Highlights of 2019

What a year it’s been!  I could never have predicted how things would turn out, even just 12 months ago.
In 2018, I discovered two floppy discs with the manuscripts for two pony books I’d written in 2004 / 2005. At the end of the year, after lots of editing, I was writing to agents and publishers in the hope of getting the books into print.  Now, as 2019 draws to a close, the first two books are published and out in the world, the third is complete and will be released in 2020 and book 4 is fully formed and ready to start being put onto paper in the New Year too.
 
Here are my first-year-as-an-author highlights:
 

1.  Seeing Little Pearl as a printed book for the first time on 13th March 2019, published by Elterwater Press.
2.  Seeing Little Pearl in the window display of a book shop.
3.  Having Little Pearl read and reviewed by world champion eventer, Ros Canter and author, Sheena Wilkinson.
4. Receiving almost 1500 votes in the cover star competition for The Second Best Pony.
5. Receiving a comment from a mother about her son: “getting him to read a book is mission impossible but he loved Little Pearl and tells me about it as if he’s talking about people he knows.”
6. Doing my first ever book launch to an audience for The Second Best Pony.
7. Meeting Greenholme Clyde, the pony cover star winner, and his family.
8. Being contacted by a reader who told me the books had given her confidence to try again with her own pony after a bad start.
9. Attending a school visit in my own village school where they presented me with a performance of a poem they’d written and memorised based on Little Pearl.
10. Having my books for sale at Olympia and Liverpool International Horse Shows through Equestrian Bookfair Ltd.

 
Thank you to anyone who's read the books, reviewed them, contacted me personally about them, entered the competitions, joined my mailing list, been a beta reader, and any other way you’ve been involved in this wonderful, exciting adventure with me.  I wish you all the best for 2020 and remember to keep your eyes open for the third book!