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Star Gazing by Linda Gillard


Michelle

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I'm guest blogging later today with the 2nd part about the award event and I think you'll find it quite amusing. (And the jokes are on me.) It was harder to write a piece because I'd lost but I'd committed myself to it, win or lose.

 

I'll post the link when the blog goes up.

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I can't remember if I've said this before but it probably bears saying again... As a writer without a publisher's PR budget - as a writer without even a publisher now! - I'm totally dependent on getting my books out there myself, trying to stir up interest for the ones in print and the ones still in manuscript. You can have little idea just what reader support means to authors under these very difficult & depressing circumstances. Every review, every PM and of course every book sale counts.

 

So I love these forums and will continue to promote them and contribute to them as much as I can because I think they are such a positive force in the book world and such a tremendous support to struggling writers, published and unpublished.

 

Hooray for BCF!

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Thanks, Gyre and Chrissy. Remember there's Ch 1 of unpublished book 4 on my website. I was wondering whether to post more of it on Facebook. But then I suppose you'd complain I was keeping you waiting for the rest of the book... :lol:

 

If you're blubbing about my daughter's comment, Chrissy, how do you think I feel? (And we fought like cat & dog when she was a teenager.) She's missed author events of mine for all sorts of reasons - I was on Skye, she was at uni in Leeds; I was on the mainland, she was abroad. It's taken years to get us together for an event and I'm so glad it was the Edinburgh Festival.

 

I think I was quite lucky she didn't jump up on to the stage and deck one of the judges. She works for the National Theatre of Scotland and if I could afford her I'd give her a job as my PA.

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

I finished this quite recently. I thought it was a lovely story and enjoyed it a lot. Once again the setting is quite lyrical and I was transported to the wilds of Scotland. The blindness of the lead character was very interesting. I don't usually do romance but I liked this one.

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  • 1 month later...

Linda Gillard is one of my favourite authors. In fact, her three books were my top three reads of 2009 (Star Gazing at 1, A Lifetime Burning at 2 and Emotional Geology at 3).

 

I really think it's criminal that an author of this calibre is not better known and I'm desperate to read book 4.

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Thanks, Nic27 and Chrissy. :D

 

I am desperate to publish book 4! It was completed a long time ago. (I'm 2/3 of the way through book 5 now.) But my agent can't find a publisher for it. Editors don't think it's romantic enough, chick lit-ish enough, or they just don't "get" the book. The other reason they give for not taking it on is my sales record which they say doesn't justify them taking a chance. This despite the fact that STAR GAZING was short-listed for 2 awards! (But publishers aren't all that interested in awards unless they lead to big sales.)

 

So I don't know when you'll get another book from me.

 

We may be making some progress now with the (possible) films of STAR GAZING and EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY so I hope that might gee things up a bit. I'm also hoping that book 5 might find more favour with editors as it's more like STAR GAZING. (The much-rejected book 4 is similar to A LIFETIME BURNING, but not such a shocker.)

 

So please continue to spread the word about my books and if you can, coerce people into buying STAR GAZING! Every little helps.

 

In the meantime, I am really, really grateful for reader support. Thank you!

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Thanks everyone.:D

 

If only readers got to choose which books get published! I think the publishing world would be all the better for it. Readers are so much more adventurous than publishers give them credit for and readers don't need an author's books to be clones of each other. (But if they are, it's much easier for publishers to market them.)

 

I hope your presents will be appreciated, Chrissy! I like to think that STAR GAZING has something to please everyone. Unlike A LIFETIME BURNING which has something to offend everyone. :D

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  • 2 months later...

I am half way through this book (due to recommendation on another thread) and am thoroughly enjoying it. I particularly like how Keir describes things to blind Marianne in terms of music and instruments, they are amazingly spot on and beautifully imaginative. My favourite characters though are Louisa, the older sister and Garth the Goth, a very unlikely but funny pair.

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