A busy, busy summer...

Marketing Catching the Eagle
This is going well. I have read the tomes which were recommended to me about how to market your book. Following this, I had some fantastic postcards printed with the book cover on the front and the blurb and other details on the back (see above.) Armed with these, I jumped into the car and set off for Northumberland. As you can see from the forthcoming events column, I managed to interest four Waterstones managers in book signings. The Northumberland Book Launch is organised at Kirkley Hall and the guest list seems to be getting larger all the time. I am also investigating the beautiful Middlesbrough Reference Library for my Teesside Book Launch. Thanks to help from my friend Jill Boulton, I have put a press pack together and we are about to start approaching the media.

A Detective Lavender Mystery
I had hoped to have had this nearly finished by now but it is only half way through. However, the writing is going smoothly and I am thoroughly enjoying myself. I have decided that 30,000 words is not bad for four months work.

We have taken two trips to The National Archives in Kew this summer, and spent four very long and tiring days pouring over 200 year old, dusty manuscripts, searching for further details about Jamie Charlton's fascinating life. He has never been an easy character to pin down in the archives but we have now got some very tantalising leads. Of course, most of his escapades were because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time - he should have been awarded a medal for this skill - he definitely was a born survivor when it came to dealing with the curved balls which fate dealt him. Quite frankly, I think that people are going to be very surprised about what happened next. Book Two in the series is already an amazing journey for me - and hopefully it will for the readers, as well... :)