The Gifting - news!

News! I have news! As I'm sure someone in a Jane Austen novel once said. Or should have done. Anyway, much to my astonishment and joy, I'm happy to announce that my fantasy novel, The Gifting has been accepted for publication by Bluewood Publishing. Hurrah! And I'm really so thrilled that, to be honest, I can't even speak. A blessing for those of you who have to deal with me face-to-face indeed. Though I suspect it won't last ... Anyway, many thanks to Paulette & David of Bluewood for saying yes, and I'm looking forward to working with you towards the publication date. It's lovely to think that Simon the Scribe is going to have a voice. Gosh indeedy.

As you can imagine, this news has rather overpowered the rest of the week and I am still floating delicately amongst the clouds - though for that I blame the champagne Lord H insisted we open on Tuesday night. It's a tough life, eh, but someone has to drink it ...

But other writing projects are also happily bubbling away (note the nice blending with the champagne image there, please!). I'm also delighted to say that two of my poems will be included in the first Every Day Poets anthology, so thank you to Oonah Joslin for her work on that.

In addition, Give and Take is now up at the Amber Allure Press site, though it's not published until 21 March. NB: That AAP link does take you to an erotic extract, so please be warned! I'm also very pleased that Untreed Reads have accepted my literary feminist short story, The Girl in the Painting (formerly known as Girl Undecided) for future publication, so I'm looking forward to working with Jay again on that one - thanks, Jay!

In terms of reviews, I was happy to see Painting from Life gained a 4 star rating at Goodreads - thanks, Kassa! And, at the same time, A Stranger's Touch gained another 4 star Goodreads rating - thank you, Deanna, for that also.

Keeping to the subject of reviews, Vulpes Libris now has my review of Ali Smith's novel, The Accidental and it's an astonishing and exciting book, so do pop in and be inspired.

Finally, in this writing life, I was heartened to hear that on the first day of Read An Ebook Week, my short stories, How to Eat Fruit and Dancing with Lions were downloaded for free 40 times. Gosh! I do hope people have enjoyed the reads. And if you do want a free ebook to enjoy, pop along to Smashwords here or here and take advantage of the offer. It ends on 13 March so there's still time!

And I think that's about it really. I'm just off now to have a glorious Hot Stone Therapy massage (hurrah!) so will no doubt be out for the count for the rest of the day. Bliss. Hell, but I think I deserve it.

Anne Brooke - full of sparkle and fizz this week!
The Prayer Seeker's Journal - keeping things grounded