Autumn diary

Jacquie's August Newsletter

This was me at the local Colwall Arts Festival last weekend, looking rightly thrilled to have The Carnelian Phoenix in my hands. The hard copies arrived just in the nick of time, fortunately. With my gorgeous assistants, husband Peter and son Rhodri, we sold 29 books. My readings were well received; indeed, one couple who listened agog to a fairly gore-splattered early chapter rushed back to my stall, even before I got there, to make sure of their copies. They bought both Carnelian and the first Quintus Valerius mystery, The Governor’s Man. Quite a lot of readers did the same, reckoning no doubt they should begin at the beginning.

The other local news is that residents of the Malverns and surrounds can now buy both books at the Malvern Book Cooperative. I’ll be working with Worcs Libraries to get the new book shelved there too, in September. And Great Malvern library has invited me to do a live author event soon.

It looks like being a busy autumn all round. I’ll be talking about and signing my books with the Marchers group of authors at Ross on Wye library, at 7.00 pm on 2 November. BBC Radio Somerset have asked me to come back to chat about Carnelian in their Local Literature week in September. I’ll let you know more about that nearer the time, and will post links to the audio here on SubStack, and on my Linktree.

An exciting new development for me is an invitation to get to know the book groups at several Churchill retirement lodges across the country. These will be online events, and I’m so looking forward to meeting their keen readers during the next few months. What could be better than spending a chilly autumn afternoon talking books and reading?

But before that, the Rider (aka husband Peter) and I are escaping on a delayed holiday in late September. If I go quiet, you’ll know we’re off on our Triumph Tiger motorbike exploring obscure roads and forgotten Roman towns in Spain and Portugal. And keeping our fingers crossed the weather is kind to us! If you’d like to follow our adventures, click over onto my travel blog and subscribe there. You can also follow my tweets at rogers_jacquie on Twitter.

Enough for now. Phew! I’ll leave you with the super cover for Carnelian Phoenix. And just a hint — I've begun thinking about and researching my third Quintus Valerius mystery. The working title is The Loyal Centurion, to be set in York (Eboracum) and Scotland (Caledonia). I’ll let you mull over which fabled missing legion might just re-emerge from the Scottish mists…