A couple of months ago Unbound sent me some very exciting news: Crow Court had been picked out by the Festival du premier roman in Chambéry, France and I was being invited to attend the 35th festival, this year.
It has taken quite a while for the full scale of this to become clear, and I am absolutely over the moon with this opportunity. The festival celebrates first novels in Europe, inviting 21 authors from France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Romania and the United Kingdom. Novels are chosen by local readers with a network of over 3000 readers contributing to the selection. Previous Laureats include authors such as Claire Fuller, Valérie Perrin, Laurent Binet, Claire Adam and Gail Honeyman and I am just delighted to be following in such illustrious footsteps.
So I’m off next week, spending four days in Chambéry and I honestly couldn’t be more happy about it.
But that is not all the news I have for you because Crow Court has been included in another longlist here in the UK. The nominations for the Crime Writers Association Dagger Awards were announced last week and Crow Court was in the longlist within the Historical Crime section.
All of this is very pleasing and of course, none of would have been possible without your support. So I hope will join me in taking delight in the recognition from these awards.
Stay in touch! I’ll let you know about the festival in a couple of weeks!