Twentieth Novel Bonanza
I’m in the throes of prepping for the release of Slippery Creatures, book 1 of my new 1920s pulp adventure/romance series, and I realised something startling.
This will be my twentieth novel. Twentieth. (26th book if you count novellas/novelettes, but then you have to think about short stories and look I’m trying to homeschool my son and he’s doing algebra, take the numbers away.)
The Magpie Lord published on 3rd September 2013, so not quite seven years ago, since when I’ve become a full time writer, and published about 3.5 books a year. I didn’t see this coming when Samhain accepted my ‘didn’t entirely mean to write this whatever-it-is paranormal historical Gothic Victorian m/m romance’.
(BTW if that sounds good, The Magpie Lord is free in e on all platforms as a pandemic bonus giveaway. Grab it at your preferred store or in epub/mobi for Kindle at Gumroad.)
I quit my publishing job in summer 2014 to try writing full time. This is generally not recommended, but in fairness I hated the job. At my leaving do, the uberboss asked me what I was going to do, and when I said be a full time writer, she laughed and said “Good luck with that.” Let us take a moment to note that the senior exec of a major publisher laughed at the idea of someone making a living off writing. This is a valuable lesson for an authorial career.
Notwithstanding, it seems to have worked out because it’s somehow 2020 (not so much ‘the year of our Lord’ as ‘the year of oh my God’) and my 20th novel. Gosh. Even more satisfyingly, my twentieth novel is…a Twenties novel. I swear I didn’t plan that.
(Slippery Creatures btw is the story of Will Darling, a Great War veteran turned bookseller, and Kim Secretan, a disgraced aristocrat, dubious character, and one-man game of Fuck Marry Kill. There are conspiracies, cocktails, flappers, plots, and all the fun of the Roaring Twenties. Out 13th May. Check it out.)
So! I’m going to do a Twentieth Novel Bonanza giveaway. In an ideal world that would be any of my books but I want it to be available on all platforms and all countries, so that means it’s my self-published books only. Which is 14 plus the aforesaid novellas/novelettes, so still not too shabby.
Rules
Twenty winners will be picked at random, and each winner can pick two books from my self pubs, in epub or mob format. (Important: Your email will be used only for this giveaway and I will not contact you unless you win. I will not sign you up to my newsletter or any such annoyance. However, if you actively want to sign up to my newsletter, feel free.)
legal bumph: The competition offers 20 winners each two free ebooks from my self-published books. No alternative prizes. Over 18s only. No purchase necessary. Just fill in your email to enter. One entry per person, duplicates will be discarded.
EDIT: competition is closed
If you want to check out the books available, here you go:
NB, if you are new to my work, a) hello and b) you may wish to check out the content warnings here for both general and specific warnings.
Happy entering and good luck!
IMPORTANT MESSAGE
All my blog posts, seven years worth, disappeared yesterday due to ?weasels? idk. I didn’t have a back-up because, although I had paid GoDaddy for a back-up package, they had not, in fact, backed anything up. Another useful lesson there. Alexis Hall, who is a tech genius as well as a quite amazing author, stepped in to save me and retrieve my work, preventing me from having a quite spectacular meltdown. Thank you. <3

If you too would like Alexis to make you feel better, I strongly suggest hitting preorder on Boyfriend Material, his forthcoming romcom, which is just gorgeous. It made me cry laughing, proper-cry, swoon, and stay up til 2am reading just one more chapter because it was too feelgood and engaging to stop. It might not fix your borked website, but it’s otherwise perfect.
Congratulations on this milestone, and thank you for these wonderful books. I was just up too late last night re-reading favorite parts of the Lilywhite Boys. I’m not entering because I am fortunate to have these already.
Congratulations on your 20th novel!!
Congratulations for your 20th book and for getting your website fixed.
I won’t be entering the competition either as I also have all your wonderful books.
I also have Alexis’ book preordered as I love his books.
It made me feel all warm and fuzzy to see my two favourite authors supporting each other!!
Congratulations!! You should be very proud!! Your stories are wonderful!
Thank you for hours of fun.
The new site looks great! A new Home for the books to thrive! Can’t wait to see what directions you choose in the future, though at present you seem to have a lot on your plate! Thank you for everything!
CONGRATULATIONS!! Though I actually prefer to shout the Welsh version – llongyfarchiadau – because it sounds funnier.
I have all your books and am so grateful that Slippery creatures is out on the 13th and not the 12th because I have NO PLANS to do anything that day other than read and the 12th is my other half’s birthday. He’d pout if he had to do his own supper.
Oh, I am *SO* glad the website issues were solved–boo, GoDaddy, BOO, I say!
Congratulations on your Twenties Twentieth novel published on…2020. (Oh, my god, indeed)
Big congratulations on your 20th book!! Your stories are all on my favorites list, and I thank you for all that you give us with your wonderful writing!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looking forward to making the acquaintance of Will and Kim next week – PRE-ORDERED? Mais bien sur!
Just made redundant from my event producer position last week so this is an even-more-welcome distraction to the new unscheduled days ahead.
And Boyfriend Material? Pre-ordered as well to thank Alexis for his techno-magery on your behalf and that of We, Your Willing Syncophants!
Congratulations on publishing your 20th book. Kudos to you!
Congratulations 🎊 and thank you for providing us with many hours of entertainment!
Congratulations! Delighted your blog content was saved. I have pre-ordered the new Alexis Hall as a thank-you. And I would have played the 2020 20s Novel giveaway except I already own everything you’ve published and have already pre-ordered ‘Slippery.’ I have a date with you on the 13th. 🙂
Congratulations!
And Egads! regarding the disappearing material. Thank goodness you were able to retrieve all? some? of it. I had assumed from “Looking for Group” that Alexis Hall was one of those people who Knows About Computers.