Metamorphosis and Boat Trips

OK, here it is: the first Rosina Lesley to be published. The first review, on a US review site more used to reviewing erotica, is a bit odd, saying that she didn't like the main characters but loved the book ?!?!?! I think it's because they're 80s characters and don't behave the same as the current heroes and heroines do. You wouldn't believe there was such a difference in such a short time, would you?

In other news, I am doing a talk with fellow author Nina Bell in Faversham tomorrow on How To Get Published, for the very first Faversham Festival. This is not the Faversham Hop Festival, in which I take part every year, but a new venture with dozens of different events.

And, of course, I've been back to Turkey. No, I couldn't afford it, but I'd paid for the flight in January and I couldn't waste it, could I? While there we watched the perfect Lunar Eclipse - on the beach with wine in hand, brilliant - and had the boat trip from hell. Well, it wasn't really, but it was jolly exciting. George and Timmy would have loved it - Ann wouldn't.

The boats would never pass Elf'n'safety in the UK, but we enjoy them. The "Captains" all do the cooking - fresh fish, salad and the best chips in the world on Hassan's little boat, which was the one we were on. And he heard that the wind had blown up in our home bay while we were lunching in another one, so we waited as long as we could before setting off home. And then we hit the wind.

Have you seen those programmes of deep sea fishing where the boats dive 10 feet down into the waves and a 10 foot wave then crashes over them? Without lifebelts? Yep - that was it. At first it was quite exciting, until we were all soaked, so was everything on board and we were hanging on for dear life. How no-one went over I've no idea. Then, of course, we couldn't get into harbour and had to get to a little cove where we could get fairly near the shore and yes - we waded. And THEN, we had to climb up a cliff. Now remember - I have arthritis and osteoporosis. Cliff climbing in sandals is not something I do regularly.

Luckily I had a real life hero in friend Louise's husband Mike, who hauled me up without accident. I kept thanking my lucky stars I'd got decent travel insurance.

Hassan had called ahead and got the mini-market owner, Kadir, whom we all knew, to come along and pick us up at the top of the cliff. I should think he had to clean the vehicle inside and out afterwards.

Apart from that, the holiday was most enjoyable as usual, and on the last day I got an email from the panto publishers saying my royalties from them had been paid into my account, so holiday was paid for. Relief.

Also managed 1000 words a day while out there of next Libby book, so felt very self-righteous. Will update with cover of second Rosina book soon...

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?