The Australian cover

Two advance copies of my Australian edition of THE WINTER BRIDE arrived in the mail today. So pretty.

Mary Jo Putney will be interviewing me about the book on the Word Wenches Blog, and I'll give one of these away to a North American commenter. Stay tuned for the interview date. I'll put it on FB and twitter -- and here too.

THE WINTER BRIDE (RT Top Pick) Our hero Freddy on Pride and Prejudice:

When his best friend Max asks him to attend his aunt's literary society, our hero, Freddy, is appalled:

“Not the literary society. The horror stories those girls read are enough to make a fellow’s hair stand on end.”

Max frowned. “Horror stories? They don’t read horror stories, only entertaining tales of the kind ladies seem to enjoy, about girls and gossip and families—”

“Horror stories, every last one of them,” Freddy said firmly. “You asked me to sit in on their literary society last month, when you went up to Manchester, remember? The story they were reading then . . .” He gave an eloquent shudder. “Horror from the very first line: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Must he, indeed? What about the poor fellow’s wants, eh? Do they matter? No. Every female in the blasted story was plotting to hook some man for herself or her daughter or niece. If you don’t call that horror, I don’t know what is!”

Max chuckled.

“You can laugh, bound as you are for parson’s noose in the morning,” Freddy said bitterly, “but every single man in that story ended up married by the end of the book! Every last one.” He numbered them off on his fingers. “The main fellow, his best friend, the parson, even the soldier fellow ended up married to the silly light-skirt sister—not one single man in that story escaped unwed.” He shuddered again. “Enough to give a man nightmares. So, no literary society for me, thank you.”

* * * * *

There's another excerpt here.

Preorder THE WINTER BRIDE:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Indie bound

Book Depository UK

Booktopia (Australia)

The thing about facebook

I'm on Facebook, of course — it's pretty much necessary as an author, but I've been advised by those who know this stuff that I really ought to be using my author page most of the time, instead of my personal page.

I've resisted this for a while — I feel more comfortable with a personal page, and I have heaps more "friends" on it than I do on my author page. But I've been eyeing off the "reply" function on some other authors' pages and I have to say I covet it. So much better being able to reply to a comment right underneath it, than doing it twenty comments later.

So now I'm biting the bullet and asking people to move across to my author page. But it's a really weird process.  What do you say?

Option 1: Please like me. Which sounds pathetic and needy.

Option 2 : Please click my "like" button. Which sounds vaguely pornographic.

Oh well, you decide. Pathetic and needy or pornographic -- it's over here.

Thank you.
Anne

Lists — Best Books of 2013

I'm thrilled to announce that The Autumn Bride has been listed on two major USA lists for "Best Books of 2013."

The first was Library Journal's Best Books of 2013 — the journal for libraries in the USA. They said in their review. "This funny, dangerously addictive page-turner is a hands-down Regency winner." Thank you, Library Journal, I'm very honored.

And this morning the news came through that The Autumn Bride has also been included in NPR's Best Books of 2013. Thank you, NPR, I'm over the moon!

Revisiting the past

I spent yesterday afternoon at a high school I used to work at many years ago. It's closing down after 85 years fine service to the community, which is a very sad thing. I don't know if the lovely old brick building will be knocked down or turned into flats, but either way it's a shame.

 It was a good place to work — the kids were fantastic, and there was such warmth and goodwill between most of the kids and teachers. Even the ratbags had their fair share of charm and spirit. It was also fantastically multi-cultural — the teachers as well as the kids coming from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, which made for a wonderfully rich soup of culture and experience—and one which the school always celebrated in a variety of different ways.

I nearly didn't go — I'm always a bit apprehensive about revisiting the past, but this turned out to be lovely. I caught up with so many kids I used to teach -- it was an absolute blast seeing them and hearing about their lives now, and their reflections about their school days. I think I was still smiling when I went to sleep hours later. 

Mandarin season

It's mandarin season here, and as usual, I can't get enough of them.

Years ago when I was traveling (backpacking) I arrived on the tiny Greek island of Lesvos at the start of  mandarin season and I must have been deprived of vitamin C or something, because the whole time I was on that island, I ate mandarins by the bagful.

They were sweet and tangy and almost entirely seedless. It was the first time I'd come across seedless mandarins, and I was hooked. I ate mandarins for breakfast and lunch and only at dinner time did I have a normal meal.

Now whenever I buy myself a bag, I smile as I remember those happy days in Greece.

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

I found this, that someone sent me and it gave me a chuckle. For all those experiencing heat - or not.
( From  http://xkcd.com/1026/ )