Parties, interviews and houses

Book News:

Yesterday was an all-day party time as all us Untreed Reads authors celebrated our publisher's one-year anniversary at Coffee Time Romance - and there's still time to join in the fun so please do pop along and say hello. You'll be more than welcome! In terms of my own books, you can pick up a FREE copy of literary romance, How to Eat Fruit, plus discover exactly who is The Girl in the Painting, and have a riotous time in space with Creative Accountancy for Beginners. Not only that but you can enjoy the bittersweet historical romance of Dancing with Lions, and get dangerously close to Nature in The Secret Thoughts of Leaves, and, finally, get in touch with your sensuous side with literary lesbian romance, A Woman like the Sea. And, apart from the FREE copy of How to Eat Fruit, all the others have a 25% discount attached, so that's definitely something to celebrate. Enjoy!

Other nice news is that somehow I managed not one, not two, not even three, but a grand total of four entries in the Amazon UK Kindle charts yesterday, well gosh: Tommy's Blind Date was at No 23; Give and Take at No 22; The Hit List at No 21; and Martin and The Wolf at No 20. So it was lovely to have them all in the Kindle charts for a while, and even lovelier that they were huddling so close together, obviously for warmth ... And coming in on the outside was Pink Champagne and Apple Juice at No 36 (now down to No 88) and A Dangerous Man at No 88 in the US Kindle charts. So a very big thank you to whoever it is who's buying - I'm very grateful.

Meanwhile, Brady's Choice is now available for the first time at Amazon US Kindle, whilst A Woman like the Sea is now available both at Amazon UK Kindle (for the grand total of 79p so a real bargain to be had there) and at Amazon US Kindle.

I've also been interviewed at the 1 Place for Romance blog - so thank you, Valerie & Jay, for arranging that, and I hope you enjoy the read.

And I have some very thrilling news about a hugely talented writing friend of mine, Sarah Ann Watts - Sarah's first stand-alone title, Heart of The Kingdom, is published today and I already have my copy which I can't wait to read, so hurry along and buy this story, and many congratulations, Sarah.

The Sunday haiku is:

Hyacinth petals
soften this vanilla air:
promises of spring.


Life News:

House news is moving along, thank the Lord, though still way too slow for me. We've decided not to worry about selling the flat and simply to concentrate on getting out to somewhere new as soon as we can. With that in mind, we made an offer on a house we liked in Bisley, though that's been rejected. But, at the same time, another house we really like in Mayford may be coming down in price very soon, according to the agent (though as they're all lying toads really, who can tell, eh?...), so we've made an offer on that instead. No response on that one as yet, so I assume they'll deign to ring us up next week to give us an update. If that's a no-go zone, then there's actually yet another house on the outskirts of Guildford that's just come on as well so we may well go and view that and see if we prefer it if nothing else useful happens by Wednesday.

Whilst all that is going on, we did have a second viewing of our flat on Friday - where they appear to have moved everything they could think of to move, including the fridge and washing machine, in order to find out our guilty secrets (which I do think is a bit much for people who haven't put in any kind of offer yet, but there you go ...), but I assume they somehow missed where we've buried the bodies, as there's been no sign of the police as yet. Hey ho.

Nice things that have happened include our trip to Wisley today to see the exotic butterflies in the Glasshouse - this is definitely well worth doing so if you're in the area before the end of February then do go along if you can. I'm sure there's a wider variety of butterflies this year than before too, which is grand. There's also been a recurrent visit of a very fat green woodpecker in the garden and the sudden appearance of snowdrops, both of which have cheered me somewhat.

Mind you, I needed cheering as the new Alan Ayckbourn play at the Guildford Theatre on Thursday was a huge disappointment. Long-winded and dull, The Life of Riley is definitely not one I'd recommend, though the unfortunate actors tackle a very thin script with great courage, I think. Sigh. Perhaps the Great Man really does need to take a break?

This morning, after a good week to ten days when frankly the concept of God has been way too much for me, I did manage to get to church. Which was okay, as long as I didn't think about it too much. The hymns were nice. At the moment anything involving more than the occasional and desperate prayer is out of bounds really, and bible reading has fallen by the wayside (ha!), hence the lack of meditation poems, in case anyone had missed them. I'm not sure I'll be able to get back to them next week either, so the exercise bike (where I do my bible reading and start off the poems, oddly enough) has never had such an easy life. We'll see how it goes, or rather how it doesn't.

Last night, we did have a lovely time having dinner at Marian's though, which was grand. It was great to catch up properly, and she certainly makes a top class custard, which always does it for me. There's something about custard which somehow makes everything worthwhile.

Anne Brooke