Sue Fortin's Blog, page 4

THE GIRL WHO LIED is published today and I couldn’t write a book set in Ireland without  acknowledging the country or a nod to my mother-in-law, Monica, who hailed from County Cork, but sadly passed away 18 months ago.

When I was writing The Girl Who Lied, I regularly referred back to how Monica would say things so that the dialogue sounded as authentic as possible. My husband has a large family in and around the Cork area, so conjuring up their accents and dialect was also an important part of the writing process. I also picked the brains of a few Irish authors I know to check details, such as, the education system and colloquial terms for the Irish Gardai as I would hate any little slips to take the reader out of the story. Of course, it’s here where I say any mistakes are entirely mine.

My other vital piece of research came in the form of Google Earth, where I could happily roam the Irish coast and surrounding areas to give my fictional village of Rossway a realistic feel. My mother-in-law’s father was from Kinsale and I’ve seen a photograph of the cottage where they lived. It was this that gave me the inspiration for the old croft which appears in The Girl Who Lied.

Keeping on the Irish theme, coincidently it was my youngest daughter’s First Holy Communion last weekend. I know Monica would have loved to have been there and in her honour, I made chocolate Guinness cakes for the adults, together with some little non-alcoholic cupcakes for the children.  I used Nigella Lawson’s recipe for the Guinness cakes which you can find here. I don’t profess to being a contender for the Great British Bake Off, but I was pleased with the results and everyone said how nice they were. I’m pretty sure no-one had their fingers crossed!

For the past few years I’ve been running a blog and website separately to one another, which has worked fine, although did give me some continuity in design issues and took up more time having to switch from one format to the other to make sure all the information was up to date. Bringing them both to one place was the logical solution – not only does it save me time, keeps everything looking the same, but it saves me money too. Not sure why I didn’t do this before.

I’m also setting up a newsletter as part of the make-over. The newsletters are intended to keep readers up to date with everything that is happening in my writing world, advance news, early previews and giveaways. If you’d like to sign up, please click the Sign Me Up! button below.

To kick start the newsletter, I’m going to be giving away a signed paperback of THE HALF TRUTH and a lovely ribbon bookmark to anyone who signs up between now and the end of March. One winner will be picked at random and notified via email.

I’m delighted to announce that last week I officially signed with Kate Nash of Kate Nash Literary Agency!

I have known Kate in a professional capacity for several years now and, in the past, she has given me some great feedback and sound advice. They say to find an agent who loves your manuscript as much as you do and one that you can foresee a good working relationship with and for those reasons, amongst others, I am very much looking forward to working with Kate in the future.

Although Kate and I had agreed everything before Christmas, it wasn’t until last week that we were able to meet up. We had a great afternoon in London, chatting over afternoon tea on a Thames River cruise – the time went so quickly we had to head to a pub afterwards to complete the formalities.

I am pleased to say that my next book is to be published by HarperCollins’ imprint HarperImpulse on 21 April 2016. We are working on the cover and a new title which I hope to share with you soon.

So, now the glamourous bit is over, it’s time for me to head back into the editing cave …

We’d love you to join us as a Romaniac Sparkler!

The Romaniacs

We love you, you know that, right?

We’re a group of eight writers who set out to support each other in the most enthusiastic way possible. When the chips were down, we’d find a way to cheer each other on. When we triumphed, we’d applaud each other. But this feverish excitement and zest for sparkling through life has caught on, so we wanted to expand. We’ve built an extension on Romaniac HQ so it’s no longer a cosy room that’ll only fit eight of us, it’s now a virtual coffee (and cake) house where we invite you to pop by and support us and in return, we hope to support you. Please click the picture below where it should take you to our new Facebook group and we very much hope you will join us.

The plan is for this to be a ‘street team’ and we’ll…

View original post 193 more words

suefortin:

Delighted for my good friend and Romaniac pal, Jan Brigden, as her debut novel AS WEEKENDS GO is published today.

Originally posted on The Romaniacs:

This is a very special Something For The Weekend.

As Weekends Go won the Choc Lit and Whole Story Audiobooks Search For A Star competition 2014/2015, and we are immensely proud of and thrilled for Jan. It is a fabulous novel, with a stunning cover. Jan’s warmth oozes from the pages.

