An emotional day!

So, today I held a physical proof copy of my debut novel SAVING SOPHIE in my hands for the first time. Thanks AvonBooks!

Wow.

This is what it was all for. The moment when the dream becomes reality. I'm clearly going to be a mess when it actually publishes!

The excitement and the feeling of accomplishment is huge.

However, this wonderful moment is tinged with some sadness. 

My lovely parents are no longer here to share this achievement with me. And that's pretty gutting.
But, I hope they'd have been proud. 

I've had incredible support over the last few days from friends and followers on social media, and my family and friends around me. I am so thankful for them, and to them.

I think this is cause for another celebration, don't you?

Can never have too much of that!

And every day counts. 

Thanks all! 

I'm off to stroke the cover... 

SAVING SOPHIE Cover Reveal!

Nothing like being late to your own reveal!

I am super, SUPER excited to share my beautiful cover with you. It's beyond amazing, AvonBooksUK have done a brilliant job and I can't thank them enough.

Here it is (although, as previously mentioned, I'm late with this, therefore it's been around a bit already - haha!)

What do you think?

I'm in love with it - I think it stands out so well and symbolises the key themes in the novel really well.

I am thrilled that the very talented BEST SELLING author of THE SISTER, Louise Jensen has already devoured it and has written the most amazing review! For her full review, check out her blog Fabricating Fiction on 3rd August! But for now, this is a snippet:

Saving Sophie is being published firstly as an ebook on the 12th August - 2 WEEKS from now! And in paperback on the 15th December.

You can pre-order it from Amazon UK -  HERE

Watch out for my next blog post - I'll be sharing a bit about my BOOK DEAL!

Thanks for popping in - please do leave a comment and let me know what you think of Saving Sophie's cover!

My first experience of Crimefest!

I've taken a while to write this post. Mainly because it took me a while to recover from Crimefest!

Crimefest is an annual International Crime Fiction Convention held in Bristol, where readers, bloggers, writers, agents and publishers all gather (mostly in the bar I found out) to enjoy four days of brilliant panels, interviews and award presentations.

Being a newbie I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but was excited to be going (and surprisingly nervous). I knew a fair few virtual friends from my Facebook and Twitter would be there, and I spent a lot of time with my eyes down, checking out people's names and madly shouting 'ooh, it's you!'

I had met up with my lovely friend and fellow writer, Libby for this experience, and together we navigated the hotel floors (badly sometimes) to reach the panels we wanted to see.

A surprise lift companion caused an 'oh my God' moment and I'm not sure I recovered from that for a while. But, Ian Rankin was delightful, and helpful as it turned out - and was also happy to have a picture with Libby. I wasn't brave enough to ask for another picture - it was my first few hours of being there - I hadn't had a drink yet! His interview the following day was a real treat too - as he read the first pages of his brand new, yet-to-be-published book!

The panels we attended were extremely well organised, spot-on with their timings and well moderated to give each author a chance to participate in the discussions. It was difficult to choose which panels to go to as there were two or three happening at any one time. There was a lot of scooting between rooms and floors and even though it was simply laid out, I still managed to become disorientated and wasn't sure where I was half the time.

We managed to meet some of the authors following their panels and get some books signed - I wanted to get far more books than I did, however, I did come away with some corkers and had some fab ones in my goody bag! I also have a great list of new-to-me authors, and actual-new authors to try, which is really exciting.

I also need to thank a lovely lady who gave me one of her books so that I could swap it for what appeared to be the last available proof copy of Anna Mazzola's 'The Unseeing' - she obviously sensed my desperation... I didn't get her name in my excitement - but THANK YOU! I had enjoyed the Deadly Dames panel with Anna Mazzola, Chris Curran, Caroline Kepnes and Janet Laurence with Quentin Bates moderating, so much, and the way Anna talked about her research for her debut historical crime novel, The Unseeing, was so fascinating I just had to have it!

