Three Things to Celebrate

1. Francesco Da Mosto’s new BBC series, Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage. Research, inspiration and relaxation in one gorgeously-accented package, this goes a long way to filling the viewing gap left by The Apprentice. Just add sofa, wine and olives for the closest you can get to heaven on a Tuesday evening.


2. Translations of my first and second books into Spanish and Portugese. New covers, and great new titles. Innocencia Oculta... how fabulous is that? (Have had enormous fun opening them on random pages and trying to work out which bit I’m reading, but even though I know the books inside out it’s surprisingly hard! Since I’m obviously never going to be able to sit down and skim read through them, if anyone would like a copy just drop me your address via the website and I’ll get one off to you.)

3. Finally, after months of trying, yesterday I managed to get project playlist to work on my website. Apologies to anyone within a three mile radius of my house who would undoubtedly have heard the whoop of triumph, followed by an ear-shattering rendition of the songs while I danced round the house. Expect a further slump in word count over the next few days as I exercise my new found competence and play!

Oooh look!

The Italian's Defiant Mistress has won a Reviewer's Choice Award over at CataRomance.

COOOOOOL!!

Back to Business

Have been so taken up by my role as founder member of Scrubbers Anonymous that I completely forgot to mention the exciting fact that I have been invited to join the rather dazzling list of writers over at the Harlequin Presents Authors' site. Even more excitingly, I am this month's featured author, which is great because a) when I wrote my piece for it I'd just got back from London, so had something glamorous to write about and didn't have to obsess about cleaning, and b) this month sees the American release of The Italian's Defiant Mistress, so the timing is perfect. Anyway, if you've arrived at this blog via a link from the site, a big hello and thank you for visiting!


On the current book front.... I'm now at the stage where the ideas are piling up crazily in my head and I just have to be patient and tell the story until I can get to the places where they slot in. It's not easy. Especially when I seem to be plagued by the presence of a constant stream of British Gas men at the moment, all searching for the elusive solution to the leaking pipes. The search seems to involve a lot of tea-drinking and much important typing on laptops in fab little zip-up cases.


I find this last bit particularly annoying, as thanks to the incessant interruption, I'm doing hardly any typing at all.

Here it is!

And here I am-- wet and bedraggled beside Eve and Raphael (who, in the book, manage to look gorgeous and sexy when caught in a summer rain storm-- no unflattering waterproofs for them.)

The big smile is because of my lovely haul of reading material; and-- get this-- it's all on 3 for 2 at Smiths at the moment!!

It's all happening!

MY BOOK IS IN AN ACTUAL SHOP ON MY ACTUAL HIGH STREET!

Husband emailed me from work on Friday to report an official sighting of The Italian's Defiant Mistress on the shelf at WH Smiths!

I am stupidly excited. I remember when I got the call last September (which always sounds vaguely like some sort of spiritual epiphany) it seemed an unimaginably long time until I would have a book actually on sale, but here I am, and there are Eve and Raphael, locked in their passionate, windswept embrace in our very own WH Smiths! I'd really like to get a picture of them there, but am not sure how to go about this... Do I lurk in the Romance section until all is quiet and go for the surreptitious 'slink and snap' technique? (and risk appearing shifty and slightly mad), or do I jump up and down going 'That's my book! That's my book!', thrust my camera into the hands of some hapless bystander and demand they photograph us both (thus coming across as completely bonkers, but in a reassuringly upfront way?) Vote now!

AND... as if I wasn't quite overexcited enough about this, I also discovered yesterday that I've had my very first review! Kym, over at Romance Reader at Heart has given the book 4 roses, which I'm pretty thrilled about, and said some nice things too, like

'India Grey pens a delightful, fun novel with THE ITALIAN'S DEFIANT MISTRESS. For her first published work, Grey does an outstanding job!... The characters are sympathetic and easy to relate to. The plot is fun and fast. I look forward to reading Grey's next novel.
Bottom line: grab a cool drink of iced tea, curl up and enjoy!'

After reading this I instantly wanted to catch the next transatlantic flight and go and give Kym a big hug for taking the time to read and review my book, and also for picking up on the slight edge of humour I tried to put in there. It's not something that's immediately associated with the Presents line, and given the relentless darkness of my current wip, I don't think it's going to be a hallmark of all my books, but in that one it just happened. Anyway, on reflection I decided that being accosted by an over-emotional stranger would be scary and traumatic for nice Kym, so settled instead for a more conventional and low-key form of celebration involving a bottle of wine and a Chinese take away. I guess it's to my husband's credit that during this he was pretty tolerant about being reminded 47 times that I am the author of a novel that is both delightful and fun.