It has been a week filled with magic and excitement!

It started with the first sale from this website… to a gorgeous lady with the most romantic name (Mrs Hart!!!)… who I didn’t know … who lives in LONDON! Made me smile and grin and bounce around. White Knights was autographed, swathed in hot pink and red, and zapped across the equator for her London debut! And we know she’s in fabulous hands as Candice sent glorious pictures…

And the magic continued…

7 orders were placed from the USA (New York, Connecticut, Michigan and LA!) and one from Central America (Panama!). The South African sales keep climbing: 73 books sold in 5 weeks! Which excludes the 50 books given to our wedding guests! And no marketing… wow!

And… 3 Jozi book clubs have requested that I join them for a glass of wine and chatter about writing, publishing, shoes, shopping and White Knights! A complete privilege and I simply can’t wait! So if any other book club feels like they’d like to share a glass of wine with this writer and chat about everything from the writing to the publishing process, I’d be delighted! Grin.

And…I am doing a coffee morning for Exclusive Books in Hyde Park on 25 February! Wow! Exclusive was wonderful, fabulous and completely supportive… they also suggested that White Knights be submitted for Homebru, which is an annual promotion of selected local titles. So please hold thumbs that White Knights is selected… because April will then be the best month ever, filled with events and signings and loads of fun stuff!

And… in the quest to find White Knights an international publisher so that she can proudly parade besides the heavy weights on the global stage, there have been a flurry of suggestions, two introductions have been made and with fingers crossed and bated breath, we wait to see if any convert into something tangible. (PS: still looking for people who know people… so if you know anyone in the international publishing arena, please could you email me!!!!)

But more than anything, the support, chatter, good wishes and feedback from so many far-flung people has made this week completely magical. Friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of… etc, have been sending comments, feedback, congratulations and praise for White Knights. Three lovely ladies reported that they couldn’t lay their hand on White Knights because their men had hijacked the book first! (I adore modern men!) Two of them were ex-investment bankers, and their feedback was that it was spot on in terms of banking and was more than girl’s beach read! Which I thought was phenomenal feedback. And the chicks are saying they can’t put White Knights down, are dodging dog walking and dishes, and staying up late to read “just one more chapter”! Which has me grinning and utterly delighted that readers are enjoying Emma’s story so much.

And then…just to keep me real…life threw a pothole at me (seriously, out of nowhere!) and a hole the size of my fist in my tyre. Which meant that I spent Friday afternoon with Aziz the friendly AA guy, dropped a couple of thousand rand on 2 new tyres and missed a fabulous bash! Back to earth with a bump, grin.

Happy yoga car

sad blow-out car!

Did you miss the show? Click here to listen to the audio.

And so on Sunday, wonderful Andrew rushed me out of the house and got me to SABC Radio Park on time. In fact, before time. Which made me giggle as clearly he’s identified that when it’s something super important (like getting married), I might arrive a “little” late. He was having none of it… especially for White Knights national radio debut with Karabo Kgoleng on SAfm Literature!

We were zapped inside by the gorgeous Tsholo Pelo who was totally lovely and seeing my butterflies, invited Andrew to sit inside the studio! Totally divine and very special!

Karabo is wonderful, bouncy and uber intelligent… and she had me on twinkle toes with her intelligent, spunky questions! She loved the book (yah!), was totally professional and completely got the book. Her questions tackled some of the deeper themes in the book, from women in the workplace, to the contrasting of investment banking and the medical profession, to the various foils and contrasting characters. She also tackled the larger themes of the book, such as homelessness, being an outsider and eastern mysticism in the western world… which is wonderfu, because the book was read intelligently, appreciated and I completely loved the chat! wow!

And afterwards, while I was still laughing with excitement, we drove home on a gorgeous highveld summer day and cracked a bottle of Life from Stone sauvignon blanc and enjoyed it in our gorgeous home, the threshhold of which my dishy husband had carried me over the the day before! grin.