Archive for the ‘Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom’ Category

March 9, 2010 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom

So did I mention my friend Ruth and I did a photoshoot in a graveyard to promote Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom?

I’ve posted some of the pictures up on the main website already, and I’ve been using them when touring blogs etc, but I thought I’d post a few here, too.

This is my new photo on my front page of my website. I’m holding Ruth’s umbrella. I really want a pink umbrella.

It was snowing and I thought she was getting wet.

I think this is lovely, gloomy and atmospheric.

March 5, 2010 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, contests

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.

Most importantly, they’re uncomfortable. When you wear heels for every minute of your professional and social life you’re instantly proclaiming yourself as a person who is able to withstand blisters, pinching, and calf ache, because looking good is more important than pain. Besides, blisters can provide a handy distraction from an aching heart.

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.

March 3, 2010 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom

Today I’m blogging about Highgate Cemetery at The Writing Playground, and giving away a copy of Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom.

See you there!

March 1, 2010 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom

Ohhh I do so love the exciting day when it’s BOOK RELEASE WEEK, especially when it coincides with me randomly clicking on Amazon and seeing that the book’s on their romance bestseller list.

It’s the first of March and Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom is out there, on the shelves, ready to be picked up and read!

Yippee!!

The official release date is Thursday the 4th, and I’ll be celebrating by having a giveaway here on this blog. Meanwhile, I’m blogging about it all over the place in the next couple of weeks. And I’ll talk about the book a little bit here, too.

February 22, 2010 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, reviews

I’ve just had a wonderful weekend with dear friends, the highlight of which was probably having a snowball fight in an ancient henge.

And got back home to find the first review for Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, on thebookbag.co.uk. It’s one of those lovely, thoughtful, personal reviews that you get sometimes when the reader has really related to your book and understood what it’s about. Here’s a bit of it:

It’s tricksy in many ways, this book, as you think initially Nina is one of those shallow chick lit heroines who is all shoes…blah blah…shopping…blah blah…London clubbing…blah blah but then you get the feeling that actually, maybe there’s something else going on. And the further you get drawn into the story the more you find that no-one is quite who they seemed to be. Not the crazy bat freak or the struggling father or the happily married couple or Nina. And even places behave differently, so that sunny Spain turns sweaty and sour and a bat watch in Highgate cemetery at dusk sees some rather heated passion amongst the gravestones…

February 10, 2010 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, excerpts

I’ve been working like crazy to get ready for NINA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF GLOOM to come out next month. I’ve ordered some gorgeous postcards to promote it, and I’ve set up a book signing on 27 March at the Waterstones in the Oracle, Reading.

I’ll also be talking about the book and signing copies, as part of the Reading Library Local Author Day on Saturday 6 March, from 11 pm.

Don’t worry, I’ll be reminding you of all these things, and if you’d like to be reminded in the comfort of your own inbox, please sign up for my newsletter by sending me an email via the “contact” button, above.

Meanwhile, I’ve added an excerpt and a really cool photo to my website, here.

November 25, 2009 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, The Bad Twin, crows, writing

The absolutely gorgeous but also rather evil Anna Louise Lucia said to me today on the phone, “You know, one reason I love being friends with you is that I just get to say ‘I told you so’ so many times.”

If you’ve read my blog at all for the past eighteen months or so, I’ve had a little bit of, er, trouble writing my last two books. In that, I thought they were utterly crap, pretty much until I got 60% of the way through the first draft, and just slightly less crap for the remaining 40% or so. There were usually one or two scenes that I liked, but that was it. Otherwise, I SUCKED, I was AWFUL, I was GOING TO LOSE MY CAREER and BE MOCKED MIGHTILY BY REVIEWERS AND READERS, to say nothing of my agent and editor. I moped and complained and moped some more and was generally not pleasant to be with.

“Don’t worry,” my then-editor said. “If you’re having trouble it’s because you’re stretching yourself as a writer.” I nodded, but did I believe her?

Not a fart’s chance in hell.

Revising the books made me like them more. I could see the whole thing, I could begin to pull them together and shape them into something more like how I wanted them to be. But still, I wasn’t so certain.

Even when my agent and my editor loved Nina Jones and said it was their favourite of all my books so far, there was a bit of my brain that didn’t really believe them. That thought they were just being nice (never mind that they’d never minced words in the past). Humouring the insane author, whilst edging away towards the nearest exit.

You know what, though? I’m reading the proofs for Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom. And after all that agonising, all that self-flagellation, all that moping and complaining, I LIKE IT. I actually like it quite a bit. I actually kind of love it. I’ve stayed up late to read more, even though I know what’s going to happen. I almost sort of feel that it’s nearly the book I wanted it to be from the start.

And then of course there’s my current book, The Bad Twin, which I (thoroughly sick of every word) delivered to my agent last week and which she said she wouldn’t get a chance to read properly until Friday. Thank God, I thought, seven days of reprieve before I have to face up to the massive revisions she’s sure to give me. She was the first and only person to have the entire draft; others have read little bits, but not the whole thing.

She rang me today, two days before Friday mind you, having read all 146,000 words in two sittings, and said she loves it. And then proceeded to give me a detailed and enthusiastic list about all the things she loves about it—things that, actually, now that she mentions it, I love too.

Is it perspective? Is it time? Is it the opinion of professionals whom I trust? Is it just that I’m really stupid?

I really don’t know. But I’m really, really relieved.

And drinking wine.

October 28, 2009 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, covers

How gorgeous is that? Check out the bats!!

October 14, 2009 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom

I’ve got my blurb for my next Little Black Dress book, Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom…

All work and no play makes Nina a dull girl…

But when you’re PA to a celebrity chef who’s tastier than one of his delicious dishes you can’t help loving your job. What’s wrong with fancying the pants off your boss? Erm, everything if he’s married to someone else.

So when Nina meets sexy Spaniard Juan, she’s thrilled to escape to a new life abroad…until he does a runner with her hard-earned cash and she’s forced to move to ‘The Temple of Gloom’ – a gothic flat with some unusual inhabitants. Nina’s had enough of bloodsuckers, but is her mysterious neighbour Viktor really a vampire? Sometimes it’s hard to know who to trust…

Get your teeth into this racy romantic adventure that’s full of surprises!

August 18, 2009 | Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, Romancing the Blog, about me

I’ve had an interesting afternoon so far. First, I re-read Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, to do the revisions and line edits. And I made myself cry, on the third-to-last page. My husband thinks this is proof positive that I’m mad as a box of frogs. “But you already know what happens!” he says.

Well, yes. But…

Anyway, after that I promptly climbed up on the roof of the shed to pick blackberries. I’m now stained purple and scratched red, but I have enough for a small crumble.

Meanwhile, I’m blogging at Romancing the Blog today about reading tastes and how they change.