The Apple Tree - Free Download This Weekend

My publisher is giving away copies of my first contemporary romance, 'The Apple Tree' on Amazon this weekend.

Amazon UK
Amazon.com

Here is an except from Chapter 5 of this prize-winning romance.

She gazed at a street lamp in front of her, watching the moths jostling for position as they flapped round and round.  She thought Nicholas was like that light, attracting all the moth-like creatures, the Annabels, the Clarissas, the Livvies and probably many more, all irresistibly drawn to his lovely flame.  He could have married any one of them and made the same mistake as her.  Had he always been entirely truthful with them all?  Had he never come close to feeling that intensity of emotion he seemed to have shared with her, close enough at least to have wrong-footed somewhere en route?  Could he really know himself so well and be so perfect?  Robert certainly thought so.  He made him sound like a saint.  Saint Nicholas—no, sorry, got one of those already—and he was a do-gooder too!

Some ten or fifteen minutes must have passed and Julie wondered if Livvie and Nicholas had finished ‘catching up’ and whether Nicholas had been left with sufficient strength to have maneuvered her car from the drive without further damage to either it or the van.  Damage her insurance company would now have to sort out for her.

“There you are!” he exclaimed from a point close behind her.  “I’ve seen to your car for you.”

“And Livvie too, I trust?”

He actually managed the merest flicker of a smile, if it wasn’t just a tic in his cheek, that is.  Livvie’s ‘catching up’ must have been very therapeutic, Julie thought.

“She’s an old friend,” he explained dismissively, to no-one in particular.

But not very old, Julie thought.  Then she caught her breath as Nicholas came to sit on the bench beside her.  At last he was coming to his senses!

“Can I ask you one question, Julie?  Was it because you thought I was a simple gardener that you felt you had free license to trample on my feelings?”

She groaned.  “Oh Nicholas, you know that isn’t true.”

“Then it seems I know very little,” he replied dryly.  “I suggest you go home now before you freeze to death.”

She jumped up from the bench, her feet, in their light, strappy sandals smarting with the cold as she planted them solidly in front of him and gazed down at him.  “My marriage was over long before I met you.  It was a mistake that should never have happened.  I was ashamed of it.  It was like my career in a way.  Passing your exams doesn’t automatically make you a good doctor in exactly the same way that signing a book in a registry office doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll have a good marriage, or even a proper one!  Simon and I were never really husband and wife, we were just good friends.”

“Simon?”  He nodded and repeated the name in a voice heavy with sarcasm.  “Simple Simon?  Simply making mistakes?”

Julie knew he was referring to her observation that sometimes people simply made mistakes in their choice of marriage partners, so the insult was double-edged.  “You have no right to insult him.” she reproached quietly.

“No, of course not.  He’s your husband.”

“No, Nicholas.  Not anymore, but he is my friend.”

“Really?  That’s what I thought I was.  It seems you treat all your friends the same way.  Badly!  In my book, friends don’t cheat and lie.  You should have told me instead of deliberately letting me believe you were someone…something else”

“How could I, knowing your views?  I grew too attached to you.”

“All the more reason for telling the truth, don’t you think?”

“But I couldn’t bear to risk losing what we had.”

“We could never have anything built on a foundation of lies.  If I asked your husband, would he tell me you were never really his wife?  Would he betray you the way you betrayed him?  Do you hate all men, Julie?  Or is it that you simply don’t know the difference between right and wrong, or the truth and lying?”

She was as wounded by his tone as much as his words but still pressed on, her voice little more than a shaky whisper.  “I don’t hate you, Nicholas.  I love you.” 

“I’ll leave your keys on the bench.”  His voice sounded icy.

She backed away a pace and stared down at her feet in misery.  Was there nothing she could say to move this man with whom she had shared so much love?  Had she really damaged their relationship so irrevocably?  How could he have changed so much, her tender lover?  Had she done that to him?

