I climbed England's tallest mountain!

Hello!

Have you been wondering if we won our re-match with England's tallest mountain, Scafell Pike?

Well, I am very happy to report that we did!

Climbing it was (literally) the pinnacle of our week in the Lake District, and I was over the moon (not literally!) to reach the top in one piece.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for one of my walking boots, which decided it had had enough not long after we'd started our descent.

Luckily there are so many outdoor shops in Keswick that I was able to buy a very smart new leather pair, which hopefully will see me up many more mountains in the future.

During the trip, I also dragged Adrian and Thomas up another mountain, Blencathra, for some Very Important Book Research.

I knew I wanted to set part of the book I'm currently writing on Blencathra and it was brilliant to be able to experience it first hand.

I'm now 43k words into the first draft of the new one. I had hoped to have it finished by the end of October but I fear that was a little optimistic.

If you remember, I revealed last time that it's a sequel to The Invite. I'm picking up Tara's story four years after the chilling events at The Millhouse. She and her friends have been invited to a cottage in the Lake District (hence the research trip!), but little do they know their old enemy, the nefarious Jackson Lennox, is hot on their heels...

One of the reasons I'm a bit behind is because Adrian and I have been busy preparing for a workshop on self-publishing we gave at this year's Maidstone LitFest.

We took people through the whole self-publishing journey, from editing and formatting their books to advertising and marketing. We even had a step-by-step guide on uploading a book to Amazon.

The feedback was great and I hope we were able to help a few aspiring authors make their dreams a reality.

As shops have already started ramming it down our throats, I hope it's not too early to mention the C-word?

Yes... Christmas! 😱

I know some of you already know that I also write pony adventure books under my married name. Well, I recently started offering gift-wrapped signed copies of the first three books in the series on Etsy.

If you are looking for gift ideas for any horse-mad readers in your life, I'd love you to check them out. You can do that here.

Lots of you have been asking when the audiobook of The Holiday Swap is coming out and I am very excited to report that I now have the release date.

It will be out on Thursday November 19 and is available to pre-order now here.

If you prefer ebooks to audiobooks - and also enjoy a bargain - a heads up that the price of the Kindle edition of The Holiday Swap will be increasing from 99p/$1.99 to its usual price of £1.99 and $2.99 on Monday, 19 October.

You can buy it at the sale price here. Happy reading!

That's all from me for now after what's been a pretty action-packed few weeks. Email me at amanda@ajmcdine.com and let me know what you've been up to. I always love to hear!

Lots of love,

Amanda

A J McDine