So Much to Share

How can we only be five weeks away from Christmas? This year has positively flown by as have the weeks since my last blog and there is a lot to pack into this one, so I’d better crack on!

Firstly, in case you missed the announcement, I’ve re-signed contracts with my publisher, Bookouture for two more emotional women’s fiction novels. I had agreed terms back in August, but I was sworn to secrecy until the official announcement was made in early October. 

The first of the two books is scheduled for publication in April 2025 with the second one due out around this time next year. There has been a lot of feverish writing going on to make the November deadline for the first draft and I’m relieved to say that my editor Ruth loves the story and the cast of characters. It’s always an anxious time waiting for a response from your editor after hitting the send button.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite as far on with my writing as I wanted to be by the time we boarded the plane to Mauritius for our recent holiday. It was part of the reason for booking the holiday, along with a very reasonable late booking price and a desire to top up on the vitamin D to carry me through winter. It is the fifth time we have visited Mauritius, and it has a special place in my heart as not only were we married there in 2019, but it was also the inspiration for my initial attempt at novel writing when we first visited in 2013.

To digress for a moment, I’m very excited to tell you that two of the Liberty Sands trilogy of books are already published as audiobooks, with the concluding part available to pre-order and out on November 28^th. 

It was a little strange driving into my day job at QVC listening to Life’s a Beach and Then, a book that I wrote almost ten years ago being brought to life by my amazing narrator, Melanie Crawley. Interestingly, considering when it was written, part of the storyline touches on assisted dying as one of the characters is terminally ill and of course that topic is now the subject of a bill being debated in parliament. The character in question, Rosemary is putting all her affairs in order ahead of her planned trip to a clinic in Switzerland which includes letters which she is leaving for the people she loves. Melanie’s interpretation of the letter from Rosemary to her husband, Robert had me in tears. I’ve messaged Melanie to say I’m delighted with her delivery and if you are into listening to books, I hope you will be too. 

I’ve now started on book two, If He Really Loved Me and am eagerly awaiting one of my favourite scenes in the book, an argument between the main protagonist, Hollie and her son on the beach in Barbados.

As mentioned, the third book in the trilogy, It’s Never Too Late to Say is on pre-order and out on November 28^th. I’ve used the free downloads I get monthly with my Audible subscription to pay for the books – I think they are doing a special deal at the moment if you sign up and it works out a lot cheaper than the list price. Hopefully, the distributors will come up with some lower priced deals and I’ll pass that information onto you in my newsletter.

So, Life’s a Beach and Then starts in Mauritius, and the trilogy ends there too. Funnily enough, a few people asked me if the Plantation House Hotel where Hollie is staying was based on The Residence where we have just holidayed. It wasn’t but having now stayed there I can understand the question as the architecture is similar in the reception area to the Sugar Beach which it was actually based on. 

One of the downsides of Mauritius is the twelve-hour flight from the UK. It was overnight, so I was hoping for a little sleep, but it eluded me for the most part. At least I watched two movies, The Intern starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, and Going in Style, starring Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, neither of which I would have gone to the cinema to watch, but both were highly enjoyable. 

We arrived in the resort at around 8.30am and our rooms would not be ready until 2pm but you can’t exactly complain looking out on a view like this from under the shade of a parasol.

And how is this for lunch with a view? Funnily enough, this restaurant was called The Plantation, so we felt particularly at home eating our lunches and dinners there, although pizza on the beach was good too! We also ate in the main buffet-style restaurant and on the first evening, while I was filling my plate with salad, a voice said, ‘It is Julia, isn’t it? From QVC?’ It turns out that Lita is an avid QVC fan, particularly of my regular show, Fashion on Friday. Maybe it was the dress I was wearing that she recognised as I was certainly looking very different from my onscreen persona with just a flick of mascara and a slick of lip gloss!

We didn’t have wall to wall sunshine, which suited me as I’d set myself a writing target of two thousand words a day. Most mornings were sunny, albeit a little breezy but the afternoons were usually cloudy, and on one occasion the heavens opened as I sat at my writing table on the balcony of our room. I got three thousand words that day!

I was also writing at the airport until we boarded, giving me a total of twenty-two thousand words while I was away. It’s surprising how much can be achieved in ten days when there is nothing else to focus on apart from relaxing and writing.

While we were in Mauritius, it was the second anniversary of the publication of The Dilemma which also has a few (very important) scenes set in Mauritius. This photo was taken shortly before I did an Instagram live from the beach and you can see how moody the sky was looking. Isn’t it incredible to think that with today’s technology I could talk and interact with people back home in vision from a beach thousands of miles away.

Despite the changeable weather, I still managed a deep tan as you can see in this photo taken on our last evening.

I left signed copies of The Liberty Sands trilogy in library at The Residence and also gave a copy of The Dilemma to Sabrina pictured with me above as she was so helpful in organising a room for me to write in and for us to shower on departure day as we had an evening flight.

We arrived back on the Tuesday, and I was in at QVC on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, minus any jetlag but still with the chest infection/ cough that had been plaguing me since three days before we went away. Annoyingly, I still have it. It seems to go and then come back with a vengeance. I’m not a fan of antibiotics so I’ve been relying on cough medicine, paracetamol, hot lemon drinks and Vicks vapour rub on my chest at night. I don’t feel so ‘ill’ with it now but looking forward to a time when I can breathe without a rattle in my chest.

I had to go in on the Friday as I’d arranged for my son, his partner and her two children, Harry and Georgie, to be shown around the QVC building and studios by one of my longstanding work colleagues, Tina. My son, Dan has been around television studios all his life, but it was a new experience for his family and, by all accounts they really enjoyed it.

The next evening, Chris and I went to see Dear Evan Hansen at the theatre in Woking. The tickets were a Christmas present last year and at the time November 2024 seemed a long way in the future. I’ve been going on about this show since I first heard some of the music and have seen the film, but that isn’t a patch on the stage show in my humble opinion. The actor playing the title character was outstandingly good, but an excellent supporting cast too. Suffice to say, I blubbed from about twenty minutes in – I wasn’t the only one, particularly the mums in the audience. I’m not sure if the tour is still doing the regions but if it is, I can highly recommend.

So, you’re almost upto date with my busy couple of months since I last blogged, apart from a charity tea event I attended last week organised by my long-time friend and QVC colleague, Debbie Flint to raise much needed funds for Medical Detection Dogs. It was in Milton Keynes which is a bit of a trek from Berkshire, so my daughter, Sophie not only agreed to come with me but also offered to drive.

It was eye-opening to hear what the trained dogs can detect with their super sensitive noses – who knew they have three million smell receptors? No, me neither! There were lots of QVC presenters and guest presenters past and present in attendance, so it was a really nice social catch-up too. We raised £1800 which is pretty good for a comparatively small event, but that is a mere drop in the ocean of what is needed to keep training dogs to detect diseases like certain types of cancer, Parkinson’s, Covid 19 and bacterial infections and also to work as assistance dogs. 

To encourage you to check out their website and read more about the amazing work they do and to be in with a chance of winning this cute MDD puppy and a signed copy of My Daughter’s Lies which features a dog called Baxter, the question is quite simple:

Who is the royal patron of Medical Detection Dogs?

Please leave your answer in a comment below before midnight on November 30^th and the winner will be notified via email on December 1^st.

We’re off to the theatre again on Saturday – The Book of Mormon this time… I’m keeping an open mind!

Speak soon

Julia