She wanted a glimpse of the old Nicholas to reassure herself that he had existed and she hadn’t dreamed him up.  This cold, hard stranger bore no resemblance to him. 

When she raised her head, Nicholas was no longer there.  She had told him she loved him and he had simply walked away.  How much more humiliation could she take?

Another thought about Reviews

Readers and Writers - a loving relationship

There is a body of opinion that believes it’s wrong for authors to review the work of other authors, and I confess, this baffles me.  Aren’t writers readers too?  Are their opinions less valid because they are ‘in the trade’?

I've been an avid reader all my life – to such an extent that all my favourite people in history (except one) were writers of some description.  From as early as I can remember being aware of an author behind the words that brought me so much joy, I fantasised about sitting down to tea with that writer and discussing his or her story, thereby prolonging my delightful experience in the fictional realm s/he had created.  But, of course, it never happened.

I did try writing to one or two authors, the old fashioned way – you know, pen on paper, envelope, stamp – all now becoming relics of a bygone age – via their publishers.  Well, in the dark ages pre-internet, how else could readers ever hope to make contact with their favourite authors and tell them what they liked and disliked?  I don’t think I ever received any replies and authors both living and dead were shrouded in the same aura of mystery and inaccessibility. I entered my teens no less an avid reader but much more of a cynic.  If only I had known then what I know now: that writers love to hear from readers.

The fact is that historically, writing book reviews was the privilege of other writers – journalists.  Ordinary readers rarely had a public voice no matter how passionate their opinions.  A reader might daydream about having tea with an author and discussing his or her character and fictional realms – though I suspect never in a very critical way – but they didn’t contemplate writing actual book reviews for other people – including the author – to read. 

The internet and e-publishing has changed all that.  Now authors have become accessible to their readers and lo and behold they tell us they love to hear from us.  They long to hear what we thought of their latest creation.  Having joined those ranks myself, I know I do and I’m fortunate enough to know quite a number of writers- and they all feel the same.  To date I haven’t met one who doesn’t value constructive feedback from readers.  And being a writer doesn’t make me any less avid a reader.

Despite the ease of it, many readers still feel reluctant to air their views in public.  Out of every 10,000 sales, a writer might receive as few as 10 reviews.  That seems very surprising to me.  The internet has given everyone a voice…but how many people bother to use it?  I can only assume that the culture of writing reviews hasn’t yet caught up with the technological advances of e-publishing or that the vast majority of readers simply don’t have the time to sit and compose missives explaining their likes and dislikes.

This is a pity as constructive feedback is manna to most authors.  For my part, as a writer, I live and learn by it; while as a reader it informs me about the pros and cons of a new book and can be extremely useful.  I often read reviews and think I’d like to sit and chat to the reviewer over a cup of coffee and swap opinions and ideas.  There I go again!

When I’ve enjoyed a book, I still want to let the author know and if the book surpassed my expectations, I want to shout it from the rooftops and let other potential readers in on it.  And if that can help the writer who has brought me so much pleasure at so little cost, so much the better.  It’s quite a tough world for writers, especially the new ones who are struggling to make a name for themselves.  

The internet is enabling me finally to realise my childhood dreams of communicating with good writers who have brightened up my day.  I don’t do it for any ulterior motive, except to show my appreciation in the same way I will applaud a good play in the theatre or music at a concert.  The fact that I’m a writer too should make no difference to my opinions as a reader.  And those cynics who think reviews from other writers are suspect, should really just…go away and pick up a good book and stop complaining.

I’m Self Published and Proud! Some thoughts on Amazon’s KDP

My first contemporary romance, 'The Apple Tree', was published by Inspired Romance at the end of December, while my second novel, a romantic suspense 'In Loving Hate' will be released by Muse It Up Publications in October or November.  With a yawning gap of almost a year in the literary wilderness, I wondered what I could do in the meantime.  Well, being a writer, I thought I might as well write another novel – and this one I would self-publish to bridge that empty space.  


