Novel News from B.M. ALLSOPP

What have I been up to since www.bmallsopp.com went live in September?

Launch of Death on Paradise Island

On 23rd October an event happened which I often thought never would. Loyal family, friends, and even well-wishers I had never met before, packed out my home to launch Death on Paradise Island, the first of the Fiji Islands Mysteries. It was blowing a gale outside, so nobody wanted to sip champagne in the garden my husband had been renovating all week. The house was crowded, but what a buzz! The launch was even more exciting than the arrival of the paperback proof from the printers – yes, my first novel was published.

Extra special guests (pictured here) were relatives of my book’s dedicatee, the late Louise Esther Vakamocea, my colleague at The University of the South Pacific, true friend and mentor in all things Fijian. It meant so much that Louise’s cousins Susana and Ramona, and others of the clan wanted to be there for Louise’s sake.

Bookshop News

While early e-book sales have been promising, a delightful surprise is that some of Sydney’s favourite bookshops have decided to stock Death on Paradise Island. (For Sydney-siders, you can find it in Dymocks flagship store in George St, and in Gleebooks at both Dulwich Hill and Glebe.) Thanks to brilliant cover designer Maryna at MaryDes (pictured below in Antwerp) and layout expert Keith Stevenson at ebookedit, these shops judged that my book more than met the standards of big publishing houses.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

Motivated to get cracking on Fiji Islands Mysteries 2, I signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a motivating international group-write where the goal is 50,000 words during November. As I had no time to prepare, I wrote without plot or direction; quite a new method for me. Although I didn’t make 50,000 words, I stuck at it, writing 26 days out of the 30, and can’t believe I finished about a third of my first draft. I highly recommend NaNoWriMo to writers who haven’t tried a blitz approach before. I hope next November I’ll be blitzing the third Fiji Islands Mystery.

If you enjoyed reading Death on Paradise Island, I would be grateful if you considered posting a short review on Amazon or Goodreads. It would help me a lot.

all the best,

Bernadette (B.M.Allsopp)