Under normal circumstances, Jan is custodian of the Romaniac Honkometer, but we liberated it from HQ so we could do this:

And now for a few words from the Romaniacs …

Laura: Jan, many congratulations on the release of your debut. It’s a huge achievement and I am absolutely delighted for you. Not only are you a wonderful writer, but a genuine, supportive and warm-hearted person, who I am very lucky to be able to call my friend. Have an incredible day – take it all in, enjoy…

View original 438 more words

suefortin:

My turn on Life Cycle of A Writer feature on The Romaniacs’ blog today.

Originally posted on The Romaniacs:

The past few months have been particularly busy for me, both writing wise and home wise. Sometimes it’s hard not to get bogged down by it all and feel under pressure from all directions, however, I’ve taken comfort and strength from all the positive things that have also happened in my writing world.

My novella The French Retreat has been out for just over a month and, I’m pleased to say, is holding its own amongst my other titles. The sales have been steady, although the reviews have been slow. The reviews I’ve had have been positive so no complaint there, even if one of them, on the face of it looks poor. However, once you read the additional comment, the reviewer makes it clear they got muddled up with another book and I appreciate they’ve made the effort to point this out.

Another positive was meeting up with my lovely…

View original 195 more words

suefortin:

Delighted and stunned to receive this industry Media award with my writing gang, The Romaniacs! :-D

Originally posted on The Romaniacs:

Award-winning Romaniacs!
Sue, Catherine, Jan, Laura, Debbie & Vanessa, with Celia & Lucie holding the fort back at Romaniac HQ, but with us in spirit.

Lucie

Celia

Rarely is a Romaniac lost for words, but on Wednesday evening, 18th November 2015, at the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Winter Party, we were struck dumb.

The moment that took our collective breath away was when the always-divine, ever-sophisticated Adrienne Vaughan, editor of the RNA’s magazine, Romance Matters, announced the runners-up and the winners of the inaugural RNA Industry Awards. I won’t repeat the details contained within the lovely report from the RNA, or from the write-up in The Bookseller, other than to say The Romaniacs picked up the RNA Industry Media Star Award!

This week’s Something For The Weekend is what was in our heads, and what we would have said had we regained the power of speech in time.

Laura:

View original 730 more words

I had an email from my publisher last month to say that The Half Truth had been selected for a free-to-paid promotion and was I happy for it to go ahead. I must admit, I wasn’t sure at first. I’ve never had a book in a free promotion before and I know it’s a love hate thing with some authors. However, I decided that there was no way of knowing unless I gave it a go.

The Half Truth went free for around ten days and in that time, I’m pleased to say, it did really well in the Free chart, reaching:-

#1 Romantic Suspense

#1 Women’s Fiction

#1 Crime

#4 Overall Amazon rankings

Once the excitement of that was over and the book went back to paid, how did it do?  Well, it certainly had a knock-on effect with paid sales and it definitely generated more reviews, which had been slow in coming. I also found it had another positive impact on my other titles. It’s hard to measure, but I certainly saw a spike in the Amazon rankings with Closing In and my novella The French Retreat.

So, did I think it was worth it? Yes, in this instance, I’m very pleased with how it has all panned out.

Now, though, it’s back down to business and writing. I’ve started my next Falling for France novella, The French Affair, which I’m hoping to publish by the end of February. The cover is coming together nicely.

Also, my full-length novel which has been out on submission has had some encouraging interest. I can’t say anything at this stage, but I’m hoping to have news on that soon.

In the meantime, back to the keyboard. :-)

I’m over at The Romaniacs’ blog talking about the renovation of our cottage in France which inspired my novella The French Retreat.

Source: Renovation of a French Cottage

Just a quick post to say thank you to everyone who has bought, tweeted, shared and generally supported the launch of THE FRENCH RETREAT.  It turned out to be a busy day as I also found out that THE HALF TRUTH was earmarked for a free promotion and will continue to be so until the end of the week and I received a very nice 4* review for CLOSING IN.

I’m visiting a few blogs over the next couple of weeks – if you get time, do pop along. In the meantime, I’m starting a new writing project and plotting the next book in the Falling for France series.

Click image for Amazon link