I decided to try the Kindle Direct Publishing programme, which I’d read a good deal about – both positive and negative.  If there is anyone left in the world who is unsure about what this entails, you simply agree to market your book only through Amazon for an initial period of 90 days.  Of those 90 days, you can offer your book for free for up to five days.  My thinking was that if the public didn’t want it for free, they would be unlikely to want to pay for it.


I opted to use three of the free days at the very beginning to launch the novel.  The programme allows you to track downloads in each country so you can see how well your book is being received.  On the first day, the free downloads totalled approximately 1500.  Now, I've no doubt that’s very modest compared to some, but I thought it was a good start and felt happy.  By the end of the third day there had been almost 8,000 free downloads and the novel was soaring high in the Kindle free books ratings both in the US and in the UK.  So far, so good, I thought, but the proof of the Kindle pie will be if anyone continues to download it once they have to start paying for it.  I doubted that, but set my price low to make things easier for it, (though a writer-friend subsequently told me $1.99 was generally considered a ‘dead zone’ in terms of e-book prices), bit my nails and waited.


I was delighted to see the downloads continuing over the next couple of days and by the second day the novel had returned to the charts, this time on the paid books side.  These charts do fluctuate radically and very quickly, but by the third or fourth day, Wishful Thinking hit the number one spot in the UK Kindle charts in two categories (Romance and Contemporary Romance).  An exciting moment for me.Of course I’m realistic to know that in the e-book publishing world success like this is transient.  The number of novels being released every week is staggeringly high and once a title bows out of Kindle’s top 100, it becomes difficult for anyone to find or notice it and sales will inevitably peter out for new and relatively unknown writers.  However, what I did find was that interest in my previous novel then began to pick up.  I would love to believe the reason for this to be because some readers enjoyed 'Wishful Thinking' enough to look for my other title.  


Whether I’m right or wrong about this, my foray into self-publishing and Amazon’s KDP was an exciting experience I certainly want to repeat.  I hope to do just that with my next contemporary romance - provisionally entitled ‘Supermarket Sweep’ – which I plan to self-publish in the next month or two.  So, as they say, watch this space.


I’d love to hear your experiences of self-publishing or the KDP programme as a writer or reader.

Extract from Wishful Thinking

It wasn’t so much a loud bang as a dull thud but Jess found the impact equally sudden and shocking.  She clutched the steering wheel in sheer panic as the car began to spin out of control and lurch to the right into the fast lane of the three lane motorway.  Instinctively she slammed on the brakes but that only seemed to feed greater momentum into the careening vehicle and in a split second she remembered that braking was liable to send her into a spin. She removed her foot from the pedal and held onto the wheel for grim life. It took all her strength to prevent the vehicle from crashing into the central reservation barrier but it began to slow rapidly thanks to the shattered tyre.  The car came to a halt straddling the fast lane of one of Britain’s busiest motorways.  We’re dead! 

Jess waited for the force of the advancing vehicles crashing into her.  It seemed to have taken an age but in reality happened in a matter of seconds.  She checked her mirror to see how long she had before the first vehicle smashed into her car and could not believe her eyes.  She was alone on the motorway in a dark oasis of calm.  The lights of the nearest cars were quite a distance behind and Jess rapidly flicked on her hazard lights, pushed the car into gear again and shot across the dark and yawning lanes, onto the hard shoulder.  A split second later, three rows of speeding vehicles barrelled past her at mind-numbing speeds.

A strange, high-pitched wailing noise sounded from behind her and Jess spun around in her seat.  Six year old Ben, restrained by his seat belt, had his arms outstretched towards her.  His wide-open eyes looked enormous in his little face and the sound, like a long, unbroken chord emanated from his throat. 

“It’s alright, baby.  Oh, sweetheart, it’s alright.  We’re safe.”

His eyes retained that wide-open, glassy appearance as if he hadn’t heard her, but the wailing stopped as he took in breath.  “Are we dead now, mummy?”

