Portugal and stuff

So, that's Portugal well and truly ticked off my bucket list. It rained all week, the food at the hotel (and we went all inclusive) was appalling and it was a bit of a disaster. It is the first time I have ever come back from a holiday 'in foreign parts' without a tan. We'll write it off to experience and wait to see what excuses Jet2 come up with for this awful hotel.

However, during that week away, 34 Days went berserk, achieving its highest position in the UK charts of 28. It was really good checking every morning to see what night owls had been buying and how it had affected my figures. It has continued to do awesomely well - thank you everybody - selling well over 10,000 copies in the first three weeks.

I have a lot to thank Australia for! At the beginning of this week I took the #1 spot in psychological thrillers, beating Girl on a Train! Yeah!!! It;s also doing really well in the States, and as of this morning is at #11 in psychological thrillers, #279 overall (out of 4 million or so). The UK charts are equally impressive - #5 in psychological thrillers, and #77 overall (out of over a million).

It's had a mixed reaction in reviews, and what I am picking up on is that people enjoy the book, enjoy the story, don't like the end. Without giving too much away, I kill off a main character. I am struggling to understand why the ending isn't liked - this is a psychological THRILLER, I write about necessary murders, any sort of murders really, and the end of the book is drawing nigh, so why shouldn't there be a tidying up of loose ends? I am actually starting to draw the conclusion that readers are getting emotionally attached to the characters, and really it's me that's the bad guy in my novels. I do the killing, not my characters.

What is really showing up in the reviews is that people want a sequel. This hadn't been on the cards, but my brain is now working overtime to make sure Jenny gets her comeuppance... or will she? Might she just come out of this smelling of roses...

Beautiful and Angel are still selling really well, so everything in my writing life is good. I am even doing a book signing in the Winter Gardens in Sheffield on 27 November at 11 am, if anyone fancies a morning out in a beautiful place.

Hope to see you there!

For now, it's back to Essence of Lavender. This is a new departure for me into the supernatural genre, but quite scary at times to write. More on that in my next post...