When Big Dreams Come True – Some Exciting News!!

May's monthly update is all about one very exciting thing! A new book deal!!!

Every author has different dreams, I suppose. Mine have always been to write books that readers love, and to stay published so that readers can keep reading those books.

We hear a lot about “getting published” but we never hear quite as much about “staying published”. They are both equally hard!

Every week I hear terrible stories about authors being dropped by their publishers, then pitching their book ideas to new publishers – but nobody makes an offer. So that author has a book, but with no one to publish it, they have no way of getting it into readers’ hands (unless they self-publish, which is a full-time job in itself and requires learning a number of new skills).

Being dropped and rejected is a punch to the gut and huge blow to their self-confidence and their future. Do they give up? Or write another book – but how can they afford to do that without a contract and therefore without any money coming in?

Every time I finish writing one book, I’m terrified that I could easily find myself in a similar position. What if no one likes my next idea? What if my current book doesn’t sell well? What if readers suddenly turn away from historical fiction and only read books they see on TikTok?

Yes, it’s possible for this to happen to anyone, even writers with the words “New York Times bestselling” in front of their names, and almost every writer worries about it happening to them. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: writing is equal parts talent, hard work and luck. But we have little control over luck – we just hope it visits us often.

I have been very, very lucky. Lucky to have loyal, incredible readers. Lucky to have been published for this long. Lucky to have worked with fantastic publishers along the way. Lucky to have an agent who is the best in the business.

I’m grateful for all of those things, because without them, I wouldn’t be telling you …

I’ve Just Signed a Deal For Two More Books!!!

That’s right, two more books will be coming your way after The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard!

A very exciting part of this announcement is that I’m moving to a new publisher in North America. Ballantine are a part of Penguin Random House and they are everything I could wish for in a publisher – full of enthusiasm, exciting plans and they have a superb team. They publish authors like Taylor Jenkins Reid, Jodi Piccoult and Curtis Sittenfeld so I think I’m in very good hands! (And I’m possibly also a little bit starstruck!)

What’s the New Book About?

When I finished writing The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard, I sat down to write another book. What came out on the screen were a few chapters that were okay, but felt too familiar and just not engaging enough to keep me interested in that particular idea for a couple of years. And lurking in the back of my mind was another idea – in fact it’s been in my mind since 2020 – that I’ve been ignoring because it was largely set in France in WWII, and I’ve obviously done that a couple of times now in previous books.

But some ideas won’t be ignored. And Marie-Madeleine Fourcade (or Marie-Madeleine Méric as she was known during wartime) has been ignored for too long already – so why was I ignoring her too?

Marie-Madeleine’s life was extraordinary in scope. Born in France, her parents took her to live in the French concession of Shanghai when she was just a few months old, where she stayed for fourteen years. She married at eighteen, went to live in Morocco in 1928 and then rode camels out into the desert to parley with local tribes for information for her husband, who worked for France’s intelligence service. She helped deliver babies at a Rabat clinic. She drove in car rallies, learned to fly planes, worked on a radio program for women with writer Colette – and then she became the only female leader of a WWII Resistance network.

Yes, there was only one woman who led a French Resistance network. And that was Marie-Madeline. And she didn’t lead just any network – she lead a total of 3,000 agents in the one network that lasted the longest and supplied the most crucial information to the Allies.

How did a chic, thirty-year-old Parisienne celebrated for her looks and style, a woman dubbed by the Allies as the “copybook beautiful spy”, go through so many evolutions, achieve things that were unheard of for women, and also find the strength to fight the Nazis and inspire an entire Resistance network for years on end? Because she was a hero.

I cannot wait to share her story with you in The Secret Life of Marie-Madeleine, a novelised account of her life that begins in Morocco in 1928 and ends in France almost two decades later in 1945. She is truly the most inspiring woman I’ve ever written about and her story is exactly why I write historical fiction – so that we never forget the incredible women that history has tried to shut out of its pages.

As I said at the start of this post: we look for heroes everywhere, but Marie-Madeleine is right there in the margins of the history books, waiting to be discovered. I hope you look forward to discovering her in 2025 in my book!!

Event News for WA

• I’m doing one very special event to celebrate the republication of my very first book, What is Left Over After. Hope you can join us!

  • Details: AH Bracks Library, July 20, 6.45-8.00pm

  • Reserve your place here

This Month’s Book Giveaway

I’m excited to be giving away a signed advanced copy of STARRING ADELE ASTAIRE by Eliza Knight. I was lucky enough to read an early copy and can tell you it’s a story full of glitz and glam about the life of Adele Astaire, a spirited and talented woman who served up smiles and love both on and off the stage—with and without her famous brother Fred Astaire. 

To enter, just click the “Leave a Comment” button and comment on this post! Let me know how excited you are about my Marie-Madeline book!

The winner will be chosen randomly at midday AWST on June 8 and announced via the comments. You can also preorder a copy of Eliza’s book here.

Don’t Forget!

You can also preorder my next book, The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard in North America now! And we’ve finalised the Australian cover and I should have that to show you, along with preorder links, in the Bijoux List on June 13!