A sob broke in her throat.  “No darling.  We’re alright, I promise you.  We’re safe.” And she thought to herself: though God only knows how or why.

Ben unbuckled his belt, scrambled into the front passenger seat and threw himself into his mother’s arms.  For a long time they simply sat there, holding onto each other as the cars whizzed past to their right – long, relentless streams of them.  How?  Jess marvelled.  How did that happen?

Minutes past – many minutes – Jess lost count of how many of them.  She sat in her car, hugging her son and waiting for her heart to stop pounding in her chest – something she believed was never going to happen again.  Finally, however, she detached herself from her son and reached into her handbag for her mobile phone.

She groaned when she saw the flickering one bar and quickly ran down her index for the roadside rescue number.  Almost as soon as she located it, the phone gave three plaintive beeps and shut down.  “Damn,” she cursed softly, under her breath, but Ben, now attuned to her reactions, began to whimper again. 

“Are we going to die?” he whispered.

“Of course not, silly,” she reassured him, wishing she could sound more convincing.  How they had escaped death in the first place was a mystery she could not begin to comprehend.  “It’s the stupid battery that’s died.  I’m just going to have to go and find one of those phones to call for help.”

He began to cry in earnest.  “You can’t leave me.  Please don’t go anywhere.”

Jess put her arms around her little boy and drew him closer to her, making soothing sounds and kissing his flaxen hair.  It was a delaying tactic, she knew, because she doubted her legs would allow her to step out of the car, much less walk along the hard shoulder in the dark searching for the nearest emergency phone.

Eventually, as Ben began to calm, she held him gently at arm’s length and looked him in the eye.  “We can’t stay here all night, it’s too dangerous.  I need to get help.  I won’t be gone for more than five or ten minutes.  You go back into your seat, snuggle up under your blanket and play one of your games.  By the time you’ve made it to level two, I’ll be back.”

“But if it’s dangerous here, it’s dangerous for you to go out there.  Let me come with you.  I’ll be good, I promise.”  Ben reasoned.

Jess hesitated.  As she weighed up her options, she saw a blue flashing light growing stronger and stronger behind her.  “Thank God!” she breathed.

A moment later a police officer stepped out of his vehicle and approached hers.  He surveyed her shredded right rear tyre for a moment before leaning down to her window.  “Looks like you’ve had a lucky escape,” he told her, casting a quick eye all around the car’s interior.

Jess released a tearful sigh.  “You can say that again.  Can you help me, please?  My battery is dead and I need to call the breakdown service.”  Jess scrabbled in the glove compartment for her membership card which she then handed to the young officer. 

“Christmas weekend – you’ll be lucky to see them inside two hours,” he observed, peering into her car again.  “But I’ll let them know you’re a lone female with a young child.  You might get lucky.”

Jess closed her eyes and breathed the word lucky? as the officer returned to his car to make the call.  

Edit Me Pretty

"Hmm, so is 'a week nod' one that takes seven days?"

As an English teacher, I was all-too-often handed stories and essays so badly written that they were difficult to decipher and impossible to read with any sense of enjoyment.  When I pointed this out to students they invariably said: “I didn't worry about mistakes because I was concentrating on my ideas.”  What they were really saying was that they couldn’t be bothered!  And the problem with that is that when a reader has to work her socks off just to understand what is being said on the very first page, many of those excellent ideas will fail to shine out beyond the first paragraph.

Literary agents and editors don’t have to be kind in their rejections, of course.  They have polite but firm standard rejection letters, which none of us want to receive.  To avoid them, therefore, we need to feel confident that when we release our literary babies, we are giving them the best possible chance of delivery onto the bookshelves of the world.

Editing is the co-parent in the literary process and cannot be denied access to the progeny.  Readers are unforgiving and, quite rightly, consider themselves as experts - they know what spoils their reading enjoyment and are generally quite willing to advertise that to the world.  Agents and publishers are no different – but they don’t have to resort to negative reviews – they just give the thumbs down. 

