And the winner of the caption contest is:

Parkysan, for the caption ‘This new herbal tea has an interesting tang to it, although maybe it will improve when these blue sugar lumps finally dissolve’.

Honourable mentions go to two chicks called Valerie. Valerie Parv wrote a limerick:

‘There once was a stainless steel urn
Put where men would come for their turn,
So they lifted the lid,
And did what they did,
Next time hope the signwriters learn.’

And Valerie wrote the only caption that made me snort my tea, it was so gloriously disgusting:

‘When Bob saw the toilet facilities at the village hall, he was glad he’d pissed behind his sofa before coming.’

Thank you all for being so gross. I appreciate it. We’ll be back to non-urine-related topics tomorrow.

I will send a signed copy of any one of my novels to the person who posts the best caption to this photo, below. Note the yellow sign.

...your caption here...

Or, if you prefer, write a little story. Or a poem. Or express yourself in the medium of dance, and attach a little video. Anything goes; the picture was just too good not to share.

Female fiction website Trashionista is giving away a paperback copy of GETTING AWAY WITH IT. Check it out here.

I’ve had two bits of exciting news. The first is about a contest that’s going to be running in conjunction with the paperback publication of GETTING AWAY WITH IT, next month. A reader can win a really lovely and fun prize and I can’t wait to be able to share the details.

The other exciting news is that I’ve been selected as a book giver for World Book Night. What this basically means is that I, and 20,000 other people, will be giving out a million books for free on the 5th of March. I’ve been selected to give out 48 copies of one of my favourite books ever, RACHEL’S HOLIDAY by Marian Keyes. Right now I’m still planning where to give them out, but I have a few ideas and I’ll blog about it closer to the time.

The other news is not quite so exciting. You may remember the Cancelled Christmas? Well, Fecklet and I are supposed to fly to the US tomorrow, to have our replacement Christmas. Except that the US is being hit by what they’re calling a “historic” storm. We have no idea right now whether we’ll be even taking off or not.

Anyway. I’ll keep you updated but please keep your fingers crossed for us.

The winner of a copy of the brand-new edition of Kate Walker’s 12-Point Guide to Writing Romance is Jessica Bull (who entered the contest via Facebook).

Congratulations Jessica! And thank you to everyone who entered, and everyone who recommended books for a writer’s library. I can see I need to make a new shopping list…

The hardcover of GETTING AWAY WITH IT comes out today, and I’m celebrating by announcing the winners of my ARC contest. I had well over a hundred entries, which was amazing, and I’d like to thank everyone who tweeted or blogged about the contest, and everyone who entered.

I chose three names from the list using randomly-generated numbers, and came up with:

Laurie
Sandy Goodson
Gwynneth Carter

I’ve sent emails to the winners. Congratulations ladies and I hope you enjoy the book!

Everyone who signed up should be getting an email newsletter in the next few days.

GETTING AWAY WITH IT has had a couple of reviews already. The Bookbag says it is Wonderfully woven, a powerful and cinematic story that I found very moving.

And Dot Scribbles says Julie Cohen has written a lovely book, Getting Away With It questions what you are running away from in life and to consider that everyone has struggles no matter how calm and content they appear. I would highly recommend this book.

In other news, I am dreadfully, dreadfully hung over. It was the funeral of a lovely friend yesterday, the former secretary of Reading Writers, who did so much for the group over the years. When he was planning his funeral, he’d given us strict instructions that nobody was to leave the pub after the ceremony sober. We took those instructions very much to heart, with the result that I have a sore head today. But it was drinking in a good cause, and I’d do it all again, sore head and all.

I am fighting the hangover by doing some baking. I’m making zucchini bread in the top oven, and chocolate muffins in the bottom oven. Two baking projects at the same time, at different temperatures! I think I love my new cooker. (The Evil Cooker is lurking outside the house, on the pavement, waiting for someone to come and collect it.)

GETTING AWAY WITH IT is officially out in hardback on Thursday, and TODAY is the last chance to enter my contest to win one of three signed advance reading copies of the book. I have them sitting right here on my desk, and actually they’re pretty cool, all nice and glossy, with the tag line instead of the title on the front.

Anyway, all you have to do is to sign up for my newsletter. That’s it. You can do it by using the little form down there on the right, in the sidebar. Go ahead. It’s no bother.

If you’re already signed up for my newsletter, then all you have to do is either leave a comment on this post, or send me an email using the “contact” link at the top right of this page.

If you tweet or blog about this contest, I’ll enter you an additional time. Just tell me you’ve done it, please.

I’ll choose the winners tomorrow morning—so you’ve got 24 hours to enter!

UPDATE: This contest is now closed. I’ll be notifying the winners soon and posting the results on my blog tomorrow. You can still sign up for my newsletter, though, if you like.

(PS Cooker hasn’t killed me yet.)

It’s October, which means it’s publication month for GETTING AWAY WITH IT in hardcover. Yay!

To celebrate, I’m running a contest for all of this month.

If you sign up for my newsletter* between 1 October and 27 October, you’ll be in with a chance to win one of three advance reading copies of GETTING AWAY WITH IT. These are the copies that, like, only the cool and important people get, man.

