UK trip

CrimeFest was fun and both my panels went well. One was the very first, on Thursday afternoon, so we were very happy that it was well-attended. Lovely always to meet old friends and make new.

Got some good research done for the next Cornish Mystery, in Truro and Falmouth in a horrid mizzling rain that crept in everywhere. I was planning to take the boat back from Falmouth to Truro, but was deterred therefrom by a/the rain; b/the wind that was kicking up wavelets on the estuary (I've been seasick in everything from a rowboat on the Black Sea to a liner on the Atlantic); and c/tired feet coupled with a 3/4 hour wait. And the bus was just about to leave...

Two wonderfully sunny (though with a chilly wind) days with my sister, on Bodmin Moor, Bodmin, and the north coast cliffs. Then off to Worcestershire, Daisy's ancestral home, for lots of useful research for the next (but one) Daisy book.

Yesterday I had the thrill of a writer's lifetime--a signing  at Hatchard's, the 200+ year old bookshop in London (now owned, I gather, by a Russian magnate!). It was a bank holiday so the streets were thronged with foreign tourists rather than Londoners. But one faithful reader turned up and the store had around 200 copies of lots of different Daisy titles waiting to be signed. 3 were listed on the single pb-fiction page of their
twice-yearly catalog. And they told me Daisy's one of their regular bestsellers (in crime fiction, I presume, but didn't ask).
For years I was told that the series wasn't dark enough to appeal to UK readers, but now that Daisy's arrived on home shores, she seems to be doing pretty well, thank you!

I'll post pics when I get home next week.