Romantic News

No, I haven't suddenly met the man of my dreams. At my age that's a little unlikely, wouldn't you say?

No - but after years of belonging to the Romantic Novelists' Association under false colours, I am finally to be published in Romance! Fancy that. Accent Press have the terrifically successful Xcite imprint which sells - ahem - erotic fiction. Lots of anthologies of every sort of eroticism you can think of: http://www.erotica-romance-ebooks.com/ but they have now started selling romantic novels, too. And they've bought two of my old ones! I had to go through them and replace "stereo" with "ipod" etc, but one of them has now been edited and I read the final draft on my Kindle yesterday. Very odd, reading my own book on my Kindle. I'm using the pen name Rosina Lesley, which is my own name, of course, but very much more romantic than Lesley Cookman.

Felt very embarrassed, as I've known the Xcite editor for some years now in real life, but apparently I didn't disgrace myself. This one, called Running Away, will be out in time for the Romantic Novelists' Association conference in July, at which I shall be taking part in a panel, so I shall spend the weekend with a split personality.

As soon as I have a cover, I shall put it up to be sniggered over.

Murder to Music launch at the London Book Fair

I had a terrific day at the London Book Fair with my publisher, Hazel Cushion of Accent Press. There were little bags with the picture of the Murder to Music cover on them containing copies of the book, a book mark and an Accent catalogue, which were given away to interested bystanders (whether they wanted them or not!) and I got happy hand ache signing. On the wall behind me was a huge poster of all my covers, so I felt like a star.

I've had a mini blog tour over the past few days, and if you haven't anything better to do, here are the links:
http://itsacrime.typepad.com/ A guest blog on the It's A Crime site.
http://forbookssake.net/2011/04/08/five-minute-friday-lesley-cookman/ Mini interview on the For Books' Sake site
http://www.janicehortonwriter.blogspot.com/ Interview on writer Janice Horton's blog
http://writerschecklist.blogspot.com/ Interview on writer Maureen Vincent-Northam's blog
http://stuartaken.blogspot.com/ Interview on writer Stuart Aken's blog

There are another couple to come, including a Skype interview - scary. And I had a virtual launch on Facebook, which was huge fun and I had so many lovely people raising virtual glasses of fizz. So all-in-all, the best launch day I've had. And thank you to Hazel and Accent for continuing to publish me - there are two more in the pipeline!

The gentle Face of Crime

Recently, crime writer Catherine Aird, author of the Calleshire series, starring Sloan and Crosby, hosted a lunch for four other gentle, modest ladies of a certain age. They were Amy Myers, author of the Marsh and Daughter series and the new Jack Colby series (among others), Susan Moody, author of the Penny Wanawake and Cassandra Swann series (among others) Joan Lock, author of the Detective Inspector Ernest Best series (among others) and me. Amy's husband, Jim, took the picture and is very involved in the new Jack Colby series. To look at us, you'd never think we were such a murderous lot, would you?

Once more unto the blog, my friends

Very late, of course.

After a frantic six weeks after Christmas I managed to send Murder to Music off to the publishers, from whom I'm expecting a mass of revisions any day.

Not much to report apart from that. I have already got the outline of the next due out in November and as yet untitled, and have a signing lined up in Tunbridge Wells on April 23rd at Waterstones, an author workshop at The Faversham Festival sometime in June, and I shall be guest of honour at a local book group's 25th anniversary in November.

I'm also hoping to organise a blog tour to promote Murder to Music, so if anyone reads this and would like me to pop in, let me know!