Friends in foreign places

I love the clustrmap and the Neocounter on my blog. It's fascinating being able to find out where all my visitors come from and the way that the internet makes the other side of the world seem like just next door. A couple of weeks ago, I was excited when the number of countries I had visitors from moved to 30 and now the Neocounter shows 41 different flags.

And you're all so very welcome. Thank you for visiting the blog and I hope you found something to interest you here. I know from the numbers of foreign editions of my books that I receive that they are published and read all over the world and that's a very special feeling for me.

I was thinking about this specially yesterday, when two things happened .

The first was that I had an email from Judith in Israel. Judith was one of the winners of a signed book in my Back To School contest and she had received her prize a day ago. She told me that she and her family were observing week-long holiday of Succot (which means "shacks", i.e. the ramshackle shacks that the Israelites lived in when they wandered around the desert for 40 years ) and that as part of the holiday she had enjoyed reading my book. I'll admit that I'd never heard of Succot so it was fascinating to learn about this special holiday and the traditions behind it - Thank you so much for letting me know, Judith. And I was specially thrilled to think that my book had been a special part of the enjoyment of that holiday. It shows me how the enjoyment of romance is so widespread and brings together women from all nationalities, countries and backgrounds.

Another reason why those who mock romance should just back down and shut up.


I hope that Judith is my 1 visitor listed in Israel and if she's reading this, I'd like to say a special hello to her and her family - and to wish them a very special time together for Succot.


And that brings me to my second event yesterday. The post brought a package of books - an older title of mine Her Secret Bridegroom in a language that I'd never seen before. Looking at the publishing details of these editions, I find that they are published in Jakarta. And I have a visitor's flag on my Neocounter from Indonesia. For some reason, I've been sent extra copies of the Indonesian version of this book - so if you're the visitor from Indonesia and you get in touch with me through my website, giving me your address then I'll send you a copy of the book with pleasure.

Oh and all this talk about communication with readers from across the world reminds me. For some years now I've been running a mailing list and sending regular newsletters to readers who have written to me from my web site but now the numbers who've joined my mailing list have grown so much that it's become impossible to manage by myself as I have been doing. So I've set up a special Yahoo group to organise and send my Newsletters in future.

Members of the Newsletter group get regular updates on the newest books and when they're coming out. They also have their names entered in regular monthly prize draws to win signed books and when I run the Contests from my web site, then mailing list members get special notification - and an extra mailing list only prize added in. So if you'd like to join the list, you can subscribe here. I promise I won't flood your inbox with emails - only when I have news, a new book out, or a contest with extra chances to win prizes.