Three weeks to publication - and a box of books arrives:

The Farm at the Edge of the World will be published in less three weeks - and as in the run-up to finals, or the birth of a baby, I've found myself immersed in a sudden frenzy of activity.  

I've attempted a mini book-tour, whisking to the very western tip of Cornwall and the fortuitously named Edge of the World bookshop, in Penzance, as well as Waterstone's Truro and St Ives bookseller to try to drum up support:

I've helped create a Pinterest page of photos that helped inspired the novel - see it here - and, having been picked as the Hodder, Quercus and Headline women's fiction website's choice of the month, have blogged on the books on my bedside table, here and my perfect weekend - in Cornwall, of course - here.

I've also written about the inspiration behind the novel for the Prime Writers website, here:

My great grandfather, Matthew Jelbert, who farmed just outside St Austell. Part of the inspiration for the book.

Childhood holidays in north Cornwall - and the emotional significance of a certain place - sparked the initial idea. Here my sister and I are walking on Tregirls Beach, aged 11 and 9, 1984.

And I've been interviewed for audible.com and written about the archetypal tricky second novel for fellow Hodder author Katie Marsh, here.

With a Hodder rooftop reading planned, I'm not holding a party until the paperback's released in January - not least because I'm determined to finish the first draft of my third novel by June 30, my publication day. It won't be a day of languid self-congratulation: one child has a piano exam and athletics tournament; another swimming; while my evening will be spent preparing for a school leavers' breakfast and attending a secondary school meeting.

But amid the busy-ness of everyday life, I'll make time to sit and stroke a finished copy, relieved that my archetypal tricky second novel has emerged as a beautifully-jacketed, tangible, thing. The book I once agonised over, and doubted I could ever wrest into a tightly-structured story, is being read, and - finger's crossed, so far - enjoyed. And that's reason enough for a celebration, however quiet a kind.