Welcome to my website! We're into British Summer Time in London, the flowers on the magnolia tree in the back garden are in full, glorious bloom, and I've finished my first draft of The Secret Shopper Unwrapped. I hope you have a spring in your step too!
Lots happening on Planet Kate. The best news is that The Secret Shopper's Revenge has been short-listed for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. Melissa was the very talented author of five novels combining love and laughter, including The Nanny and The Waitress. She died in 2006 of breast cancer, aged only thirty-seven, and one of her wishes was for an award to be set up for books which celebrate humour and love. I am so honoured to be on the list, especially as the other novels sound terrific. The winner of the award in 2007, its first year, was Marian Keyes and last year it was Lisa Jewell - both authors whose novels I love - so I am sure you can understand why I'm so excited to be nominated. You can read about the other books on the list and Melissa's life on the award website.
I've mentioned that I've joined forces with six other fabulous authors of contemporary fiction to champion the cause of modern love stories as The New Romantics and now we've confirmed the details of our launch event at 7pm in Richmond-upon-Thames on April 30 2009. The tickets are free but you do have to book in advance, and you can find all the details here - we'd love to see you! Because of the event, we've extended the closing date for our brilliant competition offering Free Love for a year - a different novel sent to you every two months into 2010. The new closing date is May 8, so do pop over to the site to enter, and to find out more about us.
If you're a keen writer, you might like to consider coming on a course I'm teaching, with fellow author Louise Voss, in May 2009. It's called Head over Heels: Writing Commerical Women's Fiction and we'll move from first ideas through to submitting to agents and publishers, and it's happening over four consecutive evenings in Kingston-on-Thames, so you can come after work. Read more here. We're going to work hard but play hard too!
The Secret Shopper's Revenge is still selling well, I'm so thrilled with how it's done and with the lovely emails I've had about Emily, Sandie and Grazia, the three mystery shoppers featured in the book. You can read the first chapter here. And I have just sent off the initial draft of The Secret Shopper Unwrapped to my publishers - it's due for publication in October this year and features the three girls, plus a mysterious new recruit. How will the girls fare in this credit-crunched world?
