A glimmer of hope somewhere ...

Life News:

There's a glimmer of hope on the house horizon, thank the Lord. The Mayford vendors have accepted our revised, revised offer, so we're on the road to exchange, hurrah. I hope. I'm really hoping this time that we survive the exchange date with some measure of success, bearing in mind the outright disaster of the one we lived through last year (b****y middle neighbours, eh). It would just be soooooo good to get out of this place which is seriously bringing me down now. I simply need to escape.

Meanwhile our strange potential buyer of the flat is still behaving oddly. He's now been to see us three times, once with his parents, once with a builder and, most recently, yesterday with an interior designer. Apart from being hugely frustrating, we're now thinking of charging him rent if he comes a fourth time. Or perhaps he actually does think he lives here now? He's certainly in the place more often than we are. And still no hint of an offer ... Sigh. I really feel I've lost any hope on that one, to be honest. You know what they say with buyers: the longer they are in a place, the less likely it is they'll bite. People make their minds up in thirty seconds. The rest is just filling, ho hum.

Anyway, we have a potential house, hurrah, and a lifetime of poverty to look forward to so it may not be all bad! Plus yesterday was K's birthday so we celebrated with cake, chocolate and champagne. As you do. And there's cake left over too - gosh, however did that happen?...

Today, I was supposed to be going to the Sceptre Reviewers Lunch on behalf of Vulpes Libris, but I found out yesterday that the event was taking a speed-dating format which utterly horrified me, so I have given it a very very wide berth. Lord preserve us! Parties of any kind are bad enough as it is without having to meet lots of self-important (sorry, but we are rather self-important as a breed!...) authors in quick succession without any kind of body armour to defend against the experience. And if anyone's going to be self-important around here, it's going to be me. I'm a genius at it. Besides, two of the authors lined up have both been given negative reviews by me, which you can see here and here, and I didn't want there to be blood on the carpet, my dears.

Tonight, K and I are out spending money we probably can't afford at the theatre seeing The Reluctant Debutante. Here's hoping there are a few laughs and it's better than last week's play, which shouldn't be too difficult then.

Book News:

I've sent the final galley proofs for Entertaining the Delaneys back to Amber Allure Press, and that's due out on 20 February, so not long now. In the meantime you can find bestselling short story The Girl in the Painting at Amazon UK for the first time, and How to Eat Fruit is now also keeping it company, hurrah. The Bones of Summer has also been briefly at No 29 in the Amazon UK charts this week, which was nice.

There have also been several nice reviews this week (see how self-important I am - gosh, I must be an author, ho ho!...):

Maloney's Law gained a 4-star review at Goodreads (thank you, Dlee)
Painting from Life received a 5-star review at Goodreads (thank you, Ann)
How to Eat Fruit gained a 5-star review at Goodreads (thank you, Sarah).

In addition:

A Woman like the Sea was given a 4.75 star review at Book Wenches (many thanks, Bobby)

and

Brady's Choice gained a 4-star review at Three Dollar Bill Reviews (many thanks, Kassa).

Both of the above were the first "official" reviews for each of these new stories, which I wasn't honestly sure that anyone would like, so that's given me hope too. So perhaps the year might be improving after all? Who can tell ...

Anne Brooke