Other highlights of my Crimefest experience include: meeting the wonderful Susi Holliday (SJI Holliday) and getting a quick pic :)

Meeting author Caroline Mitchell and having a chat during the CWA Dagger announcement ceremony. I have to thank her for her patience during the many attempts at getting the 'right' photo! I went for the somber look in the end - thank goodness there was wine.

Also the brilliant Making A Murderer -  a case for and against. This was entertaining and fascinating, the excellent defence - Steve Cavanagh, and prosecution - Neil White, were clever and witty, as was the amazing Judge - Sophie Hannah. And I sat next to the author David Jackson - lovely to meet him in the flesh! 

I really enjoyed the audible panel - very interesting how authors and narrators approach their roles. Fascinating to hear that Mark Billingham, who now narrates his own novels, alters some of the story to fit the audio version - a great discussion ensued about the pitfalls of certain narratives being extremely challenging in this format.

Oh, and I finally found some courage to ask for a picture with Mark - woop-woop!

Dark hearts, troubled souls - this was a fascinating panel with an amazing line-up of authors: Ann Cleeves, Ann Holt, Paul Hardisty and Kati Hiekkapelto - moderated expertly by Tim Adler. A real delight to be in such talented company, and the insights to what an author's responsibility may, or may not be, was a lively discussion and resulted in some great questions from the audience. 

And I managed a sneaky group photo at the end of this panel:

Haha! How great is this? :) 

Another great panel - and one that made me laugh the most, was Sending Shivers Down the Spine - absolutely brilliant and I felt the audience found out a lot about each of the author's personal fears - clowns being one, well - except for Alexandra (A K Benedict) who delighted in freaking everyone out with the things she loves - hysterical. The other panellists were the lovely, and very funny Jenny Blackhurst, clown-hating Mason Cross and the delightful Kate Ellis. 

I can't begin to cover all that happened, each panel, each wonderful person I met - but I will say - the crime writing community is bloody amazing and I hope I'll meet more of the talented authors and the inspiring bloggers who work tremendously hard, in the future. Great to finally meet Liz Barnsley, Liz Loves Books too, as well as other fab bloggers - I aim to join you all in the bar next time because you rock it! (According to all the stories and photographic evidence).

I had a thoroughly fantastic time, very tiring - but brilliant. I only did two days this time (I know - what a lightweight!), but will most definitely be doing the full four next year.

Here are some more pictures of the panels to leave you with:

Will look forward to next year! 

A spot of reinvention...

“What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.”

― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Over the weekend I spent some time changing my name on all my social media platforms.

Some people asked, 'why?'

There are numerous reasons writers choose to use pen names, or pseudonyms - some reasons can be found HERE 

My aim as a writer now, is to write psychological thriller/crime novels. In the past I have written short stories under Samantha Bacchus - and these have been a different style and genre, aiming for the Women's magazines. I've also self-published my own collection of short stories for the same market. This is a reason some authors decide a pen name is best, because they write in differing genres. 

I love my name, don't get me wrong. What's not to love about having the God of wine as my surname? But is it a name that can be spelt and pronounced wrongly?

Yes.

Every day I get phone calls for Mrs Batch-us as well as weird and wonderful variations of spelling on letters: Bachus, Backus, Bachous. Etc, etc.

Now, I'm not saying that by using my maiden name: Carrington, that there will be no spelling errors! I'm sure there will be. But, less so I hope. And going back to my old name will be a fitting tribute to my late parents. 

When future readers search my name, I'm hoping Carrington will be easier to find! 

And yes, for those of you of a certain age - I did get a lot of Dynasty-related jokes when I was at school, and the sound of the theme tune seemed to follow me around. 

It still resides in my head...

Anyway, my reinvention has begun. Or rather, I've gone back to who I was. This time travelling lark can be quite fun - I feel younger already!

A Spot of Editing Over on Jan's Blog

Today I am guest blogger on the lovely Jan Baynham's Blog, talking about my editing process.

Jan has been doing a weekly series inviting writers to share how they approach the editing stage of their work. I've really enjoyed reading how others deal with this stage of writing!

