Struggles in my head!

So, all the furore around the publication of 34 Days is now settling down, and with all three books in the top 100 in psychological thrillers I'm feeling a little bit Yorkshire chuffed. The release of 34 Days led to an upturn for both Beautiful and Angel, good news!

Now it's onward and upwards for Essence of Lavender. My biggest problem is that book number five is running around inside my head at the same time, and when we go on holiday to Portugal I'm going to take a notebook and pen and make sure I get the bare bones of this story down. Maybe then Lavender will happen a lot faster!

I'm also somewhat torn following 34 Days - too many people have asked for a sequel and I keep saying no, but secretly there is a little niggle in me that says sometimes justice has to be done, even for necessary murders. Sequels are pretty hard to write because they have to be standalone books as well as follow-ons to the first book - not everybody who buys it will have read the primary. This one is going to need careful thought.

And is follow-ons really a word?

Back to Lavender - almost 50,000 words are under the belt now, so around 30,000 to go. It will certainly be finished by the end of November, and then comes decision time at my publishers. This is a change of genre for me - from psychological thriller to supernatural in one fell swoop. This, of course, is my missing manuscript that I have put into a safe place. I've really only re-written it so that on the day I type THE END the other one will surface. Because it will.

And I also would like a little input into the cover of this one. It has to be varying shades of purple, that's a given. I want some sort of ethereal floating spectral woman on it, with maybe a large house in the background, but most importantly I want to be like a real author and have my photo on the back cover! This is actually the first time I've thought as deeply as covers, because I know my publishers come up with really good ones. It's simply that for the fist time I can actually see in my head what I want.

I'll finish this post with a massive thank you to all of you who have bought and enjoyed 34 Days. It's not only doing amazingly well in the UK, I am at 45 in the US and 26 in Australia in psychological thrillers. For a little old woman from Sheffield, that's MASSIVE, and for the uninitiated that's a Sheffield Wednesday word frequently used. For the reviewer who queried my use of the club in 34 Days, it was a fairly important part of the plotline. Sorry you don't like football.

What sort of person doesn't like football?