My new contract is for four romances, including my previously published book, Her Sister’s Baby. The book I wrote during my first NaNoWriMo last November, Centre Stage, has also been signed, as well as two Christmas romances!

For more details, check out this video over on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/dgHDVa38NX4

I’m so thrilled to be able to continue working with such an incredible publishing team!

‘Polly Pressman is a London girl through and through. So when she’s asked to help save an old family friend’s struggling farm, she’s way out of her depth.

She arrives at Nightingale Farm trying to impress John and his gruff-but-hunky son Mark with her business know-how. But it’s clear from her sky-high stilettos that she is woefully unprepared.

Polly knows how much the farm means to John, and she’s doing everything she can to get it back on its feet. Soon people are flocking to visit the petting zoo and cute coffee shop and go strawberry picking.

Finally Mark sees that Polly truly cares about Nightingale Farm. And one night after too much of John’s homemade cider, the pair find themselves alone and unable to deny their attraction . . .

Romance is blossoming at Nightingale Farm. Will Polly trust her instincts and leave behind the big city for good?’

I’ve been having a lovely day with a gorgeous card and present from all my boys, a beautiful dog walk in the sunshine, and an enjoyable live stream with the fantastic Genevieve from the YouTube channel My Complicated Life: https://www.youtube.com/@mycomplicatedlife2488/featured

I put a call out for questions a couple of days ago on my social media channel and I had some great ones (and one absolute stinker!). You can watch the replay here: https://youtu.be/1bbVp_vqlf4

There’s also been a fair amount of sharing on social media and vlogging for a new YouTube video involved, but once I finish writing this blog post and I’ve sent off my newsletter, I am done with work for today and date night commences!

What a wonderfully, busy, fun time we’ve had! I celebrated my 41st birthday (a blueberry cake the size of my head was involved, a beautiful walk around Dinas Island in Pembrokeshire, THREE birthday dinners and a night away in a very lovely hotel), my delicious husband turned 40 and we had an amazing few day in the Cotswolds and Devon to celebrate, and our 2nd eldest is now somehow 16.

We’ve been really trying to make the most of restrictions being lifted in the UK, and have fitted in as many adventures as possible – climbing Cadair Idris in Snowdonia (don’t listen to random men in shorts who tell you they know a better route down…) and visiting places we’ve been meaning to go to for years. We’ve also been walking the Wales coastal path, which is absolutely stunning.

Anyway, in amongst all this frivolity, I’ve been beavering away on draft 4 of my next romance as well as completing a second children’s book, and the paperback of my latest release, ‘Her Sister’s Baby’, is now available to buy from Amazon:

https://amzn.to/3Dd58J0

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of seeing your book baby in print, and the beautiful colours on the cover really make it stand out.

Libraries in Wales are getting up to speed again and are ordering copies of my books, but if yours doesn’t have them in stock, please ask a librarian if they can put a request in for you – in my experience, they usually manage to get the book you want really quickly!

Enjoy the rest of the summer – my mind is already leaning towards pumpkin spice lattes and bonfires I’m afraid!

x

This was my first official book tour, and I just loved it!

It was so lovely to check Twitter every morning to see what had been shared. Of course, there was also always a little flutter of nerves, what if one of the bloggers didn’t like it?! Thankfully they all did, and so many kind comments were made as well as several wonderful reviews.

There’s a breakdown of what happened each day, with some of the highlights, on the Zooloo’s Book Diary blog:

https://zooloosbookdiary.co.uk/andthatsawrap-hersistersbaby-romanceemma-spellboundsbks-blogtour-zooloosbooktours

Zooloo’s Book Diary is run by Zoe, and she did such a fantastic job, everything was so easy, there was very little I had to do! Zoe contacted me once the tour had been booked, and sent me interview questions and made sure she had all the information she needed, then that was it! I could sit back and enjoy! I would thoroughly recommend Zoe’s services if you are looking to have a book tour organised.

Many thanks to everyone who took part in the tour, and who shared the posts on social media!

x

Her Sister’s Baby is available from Amazon now: https://amzn.to/3gfgYYp

𝑨 𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒇, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒖𝒏𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒔.

Amazon: https://geni.us/D0AkqQ

Amazonhttps://geni.us/TtkIDgo

Amazon https://geni.us/KbGHN0

Amazon https://geni.us/Btxr

I’m so excited about publication day, I’ve booked a table at a seafood restaurant on the Welsh coast that I’ve heard really good things about, I may even have to have a cheeky cocktail to celebrate… I can’t wait!

Here’s the blurb:

‘Woken in the middle of the night by the horrific news that her estranged sister has been killed in a fatal car crash, Sophie abruptly finds herself guardian to a niece she never knew existed.

The baby gives Sophie a way out of her grief and a focus to her life, but the unexpected appearance of Samson, Alana’s father, wanting his daughter to now live with him, threatens to destroy Sophie’s newly formed family.

Can Sophie and the seemingly feckless Samson, reach a compromise, or will Sophie be forced to give up her sister’s baby?’

And there’s going to be a blog your!

