Author Attempts to Keep Website Updated

Extreme Update

June 29, 2010

Tags: They just keep coming now...

Look, here I am again! And I found out about the posts too. Oh yes I'm all technological now, I am. Why I EXPECT BOB GATES WILL oops be sending me a letter any day now asking me to join his team of top, um, technological, ah, people in white coats with pocket protectors.

Anyway, on the subject of the book I have just finished, it is to be called Dolci di Love. What do you think?

Naming books is a funny old business. House of Daughters was originally The House of Peine in New Zealand but my UK publishers thought that sounded like a horror story. My argument was that they could look at the cover and read the blurb and pretty quickly find out that it wasn't but my argument didn't count for much so they changed it to House of Joie which was at least French but then at the last minute they thought no one would understand Joie so changed it to Joy.

Personally, I thought House of Joy sounded like the name Tony Soprano would have chosen if Ba-Da-Bing was already taken but there you have it.

My US publishers thought House of Joy as deeply uninspiring as I did and so we came up with House of Daughters, which I actually loved and wish I had thought of in the first place.

With my new book, my original idea was to call it Dolci for the Down at Heart although that was a bit of a mouthful so my agent Stephanie came up with Dolci di Love.

Gosh, I'm plum tuckered out after all this update. I had better go and get some rest in case Bill Bates's letter arrives and I have to iron my white coat and polish my pocket protector.

Selected Works

Fiction
Dolci di Love
When childless Lily Turner finds out her perfect husband has a secret family in Tuscany she goes there to find him and chop him into a thousand tiny pieces – but an underground league of Italian widows hell-bent on mending broken hearts has other plans.
On Top Of Everything
Florence Dowling believes rotten things happen in threes so when she loses her job and her husband in the space of a single day, she knows there's worse to come. *US readers see BOOKS page to find out about getting a copy of this book.
House of Daughters
US version of The House of Peine. Mathilde, Clementine and Sophie have nothing in common except the champagne that runs in their blood. But is that enough?
The House of Peine
Three estranged sisters battle it out among the vineyards of France when they inherit a failing Champagne House.
Eating With The Angels
Life turns sour for a high-falutin' restaurant critic when her romantic Venetian honeymoon turns into a nightmare.
By Bread Alone
“Witty, charming, faithfully passionate to its subject and emotionally adept. If only this book was a man.”
-Sunday Star Times
Blessed Are the Cheesemakers
“In the spirit of Chocolat...a tender love story told through the medium of cheese.”
-Publishers Weekly
Finding Tom Connor
“A cross between Bridget Jones’s Diary and Waking Ned Devine, this is a romantic and rollicking good read.”
-Next Magazine
Short Stories
Bosom Buddies
A collection of entertaining, powerful & thought-provoking short stories by some of the finest contemporary writers in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Non-Fiction
The Modern Girl’s Guide to Life
A smorgasbord of columns from the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly’s favourite columnist.