Pardon Me, Boy …

Greetings and salutations from beautiful Devon. I’m in a super-spiffy mood because, after wrestling for a couple of weeks with website issues, I have finally got it all to load correctly. I have also acquired www.terrinixon.com – so that means a change of business cards, but for now terri-nixon.co.uk will point there (I hope …) It’s still very sparse, but it’s there! More content will be added as time allows.

SO – onward, then. Carina came up with a good cover in the end; they took off the girl’s bright red lippy, removed her “Chattanooga Choo Choo” hat, and made her blonde. She’s still not *my* Evie, but she could be someone else’s, and she looks suitably strong, and worried, rather than smiling, wilting, or being held against the flexed pecs of some unfeasibly handsome bloke. So here are the before and after versions:
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We’re on schedule now, for a July 17th release. So, in the meantime I’m pushing Maid of Oaklands Manor again; I’ve given five short pieces to Piatkus, who have offered to publish them just ahead of the release of book 2: an article on how the book came to be written; an excerpt from the book; a mini-prequel, where we travel with Lizzy on the train immediately prior to her arrival at Breckenhall; a short scene between Mrs Cavendish and Lady Creswell as they discuss Lizzy’s appointment, and – the one that was most fun one to write – a little piece from the point of view of some of the other characters, and their reactions to … well, to what happened. I really enjoyed writing that one!

I hardly need to ask, but if any of you get the chance to give this book a boost in the next week or so, please do whatever you can! Book 2 (affectionately known hereafter as ‘Flanders’) is a standalone story, but obviously there are references to characters and events that occurred in Oaklands, and, while not really necessary to know, would certainly enhance the reading experience. So, for the next week and a half it’s going to be all about Oaklands again, then it’s all-change, and off to war we go! 

I’m not going to have an online launch party for Flanders, as I’ll be at work, but I would so much appreciate some tweetage, and Facebook sharing on the day if you can.

So, that’s where we are just now. The Lightning and the Blade has had some absolutely gorgeous reviews already, (5 x 5*!) and I hope, when I can put some of my time into promoting those again, I’ll get lots of people reading it. For now though, it’s full-steam ahe … err, back, to 1912-17.

I’m booked up for the Festival of Romantic Fiction in September too, so, that’ll be something to look forward to.  I’ve entered Flanders in the Readers Choice Awards, although to be short-listed 2 years in a row would be pretty flukey! Still, innit to winnit, etc. 

Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to comment, either here or at the link when I post it, I’d be thrilled to hear from you 🙂