NEW YEAR 2008

A photo of visitor kittens - Loki & Jellybean - getting their claws into my Christmas.

A new year, a new start - so on with the new book.

After the indulgences of the festive season, it's hard to strap on the hairshirt of self-discipline once more, but it's astonishing how a deadline does focus the mind. My English publisher, LittleBrown/Sphere, asked me to write a piece for their monthly Newsletter and it set me thinking about New Year Resolutions.

To resolve or not to resolve?

Are they a waste of time? Who sticks to them?

Yet New Year Resolutions are part of the extraordinary optimism that is hard-wired into the human psyche, the triumph of hope over experience. And I love that. We can – and we will – improve ourselves, even if we need the January 1st deadline to make it happen. It’s the deadline factor that makes all the difference. A bit like writing really.

Writers will wait until a deadline is about to loom on the horizon and then start to panic. Don’t get me wrong. Having a deadline is a wonderful thing. It means that a publisher is ready and eager to read your latest work. The problem comes from the fact that, to start with anyway, deadlines are a long way off, then one day you wake to find you still have 20,000 words to write and only a morning to write them in.

So this coming year I have resolved to stick to my writing target each week , so that I’ll complete my manuscript early. Time to sit and enjoy the garden. To visit friends and family. To relax. Only that’s not going to happen, is it? Like everybody else, I 'll fall off that moral high ground. As nights grow shorter and days grow warmer, other activities will tempt me away from my desk. For even writers are human.

Over the years I’ve made lots of resolutions – to give up my sudoku addiction or to trim my cat’s claws more often (you should see my sofa!). At the time they all seem achievable. But now I think we should try making resolutions at a different time of year. After all, it’s very easy to think about giving up cakes or chocolate or alcohol when you’ve spent the last ten days doing nothing but eat and drink and be merry.

So that’s my resolution for 2008 – I’m not going to make any until the end of June. But by then of course, when the lazy days of summer arrive, I will decide to leave it all until next Christmas - like everybody else!

Yes!

A dismally wet weekend here in the UK was transformed by fantastic news from my editor, Jackie, at Berkley in the States. It had me doing a Gene Kelly tap routine down Torquay High Street - umbrella and puddles included.

The Russian Concubine has hit the New York Times (extended) bestseller list. Admittedly it's not yet in the Top Twenty (a hallowed position to achieve), but still well and truly there at # 34. This is every author's dream. Christmas come early.

I have printed out a copy of it and pinned it to the wall above my computer to urge me ever onwards and upwards. I know that on days when I sit at my desk in front of a blank page and wonder what on earth is going to fill the word-quota today, the sight of The List will keep me going.

The enthusiasm of readers for the book has had a profound impact on me and drives me on to want to fulfil my side of the bargain with my new book - to provide a story that touches the heart, that entertains, yet raises questions and informs. Now I am working on the sequel to The Russian Concubine and I feel pressure to satisfy each and every reader who enjoyed the original. Sometimes that pressure freezes the pen in my hand. But at others it kicks in with such force that the words flow like last weekend's rain. That's a good place to be.

So is # 34 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Mayo Magic

Yes, that's me and Helen Dunning getting friendly with a Dalek.

Why?

Well, Simon Mayo has chosen The Russian Concubine as his Book Of The Month on Radio Five Live and I was invited to go on his show with a panel of reviewers to talk about it. So off I trotted up to London again to the BBC at White City, which is where I bumped into the Tin Terror.

Simon Mayo is an icon. A radio giant. And there my book was in all its glory on Radio Five Live's homepage - just me and the football. (We won't talk about the football disaster - crashing out of Europe. Aaargh!)

On the journey I tried to prepare myself for what kind of reception The Russian Concubine would receive from this impressive panel of reviewers, though I hoped that the fact that it was Book Of The Month indicated that my judges might not be too harsh. And it turned out that I didn't actually need that calming camomile tea beforehand after all. Instead of getting dissed, I was greeted with generous comments and thoroughly enjoyed talking with Helen Dunning, Sarah Harrison and Boyd Hilton about how I'd come to write the book and its connection with my mother's White Russian history. And Simon Mayo made the whole experience of doing a live radio show a breeze. Nerves? What nerves?

Lovely Tamsin, my PR person at LittleBrown/Sphere, came along for morale boosting and did a great job. Thanks, Tamsin. As elegant and supportive as ever.

And to top it all, sitting next to me at the recording table was the Pultizer Prize winner, the brilliant American author Richard Russo. He's a real charmer and I just love his new book - The Bridge Of Sighs. Give it a try.

