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A New Era for Blackthorn

Some of you will know that, last month, a few days before my first draft of Blood Deep was due in, my trusty old laptop passed away. My laptop had been my Blackthorn buddy for almost fourteen years and all of the first four Blackthorn books were written on it.

Blackthorn didn’t start on my laptop, of course. When I first started writing the series, I was armed only with a pen and paper and my electric typewriter because, back in 1996, I had no such thing as a computer. Four years later, my laptop became my Blackthorn haven.

The poor thing certainly worked hard all its life, sometimes for ten or twelve hours a day until, eventually, it couldn’t hold more than 8% battery at a time. In the last few months, it had to be permanently plugged in – and when your writing buddy is of the nibbling variety, it can be quite a feat managing Blackthorn and a loose cable!

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Tilly – my rescue bunny/A mistreated bunny rehabilitated/When the Blackthorn angst gets too much!

Of all the times to leave me though, my laptop certainly picked the most opportune. Happening around my 40th birthday, I had the perfect excuse to indulge. So here’s where the rest of the Blackthorn series will be written – on my brand new laptop! It arrived last week but, with my second draft of Blood Deep due in on Monday, yesterday was the first time I got a chance to play with it.

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The keys are backlit! Perfect for night-time tapping away!! (A dark PNR author has to consider these things.)

And talking about the rest of the Blackthorn series… the REALLY exciting news is that Bookouture is showing interest in signing more!! We’re currently in conversations about it so please keep your fingers crossed that all goes well. I can’t think of any better publisher to see the series through to the end.

So thank you to everyone who is helping make this happen by rating and reviewing my books, leaving all your comments and messages of support here and all the amazing stuff that happens on Facebook to help spread the word (reaching over 4,000 people last week alone!). Basically, thank you for making it loud and clear that you want more Blackthorn. Not only is my publisher listening, you’re helping tempt new readers into the series every day. I am so VERY grateful for your support.

I’ll have more news on Blood Deep shortly but, for now, for those who are assuming it’s the final book (and contains the end battle), I can’t stress enough that it’s not. It’s all about the final couple – and many more pieces of the Blackthorn puzzle falling into place. Then, as I put it to my publisher, the honeymoon period is over (cue a scary-sounding “mwah-ha-ha”). I’ll have more news for you in a while about what to expect next – as well as that eagerly awaited Blood Deep release date, and so much more!

xxxx

Jask’s Secret is Revealed!

A little while ago, I was really flattered to be invited to be a part of Moonrise Book Blog’s anniversary event. This awesome blog is super-supportive of Blackthorn, not least giving all three books terrific reviews and 5 stars each. So when they asked me to be a part of their event, it was an easy yes.

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As part of a fantastic giveaway, they have several fabulous authors each picking one of their characters to interview with a set of questions provided by Moonrise. When I saw that one of the questions was: ‘Tell us a secret about you that no-one else knows’, Jask immediately sprung to mind. After all, he’s the least likely of all my heroes to be holding something back…isn’t he?

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Earlier in the week, I let my Facebook followers know this interview was coming and asked them to try and guess what Jask’s deep, dark secret is. Some readers even re-read Blood Torn this week to see if they could find clues! Now that’s dedication! 🙂 I’ve received suggestions ranging from Jask being related to Kane, that he’s half vampire, he’s secretly married, he knows Rone’s twin is actually still alive and even that he’s ensured, after the trauma of losing his family, that he can never have children again. As is typical of the lovely Team Blackthorn, there were also some funny suggestions thrown into the mix to keep me giggling along the way. But one person, Candice, got dangerously close with her guess. Nicely worked out, Candice!

So, if you’d like to see what Jask has been concealing from everyone, even his best buddy, Corbin, it’s live on Moonrise Book Blog now. I don’t think you’ll be surprised as to why he wanted to keep this little gem hidden from one person in particular…

Thanks so much again, Moonrise Book Blog, for inviting me to be a part of your special event – it’s been great fun!

And good luck to everyone who enters the giveaway!

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