Hallelujah, I’ve finished the first draft of my latest book.

The book, renamed in Australia Lighthouse Bay (not sure what other territories will go with), is just under 120 000 words long. And every single one of the words stung to get out.

What happens now? Well, I go away and finish off some bits of research on the Sunshine Coast to plug a few holes, fix up some bits and pieces, and get it off to my publishers in February. They will send me a big editorial report, so there will be more rewrites; then they’ll edit it line-by-line (this never takes long with me); then I’ll proofread it, and finally in September it will be published.

In really exciting news, one of the places it will be published is the UK. I recently secured a two-book deal in the UK, for this one and Wildflower Hill. So this book that has tortured me for a year will now go on to be read all over the world. Hopefully it won’t torture anyone else :).