Every writer knows how difficult it is to edit one’s own work, but getting it right – especially those early pages – could well pave the way for the child of our creation into the big wide world.  We owe it to ourselves and to everyone we want to take us seriously as writers, to do our best to get it right so it shows off our skills to their best advantage.

Badly edited work is a sure way to alienate your readers.  I've done a lot of reading recently for review purposes and whilst I've read many truly delightful stories, there were some that left my teeth jangling in my head in amazement.  They were worse than the first drafts of some of my less accomplished students and left me baffled that the writers seriously expected readers to tolerate such gibberish, much less pay them for the insult!

I read about engaged couples practising their marital vowels, about someone who had sweat dripping from every auriferous and about another who repapered (when he should have reappeared).  I’ve been faced with novels in which every single paragraph is dense with mistakes and these are not just from self-published authors, sadly.  It seems a number of online publishers are letting their authors down when they promise an editing service which they can’t deliver.

Whenever I read badly presented work from authors who expect their readers to pay for the privilege of reading their stories, my hackles begin to rise.  I don my teacher’s hat and wag my index finger severely – but sadly in vain.  Badly edited novels continue to be churned out and foisted upon the trusting (but no longer unsuspecting) public.  It really isn’t fair to expect readers to flip backwards and forward between pages to ensure they’ve understood what is being said or read a sentence three times to work out its meaning.  Enjoyment interruptus is a definite no-no!

I edit work for a small group of clients and am currently unable to take on any more.  However I would urge all writers to shop around to find a reliable editor before unleashing their masterpieces onto the paying public.  Edit and edit and edit again. The most useful and comprehensive resource I've found in recent years is Writer's Companion by Carlos J Cortes & Renee Miller. This guide covers just about every editing question imaginable and will allow you to self-edit with confidence.

I’d love to know what editing blunders spoiled your reading experiences.

It's not what you say, it's the way that you say it...

I know a lot has been said on the subject of reviews recently – and most of it very eloquently too – but it’s a subject I’ve wanted to discuss for a long time, so am about to add my two pence worth.

 Every writer values honest reviews and when they are good, they can make one’s day, or week. Even ones that are not so glowing can offer constructive feedback, which is manna to authors. But there are certain people who seem to use the review platform for a rather different agenda.  And these reviewers really make my blood boil.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading and reviewing myself recently and I discovered something interesting. The glowingly good and gloweringly bad reviews often seem to have something in common – something that begs me to take both with a pinch of salt and read and judge for myself. That’s me with my reader’s hat on. But when I’m reading, I sometimes switch hats.

Three times recently I’ve downloaded a book on the strength of a very bad review which sits like a thorn beside a number of four or five star accolades. The chances are, if a book has a number of good reviews and then one scathingly bad review, either the negative reviewer simply didn’t understand the book or has written it in the hope of damaging the author’s reputation. And sadly, I know of several instances where this has happened to very good writers and the motivation mainly seems be jealousy – by other writers!

Being a champion of the underdog (a typically British trait I’m told) I feel a vitriolic review sometimes calls for further investigation. The “Click to look inside” option on Amazon is a great idea. Anyone with any experience as a reader can quickly judge the potential of a book from the first few paragraphs, or certainly the first chapter; and Amazon is pretty generous in what it offers as a taster.

If my curiosity is piqued to a sufficient degree, I might also click on the “See all my reviews” option beside the reviewer's name to see if this reviewer is genuinely hard to please or just venting spleen. If there are no other reviews, my hackles rise and the gloves are off. I really hate unfairness and injustice. Who doesn’t?

Reviews should be honest or they have no value, but I see no reason for them to be downright mean. Criticism that isn’t constructive is simply cruel when levelled at one person. If you buy a product and it doesn’t work, you won’t improve that product for others by attacking its manufacturer or inventor. If you can’t reasonably explain the faults, you can’t hope to be taken seriously and get the problem rectified. I’m not denying a customer/reader’s right to complain about an unsatisfactory product, merely questioning the motive and manner of execution of that complaint.

