Two weeks from now, in Cornwall and Hampshire, I’ll be joining two amazing writers for a mini-tour of bookshop events.

Which, for me, is a wonderful thing, because in the thirty-two years that my books have been published in the UK (and even when I was living there), I’ve never yet done a public event or a book signing there.

Until now.

And I owe it all to the hard work and support of my friends.

When I started writing, I didn’t know anyone else in the business. That changed gradually, as I grew brave enough to start attending conferences. Fifteen years after my first book was published, I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association, where I met and bonded with Brigid Coady, Julie Cohen, Christina Courtenay, Liz Fenwick, and Anna Louise Lucia.

The year after that, at the RNA’s annual confererence at Greenwich, whilst under the influence of copious amounts of wine, the six of us decided to begin a group blog, called The Heroine Addicts. It ran for five very fun years, and chronicled, among other things, Liz’s journey to publication.

Our blog may have ended, but our friendship has endured, and I treasure the times when we meet up in person.

Liz has since been crowned by The Guardian as “The queen of the contemporary Cornish novel”, and when she learned that my own Cornish novel, The Rose Garden, is being reissued this month in the UK by Simon & Schuster, she sprang into action.

With her usual generosity, she turned what could have been a series of events focused on her own latest book, Flora’s Day, into a series of shared events which expanded to make space not only for me and The Rose Garden, but for our friend Linda Wilgus, whose debut novel The Sea Child is already earning rave reviews.

So, yes, for the first time in over thirty years, I will be taking part in an actual bookshop event in the UK. In fact, I’ll be doing three of them:

Falmouth Bookseller – Wednesday 22nd April 2026, 6:30 pm

Waterstones Truro – Thursday 23rd April 2026, 7:00 pm

Tea Leaves & Reads, Weyhill – Sunday 26th April 2026, 6:00 pm

In some ways, writing is a solitary occupation, and there are some parts of it you have to do alone.

But what sustains you, in the end, and makes it bearable, are friends. I am so lucky to have mine.

If you’re a new writer, shy and nervous like I was, I hope you’ll find the courage to get out there – go to conferences and meet people. Make friends, and then hold on to them. I hope you’ll learn, as I did, that while contracts come and go, and any book can be remaindered, there are some people who stay and make our worlds feel more secure by standing with us.

And I hope that, when you’re sixty, you will know the total gratitude and joy of having your friends rally round you to support a new reissue of your novel.

Come and join us in Cornwall and Hampshire, if you have the time. Or, if you can’t make it, remember the bookshops that are hosting us can always arrange to have copies signed for you while we’re there – you only have to ask them.