Make a cuppa and pop on over to Jan's :)

Happy Sunday!

Good things are happening!

Family-wise 2015 wasn't a good year - mainly because it was the year my Mum died. And the start of 2016 threatened to go the same way as it began with bad news: a death and a serious accident, plus a number of mishaps that caused distress. I'm hoping it's the last of the bad news, and certainly things have begun to look up!

Hopefully, very soon I will be able to share exactly what has caused the upturn!

But for now - I'm doing a happy dance and looking forward to the rest of 2016.


Watch this space...

How I Got My Literary Agent - Part 2

Ok, so part two is being written much later than I'd planned ... Better late than never.

So - London baby!

The agent meeting was scheduled for 9th June 2015. So, three weeks of panicking... er... I mean preparing!

I used that time to research the Internet, again, to find out what I could in terms of the type of questions I should ask. There was a lot of information, mainly relating to what to ask when you get "the call", but little about if you were actually meeting an agent - FACE TO FACE. It was a bit stressful thinking about it actually. The only relevant blog post I found was by Dean Crawford -  The First Meeting With A Literary Agent - and I hung onto every word he'd written!

I chose questions from various other blog posts to make up a comprehensive list of things I needed to cover during our meeting (safe in the knowledge that I'd probably forget to ask most of them due to nerves!) There is a lot of information on this topic. Some I found helpful were: THIS ONE and the advice from The Writers and Artists site

Once I was happy with that, I stressed about what I was going to wear...

More than that though, I suppose I was worried about the outcome of the meeting. What if Anne didn't like me? Was she really interested in representing me, or just having a 'chat'? She'd only seen 15k of my novel - would she really want to sign me now, or wait until the novel was complete? Questions plagued my waking moments and infiltrated my dreams. It was a long three weeks. 

The big day arrived. I travelled with my daughter and sister - who dragged along her husband - and they were going to go off shopping while the meeting happened. They were key in keeping me calm. And that worked, mostly - well up until the point of nearing the station that is ...

After an embarrassing 'I-didn't-recognise-you-from-your-photo' moment on the platform of Paddington station, I relaxed. She was normal. Didn't appear scary. All was well - for the moment.

After a short taxi ride, chatting as we went, we settled in the lovely Waterside Cafe, Little Venice, and enjoyed a bit of sunshine before heading in for some goodies.


We talked about the part of the manuscript Anne had read and after what felt like minutes, she handed me an agency agreement (obviously not filled out - but one I could take away and read) Wow. I immediately relaxed when I realised she WANTED TO REPRESENT ME!!!! 


For the rest of the time we discussed all the things that I'd listed as things to ask - without needing to ask them! Just as well at that point I think. It was such a relief to know someone believed in me and my writing enough to want to represent me, and I was truly elated. It was one of those moments I didn't think would actually happen, rather one that I had merely dreamed of. 

Of course though, this was an unfinished manuscript - there were risks to taking me on. But, Anne said it was a risk for me too, so if I was willing to take the risk, so was she. Brilliant. My dilemma now was in that I'd still got the manuscript I'd originally queried Anne with, out with other agents. So, we agreed I'd get back to her in a week with my decision.

The. Hardest. Week. Ever.

It was a strange one. How do you inform other agents that you have an offer of representation - but not for the book you queried them with? Anyway, after a long week of emails and nail-biting, I got back to Anne with my "I'd love to accept your offer" email.

And then the hard work began. I had a novel to finish - and then had to hope to God that she loved it!

There was a certain amount of pressure when writing the novel because this time it was definitely going to be read. When I believed it to be finished I gained valuable feedback from some of my writer friends and edited accordingly. Then I sent it to Anne. And oh, my, God, that was a tremendously nerve wracking time!

More of that another time. I am due to write a guest post for the wonderful Jan Baynham's blog - all about my thoughts on editing and the editing process. So, please keep an eye out for that, and the other guests on her blog who will be doing the same!

Thanks for popping by :)