How Does a Manuscript Become a Book?
It’s cold outside in Sydney, but it’s been very busy here inside the Alexandra household. I have been occupied with completing the final edits for my new book The French Agent, which will be out September 2022, and writing the next one.
To keep myself moving, I’ve been learning two oriental dances, one style influenced by flamenco and the other by Egyptian belly dance. For some fresh air (or should I say some very brisk air) I’ve been attempting to spend some time pottering around the garden on the weekends, but my full writing schedule and the icy cold breezes we have been having the past month have seen me doing sprints of half-an-hour at a time. After that, I need to come inside for a warm cup of tea, and to apply moisturiser to my chapped skin!
I’m often asked when I finish a manuscript in September if it will be out by Christmas that same year. The inquirer will often be surprised when I tell them that it won’t be out until September the following year. In my blog for this season, I thought it might be fun to explain to my readers what goes on in those twelve months before a book is released. How a Book is Born. I hope you enjoy it!
Wishing you a wonderful winter - or summer, for my northern hemisphere readers - and one that brings you lots of delightful things!
Love Belinda XX
VERY EXCITING NEWS!
The French Agent is available for pre-order now in Australia and New Zealand from your favourite bookseller. (Details on overseas editions will follow).
Find your favourite bookshop 👇
A world in chaos. Two very different women. And the mystery of the man who may connect them.
Paris 1946: Sabine Brouillette is a war crimes investigator with the French secret service. She lost her family, including her young son, when her Resistance circuit was betrayed near the end of the war. New evidence comes to light that the traitor was a British double agent who went by the codename 'The Black Fox'. Now her quest for revenge has a single focus: find the Black Fox and kill him.
Sydney 1946: Landscape designer, Diana White, has been waiting six years for her husband, Casper, to return from the war in Europe. Her son, Freddy, was only a baby when his British-born father joined the RAF. But Casper is a changed man when he returns from the convalescent hospital in England where he has spent the past year under mysterious circumstances. No longer the easy-going personality Diana fell in love with, he is now darker and more secretive.
Soon Sabine and Diana find themselves on a collision course - one seeking vengeance, the other willing to go to any lengths to protect her family.
THE INVITATION AROUND THE WORLD
Argentinian Edition
Hungarian Edition
WINTER READING
HOW A BOOK IS BORN
Previously I’ve written about where I get my ideas from and how I plot my novels, but readers are often curious about what happens after I’ve spent those long months writing the novel.
Why does it take a further twelve months from the time I’ve finished my manuscript to the date of publication?