Sarah-Kate Lynch

Ooooooh, isn't she beautiful! No? OK, no. Let me explain, my husband I have just spent a fantastic five weeks in the US but the further south we got the hotter it got and my clothes, I do declare, were all made out of black and making me very sweaty and grumpy. This dress is not my colour, or should I say colours, but it was the only thing that fit me in the only shop that was open in Bardstown, Kentucky, and it is quite possibly the most comfortable item of clothing I have ever owned. The shoes? Well, I bought them in San Francisco to go running in (hah!) but what with the heat and all my tootsies swelled up like punkins and I had to wear these enormous clodhoppers EVERYWHERE. Seriously, I have never had such a fuss made about a pair of shoes. Drivers stopped their cars in the middle of the road to compliment me on them, two Foot Locker dudes ran out in the street in Louisville to ask me where I got them, a woman in Charleston said her five year old daughter was in love with them. I mean who knew? I personally think this is the ugliest ensemble in christendom but then when we were in New Orleans, I found a house that matched! I am all about colour co-ordination, as a rule, so I did not want to move from this spot.

This is the Ginger and I trying to take a self-timed jumping photo in Central Park. As you can see, it wasn't entirely successful

Luckily, this is the home we come back to...I have much worse failed self timer pix taken here. Note to self: never be photographed in bikini running away from camera. Or in bikini. Or running.

This is the picture I am now using as my screen saver after my June research trip to Tuscany. Note to self: must ensure all books require research trip to Tuscany in future. This is taken from Montepulciano, one of the hilltop towns in the area, each one more stupidly gorgeous than the one before. The church is San Biagio which is sort of tucked in around the back of the town at the bottom of the hill. It's to die for! Actually, it's to die FROM if you walk back up the hill afterwards.

This is me wearing all my clothes at once in the main street of Montepulciano. Although it was June, it was wet and cold, but I was secretly glad not to have to break out the bikini. I think everyone else was secretly glad about this too.

This is, from L to R, Elvira, me and Ginny. We were in the same class at Il Sasso language school. Luckily, we didn't have to wear our pointy hats outside the school when we would repair daily to Cafe Poliziano for prosecco and lunch. There was a fourth musketeer, actually, called Reinhard but he is too photogenic and made us look a bit tatty so I'm not putting in any pictures of him. Also, he wasn't in the dunce's class and actually learned to speak some Italian whereas we mainly laughed and drank prosecco and had lunch. I loved it.

My best friend Ronnie and her husband Raoul joined me for the second week of my Tuscan research trip. Note to self: must make sure to invite Ronnie and Raoul on all Tuscan research trips. Ronnie is very good at shopping and Raoul cooks, cleans, drives and speaks Italian. My own husband, by the way, was at home working and earning the money to help me go shopping with Ronnie. This is the view from the house we rented in Montisi. Just look at it. Stupid.

And in other, older news...

This is my wonderful Queenstown book club. So, they taunt me for "tricking" my way in and repeatedly turning up even though I no longer live in Queenstown but I know where they all live so there's really nothing they can do to get rid of me. There's quite a good story behind the aprons but it involves a Christmas party, some bare bottoms and a lot of stunned mullet husbands so I'll save that for another time.

This is Nicky's award winning lime and coconut cake. It is seriously to die for. Of course, had I entered the same competition with my last year's award winning Chocolate, Banana and Raspberry Cake, she might not have come away with the big gong. Still, there's always next year...

On Top Of Everything

This is me at the November 9 launch of On Top Of Everything with Graham Beattie from beattiesbookblog and a delightful selection of sandwiches and cupcakes. We had the launch at a church hall which seemed particularly fitting although it wasn't even my brand of church. And we didn't find out until after we had knocked back all the pink bubbly that it's actually an alcohol-free zone. So even more not my brand of church.

This is me (in the very expensive-although-it-doesn't-look-it white shirt) and my sister Anna (notice the similarity?) attempting a reading from On Top. I had pre-planned it that we would argue about who read what and that my friend Hannah (the grown-up blonde) would interrupt and mediate as she works for a TV show called Fair Go which is about putting it right. However, it turned out that several people in the crowd thought we were really having a fight and so didn't find it funny. Ooops. The little blonde, by the way, is my god-daughter Georgie who valiantly held up a copy of the book during the entire proceedings. She's also very good at long jump.

Going Back In Time...

Who am I kidding? If you can see that you are too young to be reading my books! Here are the tour details: Sarah-Kate’s Not The Rolling Stones Tour AUCKLAND: Dymocks’ Lunch - 12 noon, Friday, 7 November. Phone Dymocks 09 520 8805 for ticket details. CHRISTCHURCH: 6pm, Monday, 10 November. Phone Whitcoulls, 03 977 3550 for ticket details. DUNEDIN: University Book Shop, Wednesday 12 November. Phone 03 477 6976 to confirm attendance. OAMARU: Oamaru Coffee Club, 9.45am, Thursday, 13 November. Phone 03 434 5545 for ticket details. ARROWTOWN: Dorothy Browns, 5pm, Thursday, 13 November. Phone 03 442 1964 for more details. WELLINGTON: Marsden Books, 5.30pm, Friday, 14 November. Phone 04 476 8066 for more details.

My new book is about to come out - only in New Zealand at this stage - and here is my NZ Woman's Weekly column with the details of places I am visiting to talk about it. Look forward to seeing you there! XSK

This photo has nothing to do with any of my books but is me on top of the Duomo in Florence, Italy, in July. I'm not casually leaning against that pillar, by the way, I am stuck to it with superglue. I have just walked up 463 steps and I do not like heights.

My last book has three different titles, depending on where it’s published. In New Zealand it is The House of Peine, in the UK it is House of Joy and in the US, where it recently hit the shelves, it is House of Daughters.

Oh, actually, I say it has three different titles but counting the foreign language editions, it has plenty more. I got the Dutch version in the mail the other day: it is called De Smaak Van Champagne. I don’t know what that means but I like it!

I'm particularly excited about this book as researching it involved drinking my own bodyweight several times over in champagne. It's the story of three estranged sisters who inherit a champagne house when their cranky father dies and the obstacles they must overcome to ensure its survival for the next generation. The book has been optioned by a Hollywood film company, Fox Searchlight, which adds a bubble of excitement or two.

It’s my third book to be optioned by a film company but I’ve learnt not to rush out and buy a tiara and a little something from Vera Wang to wear on the red carpet because being optioned is a long, long, long, long way away from being a film.

Still, not as far away as not being optioned at all.

I am currently putting the finishing touches to my next book, On Top Of Everything, but I won’t tell you too much about that because at this point in the proceedings a writer is apt to think: “What? I wrote this whole book about HER? But it should be about the guy who appears for one minute in page four and is never heard of again!”

I think this is called being deeply neurotic and in need of a stern talking to and perhaps a smacked bottom.

But I’m not sure.

Far more interesting than any of that, though, I have just got back from five weeks in Italy. We drove from the western end of Sicily to Milan in the north and loved every minute of it. Well, nearly every minute. The bits where the Italian road sign putter-uppers had been "inconclusive" in their endeavours were not as enjoyable as the bits where you drank wine and ate pasta.