we’re all wooden horses

I’ve been waiting until I had time to write this post. Then I realised I’m probably not going to “have time” for the next decade or two, so I’m snatching twenty minutes of Robin’s sleep to say, Hi!

Robin is my daughter – the little, glorious, tiring, hilarious reason you haven’t heard from me in such a long time. The last time we spoke I was tying things up, getting ready for her arrival. There was, as it turned out, no getting ready for her arrival.

I suppose all new mothers react differently. I reacted first with a kind of sated smugness and soon after with absolute terror. In those first incomprehensible weeks I just wanted her to be big and robust – and now she’s almost six months old. If I could have seen her now, then… Gah, time becomes a bit weird with a baby. I’m a little obsessed with the timeline of a life and how different it is now that I’ve seen one begin – and now that the end of mine will mean grief for Robin.

Here’s the difference six months makes!

   

It’s quite amazing how quickly things change. It’s less than half a year since I felt like my life as I knew it was gone – and now I’m writing again, and the new book is taking shape. I’m totally enthralled. The hero, Merry, just had this thought about the heroine: Merry smiled grimly at the idea of Mrs Blunt and poetry. The poetry that could describe her had not been invented yet. She was romance’s antidote.

Oh how I love to bring two people together who appall each other!

While I’ve been away on planet baby, Untamed has been quietly making me proud. It’s been nominated for the Australian Romance Readers Association’s favourite historical romance of 2013 – what an immense honour! It was on iTunes Australia’s best of 2013 list, as well as the lists of many bloggers who I admire. It was also a surprise hit with the Melbourne Men’s Book Club. Success!

I’ve been invited to read an excerpt at the Wheeler Centre on March 31st, so if you live Melbourne-side please come along! It should be good fun. Booze and Darlington – a heady mix.

It took me a while to be able to read again after Robin’s birth, but once I got started you couldn’t stop me. Standout reads include my first ever Judith Ivory, Black Silk (I loved it right up until the hero likened the heroine’s bush to a kid goat’s bony butt, but more on that later) and Courtney Milan’s The Countess Conspiracy. I long to go to the movies, but haven’t managed it yet.

I’m sure if I “had time” this post wouldn’t be quite so blah blah all over the place. (I don’t know why I’m using quotation marks in this weird way.) Welcome to my brain!

In order to write the next book (yay!) and be a mum (yay!) I’m going to be online less often, but I am, tentatively, BACK. I’ll be writing wee posts and hopefully having some of those fun twitter chats.

Before I go I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who reached out to me about Untamed in the past six months. Every message/comment/email has meant a great deal to me. Thank you, thank you!