Toot! Toot!

Toot! Toot! Yes, I’m afraid that’s the unseemly sound of me blowing my own trumpet…

I’ve been feeling very nostalgic this month. The warm sunshine and the hedgerows bursting forth with cow parsley reminds me of writing The Secrets of Ghosts. Plus, we’re fast approaching the one year anniversary of my debut, The Language of Spells, being published.

This time last year I was unpublished. Now, I’ve got two books out and am well on the way to finishing another one.

I worked towards this point for so long (and spent so much time wondering if I would ever get there), that it still feels like a dream.

This time last year I was terrified. I felt exposed. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, fearful of my writing being ‘out there’. What if everybody hated it? What had I been thinking? I couldn’t do this… People were going to look at this thing that I’d made up and they were going to know how stupid/vapid/talentless I really was.

Instead, I had the most fabulous year. Friends and family were lovely and supportive and said so many nice things about the book that I just about swooned from happiness.

Book reviewers and readers were just as nice and I couldn’t have wished for a better reception.

Which brings me to my trumpet-blowing… Almost a year on and The Language of Spells is number six in the magical realism chart on Amazon (US), and people are still discovering it, tweeting about it, emailing me, and leaving lovely reviews.

I just read this one on Amazon:

I genuinely enjoyed reading this book and have purposely held off on buying the sequel so I will have something wonderful to read when I’m down. The whole story is well-written and engaging. I love the family dynamic. 

I feel so lucky and so grateful. My readers are the best! Thank you!