The Gilded Lily is out in the USA

Thanks to my editor Hope Dellon, and to Silissa Kenney, Loren Jaggers and all the team at St Martin's Press for the publication of The Gilded Lily in the USA - It looks lovely and I'm so pleased it will have a wider readership.

I will be travelling over to the USA to the Historical Novel Conference 2013 in Florida, where I will be part of a panel talking about my journey to publication - 'Making it to Mainstream'.
Other members of the panel are Jenny Barden, Pat Bracewell and Nancy Bilyeau, and we will kept in order by Gillian Bagwell. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with american writers I met at the London Conference and through Macmillan New Writers. I am taking a holiday beforehand with my DH and we're also looking forward to some sightseeing and exploring some of the interesting attractions in the area. (Recommendations welcome - St Augustine is already on my list!)

Meanwhile I'm busy promoting The Gilded Lily and you can find my post on Why the English Took to Tea here
and you can find the latest reviews for The Gilded Lily at
http://layeredpages.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/england-1660.html
and
http://abookishaffair.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/hf-virtual-tours-gilded-lily-by-deborah.html

"The Gilded Lily" US publication

I'm delighted to announce that "The Gilded Lily" will be published in the US by St. Martin's Press. This is excellent news, as those US readers who have enjoyed "The Lady's Slipper" will be able to find out what befalls Ella after she leaves its pages for a new life.

American Cover of The Lady's Slipper

Thought I would share the American cover design from St Martin's Press for The Lady's Slipper - just arrived by email this morning.

In the States it is going straight into paperback with a lot of added extras for reading groups, including background history, further reading, and discussion points. I am really enjoying putting these parts together as it is a chance to give a little more information to the reader about my historical sources, and tell the story of how the book came about, as well as recommend some of my favourite books. 

If you are in a reading group maybe you can tell me what sort of questions work best for your group. In my reading group, although we often start by tackling the themes of the book and so forth, we tend to shy away from anything too intellectual. Pretty soon we get down to the "has that ever happened to you?" type conversation, followed swiftly by a "ooh, what did you do?" which leads nicely into them revealing all sorts of fascinating personal information they might not otherwise have told you! But maybe mine is not a typical reading group.

Our next reading group meeting is hosting Bryony Doran, whose book "The China Bird" won the Hookline novel competition, so it promises to be an interesting evening whilst we persuade her to give us the inside info. on her book. More about it after the meeting!You can find out more about Bryony on her website http://www.bryonydoran.com/