And We Have Lift-Off! Follow Me, Follow You is Launched.
Click on the photo to visit the Amazon link
My second novel for Choc Lit, Follow Me Follow You, today released as a paperback, had a wonderful launch on Saturday.
The Dorset Wildlife Trust Chesil Beach Centre was the setting, the weather was gorgeous and the afternoon went without a hitch.
Thank you to my fab publisher, Choc Lit, the Chesil Beach Centre, friends, family, writers and readers in real life and online, who supported the event . I am touched and humbled by how much you put yourselves out to get behind the day. I am one lucky and very grateful writer.
The loom bands giveaways.
Follow Me, Follow Youis on tour for the next week, and I’ll be Tweeting and putting the links on Facebook for those who would like to #follow, and there is a free giveaway through the Brook Cottage Books tour.
Thank you to all the reviewers and bloggers who have invited me to their site, including my Romaniac chums, two of whom paid a visit to Dorset on Saturday.
Sue, Laura and Catherine
I hope you enjoy the variety of posts and the extracts from the book.
One last thing before I go … My debut novel, Truth or Dare? is available as a free download today and tomorrow in celebration of the release of FMFY.
Follow Me, Follow You Teasers: Day 9. The Book Launch and Littoralis.
Follow Me, Follow You is my first paperback, so I thought I would celebrate with a book launch and an author afternoon.
Meet Littoralis, four local authors inspired by or writing about the Jurassic coastline, in particular, Weymouth and Portland.
I first met Kathy Sharp at my local writing group, Off The Cuff, a mutual friend introduced me to Kate Kelly, who then introduced Kathy and me to Carol Hunt. We all write within different genres. Between us we cover fantasy, young adult, contemporary romance and children’s books, and we will all be at the book launch and author afternoon, for chat, readings and signings.
Follow Me, Follow You Teasers: Day 6. The Best View in Portland.
Both Victoria Noble and Chris Frampton return home after years of living away. And why wouldn’t they, when just up the road from them is this incredible view of Chesil?
This recent photo is taken from a glorious viewing point on Portland. I’ve been here many times, even before I lived in Dorset as an adult.
It was one of those Red Letter Days over the weekend. Having very kindly sent me an advance copy of my first-ever paperback, my lovely publisher, Choc Lit, then sent The Box to my house.
This is what was inside.
What an incredible moment. I took out the first copy and passed it to Gajitman, with the next two copies going to our children – not that they’re old enough to read Follow Me Follow You yet – it is an adult contemporary romance after all. Their copies will remain on the bookshelf for a while. They are not too young to ask for signed copies, however, and so their wish was my command.
‘How shall I sign it?’ I asked. ‘I’m your mum. I can’t sign it L E James …’
‘Put Mum and L E James,’ my daughter said.
So I did. My first-ever paperback, with my first-ever signature: Mum. L E James. I’m not intending on doing that in all of them … 🙂
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped make my dream come true. I consider myself very lucky to be doing what I love, surrounded by the people I love, in a place that I love.
If I could clap, I would express my excitement at having ‘Truth or Dare?’, published by Choc Lit, selected by Amazon as a Kindle Deal of the Month. For the rest of January, you can download ToD HERE for 99p only!
By downloading and reading ToD, for less than a pound, you will travel from Leighton Buzzard to Weymouth and Portland, take a short trip on the London underground, and spend two evenings at the theatre. And meet Declan O’Brien. He’s Irish, and in a recent survey (not mine, although I wish I’d thought of doing it), the Irish accent came out on top as the world’s sexiest.
Thoughts like that keep me from counting down the days to complete freedom for The Hand. My wrist surgery went well, but I am still in a cast, waiting for my ligaments to heal. I’m not sure where my muscles went. Okay, they weren’t that big to start with, but 4 weeks in an above-elbow cast has left me with an Olive Oyl arm. I am now in a below-elbow cast, and movement is getting better each day. I’m working up to a pea sized bicep. Just over a week, and I should be cast-free, and into a splint. Marble muscles, here I come.
It hasn’t stopped me writing, and book 3, working title, ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’, is under way. It’s set in Weymouth and Portland, and this time my hero is a Welsh coastguard. I’m looking forward to the research. I’m trying to clap. Have resorted to slapping my thigh with my good hand.
I mention book 3 and my hero coastguard as although it’s sunny in Dorset today, which is always a bonus for January, the weather has been wild, throwing all sorts of debris onto Chesil Beach. A wonderful crew of volunteers have given up their weekends to clean the long sweep of pebbles. Great work. Had I been able to help, I’d have been there, but I thank you and applaud your efforts, generosity and hard work.
And when I can clap, I shall applaud some more. You can read about the brilliant work HERE.
I hope the start of 2014 has been kind to you, and continues to be so.
The Smugglers Inn, where Gajitman and I had our wedding reception. Declan and Kate spend the night here.
Weymouth and writing go together like fish and chips, the sea and sand, and Portland Bill and the red and white lighthouse. I love using scenery from my home town, and Chesil Beach features in both Truth or Dare? and Follow Me, but leading up to the release this week of my debut, Truth or Dare?, I would like to share with you an insight into my life, in fact and fiction.
Truth or Dare? begins in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, where I bought my first house. In the late eighties and early nineties, it was a small market town, a fifteen minute drive from the big shops in Central Milton Keynes. I moved there from Watford, primarily because property was cheaper, but also for my job. I was an insurance claims assessor, and Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire were part of my area.
Weymouth Harbour. I love sitting here on a sunny day, with my family, eating fish and chips, watching the world sail by.
My parents lived in Weymouth, and I visited whenever work, social life, and Rotaract permitted, rising early so during my drive I would see the sun drift over Salisbury Cathedral, and arrive in Weymouth in time to watch the dedicated dog-walkers set their hounds free on the beach. I would reach my parents’ house ready to sit at the family table for breakfast. Sometimes I told my mum I was coming, other times, I’d just pitch up.
I’ve lived in Weymouth for twenty years, on three separate occasions, this latest spell being the longest. I cannot imagine leaving. It holds many precious memories – marriage, births, deaths, friendships.
Chesil Beach. Rosie and Josh have a ‘moment’ here.
I love the scenery, the drama, the cry of the gulls. The sea.
It is no wonder Weymouth and Portland feature in my novels. I hope I can do it justice.
Beautiful and inspirational
And I hope you enjoy reading Truth or Dare? It’s published today, and is available on Kindle.
Kate Blair’s sick of unrequited love. She’s quietly waited for Mickey for the past six years and finding a compass-carved heart, with their initials scratched through the middle, only strengthens her resolve: no more Mickey and no more playing it safe.
It’s time to take a chance on real love and Declan O’Brien’s the perfect risk. He’s handsome, kind, and crazy about her so it’s not long before all thoughts of Mickey come few and far between.
But old habits die-hard. Kate may have started to forget … but has Mickey?
