I was putting a nifty little ‘RSS feed’ compass icon in my website sidebar today when I noticed that my Amazon Store icon only took me to a page that said “Server Not Found.” At first I thought that there was probably just some broken code on my website, but when I went to Out in Print’s blog to find their Amazon Store, I discovered that theirs’ wasn’t there any more either. Has Amazon stopped doing this for ages, and I’ve only just noticed? Or is it working for everyone else and my site is just wrong?
Edited much later to say that I have found the problem, which turned out to be a broken link on my site, and after Andrew spent much of the evening figuring out how to get at it, because it was deeply hidden in the template of the blog, we fixed it. Huzzah for us! And now it’s way past time to go to bed.
Phew! I have turned the corner and passed the middle of Under the Hill. At 77,555 words I am now officially into the second half of this 150,000 word whopper. It’s slightly frustrating because 77K is long enough for a book on its own, and I’ve still got half to go, but on the other hand, the hump is over and it’s downhill for Under the Hill from now on.
I’m not even thinking about how much editing this thing is going to need! (A clue – it’s lots and lots. But I’ll think about that after the first draft is finished.)
I’ve had a slight revelation and realized that if I shut myself in the bedroom for two twenty minute periods of intensive writing, I can do 1000k a day even when Rose is at home, and this is making me lots happier about her study leave. If I can keep it up while they are both at home, I might even be able to reclaim the summer holidays, and that will be a major source of frustration eliminated from my year.
and says:
Much of what I enjoyed about Shining in the Sun is the balance between issues of sexual and personal identity and strong genre storytelling conventions. While I had a number of issues with the book, I was engaged enough to want to dig through my digital TBR pile for False Colors before another review book claims my time.
(Read the whole review here)
It’s a very interesting review, I thought, because I think it’s true that I was playing with a lot of Romance tropes while writing it – trying to feel my way into what made a Contemporary click. Hee! I’m very glad she had the reaction she had over Max. That was what I was hoping for 
Judging from the comments, I’m putting a lot of people off my books by my over-descriptive style. But I think I’ll have to shrug and call that a difference of taste. I find a lot of modern books too spare and pared down – too thin and without juice or colour – as the characters rush from one action scene to the next in a flat, grey world that rarely has any reality or glamour of its own. I like to stop and smell the roses. And I like to know whether they are yellow roses or red, and whether they’re trained up a trellis or a hedge.
Funnily enough, it is scenery that I seem to retain most from the books I love, the hurrying river and cold wind, the miles of brown land and the melancholy peep of small water fowl amongst the reeds, when the Fellowship of the Ring are travelling down Anduin. The sunshine and the fountain, and the black inquisitive eye of Archmage Nemmerle’s raven when Ged first arrives on Roke in A Wizard of Earthsea.
I worry a little that these things are no longer fashionable. But perhaps it’s not as necessary to describe the world as thoroughly in a contemporary as you would in a historical, because people think they already know it?
Ah well, I thought it was too easy. I’ve just had a reply from Waterstones’ event organizer, who I emailed in an attempt to arrange a book signing. She says “Unfortunately this is not something that would for us here in Piccadilly” and encourages me to try my local branch. However, given that my local branch doesn’t even have the book on its database at all, let alone have it in the shop, I feel it’s much less likely that my local branch would be interested.
I will try the local branch, but I’m sorry that I raised anyone’s hopes about a do in London. It seems it’s not going to happen after all. This is more the kind of level of enthusiasm I’m used to receiving from bookshops, but I’ve got to admit it’s a bit of a disappointment after the lovely reception I got when I visited personally. Back to business as usual, it seems
Says this review from Astrodene’s Historical Naval Fiction website:
False Colors was a pleasant surprise. I expected the M/M Romance aspect to dominate but it did not. The naval story was well researched and the ship handling, action, and crew interactions were woven into a very believable naval narrative. It is primarily a love story but it is also a very good naval fiction novel.
This makes me squee, because I badly wanted it to be both a good romance and a good AoS novel. I don’t see why you would have to choose one or the other.
It’s amusing, though, that I see a trend in the reviews, with the Romance readers getting frustrated about the iceberg incident (presumably because they think that Alfie’s period of mourning for Farrant goes on too long? Or perhaps that he ought not to mourn at all?) while the reviews from a naval novel POV seem to think that was the best bit. Perhaps you can’t please all the people all the time, but you can clearly please some people some of the time, and some other people at other times
This week has been a great week for reviews, but a poor week for health. Here’s hoping that next week I feel well enough to write, and if that has to be paid for in no more reviews, I will just cherish the ones I’ve already got and be thankful.
Something nice happens and then I get ill, as if I have to karmically pay for it I’m so exhausted today that I haven’t been able to write at all, or even summon up the energy to comment on my FL. Another day of no progress on UtH (though I’m that ¦¦ far away from Ben’s dramatic kidnapping and everything starting to speed up towards an all-action finale.)
So instead I’ve been researching the Age of Piracy and Captain Hook wigs. I think that – when UtH is done – I’ll do that pirate story I always said I would never write. Maybe for NaNoWriMo. With all these camper vans and elvish palaces behind me, I’m starting to miss the feeling of being on the deck of a tall ship.
