82-year-old mother, so now all the other female neighbours are threatening to read it too. As one of the men pointed out, their desire to do so has nothing to do with literary merit, or a beautiful setting, but purely because its "sexy." Howls of derision greeted that remark. I confessed I was glad my mother wasn't alive to read it, for she would undoubtedly have had something to say on the subject.

Dh and I celebrated my being signed off from the Freeman, too. I can do whatever I want now, according to the wonderful Mr Hamilton. Though I have to say it is a strange feeling to sit opposite a man knowing he has had his hands inside my chest and stitched odd bits of me together again. He feels something of a stranger, yet also a good friend.

Now for some work on the wip. Decisions must be made. Am I going to complete the chapter with 1000 words of Meg's encounter with the Dowager, or make everyone wait and follow for that outcome and concentrate instead on Harry's story? I'll ponder that as I pop downstairs and make a lunchtime sandwich.

Both pics are of Prudhoe Castle in winter, just as the snow was arriving.