All you have to do is one of the following. You can either:

Put your email address in a comment to the post below. (Just to be safe, you might want to replace the @ sign with the word “at”.)

or

Send me an email using the “Contact” link above. Put “contest” or something similar in the subject line, so I know it’s not spam.**

or

If you already get my newsletter, you can enter, too. All you have to do is to send me an email with “contest” or similar in the subject line.**

or

Want an extra chance to win? Tell your friends, family, neighbours and co-workers, and get them to send me an email or leave a comment, subscribing to my newsletter. If they mention your name, I’ll enter you in the draw again. So, in theory, if you tell 2453 people about my book and my contest, and they all sign up, you can be entered 2454 times. Wow!!***

This contest is open to readers worldwide.

*I send out my newsletter when I have a new book out, or I’m doing an event, or have some really big news. It’s pretty infrequent and I try to make them moderately amusing.

***Actually, I’ll be very happy if you just tell one or two people.

I’ve just had some great news—GIRL FROM MARS has won an Award of Merit in the 2010 HOLT Medallion contest. This is a contest judged by avid romance readers in the USA, so I’m thrilled that my book was chosen as one of the top five in its category.

If you haven’t yet read this AWARD-WINNING (whoo-hoo!) book, you can find it or order it in your favourite book shop in the UK, or you can order it online with free worldwide shipping from The Book Depository. (US readers—I’ve found that The Book Depository is generally more reliable than Amazon for international orders.)

I’m very excited; the HOLT is one of the few contests I enter and it’s great to have been chosen! I can’t wait to see what other books have been picked.

The winner of my contest for a signed copy of Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom is…

Lacey Devlin!

Yay! Lacey, I’ll be in touch to find out where to send the book.

Thanks, everyone who entered.

It’s Friday! And that means it’s the last day for my contest to win a signed copy of Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom. Don’t forget to send me an email using the “contact” link, or leave a comment on this post if you want to enter. I’ll choose a winner tonight.

Meanwhile, I’m also guest blogging at the fabulous Romance Bandits, where I’m talking about gloom and spiders and also giving away a signed copy. There’s always a lot of conversation over there, so check it out.

I’ve also had my second review for Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, by Debs at Novelicious, as part of their excellent Little Black Dress Thursdays feature. She gave it 9/10 and said it was “definitely a must-read book”.

You can read the rest of the review (and other LBD and chick lit reviews and news) here.

Hooray hooray! Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom is officially out, and to celebrate I will be giving away a signed copy to a lucky person who sends me an email using the “contact” button on my website.

But first, I need to continue talking about shoes.

You see, the heroine of my novel, Nina Jones, is a woman who knows all about the power of a good pair of shoes. She has lots and lots of shoes, some of them very expensive and some of them very uncomfortable, and here is an excerpt from the book telling you why:

I’m a great believer in the power of high heeled shoes. They’re beautiful, they’re stylish, they can rescue a so-so outfit, and they make you appear to have legs up to your armpits, especially if you have passably long legs anyway. Also—and this may be obvious but it’s really vital—the taller you are, the more people will assume that you know what you’re doing. I read an article about it one time. I’m five foot ten in bare feet, so high heels make me taller than most women and quite a few men. Therefore I appear both more confident and more competent, merely by putting on my shoes.

I rub the toes of my left foot against the aching arch of my right, and touch the spot on my cheek where Edmund kissed me. Who am I kidding? Blisters are no distraction from an aching heart at all.

I made Nina love shoes because—well, because she’s a chick lit heroine, der! And chick lit heroines always love shoes. Even I love shoes, and I am NOT a chick lit heroine (too old, too cranky, too married). But as I wrote the story, shoes began to form a very important part of the plot and of Nina’s character arc.

She chooses her shoes specifically to impress Edmund, her boss, who is happily married and with whom she is unrequitedly in love. She meets sexy, romantic Spaniard Juan, who will change her life, while she’s stuck in a chair, caught by the buckle of her shoe. When she decides to change her life completely, she donates her shoes to charity.

And then when her life has changed completely, but not the way she thought it was going to, an encounter with some shoes makes her confront her long-buried feelings about her life. A pair of shoes (and some fake tan) is the key to her deceiving her entire family, and leads to her confrontation with her mysterious and angry upstairs neighbour. A pair of cheap secondhand shoes teaches her that feeling comfortable and rather ordinary isn’t quite such a bad thing after all. And one of the most emotionally significant scenes in the story takes place while she’s barefoot.

In short, Nina’s relationship with her shoes is as complicated and as difficult as every relationship. I loved writing that part of the novel.

Anyway, if you’d like to read the book and want a chance at a signed copy, please send me an email using the “contact” button, or alternatively leave a comment on this post with your email address in it, and I’ll choose an entry at random to win.* You don’t even have to say anything, but it’s always nice to hear from you, so I hope you will.

*Warning: you’ll be entered on my newsletter mailing list if you enter. This is pretty harmless and very occasional, and you can unsubscribe at any time.