But only after The Russian Concubine, okay?

Book signing

Book signing at Torbay Bookshop in Paignton with friend Ann. It turned into a mini party as so many people came to support it.

Two high points of the morning for me were:

1) A woman came to buy a copy of The Russian Concubine because she'd heard me on Palm Radio the day before talking about my mother's White Russian history. It turned out that this woman's own White Russian grandparents had also suffered tragically at the hands of the Bolsheviks. A deeply touching story that stays with me.

2) Another woman arrived to buy the book because she has the same surname - Furnivall. Not a common name. So we're going to compare notes and see if our families are connected somewhere along the line. A new cousin?

Many thanks to all those who came to the book signing to support The Russian Concubine. It made it special.

Publication Day dawns in Devon

The Russian Concubine is out there.

I did in fact spot it first in WHSmiths as I arrived in Paddington Station in London. What better start to Publication Day? Their Read of the Week.

And yes, I confess, in the Charing Cross Road branch of Borders I did actually walk in and fiddle with the display, so that the lovely cover was facing outward on the shelf instead of just the spine. Well, it's The Russian Concubine's birthday, for heaven's sake, so it's the least it deserves.

Seeing it there in the shops makes me realise how much I love this book. How anxious I am for it. Like a mother on her child's first day at school, a mixture of pride and nerves and that churning feeling in the pit of the stomach. You want them to come home with five gold stars.

A book is an extension of an author, no matter how much they claim that the story is fiction and the characters are figments of an over-active imagination. Writers distil a vital part of themselves on to every page, as much into 'bad' characters as into the 'good' ones. In an odd kind of way, it's a bit like being a stripper because you have to be willing to expose so much of yourself to the gaze of total strangers. That can be daunting, but I believe it's what makes a book work, that emotional connection with the reader. It's crucial.

The LittleBrown/Sphere team gave me and my agent, Teresa, a great launch lunch party at Moro's and drowned my nerves in champagne. They are a brilliant group of people, hugely professional but at the same time tremendously supportive and great fun. I am very lucky to be working with them.

And flowers. They sent me flowers as well. What more could I ask for?

Good reviews.

Publication in UK

Finally Publication week for The Russian Concubine is here in the UK. I am ecstatic. It satisfies something very fundamental in me to have my book published in my own country.

I can't wait to be wandering down the High Street into the bookstores or pushing a trolley round the supermarkets and have The Russian Concubine jump out at me. I think the cover is beautiful - thank you, Sphere and Berkley.

Will I rush in and rearrange the displays to feature mine more prominently? I might. I know it happens! And can you blame an author, after all that blood, tantrums and tears?

Sphere have been fantastic about keeping me posted about sell-in to retailers and which magazines and newspapers will be doing reviews. (That kind of update really helps the nerves.) So far it's looking good, with the major supermarkets taking it, as well as the major booksellers. I shall definitely be rushing into the bookshop at Paddington Station when I travel up to London this week and scouring its shelves, like a mother lion seeking out her cub. I might seriously have to restrain myself from thrusting it into shoppers' hands.

Reviews. The dreaded word. That's the next hurdle to leap. I shall be reading them from behind a cushion and with a glass of Pinot in hand, like my son used to watch Dr Who - without the Pinot of course!

But there are already exciting glimmers of hope. Marie Claire has named it Book of the Month in December and WHSmith Travel has chosen it for ROTW (that's Read of the Week) this week.

What a Publication Day present that is!

Flying High

Where did the summer go?


I was away at Duxford Air Show in Cambridgeshire only the other day, revelling in warm sunshine and Merlin engines, but today even here in Devon the north wind takes my breath away as I make my dash to the village post-box and back. It's depressing. I'm not ready for winter.

To cheer myself up I have posted a picture of me in a custard-yellow Tiger Moth biplane about to take to the skies. Huge fun.

I came dashing home from that high point determined to throw myself headlong into the new book, only to find:-

a) numerous email interviews awaiting my attention and filling up my time. I know they're essential as Publication Day in the UK approaches (1st November in case you haven't noticed) but they divert my attention away from the book (it's way too easily diverted).

b) a Buick-size rat putrefying under a cabinet - a tit-for-tat game my cat Misty is expert at to teach me not to go away.

c) a lazy summer-mind seems to have been slotted scarily into my skull to replace my writing-mind while I was on hols. Hmm, not a good way to start a book.

d) I like being home again.

e) Nowhere is more beautiful than Devon.

Okay, okay, time to pick up the pen and start writing.