The very lovely, charming and talented Jeremy Edwards has sent me this super photo from a bookstore in Montreal. Not one but two of my titles. Thank you so much, Jeremy! It always amazes me to see this. Like.. I still can't believe I even have my work published, and yet there the books are! So why Montreal to Carlisle..? Well, earlier this year we spent a few days in the Lake District. On a particularly rainy day we headed north to the city of Carlisle. Carlisle is a border city, next stop Scotland. As always we headed into the bookshop while we were there. There was a good sized Waterstones and we eagerly approached the erotica and romance shelves. I was hoping to catch sight of the latest Cleis press anthologies, and I always look for my pals books too, because I get a buzz out of that. This is where Mark has to stand by patiently while I squeal: "Oh look, Portia, Alison, Jeremy…" etc
As I approached the shelves I squeaked "Ooh look, James Lear!" I ducked down to the shelf for a closer look and… shock horror!...I see a familiar spine, a spine I've only ever seen on my own bookshelf at home... Yes, there was a copy of my 2006 Berkley novel, DOUBLE DARE. You could have knocked me over with a feather. My jaw literally fell open.
Not only have I never seen one of my own novels on the shelves in the UK, but this one is from 2006, my first print published novel. Why was it here, in the bookshop all the way up at the northern reach of England? We could only speculate that a copy was thrown into a box being shipped over, by mistake or chance. Or perhaps someone ordered it and never picked it up.
Needless to say there was much squeeing and gushing, pointing and wondering. I made quite a scene, in other words ;o) It was a golden moment!
