Life is just about settling down again after the RNA Awards Ceremony.  As I wrote last time the announcement that I had been shortlisted set the publicity ball rolling and as it grew in pace it grew in size. I survived and looked forward to the Awards Ceremony in London. I was listed in the Epic Romantic Novel Category with five other authors. The winners in each category went forward to the main award. I didn’t win but it was a great evening mingling with other writers and most of all with my two editors from Piatkus, my publisher.  They had put forward my novel, THE ROAD BENEATH ME and I reached the final six of my category, seen here.

Since the announcement that I had been shortlisted in the Epic Romantic Novel category of the Romantic Novelists’ Society’s Awards my writing life has been in upheaval. Fortunately I had completed and sent to my publisher, Piatkus, my latest novel JUST ONE MORE DAY which will be published early 2015 (the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War).  My editor at Piatkus  said she would like another full-length (100,000 words) Jessica Blair novel  and asked if  I would  like to write a Christmas Novella (20,000 words) in time for Christmas?  So my writing time ahead was mapped out. I got on with the Novella and was thinking about the longer novel when I was informed I had been short-listed for the RNA Romantic Novel Of The Year. Excitement?  Oh yes! Family delighted! Then, when the news and the full short list was made public, I was the only male appearing in the list. I learned other men, writing under a female name,  had been nominated in the past, but no man had ever won the outright prize. Since the category short-lists were made public, I have been interviewed and appeared twice in the Independent, appeared in the Sunday Express,  the Gazette & Herald, York,  Darlington and Stockton Times,  interviewed on BBC Radio 4,  BBC Radio Leeds,  BBC Radio Birmingham, BBC Television Look North,  and I have had two signing sessions, one in Whitby and the other in Guisborough.  Life got a bit hectic.

It all seems a continuation of last year’s publicity which arose through a small item appearing in the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette which was taken up by a Newcastle Press Agency which in turn was taken by Mail On Line. That was taken up all over the world from Alaska to Australia. Contacts came into my Publisher, Piatkus, and led to an interview, via Skype, with an  American TV Company.  That calmed down and I got a novel written – the one that is coming out next year.

Then the announcement of the  RNA Awards came this year. I’ll come down to earth after the RNA awards ceremony next Monday. After that I will start on another Jessica Blair novel.