Silly old me forgot to update you all that my lovely publisher, Spellbound Books, decided to push back the release of my first book with them to June 1^st! They think it makes the perfect summer read because ‘Her Sister’s Baby’ is pure escapism and is even set at the seaside. I’m sorry readers are having to wait a bit longer, but it’ll be worth it!

I’ll be receiving edits from my editor at the end of this week, and am really looking forward to getting stuck back into the story of Sophie, who’s definitely one of my favourite heroines, and Samson, who I suspect is my scummiest hero yet!

Here’s a little sneak peek at a draft of the blurb:

Woken in the middle of the night by the horrific news that her estranged sister has been killed in a fatal car crash, Sophie abruptly finds herself guardian to a niece she never knew existed. The baby gives Sophie a way out of her grief and a focus to her life, but the unexpected appearance of Samson, Alana’s father, wanting his daughter to now live with him, threatens to destroy Sophie’s newly formed family. Can Sophie and the seemingly feckless Samson, reach a compromise, or will Sophie be forced to give up her sister’s baby?

Something I’m really excited about is that I’m going to have my very first blog tour to coincide with the book’s release! How fancy is that? I’ve always loved working with bloggers in the past, it’s a community that is so incredibly supportive to writers, and often very underappreciated.

To keep you busy until June 1^st, check out my other romances which are available now so you can make sure you haven’t missed reading any! https://amzn.to/2R1BFOr

I appreciate I’m a little late to the party, but doesn’t it feel like this year is getting up to a bit of a slow start? Or is that just me? Maybe it’s just that January feeling, and it doesn’t help that it’s been so blinking cold!

I managed to have a proper break from all worky stuff over Christmas and New Year. It was definitely a strange one, without being able to see anyone from outside our household, but, thankfully, we all like each other! We made up for it by buying an extra huge tree and putting Michael Buble on repeat. Lots of board games were played and crafting done, we watched plenty of movies ranging from Mission Impossible to Despicable Me, walked the dogs loads, read new books, and ate all the good food.

So this was our first week back to normality, such as it is at the moment, and I was looking forward to it. By New Year’s I had the decorations down and was champing at the bit to get back to my manuscript and teaching my kids. I adore Christmas and all that it entails, but I also love our regular routine, and I was missing it.

I don’t think we’ve done too badly for our first proper week of 2021 – the boys worked hard, I’ve managed to get on the treadmill more than I expected, I had an admin day so feel on top of bills etc, and I’ve begun working through an amazing course written by a friend of mine which aims to help with positive thinking and focussing on working towards the important goals in your life. Oh, and it’s so good to be eating less chocolate and cheese! We also had a really good family walk yesterday in the woods near us and have a board game evening planned for tonight after a roast.

On the downside, I haven’t managed as much writing as I would have liked, but I will give myself some grace with that, and our boiler’s water tank basically exploded yesterday, leaking 120 litres of water through the ceiling! Not a fun way to spend a Saturday morning, but, thankfully, we have a good plumber who came out straight away and it should be all sorted soon.

I hope you all had a peaceful Christmas and New Year and were able to speak to or video call loved ones, even if you weren’t able to be together. I’m sure we’ll appreciate next Christmas all the more for missing out a little this year.

Emma x

Spellbound was conceived this year by Sumaira Wilson and Nikki East, two awesome women who’ve both been in and around the publishing industry for years.

More about the company can be found on their website:

https://www.spellboundbooks.co.uk/

I’ve been Facebook friends with Sumaira, Spellbound’s production director, for ages. I began seeing announcements on her feed when Spellbound started up, but my manuscript wasn’t quite ready to be sent off into the world. By the time I got in touch, they were closed for submissions because they’d had such a great response from authors in the short amount of time they’d been open.

However, luckily for me, Sumaira had read, and enjoyed, my romance, ‘Her Sister’s Baby’, and said she’d take a look at what I had to offer.

I’ve dealt with my fair share of publishing companies in the past, and I have to say that what I loved about Spellbound was how personal, as well as professional, they were. Emails were responded to instead of keeping me hanging on for months. I felt valued and like my submission was of importance to me.

By the time my contract popped into my inbox, I knew Spellbound Books was absolutely the company I wanted to take on my manuscript. I was absolutely thrilled when they agreed to publish it.

The working title for my manuscript is ‘Her Sister’s Baby’ and it’s a contemporary romance. It’s set to be released March 2021 – so not too long to wait!

If you’d like to follow along with my publication process, make sure you sign up to my newsletter at:

Keep In Touch

I promise not to bombard you, but I’ll make sure updates are sent out closer to publication!

The book was published on my mum’s birthday as I have dedicated it to her as a thank you for the many, many books she read me as a child.

Becoming a children’s author has been a dream of mine for longer than I care to admit, and I’m incredibly proud of this book, which is a collaboration with my lovely friend, Caroline Coskren. I nervously showed her the manuscript one day a few years ago, and asked if she would consider illustrating it. The details were banged out over a bottle of prosecco in her garden, and the resulting illustrations brought my story to life in a way I never believed was possible.

We’re already planning our next project, which will have a slightly different feel, and I’m very excited to be starting work on it.

‘The Snotty Princess’ is available as a paperback or ebook, and can be ordered from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3iO0CoW