So, as most of you will know, last month I did a ‘soft launch’ of both Angel Falls, the latest novel in the Dark Dates/Cassandra Bick series, and an accompanying collection of short stories, A Vampire in New York and Other Stories. The reasons I chose this, rather than doing a tightly choreographed launch campaign, were manifest: one, I live so much of my working life to rigid deadlines (the publishing sector I do much of my work in is dominated by set dates throughout the year), so it’s nice to occasionally be able to say ‘sod it, I’ll do it when I like’ – one of the benefits, after all, of indie publishing, is its flexibility and speed.

Two, the books were finished sooner than expected, and I felt I’d kept people waiting long enough for the novel!

Three, while I am happy to have three or four different projects on the go at any one time (and, indeed, I have a couple of potential books in progress), I was also finding it hard to focus on the next book in the series while I had these two still hanging over me – and, if I’m honest, I was nervous about Angel Falls and whether people would like it. Is it even worth writing another one, I thought, if people hate this one? So I was keen to get some objective feedback.

The disadvantage of this, is the lack of the aforementioned publication day push, and the fact that I send review copies out when the book is published – rather than beforehand – means the reviews can be slow in coming in.

The good news is, I have managed to reconnect with some bloggers (and connect with some new ones!) and, so far, the response has been great – not only in terms of reviews, but also in bloggers being friendly and helpful (impressive, since, let’s not forget, most of them do this for free, on top of their jobs, and yet I have found most I have dealt with genuinely supportive).

Laurie at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews hosted a short excerpt on her blog, while Kat at the Book Tart also hosted an excerpt and giveaway.

5* reviews!

Karina at Nocturnal Book Reviews gave it a great review – calling it the strongest in the series so far – as did Megan at Published Moments, who gave it 5* on her Goodreads account. [Edit: This is now live on Megan’s blog!]

I also got some lovely feedback from Heather at Redheaded Bookworm, who also hosted and interview, and gave it a corking 5* review –

“Paranormal at its finest. Action packed from start to finish… If you haven’t read this series, do yourself a big favor and start it right away! You will NOT be sorry! Action, snark, and sexiness what more could you want?”

So – a HUGE thank you to all the bloggers who have taken the time to engage with me (if you are a blogger and want review copies, just shout!) And I have some more exciting things in the pipeline, so watch this space…