Phew! I’ve had two lovely reviews from early readers of SitS, and perhaps now I can stop quaking in my boots over whether my contemporary is any good or not
Wave of Reviews by Jessewave says:
Shining in the Sun is a breath of fresh air and you will love the British and French ambience. Alex Beecroft is a wonderful writer and her prose is some of the best I have read. She has a knack for creating complex flawed protagonists with whom readers fall in love and I never want her books to end because I don’t want to leave the characters behind… Definitely recommended.
Full review here.
Which is enough to set me squeeing all by itself, but then Kate Cotoner also gave me a lovely chewy review on Goodreads here , examining the themes and contrasts of the book
She says:
This novel broke my heart then put the pieces back together again. …. I came away from the book with a sense of a specific place and time – a kind of fin de siecle moment that will resonate with anyone who’s ever loved, even hopelessly, in that golden period of summertime. Shining In The Sun is an extraordinary emotional and romantic story that’s richly rewarding to read.
Which makes me want to play Don Henley’s The Boys of Summer – which I’ve adopted as the SitS theme tune – very loud and break open something alcoholic in celebration. Thank you very much, Wave and Kate! You are complete stars and have put my mind at rest no end 
Woohoo! It’s launch day for my third professionally published novel, and my first ever contemporary romance I’m doing that “new book out” thing of surfing the net looking for anyone who’s read it already and given it a review. Which is a silly thing to do at this stage, but I can’t help it. It isn’t every day you have a new novel out
Here it is on My Bookstore and More, and here it is on Amazon. It’s only available in ebook for the moment, with the print version coming out next year.
So what’s it all about? Let me tell you… 
Blurb
Damn it, a man shouldn’t always have to be afraid…
Alec Goodchilde has everything a man could want—except the freedom to be himself. Once a year, he motors down to an exclusive yacht club on the Cornish coast and takes the summer off from the trap that is his life.
When his car breaks down, leaving him stranded on the beach, he’s transfixed by the sight of a surfer dancing on the waves. The man is summer made flesh. Freedom wrapped up in one lithe package, dripping wet from the sea.
Once a year, Darren Stokes takes a break from his life of grinding overwork and appalling relatives, financing his holiday by picking up the first rich man to show an interest. This year, though, he’s cautious—last summer’s meal ticket turned out to be more pain than pleasure.
Even though Alec is so deep in the closet he doesn’t even admit he’s gay, Darren finds himself falling hard—until their idyllic night together is shattered by the blinding light of reality…
As you may know, I’m somewhat wary of the alpha male hero, and I’m particularly wary of the alpha/beta pairing which has a tendency to read like a het romance with search and replace pronouns. I know that quite a few other people do alpha/alpha pairings, which tend to be very heavy on the testosterone and violence. But I wasn’t sure if anyone had yet done a beta/beta story. So this is my attempt at that very thing, because someone has to remember the other guys. As Darren says, “the meek will inherit the earth, as long as the strong will obligingly go and fuck themselves first.”
Darren does have a bit of a foul mouth, so I’ve warned for sex and swearing. I hope the world is ready for a book in which two gentle and slightly scared lads give each other the strength to take on their problems and win, but at least it will make a change
I did come across this lovely comment from Anne Scott, my editor
This is a very emotional and not necessarily easy look at a relationship that develops between the wealthy Alec and the struggling-to-get-by Darren. Issues are explored rather than glossed over, and Shining in the Sun is simply a rewarding read.
So I’m reposting that rather than blathering on myself, because I might think that it’s a good fun read but I’m obviously biased!
Heh, well, the net result of the two mile walk in broiling sun on Saturday (part of the saga of getting to London) was that Sunday was spent in bed, poleaxed with heatstroke. At least, I presume that was what caused the splitting headache and nausea. Still, it was worth it
Yet again I fail on keeping up a “post every day for a month” meme though, so catching up today I have:
Day 3 – Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Um… I don’t think I have one. I don’t even know what the new shows are (or when ‘this TV season’ starts and finishes.)
Day 4 – Your favorite show ever.
That’s hard. Possibly, on balance, it would have to be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This one:
not the movie!
I was a big fan of the book, and then this was shown every Thursday, just while I was going through my O’ Levels. It stopped me from worrying too much about the exams, as I was too busy looking forward to the next episode. And then, like a guardian angel, the series was repeated just as I was going through my A’ Levels. So, not only is this the real version of Hitchhikers for me, but it was an anchor in a time of trial for me too
Let’s face it, the film managed to ruin every bit of comic timing, and re-write all the jokes in such a way as to cunningly leave out all the punchlines. It was painful to watch. But – apart from the dodgy special effects – the TV series seems to be as funny today as it ever was.
After repeatedly saying that I intended to go into London to look at the Queen my books in an actual bookshop, I finally got around to it today. What a thrill! OK, the whole driving into Ely, parking in the free longstay car park and walking a mile in blazing sunshine to the train station, only to find that the train had gone and the next one wasn’t for an hour – that was a bit of a downer. But when I’d walked back to my car, moved it into the station car park and had the drink I was all but keeling over in need of, everything started to look up. I got into London easily enough, the tubes were no more horrible than usual, and Piccadilly Circus was cooler than it had been at home.
When I got to Waterstones, I hardly dared look, sure that – after all this – the book wouldn’t be there any more. But there it was, on display on a table in the Gay section. Appropriately enough it was the “Hello Sailor” table.
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