News

It's time to write a news update on my blog and what a lot of news I have to share with you! I hardly know where to begin!

York
If we are connected on facebook you may have seen the photos I posted of our trip to York. We spent a wonderful two weeks in a beautiful flat overlooking the river, ate out far more than was good for us - well what can be better than chips and Champagne at Betty's? - and did a lot of sightseeing in York and the surrounding villages. We were fortunate to see the annual York Illuminations. We were also lucky with the weather - apart from the morning when the York Press sent a photographer to snap me outside the Minster. How shall I describe the result? It was great fun...  but let's just say that my hair isn't exactly tidy at the best of times... The photo was certainly spooky, cleverly lit from below.

Of course I was there to work. There were book signings in York and Scarborough, a talk to a lovely audience at Scarborough Library, interviews with the press and on BBC radio. In addition to all that,  I was able to research where Ian Peterson lives, and where the murderer and the victims live - and die... This was for the second book in my new Ian Peterson series, which is the first one set in York.

London
I may have mentioned that the lovely director of the Crime Writers Association offered me a golden ticket to the ITV Thriller Awards. Of course I said yes, even though it meant rushing back to London from York and back again the following day to talk at Scarborough Library. This was the first ITV award ceremony I have attended and it was really exciting. Everywhere I turned someone was offering champagne (it would have been rude to refuse!) and  I met so many luminaries of page and screen I could name drop all night! Here are just a few, with apologies to the many I've left out. It's always a pleasure catching up with fellow crime writers Peter James, Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Mark Billingham, Anne Zoyrodi, Linda Stratmann, Maxim Jabukowski, and many others. Martina Cole was there, and Wilbur Smith, and a host of other writers. I felt like a film star meeting Nathaniel Parker (swoon!), the fabulously talented Dervla Kirwan, Rupert Penry Jones who is unbelievably even more gorgeous in the flesh than he is on screen, Amelia Bullmore, Bradley Walsh, Emily Fox.... like I said, I could name drop all night! It was such fun!

Translations
My books are already published in Italian (Mondadori), French (City Editions), and Turkish (Kassandra), and recently Harper Collins US acquired both my series which they are publishing at a rate of one a month. Just this week we had confirmation that another major publisher has acquired my titles, Bastei Lubbe of Gemany. So Geraldine Steel is spreading her wings internationally. Hopefully she will become as popular in the US as she is in the UK. The Miami Examiner describes her as 'one of the most interesting detectives of all time' so she has one fan in America at least! No wonder Book2Book trade journal have said Geraldine Steel is 'set to be the next big name in crime fiction'. Let's hope they're right!

Travel
As if all that wasn't excitement enough for one post, my diary for next year is filling up fast. I've accepted an invitation to spend two weeks teaching for the Writers Lab on Skyros, the most beautiful Greek island. I'll be speaking at a French literary festival in St Clementin, meeting my US publishers in New York, attending the Crime Writers Association conference in Guernsey, and going to a Writes Lab weekend on The Isle of Man, in addition to my UK commitments like CrimeFest and Harrogate Festival. It's going to be a busy year.

My books
The sixth Geraldine Steel, Fatal Act, will be available to download in December, and out in print in 2014. The second Ian Peterson is ready to be edited and proofread, and will be published in 2014. I'm now  working on the seventh Geraldine Steel, which will be out as an ebook in December 2014.