Publication Day

It's now officially out! In a bookstore near you (hopefully!) and available from Amazon, Waterstones, Book Depository, WH Smiths and others on line.
I'm planning a party with chances to win stuff in early February - I thought I'd combine it with my birthday! You can read the unedited first chapter on my website (see sidebar for link) and especially for you all here's a little snippet!

“It’s your mother.”
Three simple words that chilled me to the core as I accepted the phone from Joyce, the school receptionist. Point one, my mother never ever called me at work, and point two, she’d never say she was my mother. She was always Marla – even as a child I had never been allowed to call her Mum.
“Hello, this is Zee.” That was something else that was annoying – my name. My given name is Azure Dawn Millichip, but everyone calls me Zee. Who in their right mind would call their child Azure Dawn? Marla, that’s who – and no, I’m not sure she’s ever been in her right mind.
“Darling, your mobile was switched off.”
“I was teaching in class. I always check my mobile for messages at lunchtime.” Marla has always struggled with the concept of time. As a child I’d frequently been either too early or too late for everything until I was old enough to request my own watch. Then I’d taken over the task of getting us to wherever we were supposed to be at the right time.
“Oh, isn’t it lunchtime now? I hate bothering you, sweetie, I know you have a very important job, but I really need you to pop home this weekend. If you catch the traffic at the right time you could be here for supper.”
I ignored the implied criticism in her tone, since something was definitely very wrong. Marla never asked me to visit. She knew I would come down to stay anyway in a couple of week’s time during the school holidays. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sure Simon would run you here if you asked him. It might be good for both of you, a weekend at the seaside,” she chirped on, ignoring my question. Now I knew for certain that something was wrong. Marla disliked my fiancé, Simon, even more than she disapproved of my choice of career.
“Mum – I mean, Marla, what’s going on?” I dropped my voice when Joyce gave me a curious look. “It’s the last day of term and I’ve tons of things to get done. Can’t I come after that, once we’ve broken up for summer?”
“Zee?” A male voice came on the line. Rich and sexy with a low throaty growl to his tone.
The speaker sounded familiar. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Drew.”
A weird prickly feeling ran down my spine. “Drew?”

Oh, and I'm guest blogging at my lovely friend Phillipa Ashleys blog later today so you can find out some of the story behind the book over there - link in sidebar