Dead Like Her / Murder in Bloom

Dead Like Her by Linda Regan is published by Creme de la Crime today to coincide with Marilyn Monroe’s birthday. Dead Like Her – because the victims are dead ringers for Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. Congratulations, Linda, on your third novel!

Meanwhile, on the 18th May, Lesley Cookman’s fifth novel, Murder in Bloom, was published by Accent Press. This is the fifth outing for middle-aged amateur sleuth Libby Serjeant. Congratulations, Lesley!

Agent about Town

I have just got home from a full day in London, not wholly on agency business as I did meet a book publicity client at the RSA which is where they are holding their upcoming book launch. It’s a very forward-thinking business book so book and venue seem to complement each other. Always a good start. Bread and Butter. Toast and Marmite. The Space Captain Smith series and the crew of the good ship Waterstones Notting Hill. Etc.

Being me I thus may have enjoyed a glass (or three) of wine and excellent cups of tea during the day, while business was discussed. All in all a lovely day where business was pleasure, which is precisely why I want to help people with their literary careers. Life’s too short not to enjoy doing what one does, and writers, by and large, love writing. The sticky things can be the business side and making it pay.

Jean Fullerton book launch

Had a super time yesterday at the book launch of Jean Fullerton’s debut novel No Cure For Love published by Orion at Eastside Books, Brick Lane. Winner of the Harry Bowling Prize 2006, with a handsome doctor as a hero, and set in the East End in the 1830s I was so looking forward to reading it I did my usual thing of starting it on the train on the way home.

I know Jean from the Romantic Novelists Association which is an excellent association to join for aspiring writers and authors of women’s fiction. Caught up with lots of author friends at the launch including Janet Gover only just recovered from launching her first novel The Farmer Needs a Wife the day before, and Fenella Miller who’s The Ghosts of Neddingfield Hall is also just out.

Also at the party, among the “literary friends” (as Jean called us) were  Maureen Lee, Gill Sanderson, Jan Jones, Louise Allen, Monica Fairview, Lynne Connolly, Sophie Weston and Julie Cohen as well as Jean’s editors from Orion and her agent Laura Longrigg from MBA.

Jean’s readings were excellent (always one of the most scary things for new authors) and Eastside Books was packed and so, unsurprisingly, the shop sold out of copies. A great start to what looks like a promising career.