It’s all good news!

It is the time of the Cannes Film Festival and we are enjoying days that are as sunny and warm as midsummer. It makes for a great atmosphere down along the promenade and on the beaches at Cannes. No raincoats over evening dresses, so far this year. No umbrellas to try and keep the coiffed hair from falling into damp rags.  Evening wear and sunglasses – a very cool look!

My mood is soaring and the future is looking bright. I have finally signed the  contract for the novel I delivered to my agent at the beginning of this year. It seems that it has been a slow crawl forward, or it does to me anyway. but in traditional publishing terms this is a fairly acceptable pace.

My lovely new editor thinks I should find another title for the novel, so we are putting our heads together on that one and I will announce it as soon as we have settled on it. The best news is that the novel will be available in hardback and  e-book in February next year followed by a super paperback publication late spring/early summer 2016. In time for everyone’s summer holidays.

It is SO EXCITING.

My Olive Farm series of books will remain with Orion, the publishing house that has looked after them for the last eight years. But this move to a new editor and new publishing house for my novels is a step in another direction. After the thrilling successes of The Girl in Room Fourteen and Hotel Paradise, both hitting and remaining in the number one slot in the UK, US and Germany (for Girl 14 – Hotel Paradise will be published there next month), I am going to concentrate on fiction for a while.

So, I am back at my desk typing away at work on a new novel and a novella. Staying home, keeping busy: I love it.

Other news: both The Girl in Room Fourteen and Hotel Paradise are about to be published as audio books. I am narrating them . Do keep an eye for them. Ideal listening in your lunch hour or travelling to or from work. Light sunny stories to transport you to the Mediterranean at the flick of a switch.

Olive Farm news:

We have a baby lamb born to our black-coated couple. His name is LAMBorghini. Here he is at one-day old in the company of his mother, EWEgenie.

Alas, we lost our gorgeous German Shepherd girl, Lola, mother of Homer. She had been with us since I saved her from the injection thirteen years ago. Lola is buried in the garden beneath her favourite Cypress tree. It was where she used to hide away from the heat and at the ready for our lunch table. It is almost the closest tree to the kitchen so Lola was well placed to leap up for bits of food. To the end, she never lost her appetite. Here she is a month or so before she left us:

If you want to contact me to buy books, DVDs of The Olive Route series, signed photographs, Olive Oil or Cottage enquiries, please write to me at olivefarmbooks@gmail.com or press the various links that my excellent webmaster, Bart Hulley, has set up on the Home page to assist. Please don’t send me physical letters via agents etc. These take so long to reach me – if they ever do – because I travel so much. The most efficient method is the email address listed in this paragraph and then I will be back in touch as soon as possible.  I have no assistant so sometimes there is a bit of a backlog. Please be patient with me!

By the way, if you have plans to come and spend time and maybe work in France, please do take a look at Bart’s excellent book – the link is also on the Home page. Even I, after nearly thirty years in France, have found a heap of useful tips in it. I really recommend it. Click and buy on the Home page. You won’t regret it!

I will be back here again shortly with the new title for my novel and news on the publishing house and future plans.  I cannot describe how exciting it all is!

By the way, as many of you know, I write a monthly blog for the-history-girls.blogspot.com on 26th of each month. This May, my subject is the birth of the Cannes Film Festival. It will as usual be posted on this site, so do drop by to read it.

Enjoy these fabulous spring days or autumn days if you are reading this across the world.

Thank you for continuing to pop in here and say hello. I really appreciate it.

All good wishes,

Carol

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