When we went on simultaneous submission in the USA and the UK, we got a super fast UK pre-empt from HarperVoyager, to my utmost delight. Perhaps because I am British, the excitement levels were through the roof as we accepted the first in our series of foreign rights book-deals. The fact that it was a pre-empt and came in before my US deal made it all the more poignant. I was going to be published in Wales! Ireland! Scotland! and best of all, in London, city of my heart. I was going to be a published author!

I am so excited to be published in the UK, because I consider myself more British than anything else. I am a born Londoner and have lived in that glorious city for half my life. I believe I associate myself most with the mentality of London and my passion for history and culture has only been cultivated from wandering its cobbled streets (I lived in Wapping, the streets are literally cobbled.) I grew up watching BBC productions and reading gigantic tomes of old english classics before I was 10; Dickens, Bronte, Hardy, Shakespeare, Trollope. I have lost entire days sitting in London’s libraries, from Tooting’s (where my grandmother lives) modest locale  to the reverent British Library. I’ve spent hours traipsing through Waterstones and Foyles like they are chocolate shops, picking up books because of their covers, losing myself in its genre sections, imagining my books sitting on its shelves…or gaspTHEDREAMgasp in its window display. London is my Ank-Morpork and I am its Sam Vimes.

To double said excitement, the UK deal was for commonwealth territories. The other half of my life has been spent in Mauritius (commonwealth) and we annually visit South Africa (my Father, and Husband, are from Johannesburg, South Africa), so this deal was significant to me on so many levels. The deal even covers my ancestral roots, since my family hails originally from India and Scotland.

I AM SO RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED! Especially to be published in Scotland, land of my ancestors, Wales, land of my husband’s family, the People’s Republic of Cork, and Ireland (or Not Cork as it is known).

Since it happened I have walked into bookshops in Mauritius and RSA and checked to see where the Young Adult books sit, and where mine might be in 2018. I get all flustered and can barely breathe at the thought of potentially offering the lovely booksellers of Exclusive Books to sign copies of their stock when I’m there on my annual holiday. Its a an absolute DREAM come true…

So God save the Queen! God Save HarperVoyager UK, I leave you with this very nice song…