Yesterday The Christmas Angel, Marcia’s twenty-first novel written under her own name, was published by Transworld.
This should, of course, be a great day: the culmination of twelve months work but it isn’t. Marcia was really finished with this book about eighteen months ago when it was accepted by her editor and, since then, has written another book which is on production (The Sea Garden) and is working on number twenty-three. The really great day is the one on which her editor accepts the manuscript. Then we do celebrate!
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| Transworld, however, never fail to send her a bunch of flowers and so I took this picture as she was unwrapping them yesterday. |
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| As it happened we received copies of the Danish version of The Christmas Angel at the same time. Here is their cover – a very different ‘take’ on this book! I am told that the title is ‘Time for Change’. |
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| The sun was rising over the Okement Valley on Dartmoor when we hauled ourselves out of bed. This was taken from our bedroom window. |
Today Marcia has driven over to Kingsbridge to sign books at The Harbour Bookshop. We felt that it would be unfair for us all to go as it would have meant Jossie spending far too long in the car. It was not the best of days to be making that journey. The obvious route goes through Cornwood but the centre of the village was closed to traffic. This meant a long diversion onto roads that were extremely busy – it is half term and the west country is full of people down for a few days which is lovely but does cause some problems. Coming back was slow, too. In order to avoid Cornwood, Marcia drove up to Buckfast and over the moor from there. As she put it, ‘The Moor was heaving but it was a lovely sunny trip.’ And, indeed it has been a wonderful day. Tomorrow it will be Book Stop in Tavistock: we shall be going together but the forecast is for some pretty dreadful weather.
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| Marcia and a great friend of ours, Caroline Winterton, enjoying a joke. |
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| Marcia and Pat Abrehart, who owns The Harbour Bookshop, with Jayne: one of Marcia's faithful readers. |
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| Marcia joshing with her brother-in-law, Roger, and Louise, one of Pat's assistants, while she signs the stock |
