Dear ‘Book Two’,
Hello. Remember me? Yes, I wrote you, all those years ago. It all started with some scribbled notes in a Paperblanks notebook sometime in 2010. Or maybe it was earlier than that. Much earlier. You seem to have been with me for a very long time, in one form or another.
We’ve been through a lot since those early days (and I’m sorry about ditching those 50,000 words somewhere along the way. They just weren’t right, you see. I knew you could be better), but somehow, from those sketchy early drafts, and that muddle of Post It notes on the kitchen countertop, I finally found the story I wanted to tell: a story of two little flower sellers and the young woman who, by discovering a lost diary, uncovers the truth about their past, and her own.
You’ve come a long way in the last few years. You struggled on through the knock backs and put downs and rejections. You stubbornly carried on when people told you that you weren’t quite good enough. I believed in you all along (although it might not have seemed that way when I was slumped in a snivelling heap at the kitchen table/desk), but finally, someone else believed in you too. And what a pleasure it has been to revisit you, to step back with perspective and refine and polish and prepare you for the big wide world. You’ve even had a couple of different names along the way, but I’m so glad we settled on A MEMORY OF VIOLETS. It’s so beautiful. It’s so you.
The last four years have all been about your big sister, who we affectionately call THE GIRL. All this time, I’ve been a one-book writer, a debut novelist, yet all the while, there you were, patiently awaiting your turn. Seeing The Girl Who Came Home as a published novel has been a fantastic experience (yes, even that time at Titanic Belfast when several people asked me where the loos were when I was trying to be a terribly interesting author) and now – finally – it is your time to come out of the shadows and take your place on the shelf.
For so long, you existed only on my laptop screen and in huge piles of paper, covered with edit notes and coffee stains and cat paw prints. But now you are an actual, physical, beautiful book. There’s still a lot of hard work ahead to carefully midwife you out into the hands of all those lovely readers, but I know we are ready.
Of course, I’m nervous for you, but all I can do is hope you’ll be warmly welcomed and that readers who enjoyed The Girl Who Came Home will find, in you, a new book to love just as much. Your big sister has set the benchmark high, but I have every faith in you.
Deep breath. Good luck. Let’s do this.
Hazel
x
A MEMORY OF VIOLETS will be on sale from February 3rd, but is available to pre-order now from most major retailers. Read more about the novel here.
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