Many writers see their novels as their babies

Of course, when it comes to a novel, it’s the author’s personal ideas and skills which are under scrutiny. There are very, very few writers who receive any kind of sponsorship for their product. They invest their time and energy (often in vast quantities) in creating a product whose sole aim is to please.   The review process is their feedback and it is unfiltered and something they can’t share with a team of colleagues, peers, subordinates etc. They have no buffer. The damage done by an inconsiderate verbal assault really hurts and sometimes causes irrevocable damage.

I’m not suggesting that writers should be allowed to influence the review process, but simply that reviewers recognise their power and use their platform judiciously. The whole subject of reviews is a bit of minefield. It reminds me of that rhyme about the volatile little girl with a curl.

Reviews: 

  When they are good, they are very, very good

But when they are bad, they are HORRID!

Is My Sweet Romance Too Dirty?

Stick with Ted until you're wed?

-  I like it when books leave it to your imagination as to what goes on between the sheets or in the privacy of one's home - that's what relationships are - private - and should stay that way, so congratulations on keeping the book clean and sensitive. Amazon.co.uk review

-  This is a clean read no sex (just reference to) and no swearing!  Amazon.com review

It seems a little ironic that after my last post ‘Is My Romance too Sweet for You?’ (see below), I should now be asking if my ‘sweet’ (and I’m still mildly uncomfortable with the term) romance is clean or…well whatever the opposite is – dirty, I presume?  Can a sweet romance be dirty?  That sounds like a contradiction in terms – an oxymoron, even.  Either way, it seems I have been deluded in glibly thinking that I write ‘clean’ romance!

But that is what I stand accused of now!  You can imagine how surprised I was to receive an email this week from a reviewer who claimed she was unable to finish reading The Apple Tree because, effectively, it was not ‘clean enough’ for her tastes!  My disappointment, I hasten to add, was short-lived.  Since it took her more than four months to make her monumental decision, it was hardly at the forefront of my mind. However her comment did shock me and make me wonder, yet again, about romance sub-genres and whether we poor writers will ever be able to please all of our readers all of the time.

The two reviews quoted above both relate to The Apple Tree and both clearly refer to it as being ‘clean’.  A little research into the first reviewer shows her (or him) to be a discerning reader while the second is a reputable reviewer.  Could they have got it wrong?  How many more classifications can the ‘sweet’ sub-genre be broken down into?

A look at another romance writer’s blog was extremely helpful.  In her delightful blog (http://Sweetnotspicy.blogspot.com), Morgan Mandel describes Sweet as showing attraction between the sexes but with intimate contact being limited to sweet kisses, while Sweet Discreet allows implied but not detailed sex between the hero and heroine. This must be “either understood to be behind closed doors; or, if it's mentioned in the here and now, no graphic and/or overly long details dwelling on body organs and body responses.”  Morgan’s definition is extremely useful and it places The Apple Tree very cleanly (sorry!) in the Sweet Discreet category.  But is this a category universally understood by readers, writers and, indeed everyone else?

The condemning of my novel to some unclean category also raised another question in my mind.  Am I being hypocritical in allowing my characters to have sex, but refusing to describe it?  As discussed previously, it's a conscious decision not to describe their intimacy, but should I also refuse its existence?  Hmm.  

In The Apple Tree my heroine is on the threshold of her twenty-seventh birthday; she has already been married and is a doctor, to boot.  The hero is at least the same age, possibly even in his early thirties, absolutely gorgeous, eligible and with girls falling at his feet on every street corner.  Would it be realistic for these healthy heterosexuals, with no religious or cultural constraints, to resist their powerful sexual attraction for each other until after they are married – i.e. throughout the course of the entire novel, especially when their two best friends are living together quite openly?  

I would love to know what other romance writers feel about this and I would especially love to hear from readers of romance – after all, they are the ones whose preferences really count in such matters.