March 15th, 2022

Hello friend,

When I started writing this post I had no idea how to begin, so I'm writing this part at the end (which is weird, so it suits me). To be honest, I still don't know what to write, so let's just begin.

Current reads:

The Italian Matchmaker by Santa Montefiore

Yep, I'm still reading it. I mostly listen to the audiobook while I'm gardening, so it'll probably take some time for me to finish it. But it's nice and I still like it!

I finished Before We Disappear today and it was good, but I haven't written a review yet, so probably next week (or whenever I write my next post. Which could be a month from now. Or a week. Or a day (probably not a day)).

Books I recommend:

Letters to Half Moon Street by Sarah Wallace When shy and bookish Gavin Hartford is sent to London, he is prepared to be very bored and very lonely. But after he accidentally forms an acquaintance with dashing man-about-town Charles Kentworthy, his life is turned completely upside-down. Mr. Kentworthy seems determined to educate Gavin on how to enjoy city life. As Gavin opens up to Mr. Kentworthy—discussing poetry and magic, confessing his fears about marriage, and expanding his social circle to shocking proportions—he finds himself far outside his comfort zone. Will he have the courage to face his own growing feelings for his new friend?

REVIEW First of all, I want to thank Sarah Wallace and Pride Book Tours for this lovely ebook (and audiobook)!

What a wonderful book! When I started reading, I was a little confused (but definitely not in a bad way!!) because I didn't know beforehand this was not just any old historical romance, but one with a lovely hint of fantasy.

The story is set in London (1815-1816), but there is magic, the social rules are a bit different from what we are used to and being queer is completely normal (as it should be!).

The entire story is written in the form of letters and it's beautifully done. Sarah Wallace found a way to provide the reader with all the necessary information to understand the story without it being weird that someone would write it in a letter.

The characters are also very nicely written. They all have their own voice and unique traits, which makes it easy to distinguish them from each other, even though there are quite a few of them.

In conclusion: a lovely read, which I highly recommend!

WIPs:

Ailene: We're at chapter 10/40 now! And yes, I say we, because a good friend of mine is helping me. I should probably underline it and write it in caps, because SOMEONE has been complaining I didn't give him any credit. I guess promising I would write him into my next story and give him the role of court jester wasn't enough. Nope. So here we go: JARELL PAULISSEN IS HELPING ME WITH AILENE. Happy now?!

No, but seriously, it's really nice to look at the chapters together. It helps a lot if you can discuss weird sentences with someone else and come up with something better. When we're done, I will also have a professional editor look at it, but I think we're a pretty great pre-editing-duo (I know pre-editing is not the correct word as it means something different, but you get my point).

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That was my cat. He says hi.

Purpose (Ailene 0.5): I'm a little over 51k words now, and I think it's going to be around 60-65k in total? So I'm pretty far already! Ailene helped me so much when I was feeling crappy, but I started writing Purpose at a time I was feeling pretty good. I think that's why working on Ailene is always so soothing while Purpose brings me a huge amount of joy. And I'm so in love with Jiam (aka Jax + Liam). I recently read somewhere that if you are obsessed with what you're writing about, everything else will follow. I don't think anyone has ever been more obsessed with anything, so I think I'm good!

(My cat thinks it's very helpful to rest his head (which for some reason suddenly weighs 10 kilos) on my hand while I'm typing. It's really not.)

Digital Art

Remember I was trying to draw Alexander? I finally did it! I think I captured him pretty well. Alex is the perfect kind of weird that makes everyone love him. He's funny and—well, I don't want to spoil too much. It's so difficult to tell you stuff about my books without spoiling anything. How do other writers do that?!

Anyway, here he is:

Every time I look at the painting on his office wall I have to laugh. I loved drawing that one almost as much as I loved drawing Alexander. Also, check out his pingó pen holder. It's hilarious. FYI, a pingó is obviously a penguin, but animals have different names in my books' world. They are also conscious beings (like humans), so it's always a lot of fun to write an animal into the story. Ailene has Suri (the meerkat I showed you in my previous post) and there's a very grumpy whiskra (cat) in Purpose. I'm sure it's going to be great fun to draw him sometime.

Okay, I'm going to shut up now before I really start spoiling things. But before I do that, I want to thank you for reading my blog, because even though it's fun to write, it makes it so much better when people actually read it. So, THANK YOU.

Be kind & do good.

Love, Annabel

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